The Mer- Lion (31 page)

Beauty alone could not have enslaved Henry VUJ. There were many at court far prettier than she. Catherine Howard, her twelve-year-old cousin, for one. However, as de Wynter knew from having been skewered on it, Anne's wit was sharp, her mind even sharper. And she had that unique ability to concentrate totally on the person she was with, never looking elsewhere nor pretending to listen while thinking of other things. Thus, what one said to such an avid audience seemed wiser or wittier or more romantic or more humorous or more poetic than when said to anyone else.

In this lay much of her fatal attraction for Henry. Only with Anne Boleyn did he forget his gout, his failing eyesight, his' corpulence. With her he felt young, whole, a great king, the prince among princes that he wanted to be. Part of his fascination with her, of course, was the fact that she refused her king what he wanted, while seeming to offer it to others. Not a man at court, de Wynter included, had she not flirted with; and not a one, de Wynter excluded, had resisted her coquetries. In this lay de Wynter's fascination for her. The two, each more used to being the hunted rather than the hunter, had at first been piqued by the other's reaction. Then annoyed. Then tantalized. Then as weeks went by, drawn irresistibly to each other.

The grove thickened, the way narrowed, and they went single file, he giving her precedence. But as soon as there was room, she paused, waiting for him to draw up beside her.

"Milord, may I say in all truth that that is the plainest, nay, ugliest mare I have ever seen?"

"Shush, Mistress Anne, not so loud. She thinks she's a beauty."

"Disillusion her," Anne commanded callously.

"I? Never. I think she's a beauty."

"Your knowledge of physiognomy does you not proud."

"Mistress, I protest. Knowing not that she is plain, she acts like a beauty, deceiving others into agreeing. A clever woman might do the same, don't you think?"

She changed the subject. "I was waiting for you. You have a tendency to linger behind. I feared, your being new to our country, we might mislay you."

"Mislay,
Mistress Anne? That would be impossible
to
do. Besides, might it not be better if you should ride ahead and leave me behind?''

"Better for whom?" She tossed her head, surrounding herself in
a
cloud of hair.

"For the both of us. Think you the king won't hear of this?" "Oh, but I mean he should. If no one tells him, I shall do so myself," she said, and she was serious. "For God's sake, why?"

She laughed, not merrily. "I control him through jealousy. Canrerme of Aragon never looked at another man, I never look anywhere else unless I am alone with him."

"My God, Anne, you live dangerously."

"How so?" She was genuinely curious.

"Such conduct could be named adulterous."

"But only after marriage, and I, in case it escaped your notice, I am still unwed."

"Is marriage what you want?"

"More than anything in this world."

"Then, Anne, wed me."

"You jest, sir!"

Neither knew who was the more surprised—she who thought him immune to her fascination or he who had thought himself so. But once he had blurted out his offer, he did not regret the impulse. He wanted her! Not since Jamie's mother had he so yearned for
a
woman. If this were love, then what he'd felt before had been merely young, puppy love in comparison.

"I mean what I say. Marry me, Anne, and come back to Scotland with me."

"No, do not say that," she whispered, her face growing pale. "Please God, do not love me. You must not love me. Only so long as you feel nothing for me nor I for you, are we safe!" The words came out, tumbling over one another in a rush of emotion, tears welling up in her eyes.

She would have urged her horse on to a faster pace, but he forestalled her, seizing the bridle and holding the horse back. "No, Anne, I must know. Are we, as you say, safe?"

"Yes, no, I mean, I don't know." She was confused, unsure of herself, totally unlike her usual, supremely confident self.

"You do know. Swear to me that you feel nought for me. Swear it if you can."

"I swear!" She bit her lip and fought her tears, but her chin was raised, her voice defiant.

He let go her bridle. "You have played me the fool."

Now it was his turn to put heels to his horse, but she called after. "No, wait! De Wynter! James! I beg you! It is not what you think."

He stopped and wheeled his horse about and waited for her to come up with him. As they rode on, side by side, the silence was tense. She broke it.

"If I explain, will you promise me never to bring up the subject again?"

"No, I cannot do that. I love you." "Try."

He made no answer, but she took his silence for acquiescence. For long moments the only sounds disturbing the woods were the jingle of harness and hollow clop of hooves on lichened grounds.

"He gives me no choice. I dare not care for you."

"Why not? He cannot marry you. Will you go through life always as a mistress Anne, without home, husband, or children?"

"No. I shall have all that," she replied, her face set, her voice
Determined.
"Eventually."

"Why not now?"

"Although he cannot have me to wife, he will allow no other to. One by one all the men I have cared for have been sent away or worse. Poor Percy. He dared ask permission to marry. He meant he wanted to marry me and the king knew it, but pretended to misunderstand. So Percy was married off to a simpering child, one mentally weak. She drools uncontrollably, especially when she eats. I hear he has lost much weight. Not she, she is with child again."

"Anne, no! I care not what happened to others."

"Sweet, gentle Ormond—to whom I had been promised in marriage by the king himself—had the temerity to show real love for me. So Henry raised him high, then rived him low. He was invited—an honor not to be refused—to cross lances with the king.

Not until he was handed a Sharp Lance Running did he discover this was to be a Joust a
l
'Outrance."

De Wynter whistled silently under his breath. He would not have liked to face the massive king, full-armored, in a joust to the death.

"So great was Ormond's fear, one could smell it. He could not hold his head high, much less his lance. He was unhorsed on the first pass but had been unmanned long before that. Again and again, Henry ordered him to his feet. Ormond tried, but his legs failed him. Eventually in disgust, Henry granted him the couvre-chef de mercy. I never saw my gentle Irishman again. He was exiled to Ireland and our marriage never again mentioned. Then, there was Wyatt—"

"Thomas Wyatt, the poet?"

"The same. He dared write a poem—"

" 'Ye Olde Mule'?"

She laughed without merriment. "No, that was his device to save his life. It succeeded; Henry merely exiled poor Thomas to Castle Allington in Maidstone. A not-too-dreadful fate for having forgotten what he himself wrote.

"And what was that?"

" 'There is written her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere;
for Caesar's I am! And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

"James, the words of his poem were well said. Do you not forget them," she cautioned. "Wyatt escaped worse because of past poems, but Henry did not leave the matter at that. He made Thomas forfeit his library, remanded him of the right to write his poetry, and, to make matters complete, set Thomas's wife as his jailer to enforce the king's commands. Ah, if there is a hell on earth, Thomas has found it at Allington."

He simply smiled back at her and quoted in reply: " 'Be it evil, be it well, be I bound, be I free, I am as I am and so will I be.' I, too, know Wyatt's work and I know I am in love with you."

"Then be warned, for 'I am as I am and so will I die.' And James Mackenzie, Scots Earl of Seaforth, I will be Queen of England. I stake my head and my heart upon it."

"Can nothing change your mind?"

"Nothing. I have waited too long. Six years too long. Sacrificed too much. No, I am set on this course wherever it takes me
...
and naught will dissuade me."

He looked at her, her head held high, her chin set defiantly, and more than ever he knew this was the woman for him. m her determination, her stubborn ambition, he saw himself.. and his mother. The thought of Islean and Anne Boleyn meeting gave him pause.

The women would clash of course, bom being strong-willed, but eventually would like and respect each other. Both were women of spirit, not content to accept what fortune allotted. Accept, no! Beg, bribe, buy, taunt, trick, scheme, seduce—yes! They were his kind of women, worthy of unselfish love, commanding admiration, evoking pride in a man.

A halloo from ahead interrupted his thoughts for the time being. Their tardiness had been noticed; they had been missed. A shout to the men riding behind, discreedy out of earshot, and the horses moved out briskly to catch up with Rochford. He, still smarting from the sting of his wife's sharp tongue, immediately took his sister to task, "Are you mad, Nan? The king will hear of this!"

"I can guess who will be the happy bearer of such ill news," she replied, smiling viciously at the sister-in-law who tarried out of curiosity just up ahead. At the age of almost sixteen, Jane Lady Rochford's face was already set in grim, unhappy lines.

During the next part of the ride, through the meadows and through the sheep to Twickenham, neither Anne nor de Wynter spoke much. They rode so close their calves would sometimes touch, neither of them seeking this nor avoiding it, but taking innocent delight in it. At other times as the terrain allowed, their mounts went at a gallop and side by exhilarating side cleared brook Or hedgerow or hay rick. Rochford, watching close, saw once again his Anne, that barely remembered, quick-to-laugh, rife-loving youthful sister, the hoyden of his past, riding, hunting, hawking, and willing to diddle his dandy though she remained chaste. Devoutly, he wished them gone from court and back at Hever. There, safe behind the moat, protected by crenellated battlements and machicolations, Anne could be just plain Nan again, Jane would regain her once pleasant mien, and old King Hal could be consigned to tell. Rochford laughed mirthlessly. If wishes were horses
...

Past Strawberry Hill the troop cantered; there some less hardy women found excuse with their escorts to drop out and search for
berries long out of season. The rest rode on to and through Strawberry Vale at a hard gallop and on to Teddington, where they breamed their mounts. An enterprising innkeeper at the Clarence served the courtiers cool ale and watered wine. Suffolk, before be left, tossed a coin in his direction. The coin was caught but when examined was found lacking, as the keeper's sour expression revealed. Anne, noting this, turned to de Wynter. "Pay him more if you love me, so that when I am queen, he will love me," she half teased, half pleaded.

"That is an atrocious argument for making one man pay another's debts," he said. Even so, he tossed the innkeeper a gold coin. Catching it and biting it in one motion while he genuflected obsequiously bespoke great practice on the keeper's part. As he watched the elegantly dressed riders troop off, their liveried attendants in tow, he hawked and spat after diem, remarking to his gawking wife, "Did you see her? The one with the ribbon round her neck?" He spat again. "I knew her badge at once. The royal whore. Another visit from such as she and seven more guests like those stupid Scots we have housed within, and our fortune's made."

"Think you so?" his wife retorted, her voice a perpetual whine. "The Scots're animals. Refused to sleep on the two beds I made up fresh. Instead all seven slept on the floor on bedding raided from our other rooms."

"God's blood," the innkeeper swore, dropping his two coins into his purse with a satisfying clink and marching back into his inn prepared to do battle if necessary with the uncivilized but overpaying Scots upstairs.

For the rest of the way, Anne rode in the vanguard and flirted with Suffolk, whom everyone knew was discreetly safe. Not till they reached the three-story-high gatehouse to Bushy Park at Teddington did they discover they did not know the password. Though Suffolk threatened, the gatekeeper refused them entry. When a crowd of gapers and gawkers gathered, Suffolk ordered the group to ride roundabout to the next gate, that at Hampton Wick. Approaching it, riding bard, they saw and were seen by the flotilla of wherries and barges, including the gilded royal one bearing the king and his sister, her ladies-in-waiting and Henry's cronies and staff. As the two groups exchanged merry waves and shouted greetings, Henry had,
his leather-lunged herald shout "No entry" to the gatekeeper. Henry sailed on triumphantly, doubling his offer of reward to rowers and polesters.

As the stymied riders milled about before the wall, de Wynter studied it closely. It was, he decided, designed more to keep deer in than horsemen out. Summoning Fionn, who rode always in earshot, he explained his plan: "Stand you up atop your saddle since your mount has the broadest back. If I climb up on your shoulders, I can easily reach the top of the wall. Once over, I open the gates."