Читать книгу Rivals in the Tudor Court - Darcey Bonnette - Страница 11

I watch my wife’s pregnancy advance in a state of awe. I chase the dark thoughts from my mind, cold stabbing fears of losing my princess and the baby, memories of my mother and the six siblings that succumbed to one childhood ailment or another.

My princess does not grow plump in any area other than her belly and I love watching her waddle about, cradling the curve wherein rests the life I planted. At night I hold her in my arms as she guides my hand to where it kicks and stretches. I tremble and laugh as I feel the little feet and hands jutting out.

“A regular knight we have, and so eager for combat!” I cry, rubbing her belly in delight.

She does not say much. She never says much, but now and then I catch her humming, rubbing her belly with that ethereal smile on her face, a smile she shares with her faeries and her fancies. I take pleasure in the sight of her; I drink in her radiance.

And then in the spring of 1497, the call to arms I have been waiting for arrives. I am to help subdue a rebellious lot of Cornishmen.

My princess gazes at me from her bed, her soft blue eyes lit with pain. “But the baby is to arrive any day now,” she says, her voice taut with anxiety. “If you leave, you will miss it and what if something—what if something goes wrong?”

My heart lurches. “I cannot disobey the king, my lady,” I tell her in soothing tones. “If I am successful, I may be given the favour of more royal assignments and you know what that would mean for the family. You must see that.”

She furrows her brow in confusion, cupping her belly with a protective hand. “Then you must go,” she says, her voice weary. “I know well that one must not refuse royal service.”

I lean down to kiss her, but she averts her head.

I suppose I understand her grief, though what can I do? I can’t very well stay home to pamper a child when the king calls for me! This may be the first of many chances to serve him or it may be the last—in any event I will not forfeit the opportunity.

I leave my princess with a kiss and the promise of my return. She says nothing. Her blue eyes stare past me, through to that world I am never quite able to enter.

I ride away. I will not look back. I will forget the tears sparkling off the cheeks where roses once bloomed.

A man remembers his first kill. Mine is made at the Battle of Blackheath on 17 June when I run my sword through the body of a bulging-eyed Cornishman. It is a very strange sensation, holding the knowledge that someone’s very existence is in my hands. But I snuff it out without hesitation; indeed, to hesitate would certainly lead to my own demise. No, this is no time to lose control and yield oneself to philosophy. I am a soldier and that is that.

The sound of sword splitting through chain mail, sliding through soft flesh is like no other in the fact that it is eerily gentle, like that of permeating wet sand with a stick. I look into his eyes, big blue bulging eyes, watching them widen in surprise. He tries to grip my hilt in a vain effort to deflect the inevitable but in his shock miscalculates and grips the blade itself, slicing his palms through to the backs of his hands. Blood begins spewing from his mouth then, a mouth that had previous ownership of the ability to scream but is now gurgling and gulping the steaming red liquid of life instead. I ease him to the ground, placing a foot on his chest in order to extricate the sword from his failing body. It is difficult, far more so than running him through.

His face drains of colour; the life ebbs out of him like the receding tide and as it does, it is as though what I have taken from him is now surging through me. I am tingling, pulsating. My heart pounds in my ears. I begin to feel the creepings of philosophy, the urge to ponder my situation: Have I done right? Am I normal?

Did I enjoy it?

What makes combat odd is the closeness. I wonder what it would be like to kill a man from far away; many kings have that ability. They sit on a hill and watch the battles commence below yet, by giving the orders, have as much a part in the killing as the knights. It must be easier for a king on a hill. They are not quite so close; they do not have to look into those eyes, those bulging blue eyes. They do not smell the steel and the blood. Nor, I imagine with that strange surge of life flowing through me, do they ever appreciate the full taste of glory on the battlefield.

I gaze at the bloodied blade a long moment. This is blood I spilt. I killed. I killed for my king and my country.

I am a soldier.

Of course I only have a moment to review this fact as I am accosted by more rebels. They are easier to take than my first man. I do not think as hard. I have not the time for such an indulgence; there is only kill or be killed.

And I will kill.

I return to my princess victorious, and my biggest reward for my efforts is holding my son. He is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. And I should know: I have seen dozens of babies and most of them are horrific, red-faced howling things.

He does not howl or fuss much; he is robust, with my wife’s almond-shaped green eyes and a tuft of rose-gold hair that I cannot stop petting.

“What do we call this little lad?” I ask my princess as I sit beside her on her bed.

She offers her gentle smile.

“I call him Thomas, my lord,” she tells me in her soft voice. “If that pleases you?”

I reach out to stroke her cheek. “Of course it does. There can never be too many Thomas Howards about.” I laugh.

The baby begins to mew a bit and I hand him to her. “Would you like me to fetch the wet nurse?”

“I nurse him myself,” she tells me. “I like nursing him.”

I screw up my face in confusion. “It isn’t done, my lady. It is not good for you. A country wench suited for that type of life would be far better. But you are a dear for trying. I shall send for a proper nurse.” I rise, patting her head. “And that way we can commence with the happy task of giving Thomas here a brother or sister.”

The princess cradles the baby to her heart. I note the plea in her eyes. I cannot help but yield to her desires. She is so fair…. I nod, her helpless servant. She unfastens her nightdress and allows him to suckle, a smile of gratitude lighting her face.

I turn to quit the chambers but, as I do, am reminded of another birth, that of my sister Alyss so many years ago. How my mother would not take to her, how she thrust the little lamb into the hands of the wet nurse as soon as she was able to prevent any chance of becoming too attached before death claimed her.

I turn toward the princess. I want to say something; I want to warn her.

But I don’t know how. Nor do I understand the nature of the warning.

And they are so lovely, sitting there like that. Almost holy.

I will not part them.

The king and queen have sent gifts for the baby, a lovely baptismal gown and fine garments sewn by the queen’s own hands. They have been blessed with a flock of their own children these past years, including two bonny princes, Arthur and Henry. I wonder how often my Thomas will interact with the boys. It would be wonderful if they grew up together to become best friends. I am still in a state of awe that my Thomas is first cousins with the Crown Prince!

That summer, Neddy and I are sent north with our father, who is now lord lieutenant of the army defending the homeland against Scottish invasion. With him we will do our best to keep the barbarians where they belong. They have been making a show of support for Perkin Warbeck, a Yorkist pretender, which has given Henry VII plenty of reason to be annoyed.

I tell myself it is just in a day’s honoured service, burning villages, setting the thatched roofs of these little humble huts aflame while tuning out the screams of the families perishing inside. But this is a different kind of warfare, far different from hand-to-hand combat against men born and bred to kill.

I have to do it, though. It is for the country, for the king who is rescuing me from obscurity.

This is how life is, my reasoning continues. People live and people die. Everyone’s time comes. One day it will be mine and if it is by the sword, I will not blame my slayer for doing his duty.

I tell myself this at night when the dreams come, when I hear the screams, the pleas, the vain cries to God for mercy. I tell myself this as I imagine the situation reversed and it is Stoke up in flames, my wife and baby inside, surrounded by merciless barbarians.

No, I cannot think of that. I must never think of that.

We prove successful and by September, King James IV of Scotland makes a truce with Henry VII. For our role, Neddy and I are knighted by our father at Ayton Castle.

I am now Sir Thomas Howard.

By Epiphany my princess announces in her subtle way that she is again with child, by setting an egg on my desk. It takes me a moment to realise this is not one of her odd gifts to the faery folk but her wordless communication to me about her condition.

I laugh, enchanted by my lady’s newest antics.

She carries this precious cargo in the same manner she did Thomas, all in front. Never is a sight more beautiful to me than my princess with child. I cannot believe my good fortune, to be blessed with a fertile bride and a flourishing career. I am not about to dwell on what I do not have; that is a fool’s hobby. I focus on what is to come, what is to be achieved and gained. It is this thinking that earned me my knighthood and, hopefully, further advancements, advancements that will benefit my growing family.

I must say I think it was easier fighting off the Cornishmen than standing outside the princess’s birthing chamber the day she labours with our second child. As I missed Thomas’s birth, this is a new and altogether uncomfortable experience for me. I am wrought with anxiety, pacing back and forth outside the door, starting at every sound that comes from within. My mother always screamed in childbed and I am expecting the same from my wife. My princess’s silence is more disconcerting than my mother’s agonising cries ever were, and I am beset with fear as I imagine any number of terrible scenarios.

“She’s a strong one, is your lady,” says Tsura Goodman the midwife in her strange accent when she comes out to report on my princess’s progress. “She doesn’t make a sound.” She cocks her head, searching my face for something I am unsure of. She is a peculiar woman, this midwife, said to have descended from the wandering Gypsy folk. Her ancestry reflects in her dark skin and penetrating grey eyes. Her black hair is wound atop her head in a knot; loose tendrils escape to frame her olive-skinned face, and her dark beauty is as alluring as it is haunting.

The woman takes my sword hand. “Beautiful,” she says as she admires it, turning it palm up. “Beautiful and dangerous.” She raises her eyes to mine. I shudder. I have never been keen on what some call the dark arts; indeed, my wife’s attachment to her faery folk is unsettling enough. Looking at the woman before me confirms that she is in possession of something otherworldly. “Take care of its power, my good lord,” she tells me in an eerie tone suggesting that she speaks not by choice but at the command of some higher being with whom I have never become familiar.

“What are you about?” I snap, trying to quell my trembling.

She is unaffected, unafraid. Her full, claret-colored lips curve into a slow smile. “There is always a chance for redemption; no fate is ever certain,” she hisses in urgency, and the incongruity of her seductive expression and harsh tone causes me to start.

“Attend your charge at once, woman!” I cry, snatching my hand from hers and backing away, stifling the urge to make the sign of the cross and run in terror.

Tsura the Gypsy dips into a curtsy, then returns to my wife’s bedside.

I stand outside the chambers, studying my hand a long moment. I clench it into a fist.

Take care of its power indeed.

It is a boy! Another bonny boy! We call him Henry after the king and his son. He is a delight, so blonde and rosy. His eyes are lighter than his brother’s; their silvery blue gaze penetrates the soul as he studies me, his little face earnest as a judge’s. I find myself particularly attached to this wee mite, perhaps because I was here when he was born, and I love holding him, caring for him. It touches me to feel his tiny hand curling about my thumb and I marvel at his perfect small feet, an example of God’s attention to the finest details.

I never knew I could love like this.

The princess and I spend many an hour in the gardens with the children. She laughs more now. Our toddling Little Thomas brings her delight as he discovers his world; he is everywhere at once and it takes a great deal of energy to keep up with him, but it is energy we are happy to spare.

When Thomas is out of his swaddling bands and put into short breeches, assembling words into short sentences, following me about wherever I permit him to go, my princess tells me I should begin considering names for our third child.

I stare at her in wonder. How is it a man can be this happy?

The princess is eight months gone with child when the nurse tells her our baby, our Henry, was found dead in his cradle one spring morning.

I have never heard my princess raise her voice, but now she is screaming. The sound rips from her throat, raw and terrifying. She sinks to her knees before our lamb’s little cradle, thrusting her long arms skyward, bidding the Lord to answer for His decision. When at last she has collected herself, she turns to me, staring, large green eyes filled with questions I cannot begin to answer.

Tears stream down my cheeks unchecked as I approach the cradle. He does not look dead at all, his tiny head lolled to one side, eyes closed, fists curled by his chin. He is so still. I reach out to touch him, then draw back in horror. The warmth I had treasured when cradling him so close is gone. He is cold; the breath of life has departed.

I sob, great gasping, gulping sobs of despair.

There is no reason. There is no good reason.

I turn to the nurse, hot anger replacing the tears that I now wipe away in disgust. “Why was he not attended to?” I seethe.

The woman backs away in horror. “But he was—he was as he is every night, my lord. We checked on him right good, sir.”

“If that were so, he would be here with us!” I cry. “You are dismissed! This whole nursery staff is to leave this instant and I do not care where you go! May God rot your souls for your negligence!”

The woman retreats with the two rockers and nursery maids. I hear them fleeing, their voices raised in panic.

“Pray you make it out of here before I reach the door!” I shout.

I turn once more to the cradle. What do I do now?

“He was perfect,” I tell the princess in softer tones, shaking my head in agonised wonder. “I do not understand…. He was perfect. How can he be here one day and gone the next?”

The princess shakes her head, then sinks to the floor, rocking back and forth, inconsolable.

He did not have many effects. He did not live long enough. But I did save his first pair of little shoes, tucking them into a drawer in my desk, a strange reminder of lost perfection. I will not look at them … often.

We bury him at Stoke. He is too small to be traversed to the family chapel at Lambeth, so I do not bother. We receive sympathy from the royal family along with the Howards—indeed, everyone is well acquainted with loss. My mother had passed that same year and if anyone could have offered me counsel on the subject, it was she. But she is gone and the earl has remarried. Somehow his marrying within months of her death does not make his grief altogether convincing.

As it is, I do not care about anyone’s shared grief or stories of their own losses. All I can think of is my own, of the princess’s face as she asks me wordlessly, Why?

How in God’s blood am I supposed to know?

I fear for the princess, for the faraway look in her eyes. She no longer laughs. We do not speak to each other very much.

We await the birth of our next child, neither of us filled with the hopeful anticipation we harboured for the first two.

Yet when she brings forth another little boy, the knot in my chest eases a bit. He takes after me with his dark hair and skin, but is long like his mother. He seems healthy. I want to love him. I want to enjoy him. I don’t want to grieve anymore.

We call him William, Wills for short.

As he grows I find myself relaxing a bit. When he reaches nine months, the age our Henry was when he was taken from us, tension grips me. I awake in the night, crying out in terror. Sometimes I sit by his cradle all night to make sure his soul is not stolen from me.

But he lives.

It seems God will let us keep our sturdy little Wills.

In 1503 I am blessed with two other events. The first is the birth of a daughter, my own little girl to pet. We name her Margaret after our niece, Princess Margaret Tudor, which leads me to the second event. We are to accompany Princess Margaret to Scotland with my father and the rest of the family to witness her marriage to King James IV. I am thrilled about the journey for so many reasons, not only because of the royal exposure but because I will be with my entire family again. It will be a wonderful opportunity to acquaint myself with my father’s new bride, Agnes Tilney, and an excellent chance for the children to get to know their Howard relations.

“Perhaps I should stay home with the children,” my princess tells me before we depart. “I should not feel comfortable leaving them with a nurse, and bringing them does not seem prudent either. They could catch a chill, what with the nasty Scottish winds.”

I offer a dismissive laugh. “Father said the whole family is to go. I want to bring the children, treat them to a spectacle. We didn’t get to collect Princess Catherine from Aragon when she came to wed Prince Arthur, after all.”

My princess rests a slim hand on her heart. “God rest his poor soul,” she murmurs of the late prince. “He was so young and frail….” She casts her eyes to our son, little Wills, who cannot be described such. He is as robust as Princess Catherine’s new betrothed, young Prince Henry. She is not thinking of the late prince, however, or of the new Crown Prince. She is thinking of our boy, our Henry, and fearing the others perishing of the Scottish wind.

I clear my throat. “No use dwelling on all that,” I tell her, hating the awkwardness that has arisen between us since the baby’s death. “We are going to have a wonderful journey, my sweet, you will see. The children are going to love it. And they should be there to attend their royal cousin.”

My princess offers a sad nod of acquiescence and I find myself balling my fists in frustration, wishing just once that I could see a grin of joyous abandon cross that beautiful melancholy face.

Our Maggie is too young to appreciate anything, but she points her chubby little finger at her beautiful cousin Margaret Tudor, saying “red” in reference to the princess’s lustrous red mane, which seems to be a Tudor trait.

Thomas and Wills are beside themselves with pleasure as we progress north to Edinburgh and I tell them about all the famous battles that have occurred in this town or that.

No one looks at me the way they do; no one admires me as much. I am brought to tears by their flagrant adoration; as I had never admired many growing up, I didn’t realise children were capable of it themselves.

“When they are given love, it is returned,” says my princess when I comment on this as we sit in Holyrood Abbey, watching Princess Margaret become the Queen of Scots. She squeezes my hand. “No one will ever love you like a child,” she adds.

I press her hand in turn. A lump swells my throat. I wonder who our Maggie will marry; it seems odd to think the thought of it affects me far more than marrying off the boys. I suppose all fathers feel that way about their little girls.

I wonder how the king feels. Is it easy giving one’s children up to faraway kingdoms for political expedience?

King Henry is a practical man, however. I would be surprised if he gave himself over to such fancies. Indeed, I should take care that I don’t become some kind of blithering idiot, crying at weddings like an old grandmother.

I am fortunate that I do not have to think about alliances just yet; I have years before my Maggie is marriageable.

She will be at my side a good long time.

We return to Stoke to pass a happy autumn. The children are looking forward to Christmastide. Maggie is running everywhere and is far too smart for her own good, and Thomas is itching to have a suit of armour of his own. I tell him he must wait a year but am pleased to practise archery with him. He is a fine boy, full of potential and enthusiasm. He will be an asset to any king’s court.

These are happy days. My princess’s smile is brought on a little easier now. I have stopped waking up at night to check on the children. I enjoy living the life of a country knight.

My grandmother passes away that year and I admit little grief as her death was the stipulation in allowing the princess and me to live in more comfort. Besides, she was one of the few who lived to a ripe and proper age, and there is no use mourning a full life.

I save the mourning for the young and there are plenty of young to mourn for.

That winter Wills takes ill with a fever. He writhes and twists in his little bed, his black eyes wild as they make helpless appeals to the princess and me. We do not know what to do aside from calling the physician, who can only bleed him.

I hate watching the leeches attach to my little boy’s back; I cry when the butcher of a doctor makes little slits in the tender skin to allow escape of the bad blood that has corrupted my son’s humours.

It is all to no avail. Wills dies in his mother’s arms. The princess does not scream this time. She bows her head, allowing her tears to mingle with the sweat on our child’s brow.

I cannot watch this.

The only thing I can think of to do is chase the inept physician off my property with a horse whip.

“You did nothing!” I cry as he leaps onto his horse, his eyes wide in terror. “You killed him! You and your leeches killed my son!”

The physician rides away without looking back and I throw myself in the dust of the road, sobbing. There is nothing to be done. I look at the horse whip in my hand and in a moment of sheer madness bring it across my own neck. It curls about it and strikes my back. There is something strangely satisfying in the sting of this blow and as I watch the blood pour down my neck onto my shirt, I start to laugh at the insanity of it all. I strike myself again and again until my arm is too weak and my throat is too raw from the laughter that has converted to screaming, racking, useless sobs.

Thomas does not understand what has happened. He does not understand death. He asks about Wills daily, so much so that I have to extract myself from him. I take long walks and longer rides. I swim, immersing my body in the coolness of our pond. Sometimes I wish I would drown.

One day the princess finds me there, floating on my back, staring at the sky. I do not think of anything but the grey sky, grey as the Gypsy woman’s eyes, and the water that envelops me and comforts my broken soul.

“Come back to me, my lord,” she pleads in her soft voice.

She stares at me pointedly, then walks away.

In that moment, tears of gratitude replace those of sorrow. I rise.

Indeed, no one on this earth is wiser than my princess, for there is nothing that can be done but to press on. I cannot abandon the children who are here, looking to me for guidance. I cannot teach them that it is permissible to wallow in selfish grief while life surges on about me.

With new determination I dress and go into the house. To my children. To my princess. To the life I still have.

It is a vain goal, trying to seize something that is not mine to have, trying to hold in this hand, this hand that is said to be so powerful, the thread of life that binds my children to this world.

In early 1508 my daughter, my precious little Maggie, succumbs to an imbalance of the humours of the bowels. She doubles over in pain one evening at supper and we allow her to take rest in the nursery. I had thought she was trying to avoid eating the eels; she never had a robust appetite and hated trying anything new.

“You’re a manipulative little creature,” I tell the six-year-old, my voice stern. “Feigning a stomach ache to get out of eating supper. Well, you shall have nothing to eat, not one thing, for the rest of the evening, and I don’t care how much you cry or beg. You have to learn that you cannot always have what you want.”

How was I to know those would be the last words of mine she would ever hear?

The nurse fetches us moments later, her eyes wide with fear. “The little one has taken ill, my lord,” she whispers, crossing herself. “She is in such terrible pain …” She bows her head. “Such terrible pain.”

The princess and I rush to the side of the writhing child, her face flushed with fever, her black hair matted to her fair forehead with sweat.

I take her in my arms, rocking back and forth. She is clutching her little belly, her head lolling about from side to side in restlessness. There is no outlet for her pain. She reaches out for my face, seizing it between her tiny hands.

“It hurts, it hurts,” she cries. “Make it go away … please, make it go away!”

There is no physician to call. He would have done nothing but bleed her, anyway, and I could not have suffered it. I hold the little girl to my breast as she slips into delirium. She drops her hands. Her face relaxes, the black eyes glaze over, her small body goes limp.

And she is gone. In less than twenty-four hours she went from a healthy, jolly girl to this. Gone.

I stare at my princess in horror, but she cannot abide to be in the same room with death this time. She runs from the sight as though demons surround us, holding her hands to her ears to blot out my cries.

I hold my Maggie in my arms, rocking back and forth. I cannot let her go like this. She was just here. Maybe she isn’t dead. Maybe she will get better. I have heard strange tales in which people appeared dead only to have a resurgence of life moments later. Yes, this can happen for my Maggie. I must hold her a while, will my strength into her so when she wakes up she won’t be afraid.

I talk to her, I tell her she will get better, she is just sick. I apologise for scolding her about supper. I tell her she can eat whatever she wants whenever she wants if she’ll just come back to me. I tell her she must return so she can become a great lady and serve in the queen’s chambers someday. I tell her I am going to arrange a marriage for her with a strong, handsome knight.

I tell her she cannot leave because no one loves her like I do.

She does not move.

No matter, she just isn’t awake yet. She just isn’t awake yet, yes, that is it.

The princess enters collected and composed late that evening with two gentlemen servants.

“You must let her go now, my lord,” she tells me. “She must be interred soon.”

I shake my head. “I have heard of things … of miracles…. She might not be dead. She may be in that deep sleep some people go into and it takes them months or years to wake up…. What if we bury her and she is merely asleep?”

The princess’s eyes mist over with a pity I loathe. I avert my head. Why doesn’t anyone understand? Why do they all look at me this way?

“She isn’t coming back, Thomas,” she says.

It is the first time in our thirteen years of marriage she has ever called me by my first name.

She steps forward. “You must give her over now.”

“No!” I cry, clutching the child to my breast. “You cannot take her!” I kiss my daughter’s cool forehead, stroking her cheek. “I won’t let them take you from me, Maggie, not ever. I will be here when you wake up. I will always be here when you wake up.”

The princess nods to the servants. Some understanding passes between them and at once my arms are seized. The princess has taken Maggie in her arms and is carrying her away from me. I struggle against the men, crying for Maggie, cursing my wife.

I am too weak to break free, however. Perhaps some part of me knows I can no longer follow where she goes. I go limp, ceasing my struggling.

It is over. It is all over.

I press my face against Maggie’s pillow. It still smells of her, of lavender and roses and little girl.

I do not attend her interment.

My son Thomas isn’t the same after the echo of Maggie’s laughter can no longer be heard ringing throughout our house. He takes to his bed with severe headaches and requires possets to alleviate the pain. My wife attends him, sitting by his side, singing softly, stroking his brow and massaging his throbbing temples.

With me he discusses the other children; we talk about Heaven.

“You don’t feel any pain there, do you?” he asks me one day as I sit beside him while he clutches his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. “There is no pain in Heaven?”

“No pain,” I whisper, taking his hand. I swab his head with a cool cloth.

“And I will see my brothers and Maggie again?” he asks me, his eyes filled with hope.

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “When it is your time, when God calls you to Him. But that will not be for many, many years.”

Thomas shakes his head. “No,” he tells me. “The angel who visited me last night said I will be coming home soon.”

I draw away from him in horror. “You are just sick with grief, Tommy,” I tell him. “We all are. Sometimes when we are agitated, we take on peculiar fancies. That is what has happened. One doesn’t really see angels or anything of that nature.”

“Mummy sees them,” says Thomas. “Only she calls them faeries.”

“Mummy sees nothing,” I say with a little more harshness than intended.

“What about the people in the Bible?” Thomas asks. “They saw angels all the time.”

I had never really read the Bible. I want to say I always intended to, but it isn’t true. I can’t bring myself to pick it up. I shrug. “Times were different then” is the best thing I can think of to say. “Do not worry, Thomas. We will get through this. You will feel better. We have no other choice.” I recall my grandfather’s words, words that seemed so cold but were the best he could come up with. “We are Howards.”

Perhaps it is better clinging to this abstract idea of a name and the greatness that can be associated with it than to the realness of people, people who are bound to leave in one way or another.

I rise, leaving his bedside. In the hall I encounter the princess, who has brought a basket of sweet-smelling herbs to the room along with some embroidery.

I seize her upper arm. Her eyes widen in surprise.

“What are you thinking, passing your fancies on to our son?” I seethe. “Aren’t we in trouble enough as it is without his having to believe in such drivel? There is nothing that can come of it. Shroud him with illusions and the world will be all the more cruel to him when reality sets in.”

“Reality has set in,” returns the princess. “And I can think of no better way to ease his pain and sorrow than with these ‘fancies’ of mine. What else have we to cling to but our faith in the unknown, our faith in something bigger and better waiting for us on the other side? If we have not that, we have nothing.”

I release her arm, half pushing her from me. “It is all nonsense. I’m sick and tired of it.”

Her face is a mingling of sweetness and pity. “Of course you are. But it isn’t that you’re tired of; it’s the death and the pain and the grief. You want something to blame, so you will blame anything to make sense of it all. I do not seek to make sense of it. There is no rational explanation that could ever justify what has happened. So let me keep my nonsense. I will lose my mind without it.”

“Perhaps, madam, your mind is long since gone,” I say before turning on my heel and quitting her presence.

Everything is so simple to her. I want to accept things as she does, but I cannot. I cannot throw myself into some fantasy world while reality stalks me with the relentlessness of a falcon.

I have never realised to this day how different the princess and I really are from each other.

The angel of Thomas’s vision claims him in August, four months after the death of his sister. His is a peaceful passing. He complained of a headache, something the princess and I had come to grow used to, and closed his eyes. That was it. He was gone.

Six servants hold me down to force a sleeping posset down my throat after I have screamed my throat bloody and raw for four hours straight. The princess takes her grief out of doors and sits swaying on a garden bench, singing to herself.

I am alone when I awake; my children are still gone. No amount of screaming against the fates or God or whatever force of divinity that decides these things will return them to me. I am silenced. I require no comfort. It is over, all over. My dynasty has collapsed.

As my heir and namesake, he is interred at the family chapel of Lambeth, and the occasion is celebrated with the property dignity.

Some of my siblings attend the funeral and we are approached by my sister Elizabeth and her husband, the ambitious and untalented Thomas Boleyn.

My sister wraps her arms about my princess in an impulsive embrace that she does not know how to respond to. She is rigid and almost frightened of the show.

I reach out, resting a hand on my sister’s shoulder. “Thank you for coming,” I murmur.

Elizabeth turns a tearstained face to me. “I don’t know what we would do if our situations were reversed,” she whispers, reaching up to touch my cheek with a long-fingered hand. “My God, brother, I’m sorry.”

I swallow the ever-present lump in my throat. “There’s nothing that can be done,” I say in husky tones. “They are gone. All gone.”

“There may be more,” says Elizabeth, her voice taut with desperate hope. When I respond with a cold laugh, she adds, “Oh, Tom … I don’t know if this is the proper time, but we would like to ask Lady Anne to stand as godmother to our new baby. We—we named her for her.”

“That is most kind. She will be honoured, I am certain.” I turn to the princess. “Won’t you be honoured to be godmother to your little namesake?”

The princess nods, her expression vacant.

I disengage from the group, allowing the Boleyns to discuss their children, sweet baby Anne and the promising little George, along with the rest of the family.

I want to be alone. I want to stand by my son’s tomb and recall when I first held him in my arms, how I stroked his hair, how I would coo at him and laugh with him. How he held his bow with such promise. How he laughed and sang and told his childish jokes that caused my sides to ache in genuine mirth because he was so convinced of their humour. I think of his eyes, so like his mother’s, alive with intelligence and mischief. I think of his sensitivity and gentleness. I think of his little clothes and shoes and the new armour I planned to have made for him this year. I think of the great knight that will never be, the grandchildren I will never see, the future we all have been denied.

I think of another child God has claimed for no good reason.

A silky hand slips into my own and I turn toward my princess.

“They know no more suffering,” she tells me. “At least now they are all together.”

“Yes,” I say, my tone oozing with bitterness. “Let us thank God for that.”

We cannot seem to speak to each other, the princess and I, and we take to our grief separately. I throw myself into the running of Stoke. I hunt. I read without grasping the words. I attend Mass, managing to separate the comforting monotony of sacred ritual from the God who I now find too callous to worship in private.

The princess keeps to the gardens. She leaves no more offerings to her faery folk.

We do not go to each other as husband and wife anymore. I want to. I want to reach to her, but something stops me, something in her, something in me. She has drifted further into her world and I am held back as well. I am not so ready to chase her; everything requires too much effort, and what comfort can we offer each other really? Empty words, useless embraces?

Nothing will bring them back.

We attend the christening of my niece and I do not allow myself the luxury of sentimental tears as I hold the child in my arms. She is not my baby. She is someone else’s pet.

My princess can neither hold nor look at the baby. Indeed, I almost find it cruel that she has been named godmother at all in the wake of her tragedy.

I look down into the black eyes of this child; she could easily pass for mine. I stroke her downy soft hair and offer a bitter sigh. “May fate be kinder to you, little Anne Boleyn,” I say to the trusting baby’s face.

I pass her to my stepmother, grateful to be rid of her.

I do not want to hold her.

I do not want to hold any baby but the ones that are gone, the ones I can never get back.