A/N
Response to odd couple ficathon
~Carolina
"Believe in kissing
Fight for tenderness
Care as much as you do
Cry as much as you want
Insist the world be theater
and love the drama
Take your time
Move as fast you do" ~Manifesta to Young Women and Girls by Eve Ensler in I Am Emotional Creature (2010)
Memory:
I remember when I was five, my dad became crazy, my mum took over my education and all of my father's ambitions to spin and weave letter and thread on knowledge shattered.
My brother became the Head of House, and he became the tyrant that I came to knew my whole life, but I would soon meet a new tyrant and it didn't surprise me that it was all thanks to my overly strict mother and my brother who took advantage of my father's mania.
Memory: I am twenty four my brother tells me I will be shipped off to Engalnd to marry the King.
I am excited I will be a Queen, finally I will go away from here and when I finally arrive to England I realize I have never seen so much green before it is beautiful. I don't ever want to leave!
Memory:
The King is mad and he calls me his Mare, but I want to make amends for my uglyness, so I propose a marriage between his eldest daughter and my cousin, the handsome Phillip Wittelsbach Count Palatine. He has fended the Turks when they took over Vienna, and he is a warrior at heart, I know as I lay looking at him chasing at Lady Mary, challenging her on the dance floor that he will not let her go. He will marry her and they will be happy, but suddenly this dream is shattered as the Master Secretary whom everyone has taught me to be afraid tells me that I should bed His Majesty and give him a son.
I tell him bluntly I can't. Why should I? I am twenty five! I want my own fairy tale, I want my Prince to be handsome. It is not fair, no one is coming, no one is going to rescue me and I have to stand here and hear this man tell me that I must do everything in my power to get the King to like me, suddenly when I am about to keep telling him how the leg stinks, Thomas Cromwell knows where to hit.
"The Lady Mary" he says slowly "will be very sad if she goes through another heart break" For any man or woman who has known the Earl of Essex they know perfectly well that he has never bore sympathy for the Lady Mary, though it was told to me at one point that he did for her mother and his prayers were at first directed for the Princess Dowager to recant and give up in her useless fight and recognize that she was nothing more than a Princess Dowager. I thought about how, if the King were to anul my marriage offer me the same deal. I would accept it, gladly, but despite always wanting the best for myself I could not help but think in the Lady Mary and her sister who I became closer to Lady Elizabeth Tudor. Those girls did not deserve to go through more stepmothers, haven't they suffered enough deceptions already? And my cousin, he loves Mary but I know he honors the call of family more than his heart. If the engagement were to be broken he would go back and Lady Mary would be left heartbroken ... and the Mistress Howard she would take my place and I begin to see how Mary will blame everything on her. She is brash, young and extremely hot tempered like the King, I didn't want to think of the consequences but Thomas Cromwell made me and at last I had to nod.
He left that day and I began planning. I told the Lady Bryant, she doesn't agree much with what the Earl of Essex says but for some odd reason I can't understand, she says she will help me.
I try to make myself attractive and while Phillip and Mary discuss over religion and enjoy themselves in each other's company I am left with hopelesness for the King will not bed me and I don't want to either.
I guess it is the end then, I can only hope Lady Mary Tudor understand someday.
Memory:
Something unexpected happened one day. I looked myself at the mirror. I saw not the face of Anne of Cleves staring back at me but Anne Boleyn, I could see her clear as day in the horrific vision when she lost her head. The head moved and spoke to me "You will suffer the same"
I screamead and rolled on my back on my bed. I dismissed everyone.
"If I fail to please the King will he kill me?" I had asked Lady Bryant once and she said nothing. Nothing she did in fact was helping and the Lady Rochford was more determined to be with her political cousin Kitty than to help me. What if the rumors were true? What if he was so vengeful, and my name a reminder of his first Anne, he chooses to kill me?
No, I cannot, I must not think of that ... but I cannot help it. I am doomed, I know it, I just know it.
In that time comes Thomas Cromwell, he says he noticed all of my ladies being dismissed and he became worried as one of them, Lady Bryant -no doubt I think sourly- told him that I was overcome with worry. I nod telling him it is true.
"Your Majesty" He begins sitting at the bed surpising me as he puts one hand on top of my shoulder. "It is going to be alright. I believe that His Majesty will come to his senses"
I shake my head, he is trying to be understanding but I can see right through his eyes. He is only trying to save his skin. "No!" I yell and keep yelling "No!"
I will fail, and then His Majesty will kill me and then ... I begin to cry and it seems that what no one had seen Thomas Cromwell do before, he leans forward and with his other hand he begins to run my arm. Why is he so kind? He should be impatient, I know that if this marriage fails his head will be on the line. But he seems to forget about it and it seemed back then so surreal, impossible. Thomas Cromwell taking sympathy for another?
Alas it was like that.
Memory:
It all happened too fast. The next week we kept on talking, and the more it seemd probably that His Majesty would abandon me, I became desperate as I noticed thanks to the Master Secretary that Brandon, Seymour and Sir Francis Bryan along with his uncle the Duke of Norfolk and my Chief Lady In Waiting Lady Rochford were plotting and knowing what I heard about them, it would not end well. I could have an anulment, but then again the king who had become very angry for the lies Norfolk was feeding to him about me, I could also end in the scaffold like the vission of my predecessor I had witness weeks before.
Somehow I didn't try to bed him. I became accepting of my impending fate, whatever it may be I would face it without fear like my precious and youngest stepdaughter's mother had.
Memory:
As I was in bed, I heard the doors open and it was Thomas Cromwell. He was desperate, he was afraid that it was now all over. He said that any day the Earl of Hertford the oldest Seymour would come and he would tell me the marriage was over. I asked on what grounds?
"On grounds that you were betrothed prior to His Majesty with the Duke of Lorraine"
The Duke of Lorraine? But that was old story, yet I could see it in his eyes that he was serious. It was all over, he said that I would be free and be given a fair deal to become the King's sister. I should feel proud, yet seeing the man's eyes with worry and how he began to talk about his son Gregory, his daughter in law Elizabeth Seymour and all of everything he had worked for gone.
It was the german ideal, determination, strength and purity, what my mother always told me, but I clearly could not live up to that ideal. And I bear no shame for it is a stupid ideal, and then I become aware of the smell of ale and other alcoholic drinks in Thomas Cromwell's breath.
Poor man, I wish there was something I could do, but there isn't. Suddenly as I sit up ready to tell him he should go and rest, he grabs my face, each side of it with his hands, I am about to scream but I am too paralyzed with the shock as he leans forward and kisses me. I have never been kissed and I have never wondered what it felt, I really never felt any desire to. Why should I? It made people go blind, and do irrational things, the King of England was proof of that.
But today all my worries and his sorrows were pulled from our minds, as we intensifies our kiss and what had only began as a kiss became something more ... our souls interwined and he entered me. I whimpered but I loved it afterwards and to this day I don't regret it.
Memory:
A new color to pain the world. Something unexpected happened. First Phillip Wittelsbach did not abandon the Country. Yes you heard me right, he continued to woo Mary, and Katherine Howard my lady in waiting had been for some reason to this day I cannot fathom, suggested to the King that he let his daughter wed my cousin. It surprised everyone, but I guessed Kitty wanted to win the Lady Mary's approval as much as all his children, especially the Lady Elizabeth whom we both agreed was a sweetheart and it was clear she was becoming her father's favorite. The child deserved no better than charming quotes, and glances from kids her age who were beginning to notice her beauty. I could only hope the best for her, I was not wrong back then and I am not now that she became the best of us all.
The anulment did not come until two weeks after, I don't know how I did it but I guess thanks in part to Cromwell and Lady Bryan I managed to keep the King's attention on me, of course it was useless but I only wanted it enough so he would not back away from the marriage arrangement between my sooner to be ex-step daughter and my cousin.
After the wedding however Seymour came along with Sir Francis Bryan and they told me I was no longer his wife, that under the pre contact with the Duke of Lorraine I would become the King's sister and as compensation for the grave mistake I would be given his second wife's former State, Hever Castle. I almost passed out, the Lady Bryan and Lady Rochford were thankfully there to catch me.
It is during this time that I became aware of what I was carrying inside me. A child and not the King's but his Secretary. I could be charged with treason, even if I was no longer His Majesty's wife and now his "sister" I would still have to pay the price since it was stated that I would not marry.
The Lady Bryan told me that if I had consumated the marriage I would not have this problem, but even if I did I replied to her calmly, I would not have led the King to such deception and I could not abort it though the thought passed my mind many, many, many times.
A plan came to mind, I spoke to the King to consider the Earl for all that he had done in the past, and that it was my fault not his. The King roared at me saying it was none of my business, but as I kept pleading for his life feigning to be nothing but a poor fool and that as a woman it was unnatural for me not to feel empathy for others. I don't know if he knew where I was going with this, but finally after two more visits and kneelings he accepted, and to "punish" him he stripped Cromwell of his title leaving him only as with the title of Sir. It did not matter that he lost two of his largest states, for he said to me that he had found his savior in me.
I was happy to have saved him, but I was not really sure if this is what I wanted, marrying him I mean. The sooner we did, he didn't force me to consumate our marriage, instead he said he would wait until I was ready, and after two months of bickering with myself when I was at Hever with him I finally said I was ready even though internally I still felt I wasn't.
Thomas said to me that he would not take me if I wasn't sure, but I wanted him to, besides I had to tell him that he was going to be a father soon. He was gentle, not a passionate night like the first night where it was only sex, this time we did made love and we both felt every emotion that two people who are in love feel. At the time I thought I was only doing it out of duty, part of me still thinks that, but now I realize that in the moment he stroke my cheek and kissed me free of passion, that I had fallen in love and that I saw what no other person did in Cromwell: a caring, a strong, careful and dedicated family man.
I soon told him of what lay inside me, he became happy. He said he would never stop loving me and I believed him.
Present:
Anne had no more memories to write. All that she had shared with her husband were nothing more than feelings of love and caring for one another. She felt proud of what she did to save him, if given the chance she would gladly do it again, only this time she would not have to rely on him drinking she thought smirking as she closed her memoirs and gave them to her stepson Greoggory Cromwell. He was more mature now. He had grown very close to his stepmother as she had grown very close to him and his wife.
Thomas came to visit her after Greggory left, her memoirs still in his hands. Thomas said nothing to his son. He felt like part of him was slipping away and there was nothing he could do about it. He prayed, he even threatened to sell his soul to the devil to have one more night with her, but Anne had told him that it was alright. She had lived two years with him, and in those two years she felt like her whole life had been well spent just by having him at her side.
"I don't want you to leave Anne" He said grasping her hand. She felt his tight grip. He wasn't ready yet to let her go, but she told him that he must for the son she bore him and for the two day year old daughter. She said in a patient voice that betrayed what she truly felt: sad because she would not see little Tommy's second birthday, and that she would not get to raise her daughter Amelia.
"Whatever happens" she began "remember these two years, nothing else after that matters. Remember, promise me also that you will not blame Amelia. It is not her fault ..."
She stopped talking as she felt dizziness, she didn't finish her sentence as she slumped and her head falling sideways she finally closed her eyes.
"Anne! Anne!" Thomas tried waking her up and shook her hand never letting go. Servants and his son had to take him. His wife was death, he could not accept it. And after the funeral where he was ready to give in, his son had come in his room that he had shared with Anne, he gave him her memoirs and said "She wanted you not to feel alone" and then he left his father to read his late stepmother's memoirs.
As Thomas openned the first page he began hearing his wife's voice through her beautiful writing ...
Memory ...
He finished the last page and closed th book putting in his drawer. He looked himself at the mirror. There were gray lines, but that was not what caught his attention, it was Anne standing besides him "I love you" she whispered and he felt her hand on his shoulder. He turned and the illusion was broken, when he was ready to exit and head downstairs where a carriage was waiting for them to head to the chapel where the funeral would take place, he hear a voice belonging to his German Princess "We will meet again just not now" and afterwards all his worries were gone.
He shed no tears at the funeral, he didn't have to for everything he and Anne had lived had opaqued through all the darkness in their previous lives. He felt at peace as he said not a good bye but a soft "I shall see you again"
And the tale of the German Princess who married for love and rescued the Lord did not end there, many years later when Thomas was sick in bed ready to die surrounded by his two sons and daughter, he finally closed down his eyes and the moment he opened them he saw Anne standing there holding her hand out to him "Will you join me?"
And he said yes, now they were together, and standing there next to her at Hever it was truly Heaven.