Six of One (15 page)

“It looks as though I am going to have the last laugh for once, doesn’t it?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Anne of Cleves Makes No Bones About It

A huffy, puffy Jane Seymour was the next to choose a card and drew the four of hearts without comment. Katherine Parr stepped forward next to face Katharine of Aragon. “That leaves the two and the three of hearts for us, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“It’s pretty much six of one and a half dozen of the other whether one goes second or third,” replied Katharine of Aragon, turning the cards over and handing the two of hearts to Katherine Parr. “Alright, ladies!” she called out, clapping. “We begin the proceedings in earnest now.
Places
, everyone!”

The six queens bustled about to seat themselves. Jane Seymour stopped herself at mid-sit and stood back up in front of the third chair.

“Do we sit in the order in which we will be asking our questions, or do we sit in sequential order, as usual?” she asked. “I do not know whether to sit in the third seat or the fourth.”

“We shall sit, Jane Seymour, in our usual seats,” said Katharine of Aragon, making an executive decision that got a nod of approval from Anne of Cleves. “I think that would be the simplest thing.”

Actually, “the simplest thing” was Jane Seymour herself. As Katharine was speaking, Ann Boleyn snuck behind the forward-facing Jane, pulled chair number three back by about a foot, and rushed away to park her own farthingale in chair number six. Jane Seymour, bending to sit, landed squarely on the floor with an undignified
thud
. Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard laughed unashamedly, which
I
considered to be in poor taste. It was no laughing matter getting up from the floor in one of those farthingales. With a tug on the wrist from Katharine of Aragon and an assist from Katherine Parr, Jane Seymour eventually crawled and hauled her way into her assigned seat. The other wives settled into their places, as well.

“As promised, I have one question for Dolly,” began Anne of Cleves.

“Talk about getting right to the point! You certainly don’t play games,” I said.

“Oh, yes, I do, Dolly!” said Anne, not laughing this time but with a single thigh-slap for emphasis. “The game I want to play is a guessing game.”

“Twenty questions?” I asked.

“We’ve already told you, Dolly that we each get
one
question, and you don’t get any. That hardly adds up to twenty.”

“Arithmetic is not my bailiwick, Anne. Even so, I’m ready for impressing you with my guessing,” I joked.

“Then guess, Dolly, why I was an untouched wife, relict of an unconsummated marriage—like a beloved sister, and nothing more, to Henry VIII.”

Since political correctness was not around in Tudor times, Henry VIII had blamed it squarely on the woman before me being a “Flanders mare.” He alleged that Anne had flabby breasts and belly, and that these were insurmountable—or should I say “unmountable”—obstacles to consummation.

Although admittedly “built to last” along the classic Teutonic lines, Anne of Cleves was in no way ugly or unfeminine. Everyone knows a woman like her; she flies under the radar of the general run of men, but, eventually, one appreciative guy very wisely falls in love and pops the question. As a bride, the woman turns out to be stunning, so much so that the guests in the church audibly draw breath as she floats down the aisle, not so much in admiration as shock at the transformation. It was really too bad that Henry VIII’s failure to appreciate Anne of Cleves became the thing that people would associate with her the most. It was plain to see that in love, Anne of Cleves would glow.

Getting back to business, I addressed myself to the guessing and to Anne.

“Based on my study of history and on my now having met you personally, I would say that your…
er
…non-consummation rests squarely on Henry VIII’s failure to appreciate your brand of appeal; call it a ‘lack of chemistry.’ You know what they say: ‘you can’t light a fire when the wood’s all wet.’”

“Fires have been successfully lit in less likely circumstances than Henry’s and mine. Guess again.”

“My next guess is—erectile dysfunction!”

“
Was ist das
? Excuse me…what is that?” she asked, completely baffled.

“Erectile dysfunction,” I repeated. “Henry VIII was not a young man when he married you, and all the weight he carried must have been starting to affect his health and his…
uh
…you know…” I trailed off.

“I do
not
know!” insisted Anne.

She
did
know; I could tell. She was playing with me and enjoying it.

I remembered that my mom had always told me that there’s nothing like a good visual, so I resorted to the universal gesture of the flagging finger to make my point.

“
That
I understand!” roared Anne of Cleves, slapping her thigh.

“That
I
understand!” laughed Katherine Parr, widow of not one but
three
old men.

“I
don’t
understand that!” said Catherine Howard, totally unacquainted with wilting weenies.

“I don’t
understand
at all!” Jane Seymour flumped in her chair, mystified as usual.

“When it happened, I
always
understood.” This admission of wifely charity from Katharine of Aragon surprised no one, least of all Ann Boleyn.

“You indulged Henry far too much, Katharine!” recriminated Ann. “I
never
understood when it happened! I let him know it, too!

“Yes, and look where it got you!” snapped Katharine. “And do not dare to slap me, woman, or I will slap you back!”

Katharine of Aragon, arm raised and hand open, was ready to make good her threat. She certainly succeeded in surprising Ann Boleyn and, judging by their dropped jaws and gaping faces, everyone else, as well. I think she even surprised
herself
; for a moment, the room was completely silent. Then Anne of Cleves spoke again.

“Your second guess, Dolly, is not entirely correct either, although, like the first, it has elements of truth to it. Guess again.”

Calling forth my considerable professional expertise, I tried again. “My third guess,” I said, “is that Henry was in love with someone else. Some historians assert that Henry VIII became smitten with his fifth wife’s charms before his fourth—you, Anne—had even arrived from Germany.”

“I do not want to know what ‘some historians’ think; I want to know what
you
think, Dolly,” Anne said.

“Well,” I admitted, “I do have my reservations about the ‘smitten’ theory.”

It had always seemed to me that Henry could easily have made Catherine Howard, low-hanging fruit if ever there was any, his mistress before or even after he wed Anne of Cleves, and I said as much to her.

“Well, Dolly,” she replied, “you are entirely right on that one; Henry’s fifth marriage had nothing to do with ending his fourth marriage—
my
marriage. So you must guess a fourth time,” she prompted.

I was at a loss for a guess until I remembered something that Cleva had once told me. I shared the revelation with Anne of Cleves.

“My Harrry’s fourth ex told me that she divorced Harry because he was a coward. I have never been sure what she meant by that. People admire Harry for his boldness in business, and his heedlessness on the sporting field is a byword. I have always chalked Cleva’s remark up to sour grapes, but maybe there is something more to it than that.”

“There
is
more to it than sour grapes, Dolly. That fourth guess brings you closer to the truth. Tell me what happened to my counterpart in your world after she divorced your Harry.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “you are supposed to ask me one question only. That makes two.”

“That was not a
question
, Dolly; that was a directive. I’m surprised at you, a scholar, being so poor on grammar. Come along now, time is wasting!”

I was totally with Anne of Cleves when it came to beating the clock, so I answered with alacrity. “After she divorced Harry, Cleva married a beach bum; a much
younger
beach bum by the name of Moondoggie. She said that she knew just what she wanted in a husband, and that, thanks to Harry’s divorce settlement, she could afford to have it. Judging by the beach bum’s Speedo bulge, what she wanted was a great big…
well
…you know.”

“I am not familiar with ‘beach bums’ or ‘Speedo bulges,’” Anne of Cleves said. “Translation, please.”

“A beach bum,” I answered, “is a ne’er do well, and a Speedo is a garment that reveals the same dimensions that a codpiece would.”

My explanation jogged something in the memory of Jane Seymour.

“Your Cleva reminds me of one of our earlier lady guests, Dolly. Mistress Ava Gardner was so worldly and such a beauty! She told us that her favorite husband, Francis Albert, weighed one hundred and ten pounds, and that one hundred of those pounds were…you know.
I
always wondered how he could stand upright, let alone walk.” No doubt about it; Jane Seymour hadn’t just fallen out of the stupid tree; she had hit every branch on the way down.

“
I
always wondered how—well,
never mind
what I always wondered!” said Catherine Howard.

“Size isn’t everything, you know,” said Anne of Cleves.

I have always been a firm believer that size
does
matter but was willing to concede that there could be mitigating factors.

“Perhaps not,” I answered. “I only know that Cleva and her beach bum simply dote on each other and that both look equally content lolling on the sand at their beach house. I guess that as long as Moondoggie’s Speedo bulge, Cleva’s money, and the margarita mix hold out, it will always be that way.”

“So you can see, Dolly, that these two are happy together. He, a man who is not daunted by a woman with a keen zest for…you know…and she, a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to take it.”

“You certainly could frame it that way,” I said.

“So then, put all the pieces of the puzzle together for your last guess, Dolly.”

I pondered the vagaries of attraction, cowardice, Speedo bulges, knowing what one wants, and “failure to rise.” Suddenly, everything fell into place.

“Let me tell you how I think the pieces fit together, Anne,” I began. “Henry VIII decided to wed you based on the preview portrait that Holbein the Younger painted of you in Germany and sent over to England.
Ja
?”

“
Ja
.”

“When you eventually arrived in England, Henry considered you a hick, much less sophisticated than all of the other women he knew. He married you anyway, prepared to do his duty and to be tolerant with a woman that he presumed to be a lesser and submissive vessel. He would deign to throw a bone to poor, humdrum
you
.”

“Dolly, was that pun intentional?”

“Absolutely!”

“
Das ist gut
! Carry on!”

“Okay, I will!” I said, warming to my subject. “Fast-forward to your honeymoon night. Henry VIII hits your bed, resigned to going through the motions and expecting you to be pathetically grateful. Boy, was
he
surprised! You knew what you wanted, you saw it, and you made a grab for it—
literally
. Not only that, but you gave him detailed instructions on what
you
wanted from him. How am I doing so far, Anne?”

“
Sehr gut!
”

“All of Henry’s other women weren’t like you at all. They were, if they will pardon me saying so, simply willing victims, martyrs, or
both
. Henry couldn’t dominate you, Anne, the way he dominated them. In
your
bed, he finally met someone his own size—figuratively speaking, of course—and he was too much of a coward to stand up to it.”

“Pun intended?”

“Of course!”

“Wunderbar!”

“Anne, you incapacitated the great Henry VIII by the simple expedient of unashamedly demanding what you wanted. You deflated his ego and his…you know…at a single stroke!”

“You’ve guessed correctly, Dolly! Henry was mortified by my—what did Mistress Ava Gardner call it—my
sex drive
.”

“You really had that man by the goolies, Anne. Henry couldn’t possibly risk letting word about his connubial incapacity get out. He would never be able to hold his head up when he went looking for another wife. So he ensured your silence with a very generous divorce settlement.”

“Enough to keep me in comfort and all the ale I could drink till the end of my days,” Anne of Cleves beamed. “That was good enough for me.”

“But Anne, it surprises me that having such a healthy interest in sex, you never married again after divorcing Henry.”

“I developed my healthy interest in…you know…before I ever married Henry and was able to pursue it, for a little while, at least, after my divorce. You have not heard me use the word ‘virgin’ in my own regard tonight, Dolly. Holbein, the portrait painter, thought me a beauty, and, unlike that coward Henry, he was
delighted
by my overtures. We lit the fire together before I ever left Germany. No problem with the wood being too wet at all! After my divorce, Holbein happened to be in England a good deal of the time, and we were able to meet discreetly now and again up until his death a few years later. What a man! And what a—
you know
.”