This is one of my new postmortem one-shots about Anne Boleyn.
Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn are dead, but their headless ghosts haunt Jane Parker Boleyn every night and will probably never leave her in peace. But even if she burns in hell alive, it would be a much better life than a life of humiliation and pain with George.
Undoubtedly, I don't own any characters and the Tudors show.
Hope you will truly enjoy this story.
If you leave a short write a review, I will be very grateful. I am very interested in your feedback. Thank you very much in advance.
Headless Ghosts
The spacious bedchamber was flooded with moonlight. A high-pitched scream resonated in a sinister silence, and the woman opened her frantic eyes. She pulled herself into the sitting position and stared into the emptiness of the chamber. Her heart was thundering wildly in her chest, and she tried to breathe in deeply, but the air could barely penetrate her lungs through the constriction of her throat. Her nightmare had such a strong impact on all her senses that she could feel only mortal dread filling her entire being, crackling the hair on her head, unbearable heaviness eating down through her bones.
It was not the first time when the unfortunate lady awoke in cold sweat from a horrible nightmare, trembling all over with fear. The woman was Lady Jane Parker Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford and the wife of the deceased George Boleyn who was executed a month ago on Tower Green on the false charge of high treason and incest with his sister Anne Boleyn. Like Thomas Cromwell, she was the executioner of Anne and George as she had falsely accused them of incest, plunging herself into a deadly and dangerous gamble and in the end winning a great prize – her freedom from George.
Jane swept her frightened eyes over the room, trembling all over, breathing as if she were running a long distance. She swallowed heavily and shut her eyes for an instant; her expression was the personification of morbid pain. She blinked her eyes and then blinked again, exhaling in a sigh of frustration and nervousness; blood drained from her heart. Her light brown hair dripped with the sweat of terror, and she felt drops of sweat on her forehead. Even though she was awake, she couldn't fight against an increasing dread, heightening all her senses so much that the octaves of stillness seemed to have intensified.
Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn! Their names seemed to leap out of the darkness even after their deaths. Jane Boleyn was unable to forget her dreadful nightmare about the headless ghosts of Anne and George who had come to her from the depths of abyss to accuse her of helping Thomas Cromwell to murder them. Jane dreamt of the headless George Boleyn who stood near her bed, holding his severed head in his arms; he was dressed only in white, his tunic drenched in blood. In her dream, George didn't speak – instead he laughed at the top of his lungs. As the sound of George's laugher faded away, her husband started speaking and promised to haunt her till her dying day.
Next moment, Jane always began dreaming of the headless Anne Boleyn dressed in a magnificent dazzling white gown. Anne's ghost appeared near the window and walked to George, carrying her head in her arms. As Anne stopped next to George, they broke into a maddening laugh. Then Anne and George threw their laughing heads onto the bed. The images of two heads flying in her direction flashed in her mind, and then the vision changed and Jane could see the white sheets on the bed turning crimson. It was a constant nightmare for Jane Boleyn, and at the final stage of her dream she always envisioned herself drowning in the ocean of sticky, crimson blood of her victims, which had already become an easily recognizable picture, equally appalling and nauseous.
Taking in a deep, gasping breath, she leaned back against the headboard of the bed, stretching her legs under soft sheets and trying to relax, but she was still feeling a cold shiver progressing up her back. Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn had already been dead for more than a month, but they were still alive in Jane's imagination and they didn't want to leave her in peace. Jane was unable to sleep peacefully, tossing and turning in her lonely bed, muttering something unclear under her breath about her husband and the murdered Queen, as if she were feverish and incoherent. Each nightmare was so powerful that she found it difficult to distinguish between reality and dreams.
Jane tossed her head, as if she were trying to shake off the sense of unreality. "Will I ever forget about you, George?" she asked, gasping for breath. Her heartbeat refused to return to normal, and her breathing was still erratic. "Why are you haunting me instead of burning in hell for your sins?"
She fixed her gaze on the golden flames of the candles that stood on the bedside table, forcing herself to concentrate on the events that followed the executions of Anne and George. Jane had been happy and carefree, feeling as if she were a great Roman general riding with triumph on the Capitoline Hill with a crown of laurel on her head. She had left London immediately after Anne's execution, heading to her father's manor in Morley. Jane's father – Sir Henry Parker, Baron Morley – hadn't welcomed her at his manor, but he had permitted her to stay there because she'd had nowhere to go as George's lands and wealth had been lost to her with her husband's death and the disgrace of the Boleyns.
The first days of her stay in Morley had been peaceful, but soon everything had changed. In the past days, Jane's life had been slowly turning into a living hell. A state of emotional euphoria, which she had enjoyed after George's execution, had faded away, as if cold wind had blown it off, leaving a dark night with heinous visions of the past and a persistent organ sound of death that had reminded her of her contribution to the deaths of her husband and her sister-in-law. Now she often felt as tormented and agonized as she could feel if her own death were squatting at her feet.
Jane Boleyn felt fear shredding her heart with every tumultuous beat as her mind traveled to the day of her interrogation by Thomas Cromwell. Jane believed that she would remember her interrogation until doomsday. The chief minister had bombarded her with multitudinous questions that had been both unflagging and incessant, but the general line had been obvious – Cromwell had wanted to know something that could have condemned Queen Anne to death. At first, Jane had provided Cromwell with much circumstantial froth that could have been used against Anne and any man whose name had slipped from her tongue. But then Cromwell had directly asked her about the probability of an incestuous relationship between Anne and George.
A pause in the interrogation had followed while Jane had brooded over the matter. She had realized what she had needed to say to be free from her accursed matrimony. For a short moment, she had hesitated and thought to say nothing else about Anne and George. But then she had remembered the dreadful wedding night when George had taken her not in a way a normal husband takes his wife, leaving her cry on the floor until her throat had turned dry and her vocal chords sore. She had recalled all the moments of humiliation and loneliness she had endured in her marriage.
Jane clenched and unclenched her fists, her face stiff with black fury. "I will never forget the day when I realized that you, George abandoned my bed for another man's." She drew a whizzing angry breath. "You even didn't dare deny that you took Mark Smeaton as your lover when I confronted you with a question. I will never forgive you this humiliation."
In those minutes when she had been about to make up her mind about her course of action, she had thought of all possible ways to find the way out of her accursed marriage. Anne Boleyn loved George as a brother and they had been very close, so Anne would have never believed her that George had been regularly sleeping with Mark Smeaton. Jane could have tried to divorce from George, but it had been clear that Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn, or King Henry would have never approved of her idea to end her marriage. She had been trapped in her marriage to George, and there had been no single person who could have helped her to be separated from the man whom she had already begun to hate.
Jane had also thought of Anne Boleyn, hesitating to accuse the innocent woman of such an abominable crime. Queen Anne had been arrogant and ambitious, and she had pushed King Henry to divorce from Queen Catherine. Jane hadn't been very sympathetic with the disgrace and sufferings of Catherine and Mary Tudor, the so-called King's bastard daughter, but she had thought that Anne's selfish desire for queenship had brought too many troubles for England on a wide scale. Anne had been hated by almost everyone in England, and Jane had admitted to herself that the people would have rejoiced if the King's concubine had been stripped of her titles and had been punished for her sins.
Anne hadn't been always kind to Jane, and they had never been friends, which had been additional consolation for Jane. Her mind had been reeling, and she had only known that she would have to spend the rest of her life with a sodomite if she hadn't helped herself. Finally, Jane had arrived to the conclusion that Anne Boleyn's death had been necessary to be free from George. She could have done nothing for Anne, and her death had been a price for George's death and her freedom.
Waiting for the continuation of her interrogation, Jane Boleyn had also thought of her future after George's death. She had known that if George had been found guilty of treason, all their possessions would have been confiscated by the Crown. Consequently, she would have been left penniless. She had resigned to the thought that she would probably never wear expensive dresses again, would never attend tournaments and festivities at the court, depending on her parents' charity for the rest of her life. But the lands and the estates weren't important for Jane Boleyn if she had her freedom.
"Anne and George, you deserved to die for your sins," Jane persuaded herself, her mouth twisting in a lethally sweet smile. "You were not innocent and did many wrong things in your lives. I didn't condemn innocent people to death – I only used your weaknesses and faults to help myself."
And then Jane had made up her mind to accuse Anne and George of having an incestuous relationship. Cromwell had offered Jane a way out of her misery and she had decided to tell him a lie for her own good. Moreover, George had really deserved to be executed as a high traitor after he had indulged himself into a mortal sin of sodomy with Mark Smeaton. She had also justified herself with the fact that Anne had been doomed to be discarded by the King as she had failed to give him a son and as Henry had been obviously tiring of Anne's constant tantrums of anger and public displays of jealousy.
Jane turned her gaze at the undraped window. There was only the inky darkness outside as the moon had disappeared behind the clouds. She sat still for a long time, feeling her blood boiling with ferocious hatred for George Boleyn. She smiled with dark pleasure, feeling a flare of satisfaction at the thought of George's death. She had wanted George to pay for all her pain he had caused her and for all her humiliation, and eventually she had won the battle with George – now he was dead.
"I had to lie to Cromwell. It was my only way to be free from you, George," Jane whispered, as if she were talking to her deceased husband. She felt an increasing sense of anxiety and fear ripping through her gut, and then rage slashed through her heart. "George, you have to leave me alone. It was only your fault that I needed to get rid of you. Your love affair with Smeaton condemned you to death."
When Cromwell had returned to the interrogation room, Jane had lied without hesitation, accusing Anne of committing incest with George. As she had finished speaking, there had been an ominous silence between them. As Jane had locked her gaze with Cromwell's eyes, she had understood that the man had been astonished with her categorical assertion about Anne and George. After she had finished her testimony, Jane had already known that the fates of Anne and George had been sealed.
Cromwell had permitted Jane to go back to her duties of a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. Jane still remembered how she had walked into the Queen's chambers, wearing a large and beaming smile on her face at the thought that Anne and George had suspected nothing about their prospective fates. In the days preceding George's arrest, Jane had watched her husband with grim satisfaction, and her heart had been beating faster in delight that on her husband would be dead soon.
She moved on the bed and propped herself on the pillows. She emitted a heavy sigh, feeling extremely tired and mentally exhausted. Everything would have been very well in her life if she hadn't been haunted by Anne and George. She would have gladly exchanged several years of her life for a single chance to forget about Anne and George and move on. She used calming and sleeping draught, and there were evenings when she drank much wine to sleep better, but nothing helped her.
Every time Jane closed her eyes, the visions of the headless Anne and George resurfaced in her mind, and her agony continued. She feared to fall asleep again, not wishing to expose herself to gorgonian torments. Despite her tiredness, she decided not to sleep anymore. She climbed out of the bed and came to the window; she placed herself within the window embrasure, arms wrapped around her legs, her profusion of long curls loose on her shoulders meeting the silver medallion on her chest.
She sat still in the same position for a long, long time, trying to think of the future, planning to spend some time in Morley, at least until the time when King Henry remarried Lady Jane Seymour. Then she intended to come back to London and begin negotiations with Thomas Cromwell, asking the man to allocate her an annual pension to secure her financial position. Even though the Boleyns had been disgraced and lost their power, Thomas Boleyn, her father-in-law, hadn't been stripped of his titles, and there was a chance to demand a pension from the old Earl. Yet, she counted more on Cromwell whom she had helped to get rid of Anne. She didn't dream of being ever invited to the court again.
Jane's expression evolved into harshness. "I will not think of you. I am alive, but you are dead and can do nothing to me," she said to herself, laughing maliciously. "You are nothing – you are only ghosts."
She looked into the window, her eyes taking in the thick crescent moon that had appeared from behind the clouds. It was several hours before dawn, and she wished time to run faster as she felt better in the daytime when the dreams of Anne and George didn't haunt her. Sighing deeply, she turned her head away, running her eyes over the chamber.
Suddenly, Jane's entire body started shaking. She was transfixed with horror at the picture of the headless Anne and George standing near the bed, each of them holding their own heads in their arms. In her vision, the ghosts were dressed in luxurious court attire, though it was bloodstained; blood was also pouring out of the torn flesh on their severed heads. Jane shuddered as Anne's familiar haughty laugher rang in her ears. Next moment, George's loud voice calling for her coursed through the air, and then Anne's hissing voice accused Jane of murdering herself and her brother.
Jane Boleyn gave a scream of shock, and then broke into hot, desperate tears. She cupped her face and shut her eyes, but she could see only rivers of crimson blood. She was shaking with violent sobs, and cold chills shuddered through her body. She was sobbing with fear from her visions and with fury at her own impotence to prevent her mind from creating the vivid flashes of the dead Anne and George. She couldn't stop weeping, and the more she tried to hold back, the harder she cried.
"I beseech you to leave me alone, Anne and George. It is not only my fault that you are dead," Jane lamented as she sobbed, every muscle of her body tense, her heart beating furiously in her chest. "When will you stop tormenting me? Wasn't it enough that I suffered so much in my marriage?"
She wept herself dry, her face buried in her arms, as if her hands were shielding her from the horrendous ghosts. In half an hour, she drifted into a strange trance, unable to make even a slight movement and look around, her heart gripped by fear that the visions would return. For a fraction of a moment, she wished that she had died instead of George or Anne, for in that case God would have spared her the agonizing torture of imagining her dead victims.
Jane sat on the window-ledge for a long time. She emerged from her slumber only when the sky above loomed pink and scarlet-gold. She raised her head and glanced outside, her eyes taking in the beautiful picture of the gorgeous sunrise. In childhood, she liked watching sunrises and sunsets, but today this beautiful and innocent picture of nature didn't make her happy as the remnants of the nightmares and visions were still clinging to her mind. Yet, sunrise meant that she would have a short break from her torments, and she suddenly felt swooning with relief.
"God help me forget Anne and George," Jane said aloud, looking at the rising sun in Heaven. She almost begged, feeling her heart constrict in her chest as a strong wave of despair crushed at her. "God let this day be the first happy day in my life without them."
Jane went to the small chapel in the manor to spend the morning in prayer and meditation. Sitting on the wooden pew and looking at the altar, she silently confessed in her sins and then began to pray, begging Anne and George to stop haunting her. She took an oath that she would worship God and the King till her dying day if only Anne and George stopped visiting her in her dreams. However, God didn't answer to her; instead, she again heard George's cruel words that her wretched lies had condemned her soul to eternal damnation. Unable to remain in the chapel anymore, Jane jumped to her feet, blessed herself with the cross, and stormed out of the chapel.
Jane spent the whole evening sitting on the edge of her bed and staring into the flames of the burning candles, as if she were mesmerized. She thought that the flames resembled the eternal hellfire, and she shuddered in overpowering fear, feeling as if she were falling, falling ever faster through blackness. She feared that she had already sold her immortal soul to the devil when she had lied to Cromwell.
She tried unsuccessfully to quell her fears that kept assaulting her over and over again, but then she smiled waspishly, her expression changing into viperous resignation. "George, I know that you and your sister will probably haunt me forever, but at least I am free and unmarried," she said aloud to the phantom of George Boleyn. "I will probably burn in the hellfire after my death, but I will not be alone, George – we will meet each other in hell anyway."
The slow stream of the images of her life with George played out in her mind, and she cringed in disgust, feeling no remorse that she had told Cromwell such a horrible lie. She would have again repeated her lies under oath, if it was necessary, even knowing about the harsh consequences of George's treason for herself. No, she did everything correctly, and now she was free from the manacles of her abominable marriage. She had no regrets and she didn't feel guilty. Even if Jane burned in hell alive, it was a much better life than a life of humiliation and pain with George.
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