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Chapter Six
4th April 1536
Although she had stopped being sick in the mornings by the third month of her pregnancy, before she was confined to her bed, Anne still found that the sight and smell of certain foods could make her feel queasy. The smell of the plate of stew Lady Alice brought her was strong and her stomach churned as she stirred the gravy with her fork before picking up a piece of meat and bringing it to her lips.
"Is something wrong, sweetheart?" Henry asked, noticing her slight grimace as she chewed.
"It tastes a little strange... sweet." She said after she swallowed, smiling a little. "It's nothing." Occasionally, other foods tasted slightly odd, something that Mistress Porter insisted was not unusual for a woman in her condition, as her unborn child could sometimes cause her senses to fool her. She considered requesting something else but reasoned that whatever else they provided her with was unlikely to be more tempting so she continued with the stew.
"Good." Satisfied that she was eating well, Henry turned the conversation to their daughter. "Francis is sending envoys to the court to arrange Elizabeth's marriage with the Duke of Anglomeme," he explained cheerfully, "and I thought that it would be a good idea to bring Elizabeth up from Hatfield so that she can be presented to them," he smiled as he warmed to his theme, "she's old enough for it now, and they can report back to Francis about how beautiful England's princess is and how fortunate the young Duke is. She should stay at the court afterwards," he mused aloud, "until the baby is born. She should be here to meet her brother and attend the christening."
He and Cromwell had also discussed the idea of whether or not the Lady Mary should be invited to the court, and whether or not she was to be permitted to attend the birth and the christening of the heir but he decided against mentioning that to Anne, at least for the moment. Speaking of Mary could upset her sometimes and as nothing had been decided yet, as he and Cromwell couldn't decide whether it would be better to have Mary there so that she could be seen to acknowledge the heir with her presence or whether it was better not to draw any attention to her than was necessary, there was no need to distress her over it.
"I think that's a wonderful idea." Anne told him, swallowing as vomit rose in her throat, reaching for the goblet of water by her bedside and taking a sip before continuing to eat.
"Then I'll arrange it straight away – and, if you're not too tired, you can choose the fabrics and the designs for her gowns. We will have to make sure that she looks her best for the visit, won't we? I want everybody to see how beautiful our daughter is."
Anne nodded, wincing as her stomach cramped and her baby kicked, as if in protest.
"Anne, what is it?" Henry asked, noticing that her face had paled slightly and that her expression betrayed her pain.
"I don't know." She pressed her hand to her mouth as bile rose in her throat, knocking her plate and the folding table on which it was set off her lap as she leaned over the side of her bed, retching.
"Anne!" He caught her by the shoulders, supporting her, calling as loudly as he could. "Mistress Porter! Lady Mary!"
His sister-in-law and the midwife hurried into the room, with Mary hurrying to Anne's side, smoothing her hair away from her forehead and crying out in alarm as she began to shiver uncontrollably, snatching a silver bowl from the washstand and holding it in front of Anne as she retched.
"What has happened, Your Majesty?" Mistress Porter demanded of him, her keen eyes taking in Anne's state, together with the plate of food upended on the floor. "She was well enough this morning, no sign of sickness." Her eyes widened, her gaze drawn to the plate on the floor. "Until she began to eat..."
"Poison!" Henry pushed past her, storming out into the outer chamber, stalking past the people outside, ignoring their astonished gasps and hushed questions about what was happening, flinging open the door, barking an order at one of the guards stationed outside to send for Dr Linacre, ordering the others not to allow anybody else to leave the room, on penalty of death before turning back to the bewildered people inside. "The Queen has been poisoned." He announced. "And I believe that one of you is responsible."
The King was angry, his expression livid as he paced the room, refusing to allow any of the bewildered, frightened ladies in waiting or his own attendants to leave, not yet.
Only Dr Linacre and half a dozen of the palace guards were allowed to enter, the former ordered straight in to tend to Anne while the latter were instructed to make sure that nobody tried to leave the room, or to discard any object until their turn came to be searched and questioned.
Brereton watched as he quizzed Lady Alice, seized upon as the first and most likely suspect as it had been she who brought in the tainted stew, conscious of the fact that the empty vial in his pocket, still bearing faint traces of the powder, would be evidence enough to condemn him should it be discovered on his person and praying fervently that the young woman would be able to summon the strength she needed to remain silent, to know that her silence would be her best defence, that it was God's will that she not betray him.
Or was it?
The poison was not supposed to act so quickly.
Anne shouldn't have become sick until after she finished her meal, after the King had left her, with Brereton accompanying him, giving him ample time to dispose of the incriminating vial, to meet with Chapuys who could arrange safe passage out of England for him, allowing him to escape to Rome, to seek shelter with His Holiness, while at the same time guaranteeing that by the time anybody thought that something had happened or that they needed to send for a physician, it would be too late for them to do anything for her.
Why had God made the poison work faster, why had He intervened to help the harlot when His servant was trying to destroy her, to save England's soul?
Had it been God's will that His servant would fail, or the Devil's?
Was the Devil, to whom Anne had sold her soul in exchange for the Queen's crown, so powerful that he had been able to save his unholy disciple from her deserved retribution at the hands of God's servant?
If the Devil was prepared to intervene to save Anne, then only God would be able to help Brereton now.
All sound seemed to fade from the room as he watched Lady Alice turn to him, her face wet with tears as she pointed an accusing finger at him. Her lips moved but there was only silence, from her, from the King and from the guards as they turned their attention to him. Two of the guards moved to take him by the upper arms, holding him in place as the King walked towards them.
Denials would avail him nothing. He knew that.
As the King moved towards him, his expression stony at the thought that one of his own servants could have been responsible for an attempt on Anne's life, Brereton put his hand in his pocket, before withdrawing it and holding his hand out to him, palm-up, revealing the vial.
"Come now, Your Majesty," Dr Linacre encouraged, tipping another dose into the small glass goblet and passing it to Mistress Porter, who held the Queen steady as she forced the liquid into her mouth, wiping stray drops away from her lips with a linen napkin and motioning for Lady Mary Stafford to hold the basin in front of Anne as she vomited, the emetic – the strongest he dared to give her in her condition – forcing her body to purge itself of the poison. "Just a few more doses."
"She's so sick already!" Mary protested, frightened by how white Anne was, her hair damp with sweat and matted to her forehead. She was barely unconscious, almost unaware of what was happening around her, allowing them to force the doses into her without fighting. She didn't have the strength to fight.
Dr Linacre didn't even spare her a glance as he gently grasped Anne's wrist, estimating the speed of her heartbeat as he answered. "I know that, Lady Mary, but we cannot take any chances, not with poison. We must make sure that every trace of it leaves her body." He explained as he measured out another dose and passed it to Mistress Porter to give to her. "We cannot allow any of it to remain to do harm to the Queen or to the child."
From the next room, they could hear the sound of one of the ladies being questioned, her tearful protestations of innocence and insistence that she loved the Queen and would never, ever do anything to harm her in any way, could hear her accuse another person, on whom the attention of the King and his guards was immediately fixed. After another few moments the order came to take somebody, a man, to the Tower. They wanted to know who but that wasn't important for them, not now.
When they had made sure that Anne was safe, then they could worry about the identity of the person responsible.
After several more doses of the emetic, after which Anne was only bringing up mouthfuls of bitter fluid, Dr Linacre finally pronounced himself satisfied that there could be nothing left of the poison she had ingested, thanking God that she had only taken a few mouthfuls of the stew.
"I never thought that I would have cause to be thankful that Her Majesty is a poor eater, even at the best of times, but it may have saved her life today." Mistress Porter remarked, passing Anne's limp form into Mary's arms and allowing her to support her while she filled a goblet with water and held it to Anne's lips, encouraging her to drink. "Just a few sips, at least, Your Majesty," she said kindly, holding it steady while Anne obeyed, "we must make sure that you replenish the fluids you have lost."
It was doubtful whether Anne heard much of what was being said around her but she drank, eager to wash the sour, bitter taste from her mouth, before sinking back against the pillows, exhausted while Mary washed her face with a damp cloth.
"How is she?" Henry demanded, hurrying into the room once Brereton had been hauled away to the Tower for questioning, his anxious eyes fixed on Anne.
"I have done all I can for the Queen, Your Majesty," Dr Linacre told him. "If we are fortunate, we will have come to her assistance in time and it will be enough to preserve her life."
"And our child?"
Dr Linacre shook his head regretfully. "That is in God's hands, Your Majesty." He said quietly, privately thinking that after the Queen had come so close to losing her child in January, it would be a miracle if the baby was able to cling to life after the added strain placed on her body today but it had already proved that it was strong enough to survive once before, so perhaps they would be lucky again this time. "We will do all we can for her, and we will have to pray that it will be enough."
"We should change the bed," Mistress Porter spoke up, needing to be able to do something constructive, "and change the Queen into a clean nightgown."
Dr Linacre nodded, excusing himself and leaving the room to allow the two women privacy as they tended to Anne. Henry didn't leave but he averted his eyes as Madge Shelton and Nan Saville entered and as they helped her out of her nightgown and into a clean one before dressing her in her furred nightrobe.
"Your Majesty?" Mary spoke up, her tone respectful.
"Hmm?" Henry asked, turning to look at her.
"We need to move Anne for a few minutes, to change the bed." She said quietly, supporting Anne and waiting for Henry to take her.
He picked her up and cradled her in his arms as he carried her out to the outer chamber, setting her gently down on a low couch and holding one of her limp hands in his as Madge followed them, tucking a fur cover over her legs.
"This is your first time out of your bedchamber in a while, isn't it?" He remarked, trying to keep his tone light, not wanting to frighten her any more than she must have been already. She nodded mutely, shivering despite the heat of the blazing fire only a couple of yards away. "Are you cold?" He asked gently, not waiting for her to answer before tucking the fur cover more closely around her, touching her face and finding it cool and clammy to his touch.
It seemed to take a few moments for his question to penetrate her mind and when it did, she shook her head slightly in response. "No." Her voice was soft and she was silent for a few more minutes afterwards before she said anything else. "Who was it?"
"Don't worry about that, sweetheart, not now." He tried to reassure her, not wanting her to know who it was, to know that a man who he had trusted, who had lived closely with them for so long, who had tried to kill her.
"It was the Lady Mary!" She exclaimed suddenly, sitting up, her eyes wide as she stared past his shoulder into the heart of the fire. "She ordered it! She doesn't want us to have our son! She wants me dead! I know that she wants me dead!" She insisted, her voice becoming louder and shriller as she made her allegations, tears springing to her eyes.
"No, sweetheart," he tried to comfort her, putting his arms around her and hugging her close to him, trying to calm her. "Mary wouldn't..."
"She would!" Anne insisted hysterically. "She hates me! She's always hated me, ever since we were married! She wouldn't acknowledge me as Queen and I know that she calls Elizabeth a bastard when she doesn't think that anyone will hear her – our daughter! She'd rather see me dead than let me give you a son!"
"Anne..."
"Oh my God!" She exclaimed, horrified, as though suddenly remembering something. "She's still at Hatfield – she's still part of Elizabeth's household, she could hurt her! You can't let her stay there! You can't let her hurt our child!"
"It's alright," he said soothingly, brushing her hair away from her face. "I'll send a message to Hatfield immediately, as soon as I leave you. I'll send orders that she is not to be allowed to wait on Elizabeth until further notice and, when you're feeling better, we'll talk about it then. If you still don't want Mary to be part of Elizabeth's household, I'll give orders for her immediate removal, okay?" Anne nodded and he cupped her chin in one hand, kissing her forehead and forcing himself to smile reassuringly, for her sake. The last thing Anne or the baby needed was for her to fret over this, or anything else. "It's over now, you're safe. I won't let anything like this happen to you again, I swear it. It's alright. Everything's alright."
He and Chapuys must have been the only two people in the room whose mood was sombre that night. The rest of the court was happily celebrating Christmas but for them, it was far from a merry time and as they watched the King and his harlot together, they both felt a sinking disappointment.
When Chapuys, who had recruited a network of spies both in the royal court and in the houses of several prominent nobles, first learned that the King had made Lady Eleanor Luke his mistress, it was an optimistic sign, the first since the harlot bore her child, a daughter instead of the son she promised and that the King so confidently expected. Sadly, Elizabeth's birth had not shown the King the error of his ways and prompted him to leave Anne and return to his true wife but they had hoped that through Lady Eleanor, the so-called Queen's hold over the King would be weakened, that he had learned that one woman was little different from another between the sheets. However, as they watched them together that night, watched the tenderness in the King's expression as he kissed Anne, they knew that it would take more than a mistress to drag her down.
As long as she held the King's interest, as long as he visited her bed, she was a threat.
They were lucky the first time, when her child proved to be a daughter, but if she conceived again, if she gave the King a son, then her power would be assured, as would Queen Katherine's destruction, and that of Princess Mary.
"I could still do it." Brereton spoke quickly, wanting to assure the other man that although he had failed in his task before, there was still hope, he could still rid England of the harlot. "I could find a way to poison her."
"No." Chapuys responded shortly.
"But I thought that was what we..."
"It would be blamed on my master. At the moment he does not need that – he has a war with the Turks to contend with."
"Well, why should anyone ever know?"
"Don't be stupid, Brereton," Chapuys responded, a definite trace of scorn in his voice. "They would find you and torture you, and you would tell them everything."
"No, I wouldn't." Brereton insisted. "I'd die a martyr's death."
"Hmph!" Chapuys scoffed. "You've never seen a man being tortured. Don't you understand? You don't act alone."
Chapuys had never believed that he would be able to resist torture, believed that if he was caught, he would tell his interrogators everything he knew to spare himself the suffering he would endure under rack and iron for his silence.
He believed that he would betray His Holiness, that he would reveal that it was the pope who first called for the harlot to be killed, before she could do any more damage, a revelation that would surely be used against His Holiness by evil, heretical Lutheran sects who would undoubtedly seize the opportunity to paint the pope, God's representative on Earth, as an evil man who conspired in the murder of a woman, rather than as a holy man who spoke for God and who did His divine will in ensuring that a threat to Christendom was neutralized, that one of the Devil's witches was punished as she deserved.
He would not.
No matter what they did to them, he would never name His Holiness and if his interrogators suggested that he might be involved, he would deny it, even with his dying breath.
That was the thought he clung to as the man paid to tear information from the bodies of prisoners in the Tower approached him, the tip of the iron poker he held in one large, meaty hand burning with a red hot glow.
Whatever happened, he must protect His Holiness.
As he promised Anne he would, Henry went straight to his study as soon as he left her chamber and began to write a message, taking advantage of the time he had alone before the four men he had sent for, members of his privy council whom he trusted above all others, arrived to prepare a message intended for Lady Bryan, to be delivered to Hatfield with all possible speed, giving orders that the Lady Mary was to be immediately relieved of her duties as one of the maids in waiting in attendance on the Princess Elizabeth and that she was to be kept confined to her own chamber until he sent orders to the contrary.
Anne was so convinced that Mary was responsible for the attempt on her life and so terrified by the prospect that she might do something to hurt Elizabeth that he knew that there would be no reasoning with her, not in her present frame of mind. She was frightened, understandably so given the ordeal she had endured, and inclined to be hysterical so it was best to humour her for the moment, to put her mind at ease by any means necessary.
When she was feeling better, when they finished interrogating Brereton and he could go to her with reassurances that Mary had not been involved in any way, she could decide what she wanted to do then; if she preferred to keep Mary as one of Elizabeth's attendants, or if she would prefer her to be removed from Hatfield altogether.
If Anne did decide that she no longer wanted Mary to serve Elizabeth, that would not be such a bad thing, Henry mused as he dusted his letter with sand to dry the excess ink before folding the parchment and setting his seal on it, so that it could not be opened by anybody save its intended recipient, who would know that the letter was genuine.
If Mary was to be removed from Elizabeth's household, she could not go back to Ludlow Castle, her home when she was still mistakenly considered to be the Princess of Wales and which would, with the grace of God, be the home of the son Anne carried one day, when he was old enough to be sent to govern the principality, as was fitting for the Prince of Wales. Mary could not be housed in the state she had enjoyed as a legitimate princess, that would be both unfitting and it would send the wrong message to the people, but he had given his illegitimate son his own establishment at Durham House, so he could give his illegitimate daughter her own little household in one of his country manors if Anne remained insistent that Mary should not live with their daughter.
He handed it to the messenger, instructing him to ride straight to Hatfield without stopping for any reason and, as the messenger left, Brandon, the Duke of Norfolk and Thomas and George Boleyn entered, their expressions ranging between bewilderment and concern.
"My lords," Henry greeted them, motioning for them to take seats around the table.
"How is my daughter?" Thomas Boleyn asked immediately, moving to take the seat on Henry's right hand, something that drew grimaces from Brandon and Norfolk, both of whom outranked him and who felt that that place was one that they had more of a right to that he did.
Henry frowned at them; precedence was an undeniable, unavoidable part of life at court but, under the circumstances, as Anne's father, Boleyn could be forgiven if his concern for his daughter outweighed protocol. "She's well... as well as can be expected." He assured him, including George in the remark. "Dr Linacre has done everything he can and she's awake now and alert. We'll need to keep an eye on her for a couple of days but Linacre thinks that she's going to be fine."
"Thank God!" George exclaimed in heartfelt tones.
"Indeed." Boleyn echoed. "And the child? He is also well?"
Henry frowned at that, remembering Dr Linacre's words about how, as far as the baby was concerned, they would have to wait and see. "He hopes that he will survive, as do I." He said quietly, before looking up to meet the eyes of each of the other men in turn. "I hope that you'll all pray for him, and for the Queen."
"Of course, Your Majesty." Boleyn answered at once, his son seconding him with a nod, an example Norfolk swiftly followed, and Brandon a moment later.
"Do we know who was responsible for this vicious, underhanded attack?" The anger in Boleyn's tone was audible as he asked the question, furious at the thought that his daughter and unborn grandson had come so close to being murdered.
"William Brereton." Henry responded.
"But he is one of Your Majesty's grooms!" Brandon exclaimed immediately, his thoughtless remark drawing a glare from Henry.
"I am aware of that, my lord of Suffolk!" He snapped angrily. "It has not escaped my notice that the man who poisoned the Queen, my wife, the man who would have killed her and our unborn child if he could, was a member of my household, was one of my personal attendants, trusted with the care of my person, for over three years!"
The thought was a horrific one. For more than three years, Brereton lived at court, as one of Henry's grooms, serving in his chamber and tending to his personal needs, occasionally being the man entrusted with the task of sleeping by his bed and guarding him on the nights when he wasn't sharing Anne's bed... or that of one of his mistresses. He was trusted and he lived in close proximity with Henry, closer than most of the court did, a great honour and a great trust.
And that trust had been bestowed upon a man who had tried to kill the Queen and the prince she carried.
Would Henry have been his next target, once Anne and their unborn child were disposed of?
"What if this isn't the first time that he has tried to kill the Queen?" Norfolk suggested. "During the Queen's coronation procession – when Your Grace was acting as High Constable," he added, looking across the table at Brandon his words a pointed reminder of the fact that he was ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of the royal couple that day and that it was only luck that kept him from failing in his duty to them. "There was an attempt made to shoot either Your Majesty or the Queen, was there not? The shooter was never caught. Perhaps that was also Brereton's doing."
Henry nodded. It made sense. "That will be investigated."
"I wonder..." Boleyn mused aloud, seeing an opportunity and seizing it. "When the Queen miscarried almost two years ago, it struck me as odd that such a thing could happen. She is young and healthy and she had nothing but the best of care so there was no reason for her to lose the child." If he remembered that he had berated his daughter when he learned of her mishap, demanding to know what she had done to cause her to lose the child, his guileless expression gave no indication of it. "Perhaps Brereton managed to poison her then, without her knowledge or ours, lacing her food with a potion to make her miscarry." Seeing from Henry's face that he was giving the possibility serious consideration and knowing that if he accepted the theory as fact, it would absolve Anne of responsibility for her previous failure, he did not press it any further, turning the subject slightly. "Brereton cannot have been acting alone." He stated positively.
"My Lord Wiltshire is right." Norfolk agreed, seizing the opportunity to show himself to be helpful in this matter. "As a man, William Brereton gains nothing if Queen Anne is killed, or if Your Majesty's son dies before he even has a chance to draw his first breath, so we must assume that he is in the employ of another, somebody who would profit from her death."
Henry nodded his agreement, calmed somewhat by this logic. "Who?" He asked simply.
"Forgive me, Your Majesty," After being snapped at once, Brandon's tone was hesitant as he spoke, "but Queen Anne has many enemies, in England and abroad. Any of them could have been the one behind this attempt."
"The Emperor has never been pleased about your marriage to my daughter," Boleyn pointed out. "It would not surprise me if he still harboured resentment over the annulment of his aunt's marriage to Your Majesty, and over the Lady Mary's removal from the line of succession, as is fitting for a bastard – I believe that he attempted to put pressure on Your Majesty to go against your previous ruling, and that of Archbishop Cranmer to force you to acknowledge her as a legitimate princess and restore her as heir. He may have accepted the necessity of acknowledging Anne as Queen in order to secure an alliance with England, but I don't doubt that he would prefer it if she was not a part of the deal."
Henry was silent for a moment as he digested this, knowing that there was a lot of truth in Boleyn's words. The Emperor had never liked Anne, had always supported Katherine while she was alive, putting pressure on the pope to declare in her favour and against him, and putting pressure on King Francis to go back on his word to acknowledge Anne as Queen and Elizabeth as legitimate.
Now that Katherine was dead and he could make the concession without as much loss of face, he was prepared to acknowledge Anne as Queen and to support the continuation of their marriage and it was a concession that Henry knew that he would have made with great reluctance, but was he reluctant enough to want to kill her to avoid having to follow through on his promise?
"Brereton is known to speak with Ambassador Chapuys privately," Boleyn continued, his tone even as he spoke. "Perhaps he was also involved. He should certainly be questioned."
"I agree." Henry said, glancing at Norfolk. "You will escort the ambassador to his apartments and ensure that he remains there. Nobody is to speak with him and he is not to be allowed send any message until we have had the opportunity to investigate the possibility of his involvement."
"As Your Majesty wishes." Norfolk rose and, with a bow, left the room to carry out his charge.
"What about the Lady Mary?" George blurted the possibility unthinkingly but, even though he saw from his father's warning frown that this might have been a wrong move on his part, once he voiced the thought he had little alternative but to continue. "Ambassador Chapuys visited her not long ago, and they spoke in Spanish, didn't they, so that the witnesses Your Majesty ordered to be present couldn't understand what they said. Maybe they discussed the possibility of making an attempt on the Queen's life then, and once Chapuys told Brereton, all he had to do was wait for the chance to poison her food. If the Lady Mary hopes to be Queen one day – and since she has refused to take the Oath of Succession to acknowledge Princess Elizabeth's right to succeed, she must hope for her own succession one day – then the last thing she would want would be for the Queen to bear a healthy son."
Henry didn't acknowledge his brother-in-law's words, either to agree with the sentiment or to reprove him for it, and he dismissed the three men afterwards, automatically agreeing to Thomas Boleyn's request that he be allowed to assist with Brereton's interrogation, to find out why the man had tried to kill his daughter.
Try as he might, he couldn't ignore what George had said, couldn't ignore the fact that the theory was a sound, plausible one. Anne's tearful accusations could be put down to shock but George's words were not as easy to dismiss.
Had he sired a daughter who was so ruthless, so ambitious that she was prepared to condone or even to advocate the murder of a helpless woman, a woman she knew to be dearly loved by her father, a woman who carried an innocent child?
The thought was a painful one.
Surely Mary couldn't be such an undutiful daughter, capable of such evil!
He couldn't ignore that she had refused to obey him and to demonstrate her loyalty to him as her father and sovereign by taking the Oath of Succession when she was commanded to, an act of defiance that any other subject would have faced the executioner's axe for, but it was natural for a girl who was brought up to believe that she was a princess to shrink from the thought of acknowledging her illegitimacy, especially when she loved her mother dearly and would hate the idea of repudiating her.
There was a big difference between refusing to take an Oath and being prepared to commit murder.
He could not believe that Mary could be a murderess.
He would not believe it.
Even so, despite his attempts to convince himself that there could be no possibility of her involvement, he couldn't help but be glad that he had given orders that she was to be kept away from Elizabeth.
Just in case.
The pain was unbearable.
When he first agreed to undertake the task of killing the harlot, Brereton was aware that there was a possibility that he would be killed in the act if a guard should see him, just as he was aware that if he was caught, he would be tortured to force him to reveal who had charged him with the task.
He imagined what it would be like to be subjected to torture, building up the picture in his mind until it seemed as though he was being tortured in truth, focusing his energies on strengthening himself so that if the day came when he was called upon to prove his resolve, he would be ready. He would be able to keep silent, no matter what they did to him and he would reveal nothing.
Now that he was truly being tortured, he quickly discovered that his imagined sufferings utterly failed to live up to the reality and his resolve crumpled as he pleaded with his tormentors for mercy, apologizing abjectly for daring to harm Anne in any way, biting his tongue so hard that it bled when the temptation to speak became almost to strong to resist.
He could not betray His Holiness.
No matter what they did to him, he could not reveal that His Holiness was involved.
He did not know how long he had been here, bound in this dank, dismal room while one man tortured him while Master Cromwell watched impassively, asking questions and motioning for further pain to be inflicted when Brereton failed to answer them. It seemed as though he had been there for days, perhaps weeks, even though he knew in his mind that it could only have been a matter of hours.
They could keep him here for months, perhaps even years if he refused to speak.
His guilt was proven by the fact that the vial had been in his possession and he freely confessed to the deed. They could execute him whenever they chose and, as a poisoner, he would face the same terrible fate as the luckless Mr Rich, boiled alive in a giant cauldron.
He stood fast against Master Cromwell's coaxing promise that, should he give them the names of the people who acted as his accomplices, together with those of the people who had sought him out in order to get him to kill Queen Anne, he would be spared the terrible death of a poisoner and instead, of the King's mercy, be granted a quicker, easier death by decapitation but he came very close to agreeing, to breaking down and confessing that it had been at His Holiness' express request that he destroy the harlot.
He thought that he would have agreed, had the Earl of Wiltshire not chosen that moment to enter the room. The mere sight of that man, the man that Chapuys had described as an emissary of Satan and who had clearly instructed his daughter, who must once have been an innocent child, in his evil ways, the man who brazenly declared that he viewed Christ's holy apostles as liars and charlatans, strengthened his resolve.
He would not give that man a weapon to use against His Holiness and so he kept his silence, praying for strength and that the Devil would not inspire Boleyn to suggest that the pope was involved, for fear that his expression might give him away.
He almost wept with relief when he realized that the idea that His Holiness could have had anything to do with this had clearly never crossed Boleyn's mind. Instead, he focused on the Emperor, stating that they had many witnesses who had seen them speaking privately together, demanding to know if Chapuys was aware of his plans for the Queen, if he was an accomplice.
He tried not to speak.
He truly tried.
But when Boleyn ordered the man to continue with the torture, he couldn't bear it much longer and he felt his head nodding confirmation, against his will.
"Ambassador Chapuys knew of this? He encouraged it?" Boleyn pressed eagerly. He sensed that Cromwell, standing next to him, was not happy that he was pursuing this line of questioning but he ignored his stiffening posture and disapproval and continued. "Who else was involved? Why did you do this? Why now?"
With great effort, he managed to meet Boleyn's gaze, dismissing the possibility that the man would ever be able to understand why he did what he did, why he had to do what he did, but then looked to Cromwell, one of the few men who was trusted by the King, who had his ear and who Chapuys believed would be prepared to persuade the King to allow Princess Mary to succeed for the sake of securing an Imperial alliance.
He had to understand if he was to help.
He and Chapuys wanted to kill Anne, needed to keep her son from being born, because they wanted to ensure that Princess Mary became Queen of England. It was vital for England and all of Christendom that she succeed her father.
Every inch of his body ached, the pain so great that tears streamed from his eyes and his speech was slurred as he responded, so slurred that only a few of his words were audible.
"...Mary... wanted... be Queen..."
TBC.
