The Lady Anne Read online

  My thoughts tumbled over themselves as I climbed into the bed and pulled the curtains about me. The night air was cold, despite the heat of the fire, and I pulled the covers over me, feeling each muscle in my legs and back let out pleasurable groans for finally finding rest. And yet my mind was still busy with its thoughts; thoughts and images of Tom… of his eyes and his mouth, of the way that he smiled and the flickering lights of interest in his gaze… oh yes, he was indeed a temptation.

  Outside, the rain pelted against the walls of the lodge, and the winds pulled and battered at its windows. The noise of the wailing wind was such that even as I started to drift into sleep, I was pulled from its depths again and again with each new onslaught of the storm. From far below, I could hear the noise of a lute playing softly, its lilting strings doing battle against the noise of the storm. My mind tried to follow it, to imagine the fingers which lifted and plucked at its strings, and as I listened to the lute, I heard the storm less and less. It was soothing, to hear the noise of music against the wild, irrational noise of the tempests outside. Memories started to dance in my mind… of France, of Burgundy… of Mary and George dancing as children in the long gallery at Hever… of my mother running through her gardens of roses… and soon, I was in a place not of sleep, nor of thought, but somewhere in-between, where memory meets the dreaming mind, and takes her to dance upon half-made thoughts.

  It was as I drifted in this restless slumber that I became aware of a noise at the door. The lute had ceased, and footsteps had made their way along the corridor. Outside my room they paused, and I seemed to stumble from my half-dreams with a start, waking to draw back the curtains of the bed a little, and stare at the closed door. Then, the steps resumed, walking on to another room at the back of the lodge, where Tom was taking the bed of his steward, after giving his own chamber to me.

  As his footsteps resumed along the corridor, I found I had been holding my breath, and I let it out in a great sigh. My heart, which seemed to have all but stopped when Tom paused at my door, resumed beating with strong and booming force within me. I dropped the curtain, and lay down, staring at the hangings of the bed. It was a long time before I found sleep again that night, but whether that was due to fear or excitement, I could not seem to decide.

  Chapter Three

  The Road to Hever

  January 1522

  The next morning I awoke to find the storm had passed. The air was fresh and cold. I walked to the window, gasping in the cold, and wiped the mist from its panes. I looked out onto a forest where every twig, branch, shrub and blade of grass was covered in tiny glittering crystals of ice, like diamonds. The world around me shone silver in the dawn’s light, brilliant against a frost-blue sky.

  The sun was bright and yet pale, stroking the battered lands with her gentle hands and making my eyes blink to look on her. There was beauty here, I thought, in these wild places of England. I watched the stillness of the forest at dawn for some time before the cold took hold of me once more. Eventually, with a chill in my bones, I started to shiver and hurried back into the warm bed, pulling the covers about me as poor Bess quivered with cold, trying to coax the embers of the fire back to life with new shards of wood. Even though her little hands shook with the cold, she made good with the fire, and took my gown and kirtle to warm in front of it. I praised her, and she looked at me with pleased eyes, blushing lightly and returning to her tasks to warm my clothes.

  A knock at the door saw rolls of fine, new-baked bread and small ale brought up to us, sent by Tom from the kitchens as though we were invalids who needed feeding when first we woke. At court, we did not eat until ten of the clock, unless one was ill, or aged. I smiled at the extra attention, but had to admit that I was famished. Our long journey in the cold and rain of the night had worn heavy on me. Bess and I shared the bread at the fireside, ripping the little rolls apart eagerly to feast on the fluffy freshness of their innards. We sipped the ice-cold ale before the now-roaring flames of the fire Bess had brought back to life. Although I had stayed talking with Tom late into the night, and had not slept well, I did not feel tired. I had that sense of glassy wakefulness that comes from a night spent in excitement rather than repose. I climbed into my warmed kirtle and gown, feeling their goodly layers of velvet and wool cloak my body from the chill of the air, and as Bess brushed and dressed my hair, I closed my eyes feeling quite at ease with the world.

  England may not, after all, be such a crude and backward land, I thought with a smile, since it contained men fashioned in the mettle of Tom Wyatt.

  But once my morning preparations were done with, anxious concern for my family came to intrude upon my thoughts. They had been expecting my party to arrive the night before, and would be concerned for my safety. Leaving the chambers with Bess, and bidding a hearty good-morning to Tom in the lower chambers, I asked that one of the men be sent ahead to inform my family that I would be arriving soon.

  “It has already been done, Mistress Boleyn, with the coming of the first light,” Tom smiled at my troubled face. “And we will be ready to ride out whenever you will it. The horses are already prepared.”

  I glanced at him and arched one eyebrow. “We?” I asked.

  Tom laughed a little. “I cannot possibly allow you to return to Hever without my escort,” he said. “Such a story as ours cannot end with my merely waving you a good-bye from the doorway… No… Surely the chivalric knight must see the lady Anne home to the bosom of her family… and be rewarded with a kiss?”

  I smiled at him, a little ruefully. It seemed that no matter what, Tom Wyatt was determined to gain a kiss from me.

  “It will be good to have some company on the road to Hever, Tom,” I nodded.

  We set out almost immediately. The hunting lodge was, it turned out, barely eight miles from my family’s lands. In the dark and confusion of the storm we had wandered slightly into the Wyatt’s lands, but what a fortunate accident to find old friends in the midst of such misery! Tom was right; it was a good story to be told. I should enjoy relating it to my family, although perhaps excluding the part where the handsome Wyatt had paused at my chamber door in the night…

  We mounted horse, and started at a rather languid pace through the forests. Tom and I talked of books and ideas we had both come into contact with. As I spoke of France, and of Marguerite, I felt my heart and stomach ache with the pangs of homesickness. It is strange to think that even as I rode for home that I should be thinking still of another place really being my home. I had made France my home, and the court my family in my years there. To own the truth, I was almost nervous to see my own kin once more. Perhaps they would not like me if they came to know me for a longer time than we had spent together either at court, or at The Field of the Cloth of Gold… my fears of the last few days came back to me, gnawing at my sides even as I conversed with Tom. It was only finding true interest in him and his exploits that saved me from dissolving once more into a sunken pool of my own misery and fear about England.

  Tom recited some of the poetry he had written for court entertainments, and told me of games he and the other gallants often devised to lighten the time spent at court. I was impressed; I had to admit it… I found myself liking Tom more and more as we talked, and a slight edge of regret entered my heart upon thinking that he was a married man. Since I was apparently soon to enter into that same state, with a man I knew nothing of, I found myself wishing suddenly that such a man as Tom was not married… A good match could have been made between a son of the Wyatts and a daughter of the Boleyns. But I dashed such foolish thoughts from my head even as I thought them. Had I not wished for a higher match than a man of merely my own station? Had I not thought that my training and polishing at the courts of France and Burgundy could lead to a marriage with a lord of higher status than my own? To think such thoughts of Tom, merely for enjoying his easy ways and friendly openness was foolish. Marriage, as all knew, was made for wealth and standing, and all else that might come of friendship or love would grow
later as the couple came to know each other. But there was, too, a part of my heart that whispered other thoughts to me… that I would so much like to marry a man who would satisfy the wishes of my heart and of my head… a man who could bring me great standing, and still encourage the fluttering of love within my breast. A man who could match my spirit’s strength, and bring further glory to my family. A man who could be a friend, a husband and a lover to me. Would there be such a man for me? Was it too much to hope, in a world such as ours, to wish to find true love with the one I was chosen to marry? Was this man I was affianced to, this man whose name I did not even know, such a man?

  I knew not. But many thoughts flashed through my mind as I talked with Tom on that crisp morning. And not all of them were as honourable or as dutiful as I would admit to.

  We approached Hever and my heart leapt a little within me as I saw the fair stones of the castle, gleaming with still-clinging frost and shining in the sunlight. I pulled my horse up as the castle came within sight; as a thousand memories of home, childhood and family came pouring back to me. I could see in my mind’s eye three small children playing at hide and seek through the gardens with our mother. I could see George and Mary as we rode on our small ponies through the marshlands, dogs running at our sides as we honed our hunting skills. I could hear the light steps of our feet practising dances over and over again in the long gallery. I could almost smell the foods which had graced the tables of Hever in the long days of our childhood and see the gleaming eyes of our mother as she told us stories of the past, of the court, of kings and queens and knights. I felt a rushing sense of excitement; a joy that was almost painful to my heart, to think of coming home, after all this time. And in that moment, Hever was indeed home. Perhaps I had forgotten its magic and it beauty. Perhaps I had forgotten the memories which bound me to it, and to my family. But now I remembered. And each of those memories brought a sharp strike to my heart; both of happiness and of sadness combined. Memories are such, at times. They come to us with loss and sorrow, and with happiness and joy, mingled together and inseparable from one another.

  Tom looked at me and smiled, pulling his horse close to mine. He watched my eyes sparkle as I looked on the memories of my childhood home. “It is good to be back in merry England then, my fine lady of the French Court?” he asked in a jesting tone.

  I smiled and nodded. “I had forgotten just how beautiful Hever was,” I said in almost a whisper. “I have forgotten much, of England, or so it seems to me now.”

  Tom laughed. “But all that has been forgotten can once more be remembered,” he grinned at me.

  I inclined my head. “I believe, Master Wyatt, that this may well be the truth.”

  “Let us not keep your family waiting, Anna,” he nodded to the castle. “Your mother will be anxious to see your face once more.”

  Although I knew that he was right, I insisted that we stop briefly at the church upon our Boleyn lands, so that I might give thanks to God for delivering our party from such troubles as had been ours on the previous night. It was also a chance for me to gather my errant thoughts to me, for my heart had become so awash with senses of joy and sorrow with the return of my memories, that I felt a little overcome. I wanted to face my family with a triumphant return to our seat at Hever. I was reluctant to return to them overawed with emotion, especially if my father was likely to be there. He, after all, had little patience with such.

  Our small party rode up to the front of the castle and dismounted, walking into the cobbled courtyard with a great clatter. Servants in my family’s livery came rushing from all sides to take our horses, and all about us there was shouting. Relieved voices, crying out to others to run and tell the mistress that her daughter was home safe, bounced from the walls and seemed to fill the air. The singing of the birds in the skies could not be heard over the noise of the household pouring from the castle. Maids came forwards to take my riding cowl from my head, and I looked around me, trying to see where my family was in all the clamour of our arrival. It was then that I saw my mother, emerging from the house and hurrying through the crowd. There were tears in her golden-brown eyes as she strode towards me, her hands and arms outstretched. She took me in her arms and pulled me to her. As we folded our arms about each other I smelt sweet musk and rose-water on her skin; a scent which brought more memories flooding through my mind. I felt as though I were a woman no longer, but a child once more, wrapped in the loving arms of my beloved mother.

  She took hold of my slim waist and hugged me, kissed me and laughed. I was overcome with joy.

  “Oh, what fears I had for you the last night!” she cried as she pulled my arms out to look me over. “I was so worried for you! Your carts and belongings arrived late in the evening, and we thought that you were with them… when I saw you were not! Ah, Anne, you do not know what terrors went through my head! I did not sleep at all last night thinking that you had been set upon by villains, or that you were lost somewhere in the rain and the mist! And then this morning your man arrived to say that you had found shelter with our neighbours and I have never felt more relieved!”

  My mother shook her head, as though she could stop the tirade of her thoughts with such a light motion, and then smiled broadly at me. I had been about to start apologising for giving her such fears, even though there was little I could have done to allay them in the night, but then I understood that she was not wishing for me to offer apologies or a solution to the fears which had so beset her. She merely wanted to air her tortured thoughts aloud, and allow them to escape her heart at last, in the manner that many women seem to have; just to allow their thoughts to be spoken, and to feel the better for having them released.

  She turned to Tom, speaking words of gratitude for having rescued her daughter from such danger. And then, to my utmost surprise, she kissed him full on the lips! Leaving me staring at Tom, my mother turned and called us to come into the house where there was a warm fire, and people waiting to see me.

  As my mother bustled off to the doorway, Tom leaned over to me and whispered in my ear. “You see, Mistress Boleyn? It is the style in England to kiss friends on the lips when one meets or parts. I was not telling an untruth last night.”

  I looked around at him and smiled, flushing slightly at his words. I was not going to deny that I thought he had only said such in order to steal a kiss from me. But I was not going to admit to such thoughts either. To cover my embarrassment, I merely nodded at Tom, and walked into the house, following my mother. As I left, I could feel his impish enjoyment at my discomfort radiating like the sun on my back. He knew well enough that he had caught me out. I bristled at his mischief, even as I found myself wanting to laugh for it. In truth I was more embarrassed than amused; Tom Wyatt was a slippery creature at times, I thought.

  In the hall, I found George and Mary walking towards me, with great grins gracing their faces at having caught me by surprise. They had come to Hever to meet my arrival. I let out a short cry of happiness, and ran to embrace first my brother, and then my sister. I had thought that their duties at court would not allow them to see me come home. But yet here they were. Our father was not at Hever, they told me; he was not even in England, but in the Low Countries on a diplomatic mission. The letter he had sent to me in France had come from there, but he had not thought to tell me that. They assured me that he would be home in a matter of months, once his duties with the Archduchess Margaret and her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, with whom Henry of England was trying to make an alliance, were done with. There was a sense of relief for me as I heard that; my welcome home was so… welcoming… If our father had been here, perhaps it would not feel as warm here in the midst of my family.

  They took me to the fireside and our mother called for spiced ale and wine to be brought out to us. She sat beaming at me, reaching over to touch my hand as I told her of the storms that had delayed us, and of my strange meeting with Tom in the wilderness. As my family chatted lightly around me, and their faces smiled on me, I felt
indeed as though I had come home. I still had fears in my heart about England; the court I was to go to, the future husband I was to meet… but despite the rain and the mist, it seemed there were good things to be found on these sodden shores too. Perhaps it would not be as bad as I had imagined. Perhaps this man I was promised to might turn out to be acceptable. Perhaps the English Court would be a good place, not as cultured as the French Court, or as beautiful as the Court of Burgundy, of course… no other place could match my two first loves, but perhaps it would not be as bad as I had thought… And perhaps I would indeed find friends here, and would not find myself alone and isolated in this land that was, at once, both new and at the same time, familiar, to me. My brother, my sister, my mother, and Tom… they were here. Perhaps, just perhaps, this England would not be the place of my nightmares.