The Price
Disclaimer: I am not a Theologian, a Historian, or a TV Producer; I therefore do not own anything.
WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT. Read at your own risk, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Chapter IV: Semper Fidelis
He sat alone, the room he should be sharing with his wife dark, empty, and lonesome, the weight of his wedding ring heavy on his heart finger. He stared at it, watching it flicker in the solitary candle light, Semper fidelis. Always faithful. He had worn the ring for so many years that the inscription – their inscription had faded. As had the vow. He closed his eyes, lashes locking the tears away, he had shed far too many. He had thought he had shed them all but there seemed to be an infinite amount of sorrow in the world, and only a finite amount of love. Love. He had been so in love with her when they exchanged their rings; so young, so poor. She had been his everything and he had been so in love he did not realize things could ever changed. He loved her from the moment he saw her after he graduated school, when he returned to Putney a man, no longer a boy incapable of anything but the lust of adventure, but a man ready and willing to open his heart to another. She had stolen that open heart with her honest smile and clear blue eyes. He loved her then, and Christ in heaven, he loved her now. Even now after she had broken that once open heart into to pieces more numerous than grains of sand by the sea. Even now after he learned that her smile held not but lies and her eyes were carefully guised, all smoke and mirrors, a window to a trick. He knew nothing of her soul though he had given her his own. They had been so happy then. But it seemed as if God did not want him to be happy.
He should have known. He should have realized that he would never achieve a lasting happiness. He should have learned when he lost his Margaret that he would never be able to keep any girl or woman, no matter how much he loved them. First Alexandria died, his beautiful, perfect Dria; she had died in his arms like a dove - hold too loosely it flies away, hold to tight and you bring about its demise. She was called away to God after only five short years, hardly a life. But they cried, they endured, they prayed and loved Gregory, a child of two at that time. They conceived again, Margaret did not survive the year; she too was taken from him after he gave his heart to her. It had only been a matter of time before Elizabeth would flee from him as well.
Had he not tried to please her? Had he not loved her with all he had? Provided her with everything that he could? Had she not been happy?
No.
It cut through him like an axe. How could she have been happy? Perhaps in the beginning he could have please her but in the end why should she have remained? She was beautiful, she was perfect, so full of life and yet saddled with a man such as he. Cold, ugly, distant. He never dance with her while they had the chance. He had gone to court and expected her to follow and then left her alone. He had worked; he had devoted himself to the King and in the process lost sight of what he had. He had taken her for granted, she deserved better. This lover, this man was treating her far better than he had, she was being worshiped as the Goddess she was. The way she should be worshiped. He had once been the priest of her alter but slowly stopped his devotion, visiting instead the temple of work and long nights. Communion with those he wished to impress, his sacrament was his agenda. Where did that leave his wife? It left her alone. It left her unloved. It left her with no choice but to leave him. It was so reasonable, so neat, so plain for him to see.
And yet he had to know, he needed to know, not the why, the bloody, painful obvious why, but the who? What was his name, what did he look like, who was he. What were the words he said, the ones Thomas had neglected all these years, what was the touch she truly wanted. If not his own then whose? He wanted to see the man who laid with his wife while he fell asleep at his desk, he wanted to meet the one who broke his faith in all those years. All those years he thought he was her own, her only.
He felt the dagger pierce his heart and turn, digging poisoned barbs into his soul. He was dead, dead inside. If only he was truly dead, had he died as he was supposed to have he would have died believing she loved him, believing in that beautiful promise of her fidelity. His tears could no longer be held in, nor could the bile in his throat. His head over a basin he purged himself, of his breakfast, of his soul. Love was only bitterness and lies. He shook; he could not stop the shaking. He could not still his body, he could not stop his mind, he could not but wish for death. And yet he had lived to see the day that the foundation he had built his life on crumble and fall.
He would give his soul to go back, to be able to hold her once again, to have not but sweat between them. For her to be his again. His in the way he had thought she was.
On the blood of Christ he loved her still. He would never stop loving her.
He fell to the floor unable to go on.
"Father, Father, please, wake up." Gregory's worried face swam before Thomas. He must've fallen asleep - still in a pile on the floor, physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted.
"Greg…" He whispered, his boy wrapping him in an embrace as if he had risen from the dead.
"What happened? Why are you on the floor?" With his son's help Thomas stood, his body stiff from the position, he was too old to be on the floor his joints declared with loud pops. He rubbed his still wet eyes with the back of his hand, the cool of her ring nearly sending him spiraling down once more. But he was not cold Cromwell for nothing; he clamped down on the hurt and looked with sadness at his boy. His very image, save for the parts that were his mother's. "Father what is going on?" It was a serious question and Gregory held his eye, it was a question he was going to have to answer. Answer even if it hurt him more than anything.
"Your mother and I are not as we once were."
"What?" It was the same thunderstruck expression of his mother. Thomas's voice broke.
"She has turned to another."
***
"No." Elizabeth the younger breathed. "No. I don't believe you. You would never." Elizabeth Senior whimpered.
"I did Bette, I did, I have betrayed Thomas, I have betrayed my husband. I was with another." Elizabeth took her mother's face in her hands and forced her to look at her, getting very close she spoke with conviction.
"I do. Not. Believe it. I have not been in this family long, I realize. I have much to learn still but I do know one thing, I learned it the first time we met. You love your husband. You love him in a way that words cannot begin to describe, in a way that the mind cannot comprehend. If I love Gregory half as much as you love Thomas you could never, ever, stray." Elizabeth tried to shake her head, close her eyes but her daughter held her fast.
"You don't understand!" her voice cracked.
"Then make me understand. Tell me. Tell me everything." She pulled away and crossed to the door, Elizabeth held Elizabeth's eyes as she turned the lock. "I am not leaving until you tell me." Beth looked at Bette; Bette narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her expansive breast, slightly awkward considering the girth of her child.
Elizabeth folded her hands as if in prayer, elbows propped on her knees she rested her forehead against her crossed thumbs. She took a deep, shaking breath. Sitting up she squared her dainty shoulders, eyes still closed. Bette crossed back to her mother – in - law's side, settling herself on the woman's bed, her hands clasped in her lap, unsure if touching would help or hurt.
"Please," Elizabeth said softly, "Please do not stop me; I fear I may never start again."
"Take as much time as you need." Another shaking breath.
"Thomas was released from the Tower the day of his execution, the hour the ax was to fall. Three days prior I was informed of… of the date. I went to the King, on my knees I begged. I begged for Thomas as I beg Christ each day for forgiveness. I knew the King's pride was wounded, and the man stands upon his pride as a colossus bestrides the world. When it is wounded he seeks comfort and council in those who flatter him. Your father is no island, he has his enemies and like a tempest they ragged and crashed against him. The king sought to destroy, to punish, to inflict pain beyond pain. That was when I bore Thomas the first of many ills. I told him a martyr's death would be a welcomed death; there is but quick pain in an ax. But banishing him, taking his hobbies, forcing him to be idle the rest of his days – that would be a continuous, living hell. I was so desperate for him to spare Thomas. Thomas is more to me than my own soul; I love him with all that I am. The King asked me how much I loved my husband. 'With all my heart' I replied.
***
"Then how far would you go to save him?"
"Hera's tasks for the Hero Hercules would be no trial for me if it would free my husband." The King replaced his finger with his lips, tongue darting between them to press feather soft to her skin. "Your Majesty!" Elizabeth gasped at the warm wetness of her sovereign's tongue tracing the swell of her breast. First one and then the other.
"It is your choice Mistress, Block or Bed?" She felt her jaw drop, her heart stop.
"Your Majesty I-"
"Come to my chambers at nine o'clock, your husband lives, deny me and I will have him butchered." Henry spoke rising to his full, impressive height, head and shoulders above the petite Baroness.
"Your Majesty I-"
"You have until nine o'clock Lady Cromwell choose wisely." He smiled cruelly. There was nothing she could do or say. Elizabeth dropped into a curtsey.
"Your Majesty."
"Mistress." He dismissed, when she reached the door he added, "When you come, don't wear anything… complicated." His laughter rang in her ears.
"What, what could I do? On the one hand, if I remained faithful I was as bloody as the ax man, on the other I had… I had to…" Elizabeth took a deep breath, her voice even weaker than before.
"He took me thrice, like a Bitch in heat I was. Over a table… my… my every orifice, there was not a part of me he did not take as his own and on my lips his name."
"Louder!"
"Henry!"
"LOUDER!"
"HENRY!"
"When he had his fill of me he tossed me a sheet and called for a Page."
"Your husband is a lucky man mistress, and he shall live to enjoy you yet. Boy, draw up a commutation for Master Cromwell. He is to be stripped of all his titles, and not even his dead body may return to be put in the family plot. He is henceforth banished, under pain of death never to return."
***
"I save my husband by betraying him." Fresh tears over took the older woman and Elizabeth could not keep silent any longer with a disgusted cry she sprang to her feet, the fastest she'd moved in months.
"Betrayed? Betrayed? I do not recall you betraying anyone!" She paced, waddling quickly, angrily, gesticulating wildly.
"I slept with the King! I was with another man."
"You didn't choose to be!" Bette exclaimed, "Block or Bed - that is not a choice! You did not betray anyone, you are not a monster," She rested a hand on Beth's quaking shoulder, squeezing gently; standing before her she offered words of comfort. "Truly, Mother Elizabeth, you did nothing to be ashamed of."
"He hates me." She whispered.
"He does not *know*. And he will not know until you tell him. Tell him everything. You had as much choice in this as if the King had held you down and raped you outright."
For a moment there was silence, Elizabeth's hand on Elizabeth's shoulder, her head hung low. And then slowly, slowly, as if coming back from the dead Beth placed her hand over Bette's. She looked up, eyes glistening with tears unshed earlier, but faintly, deep in their depths, barely distinguishable there was the light of hope.
"How did you become so wise Elizabeth Cromwell?" Bette smiled and squeezed her elder's hand,
"I had a brilliant role model." A faint smile.
"Gregory married a better woman than he deserves."
"You do not give him enough credit, he is your son." His love and support was what made her the woman she was today, tenacity and thoughtfulness all from his tutelage and the example of his parents. "And I must go and speak with him. I will send a servant with a tray up - I want you to eat something."
"I am not-"
"Going to argue with me." Bette silenced her mother - in - law's protest.