i
They're skulking in a secluded corner of the palace, out of the sight of nosy courtiers. Anne has been waiting long, so long, for a private moment with Henry, the words she wants to say ready on her lips. Yet even as Anne tugs him by his lapels into the shadows, his mind is already elsewhere.
"Only a moment, sweetheart," he says before she can say anything. "Shh," he pacifies her when her dismay shows, placing a finger on her lips.
"But I have not seen you in private for so long-"
"Peace, my sweet Anne. I have promised Mary that I would go hawking with her today, and I must make ready."
Anne feels her heart drop. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the King of England spending time with his daughter; it is his duty and his prerogative as her father, and there is no reason Anne should feel insulted if he chooses to spend time with Mary.
But the thought that when he finally gets a rare moment of free time, he doesn't want to spend it with her… it needles at her more than she cares to admit. He has been so devoted to her, vowing to honor her maidenhead until their wedding day, even when she had refused him, something that would have had any other woman banished from court. But when cardinals are too cowardly to accomplish their king's will and Katherine is the most stubborn woman to ever grace God's earth… for all that Henry is the most passionate man she has ever met, he is still a man. A man susceptible to the dulling edge of time and denial, and a man with many other pretty women to catch his eye and willing to become his mistress. He has been so good to her, so true and loyal, but still, she is plagued by insecurities and doubts and what if what if what ifs.
She smiles pleasantly, saying that of course she understands, that she will wait for the next moment they can enjoy together. But even as Anne watches him go, his stride so easy and loping, fears and worries boil in her stomach. This is the downside, the peril and pitfall of loving someone so deeply. When Henry is with her, it's as though a golden world is unfolding before her. But when she is unsure of him, the gold disintegrates into rotting, tarnished tin. His love, their love, the love that will bring about a new order and a new dynasty and a new era, is the one surety she has in this cesspool of reluctant popes and reluctant cardinals and meddlesome Spaniards. As long as she has Henry, she fears nothing; but when he falters, then she fears everything.
Her enemies, and perhaps even many of her friends, would be rolling their eyes if they could hear her thoughts. So jealous and so mistrustful, pouncing upon the tiniest of infractions and coming to the wildest of conclusions. They do not know what it is to love a King, his love so carefully earned and so easily lost, and they cannot understand how the smallest signs can foretell the greatest danger.
Anne pushes her dark musings resolutely aside. When they are married (when, not if, Anne cannot bear the thought that it may be an if, not when she has pledged her heart and years of her life to this man, tied herself and her youth to this uncertain cause) and when she has given Henry his son, the son he desires above all else, then she will never again have to worry about their love faltering.
ii
A log falls in the grate, sending up a shower of sparks. It's the only sound in a room filled with stony silence, tension writ in the face of every Howard or Boleyn crammed into Anne's chambers. They used to hold family meetings like this to plot and scheme when Anne and Henry's love was first budding; now they meet to figure out how to keep that love alive, now that it has has suffered a serious setback. For a girl to be born in place of the much-desired son, after years of struggle and breaking with Rome…
What's done is done, however, and the Boleyn faction must turn their attention to cementing Elizabeth's place as a princess. She cannot inherit, but that does not mean she cannot help Henry secure an advantageous marital alliance. But to whom? There's the rub, for what king will accept a girl slandered as a bastard by Europe and half of England as a bride for his son?
Especially when said girl has a half-sister who is of childbearing age, whose mother boasts a much finer pedigree, and whose pretended claims to the title of Princess are still upheld by the majority of Christendom.
"King Francis's youngest son is ripe for marriage," Anne offers tentatively after a long silence. "I know he still remembers me fondly from my days in France, perhaps if we asked…"
"An alliance with France would be to our benefit," her father replies, his sharp diplomat's mind working furiously, combing through the possibilities and weighing the advantages and disadvantages. "But Francis will surely take the might of the Emperor into consideration when making his decision."
Anne scowls at this. Even after all this time, the Spaniards are still a thorn in her side.
"All the same, it's the best suggestion to make to His Majesty." her father says. Because it is our only hope of holding on to his love are the words he doesn't add, but everyone hears anyway.
"Yes," Anne says quietly, staring broodingly into the fire. Henry counted Elizabeth's birth as a major betrayal on her part, and she must make reparations. Demonstrate to him that even though Elizabeth is not a boy, she still has her uses. Hold on to his flagging love as best she can, until she gives him a son and never has to worry about it flagging again. She will fight as best she can, but still, the pernicious specter of the Lady Mary rises in her mind's eye.
A thought strikes her. "Perhaps if Henry goes to France to negotiate the marriage and he leaves me as Regent, I could simply order the deaths of the Lady Mary and her mother. Nip that problem in the bud." She's only half-jesting; when weighed against the bigger picture, it really does seem like the most expedient solution.
"He'd never forgive you," George says at once. "And don't go around saying things like that, it'll just give that snake Chapuys more gossip to report to his master." Even so, Anne can tell from his pensive expression that he, too, thinks the idea has its merits.
iii
It hurts Anne's dignity to have to rely on spies to find out what transpired during her husband's visit to their daughter, rather than hear it firsthand from her husband. But what else can she do? Henry never seeks her out anymore, never wants to indulge in the idle talk that is there between husband and wife. If he sees no need to tell his wife about how their daughter is faring, she will not risk whatever little warmth he still has for her by pressing him.
The maid before her has a sharp-eyed, sharp-eared sister who is a lady-in-waiting at Hatfield, an invaluable asset to a Queen who is currently out of favor. "The King was mounting his horse and making ready to leave, but he caught sight of the Lady Mary standing on a balcony. She had been kept out of his sight while he was visiting the Princess, but when he saw her, he bowed to her, prompting his entourage to bow as well, and she curtseyed back to him. He left immediately afterwards without saying a word to her."
Anne's nostrils flare. "Thank you, Agnes," she gets out between clenched teeth, pressing a sovereign into the good woman's hand and sending her off on her way. After all Henry's assurances that his bastard daughter means nothing to him as long as she continues to defy him, that Elizabeth is the only Princess, both in England and in his heart...
It stings Anne more than she cares to admit. She, his lawful wife and the (future) mother of his son, has to pull strings and play coy, wheedle and plead just to get a moment's attention from Henry, yet all his disobedient bastard daughter has to do is pout like a puppy and in an instant, his heart melts and he shows her more courtesy than he has shown Anne in months. It makes Anne seethe, and the worst part is she cannot even take Henry to task over it, not when she has only a daughter in the cradle and there are still Imperialists lurking behind every corner, watching the English court like a hawk.
But that does not mean Anne cannot rage behind closed doors, and rage she does. Jealousy is her constant companion, the devil on her shoulder. It leaves her jaw clenched and her teeth bared, her heart pounding and her ears ringing. It leaves her panting like a rabid dog, salivating for something, anything, to fill the gaping hole inside her. It consumes everything in her and somehow still does not exhaust itself.
iv
She is still bleeding, her abdomen throbbing a staccato tattoo in times to the clots forcing their way out of her womb, when her steward murmurs that the King is here. He enters the room silently, almost timidly, and regards her with hard, implacable eyes. She doesn't meet them, nor does she bring herself to break the icy silence. Whatever Henry has to say to her, whatever invective or accusations he has prepared for her, it will be nothing compared to the yawning chasm within her that her lost child seems to have ripped open in its wake.
Finally he speaks. His voice is lifeless, neither reproachful nor comforting. "We will make no public announcement of the fact."
It's more than Anne could have hoped for, though the concession is in all likelihood more for Henry's sake than her own. Still, she is grateful, and she says numbly, "Thank you, Your Majesty."
She feels a sudden twinge in her pelvic area, and she stifles a cry. Her ladies rush forward as she feels a particularly stubborn clump of blood pass between her legs, leaving a fiery trail of hot, oozing pain. By the end of it, her throat is constricted and her vision blurry. The sensation is a phantom echo of the labor pains that accompanied Elizabeth's birth, yet somehow it is ten times worse and leaves her ten times as hollow.
Henry is still standing, his gaze firmly averted from her. To spare her the humiliation of having an audience to her agony, Anne thinks, carefully eschewing the alternative reasons.
"However, to avoid rousing public suspicions, I expect you to return to your duties as Queen tomorrow."
Anne's neck snaps so fast that something pulls. She meets Henry's gaze fully for the first time. His expression is calm, but his eyes burn cold blue fire. Anne's entire body is still weak, the area between her legs smarting like an open wound and her abdomen seizing up with random aches and cramps that leave her gasping. The mere act of lifting her head is a Herculean feat; how is she to hold court tomorrow?
But Henry's vicious, mocking countenance brooks no protests, and come morning, Anne grits her teeth and whispers a thousand mantras to herself and hauls herself out of bed, subsuming her pain into her impenetrable Queen's mask. She smiles until her facial muscles ache and smiles some more. She sits on her throne by Henry's side, somehow both inches and miles away from him. Their hands interlock on the dais between them, their joined hands a pathetically loose love knot, ready to come undone in the gentlest breeze. A never-ending parade of courtiers snakes in front of them, bearing agendas, complaints, grudges, news, and more agendas.
One of them is that toad Chapuys, come to bleat as usual on behalf of Katherine and Mary. Apparently Mary is ill yet again- hopefully she will die this time and spare me the need to dirty my hands - and Katherine has the gall to believe that she will be allowed to see her daughter. Henry strikes this down at once, of course, but he still sends his personal physician to look after her and gives orders that she be moved to another mansion- for her comfort as she recuperates.
Anne's abdomen suddenly throbs, a stray clot expelling itself. She continues to smile vacantly, playing the dutiful Queen, as she feels the clump trickle down her leg, as Henry listens with genuine concern to Chapuys' report of Mary's symptoms, even whispering a hasty prayer to God for his daughter's health. The gaping abyss in her heart and her womb opens even wider, something Anne didn't think possible, and she bites down on her cheek hard, not abating the pressure even as a coppery tang fills her mouth.
v
Misery is like money stored in a bank, Anne muses. It doesn't just accumulate; it generates interest. Compound interest, at that. Logically, suffering the same loss twice should result in twice as much pain, but in reality, the pain is magnified a hundredfold. She would have thought that, having suffered one miscarriage, the second would not hurt as much. But somehow, the loss of her third child, her golden boy, her savior, is a blow that hurts harder and longer than any previous Anne had suffered. The pain from her first miscarriage hadn't faded with time; it had been there all along, lurking underneath the surface and accumulating interest, so when the freshest deposit arrives, somehow it all coalesces into a general miasma of anguish that hangs over Anne day and night.
Anne has too much time alone with her thoughts.
For she is truly alone now. She knows in her bones that her latest miscarriage is the death knell of whatever tenuous affection Henry still bore her. Sooner or later, that Seymour girl waiting in the wings will take her place. It is not a question of if, but when. Without the King's love, Anne is powerless, defenseless against the menace of the court, and alone in the maelstrom.
And the Lady Mary is growing in power.
Courtiers are flocking to her banner, though quietly, for Mary's place is still uncertain, but any fool can discern that with Anne's star falling, Mary's is rising, or sure to be rising soon, and that their best hope is to ally themselves with her. Even when Katherine is dead, her daughter has inherited her legacy of being the eternal pebble in Anne's shoe. Katherine was right all along. Henry has tired of her, as the Spanish woman once predicted, and soon Anne will be no better than Katherine in terms of station. What a strange thought, that she will be on the same level as the woman she despised so much.
But Katherine won, in the end. Through her daughter, she has managed to retain the upper hand, and after everything Anne sacrificed, after ten years of scheming and plotting and dreaming and wishing and hoping and praying, Mary was the one who came out on top. It is a bitter, bitter pill to swallow, on top of everything else Anne has already lost, and as she knows so well, misery does not add up- it exponentiates.
If there is a lower level she can sink to, Anne does not know it.
+i
So there are even lower depths of misery she can sink to, Anne contemplates as she watches the stars overhead in the Tower, the last time she shall ever see them. There is no resentment attached to the thought; she is long past tears and denials. Just the inevitable wait for the end.
Even when she is a prisoner in the Tower, gossip still reaches her ears, and she listens for it eagerly, even as she moves increasingly away from the realm of the living and towards that of the dead. There are whispers that, with her arrest and downfall, Mary's chances of being restored to the succession are all but guaranteed. Supposedly, the people are overjoyed at this.
The news should break Anne, especially when it comes on the heels of Elizabeth's bastardization, but she merely feels hollow. Impending death has a way of stripping away all pretenses, of burning away all illusions of grandeur and superiority and leaving behind only the cold hard truth. And the cold, hard truth is that she and Mary have been in the same boat since the beginning, both equally dependent on the whims and fancies of a spoiled king, and that her failure to recognize that was her fatal flaw, more than anything else. More than her failure to give Henry a son or her failure to be the wife he wanted, her failure lay in misjudging the lay of the land so thoroughly.
Faced with that revelation, how could Anne envy Mary now? She doesn't have any room left in her heart for anger or jealousy; only regret, and the conviction that if she had seen the battle lines clearly from the beginning, everything would have been different, and Anne would not be here now, waiting for the sword to fall.
++i
Elizabeth tears through the gardens of Hundson, red-gold hair streaming out like a comet behind her and a shriek on her lips. Mary chases after her, setting aside her infamous haughtiness in an instant to play with her sister. She catches up to the child in a few strides and tackles her in a bear-hug from behind, the two of them falling to the earth in a tangle of limbs and laughter.
It's a sweet scene, and one that makes Anne smile as she watches down from heaven, though there is an undercurrent of jealousy to it. Anyone who knew her from her time on earth would assume it is due to the fact that Mary has a household of her own again and enjoys her father's favor- though at the price of having a confession of her illegitimacy coerced out of her- while Elizabeth is still languishing in disgrace and will likely remain there for a long time.
But it's not that, not that at all. The fall of the sword of the Executioner of Calais severed much more than her little neck; it severed her ambition, her arrogance and greed, her pride and ego, all her worries about politics and queenship and other earthly concerns. All that binds her to Earth is her daughter, and she ought to be grateful that her little girl has at least one stalwart ally. It shames her to no end, that in her spite and ambition and unbelievable hubris, she never realized that the very stubbornness and righteousness that made Mary such a deadly enemy also make her perhaps the best ally her little daughter could have asked for. As much as Mary despised Anne, she firmly believes that Elizabeth is innocent of her mother's sins and will risk everything to defend her.
Anne should be glad that Mary has shown herself to be more forgiving than Anne ever could have been in her shoes, but it seems that Anne is still susceptible to the mortal shortcoming of jealousy. For she cannot find it in herself to be happy that Mary will be the closest thing Elizabeth has to a mother, while Anne can only watch from afar. It is Mary who will protect Elizabeth against the petty foibles of the capricious King, who will teach her how to play the virginals and the lute, who will carry her in her arms until she grows to big to be carried, who will be the one Elizabeth looks to as her confidante and closest friend. Mary will fill the role that Anne should have played, the role that Anne was robbed of, and despite knowing it is the most fortunate outcome for Elizabeth, she still cannot suppress the bittersweetness rising in her throat as she watches the girls, the motherless bastards, the sisters, frolicking and gamboling in the gardens far below, where Anne can never set foot again.
A/N: Many of the moments here are taken from history: Anne joking to George about ordering Mary's death with Henry away in France, Henry bowing to Mary at Hatfield, sending her to another mansion while she is ill, and the joy of the people at the belief that Anne's arrest means a return to favor for Mary.
If anyone has any ideas or requests for any moments from Mary's life, seeing her interact with other Tudor figures, AU Mary-centric ideas, or even an entirely Mary-unrelated idea, leave me a comment!