The Boleyn Prince

Chapter 25

"His Majesty seems much improved," Nan Saville remarked as the King let out an almighty hurrah as his arrow brought down a heavily antlered stag in the woods that surrounded the palace of Oatlands.

"Thanks be to God," Anne replied to her Lady in Waiting, as she raised her hands to applaud her husband's efforts. "Well done, my lord," she called to him.

"Did you see, madam?" he called, turning his horse back round to face her. "Down in one clean shot."

"I did indeed sire," she said approvingly, in as much the same way as she spoke to her daughter. "Your Majesty is a most proficient hunter."

The Kings eye drifted to Mary Howards gloved hand that gripped her horse's reigns instead of a weapon. "My Lady Richmond, you have not brought your bow."

Anne's gaze drifted to her right-hand side where she had strategically positioned her cousin, who now blushed at the King's attention.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty," she said, her cheeks growing redder. "I am a poor huntswoman."

"Then we must teach you how to be better," he said with a gallant smile. "Come, stand by my side. I will teach you myself and by the end of the afternoon, you will be as Diana herself."

The young Duchess gave a fleeting look to Anne, who in turn nodded her approval. Obediently, Mary clicked her mount forward to stand beside the King's hunter. He led her further down into the thicket of leaves.

"That is a fine horse the Duchess of Richmond is riding," the Countess of Worcester said suggestively, pulling her own horse into Mary's vacant spot at the Queen's right hand.

"Yes, I suppose it is," Anne agreed. She hadn't given much thought as to how her cousin who professed to have little money afforded the upkeep of a fine barberry horse like the one, she was now riding.

"I mean it is good of the King to lend it to her. I recognize it well you see, for the King lent the same horse to my husband when he came to fetch me back to court after my confinement last year when his own went lame."

Anne could feel her temper fraying. "Lady Worcester, I feel that you are trying to tell me something. Unless you have an accusation to make against my cousin, I cannot think why you would trouble me over a matter as inconsequential as what horse she is riding."

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, I merely meant to say that the King is showing much consideration for Lady Richmond these days, seeking her out here and there, teaching her to hunt, sending for her after dinner."

"What did you say?"

"My lady?"

"The sending for her in the evenings. Is this true?"

"I only know what my husband has told me."

"Which is? Answer me?"

"That the Earl of Surrey made no secret of the fact that he had delivered his sister to the kings' rooms in the evenings for private audiences. Indeed, he boasted of it to my husband."

"Good God," Anne raged silently to herself. "The little slut is seducing him from right under my nose." No wonder he no longer came to her bed. He was already spent from his time with Mary.

She had not noticed before, but Mary did appear to be wearing a new gown. One of dark blue damask. Different from the ones that Anne had given her.
Typical Henry, he never had the imagination to vary his courting gifts. He had sent her expensive clothes when he had been pursuing her. The Christmas before they had married, he had filled her chambers with bolts of the most exquisite fabrics for her to make into gowns. He had done the same for her sister Mary and Jane Seymour also. As she tensed, Annes gloved hands gripped her horse's reins tight. The supple, soft leather stretched against her closed fists.

"Margaret,"

Her closest confidant reigned in her bay horse to the Queen's left-hand side. "Yes, madam,"

"I have a very special mission for you. I want the Duchess of Richmond watching at all times today and tonight," she instructed in a low voice, leaning in close. "I want her watched and I want to know everything she does and more importantly who she sees. Is that clear?"

Lady Lee was far too experienced to react with surprise to any request the Queen made of her. "Yes, Your Majesty."

For the rest of the hunt, Anne's eyes were fixed on her husband and Mary.  The more she watched them, the more her fury grew. Henry was being as attentive to Mary as he had been to her during the early days of their romance.
They were too far away for Anne to hear exactly what was being said, but whatever it was, it was light-hearted. Mary's shoulders shook with laughter at something the King whispered to her. Both oblivious to Anne's fixed stare upon them. Unaware of the festering rage boiling inside the Queen of England.
She had put Mary before the King to pry him away from whichever whore he was dallying with. To bring him back to her. But instead, Mary had chosen to seduce him herself.

No, it couldn't all be entirely her own doing. she reasoned with herself.
Norfolk had to have had a hand in it. It wasn't enough for him to be the uncle of the Queen of England. He was scheming to make himself father to the Queen of England. Especially if Surrey was in play. That boy was so stupidly arrogant. He had had the most privileged of upbringings, being raised alongside the Duke of Richmond for all the good it had done him. All he had learned was how to become insufferably arrogant. Now he was taking his widowed sister to be seduced by her father-in-law.  
Did he wait for her after the king was finished with her, just as George had done for Anne when she had spent late nights with the King. Did Mary face the inquisition of the Duke of Norfolk insisted on knowing everything that had transpired when the king was infatuated with his niece.
It was Mary's betrayal that cut her deepest. She had always been fond of her cousin. They were very alike after all. Both were strong women who knew their own minds and were not afraid to speak them out loud.
Of all her Howard kin it had been Mary that Anne had always been closest to. Next, to Margaret Lee, there was no other that she had loved better.
When Anne had first formed her household, Mary had been one of the first to transfer from the old Queen, despite the objections of her mother.
Mary had encouraged Anne to persevere with learning the Lutheran teachings that Cromwell championed.
In return, Anne had given her places of honour in her train at all her important occasions, carrying her robes at her investiture as Marquess of Pembroke, attending her at her coronation and her important court appearances as Queen.
She would punish them both for this betrayal, Anne promised herself, and Mary would suffer the most.

Anne did not sleep well that night. The memories from the previous day of Henry and Mary leaning into each other, whispering as closely as lovers plagued her thoughts and even when she did sleep all she could dream of was the two of them.
"How could Mary do this to me," she thought to herself bitterly as she turned in her empty bed. Her hand settled in the empty space where her husband should have been laying.
"Damm her," she muttered aloud, throwing the silk coverlet off her body. She could not get the thoughts of Henry and Mary together out of her head. Was that where he was now? Was he in bed with Mary, putting a child in her belly when he should have been with his lawful wife?
Guided by the fire that crackled in the grate, she helped herself to a generous portion of wine that sat upon the table and looked out into the darkness. In the distance, a faint sliver of colour tinted the otherwise black sky. Dawn was just beginning to break through the skyline. The promise of a new day.
Henry would be rousing himself shortly, she thought. He often rose at dawn when on progress to hear Mass and break his fast in public.
She envisioned him bidding Mary a good morning as he used to do with her or would he have already sent her back to her own chambers before the sun rose to prevent any salacious gossip. "The little slut," Anne fumed to herself, the thoughts replaying in her head caused her temper to rise again. "Seducing my husband, her own father by marriage. It's disgusting."
Before she knew what she had done, her frustration had boiled over and she launched the silver goblet at the wall of the chamber in a fit of rage and let out a wail of frustration.

At once, her chamber door was flung open to admit her night maids clad in just their nightgowns, who had been asleep outside, in various states of disarray.

"Your Majesty, are you ill?" Mary Norris, the young daughter of Sir Henry Norris asked, her voice full of concern.

"I am perfectly well," she replied. Her voice was curt. "I went to pour myself some wine but dropped the goblet on my foot and it hurt."
It was a feeble lie, but it sounded far better than telling her own servants that jealous thoughts of her unfaithful husband and his latest whore in bed together enraged her.
Dutifully, Mary Norris immediately raised her candle and went in search of the Queen's goblet. When she found it in the corner of the room, she gave it a long wipe against her nightgown and placed it back upon the crimson velvet table lining and refilled it.

"That's enough. You may return to your own beds' ladies," Anne said, irritated by Mistress Norris's painstaking pouring of the wine.

She let out a sigh of relief when she heard the latch click and returned to her own bed. She did not move until her ladies returned later that morning to bathe and dress her.

"Leave us," she commanded the dozen or so women gathered in the close confines of her privy chamber.

"Well?" she said as Margaret resumed lacing her green silk gown. "What did you find out."

"I did as you asked madame and watched the Duchess all night. She retired to her room after the dancing, along with your other ladies.

"And?"

"And she did leave her room some hours later. Her brother, Surrey arrived and escorted her to the King's chamber."

"I knew it." Anne fumed. "The little slut. Did she stay all night with him?"

"No, madame. Though she was in there a good while. She returned to her room and stayed there the whole night. I had my own maid watch her chambers all night. She did not leave once."

Anne took her attendant's hand in her own. " Thank you, Margaret. I am grateful."

"Fix your smile," she ordered herself as she surveyed herself in the mirror before she meeting the King at Mass.
How she wished she could storm into his rooms and demand to know the truth. That she could upbraid him for his betrayal of her. She had learnt that the hard way, when she had tried three years ago that was going to hurt only her.
She had been early in her pregnancy with Prince Henry, resting her precious burden to conserve her strength her meddlesome sister-in-law Jane Rochford, had come to her to tell her she had witnessed Jane Seymour skulking off in the directions of the Kings rooms.
Her attendants had tried to keep her quiet, but she would not be calm. She had been certain her husband had been dallying with some woman, but she had not even considered Jane Seymour. She was plain, shy, and awkward. How could Henry have been attracted to her?
She had stormed into his chamber, desperately hoping it could not be true but there she was. That plain insipid with less intelligence than her fathers hunting hounds sitting in her husband's lap, her pale blonde hair tumbling down over shoulders.
She would have flown at her there and then if her ladies had not held her back. Even then their concern was more for the babe in her bely than her pain.
Jane had fled like the coward; Anne knew her to be, but Henrys patience was exhausted.

"You must shut your eyes and endure," he had instructed her.
. Her Henry, the man who had once told her he was hers to command, who had sworn he would do anything to make her happy had grown cold and harsh to her. Admitting that he would take his pleasures whenever he chose, irrespective of her.
Those words had stung her like a vicious slap across the face.
Her position rested on the successful outcome of the baby in her belly.
She had begrudgingly accepted there was little she could do to stop Henry from taking a mistress, but she would be dammed if she would allow his whores to continue to have the honour of serving her. Jane Seymour had learnt that the hard way.

She greeted the King, who stood waiting by the chapel door in crimson in gold, with a smile and a deep curtsey.
As was so often the case after a successful night between the sheets, Henry was in a jovial mood "Good day, madam."

Anne smiled as widely as if it were her greatest joy to see her unfaithful husband. "Good day, Your Majesty,"

Try as she might, Anne struggled to keep her mind on the service. She mumbled her way through her prayers, barely hearing a word of the sermon from Archbishop Cranmer.
When she made her offering, it was Mary who handed it to her and it was all she could do to not throw it back at her cousin who stood before her, meek as a lamb. Oblivious to the expletive insults her cousin was screaming at her within the privacy of her mind.