AN: Little promo here - The next one is building up to be pretty interesting. Think Fouche, Talleyrand, Cadoudal, Napoleon, Reign of Terror, guillotines, royal exiles, spies… and classic Non Judging Breakfast Club…

AAN: Back to this story - Hope you saw the tiny clues in the earlier chaps that led up to this…

Thank you, as always, for reviewing.

Part 11

May 1536

Not until the next day did Chuck Bass answer the summons of the king. For a moment when he entered the chambers it struck him as odd the vision that the king presented. He did not know why, but he had expected a mourning man. Instead he found the king seated in his throne with Lady Jane Seymour seated beside him, a half-completed work of embroidery at her lap. With her hair in a bun at her nap, and her pale fingers tracing her needlework, she appeared the prim and proper virgin right by the king's side. She was every bit different from either Catherine or Anne, powerful, influential queens both, and Chuck wondered if the maddening obsession that the king had developed for this last woman did not in fact stem from the difference.

"Your grace," Chuck acknowledged quietly, his gaze still glued to the new woman at the king's side.

"It is Lady Jane, my lad," the king intoned. "Most lovely and innocent. I find myself drawn to her beauty." The king took the maid's slender hand in his and brushed the kiss on her fingers, as if he had not just murdered a wife the day before.

And so, despite the sudden revolt in his gut, he bowed at his waist to give his respect to the maid that he had known warmed Henry's bed well into the king's marriage and during Anne's childbed confinement.

"Lady Jane," Chuck greeted.

The king nodded towards the somber attire that Chuck had chosen for the day. "You have much displeased me through these last weeks, Bass," the king began. It was not as if Chuck had expected that it would all be forgotten. Henry was not a king to forget transgressions. The man was ruled by his heart. His father knew it from the very first day that the second son took the throne. "You had allowed your cock to lead your brain." Chuck swallowed. The king chuckled. "But so have I. I hear, Bass, that Lady Blair has abandoned you for Lord Archibald."

His heart clenched. Dispassionately, he said to the king, "She was despicable. I gave her my heart, majesty."

It was then that Jane loosed her hold on her embroidery. Her delicate hands fluttered to her chest, and she said gently, "When we were in the queen's service—"

"She was no queen, Jane," Henry said firmly. "Our marriage was declared null."

"In Anne's service," Jane insisted quietly, "your lady wife had always seemed enamored of you. I cannot believe she loved you not."

"Jane, you know what happens to those who meddle in my affairs." The king's voice was stern, and would brook no argument. When Jane apologized, flushed and concerned, Henry leaned over to her and kissed her cheek. "We all have our place."

The king then turned to Chuck and declared, "I have saddled you with an infertile adulterer." He turned to his men beside him, and Chuck's eyes narrowed when Cromwell stepped forward. "Find me Cranmer."

"Lord, the archbishop is in mourning and shall—"

The king continued, as if he did not hear, "Declare Lord Bass' marriage void."

Cromwell looked up at Chuck. "Non-consummation?"

A hundred nights in Arundel—in the lighthouse, the gardens, their chambers. He had poured into her like every time was the very last, and he had filled her like his life was all for her. "It was consummated," he rasped.

It was apparent to him that the king was displeased, and the displeasure was towards Cromwell's question. "Does it matter any that the marriage was consummated? For certain it was consummated." The king barked, "The divorce is done. Adultery, abandonment, find a way, Thomas. I know you can."

After all, Chuck thought, Thomas Cromwell had put together the complicated and most original accusation against a reigning queen—found evidence where there was none. This divorce would be nothing to him.

"I am not certain, majesty, that a divorce is required," Chuck said softly. The day he knew he was going to lose her, when she climbed into Lord Archibald's carriage in the dead of the night and looked up at the window where he waited and watched, Chuck considered that a legal separation was likely. And for the life of him he knew—saw it in her eyes—that she wanted that very thing. "The countess has abandoned me, after all, and shall not make her way home to Arundel, cannot argue claim to mine."

The king grunted. "You need a divorce, lad, that there is never doubt of inheritance. After all, I shall find you a young, fertile wife who shall give you sons aplenty. There should be a child in Arundel. You cannot rest until there is a son to inherit it all."

"You would have me remarry, sir?"

"I shall have a selection of the richest, noblest young ladies in court for you by the morrow," the king told him. "We cannot have Arundel mix with common blood." He considered Jane sitting by his side. "There is a maid in service with you, rich, blonde, spent time with Lady Blair. She might make a match with Lord Bass. What is her name, Jane?"

Asked directly, Jane was quick to consider and offer, "Lady Serena, my lord. Van der Woodsen."

"Serena," the king repeated. "Even the name rolls like honey. What think you, Chuck?"

So did Blair. Her name would be upon his tongue in the loneliest of nights, he was quite certain.

"I beg your pardon, your grace. I have no desire for Lady Serena." In truth, even if he were not aware of the affair between the maid and the court historian he would not touch her—could not touch her. Not when he still smelled his wife's skin when he closed his eyes and breathed.

"Pity, but understandable. The lady is far too thin to seem like she shall bear many healthy sons." The king confessed to his secondary agenda. "I shall rather have her married off and pregnant in your country castle than all about the court, reminding us all of the rather dark incidents of these past years."

It seemed the king wanted to rid his court of the memories of Anne. Sooner or later he would succeed. "Then, your grace, perhaps Lady Serena is better off in Lady Mary's household."

"To care for the girl?" the king asked, unwilling to call his daughter by her name while the fate of the mother was yet fresh in his mind.

"Aye, majesty. I would be honored to take Lady Serena to Lady Mary's household to care for the princess."

The king regarded Chuck with sharp eyes. "I think it is a good enough decision to send Lady Serena to care for Elizabeth." The girl was only two, and now was just about an orphan for having lost her mother and having a father who had declared her a bastard.

Chuck bowed. "I shall prepare for departure."

"No!" Henry decided. "There are a dozen men qualified for a menial task as that. You, Bass, shall stay in court. I have been far too free with your absence in my court. You shall earn your place in council, lad. Now," he said, jerking his head towards the rest of the lords in chambers, "sit you down. Let us see this brain that Bartholomew had been so proud to declare had taken after his fiscal competency."

Chuck made his way towards the table.

October 1536

It was becoming harder and harder to breathe. The pallets were thin and her back ached even from lying down. When she rose she was surrounded by dirt and mud. It was the dreariest place she had ever been. The door of the small hut opened and she turned her head and saw Lord Archibald step inside with a tin plate of pottage and rye bread. He placed the plate before her and muttered, "I searched for better food but it is next to impossible."

It seemed rote now. She extended her hand and Lord Archibald took it and pulled her up. She accepted the food and bit into the dry bread, almost choked when she attempted to swallow. Still, she bit off more and took care in chewing it. The heavy, hard food was an effort to eat, but she did. "This is fine, my lord. I am grateful."

"It is not," he decided. "When I agreed to take you with me I truly thought we would be in the mansion in York."

But they were not. Instead they were camped outside of Lincolnshire, away from the authorities, gathered together with more people surrounding them. The courtier in Lord Archibald had vanished and before her stood Nathaniel, his face half covered in stubble and his golden hair now flopped over his forehead. The gussied costume he wore in court was no more.

"You have been pulled into this outside of our plan."

Nathaniel settled onto the corner of the pallet. Blair took his hand and squeezed it. "We have been together some time now and you must understand that this was for the best," she assured him.

"Is it?" Nathaniel asked. He looked down at the rolled parchment in his hand. "The king has ordered Brandon to break the rebellion."

Charles Brandon, the duke of Suffolk, the princess' widower and the king's very close friend. Brandon was efficient, and she was certain that if he so wished the duke could crush the entire rebellion with the might of the kingdom in his arm. "We are gathered peacefully in this protest," she said. "Surely the duke shall see this." It was wishful thinking, but the strain in Lord Archibald's shoulders was apparent. She did not wish to burden him more.

Nathaniel nodded. After all, he had heard what he wished to hear. "How is he?" he asked softly.

At the question, her lips curved. "Tell me." He so enjoyed the sight, the feel of it. She took his hand and led it to her belly. The child inside of her took it upon itself to kick and swim at the attention. She winced.

"Does it hurt you?" Lord Archibald asked. "When he is so restless, does it hurt?"

She shook her head laughingly and confessed, "It is the most pleasant feeling in the world." She was so full, heavy. Blair was no countess here, and at her size she needed to borrow clothes from farmer's wives, from the gathered old dresses in the parishes. But she was fruitful, and she was to have a child.

"I swore I would give you a home—and I have given you a family, thirty five thousand large," he told her.

"I am grateful for it." She wondered now how her husband fared, in the court of Henry. He was skilled enough to make himself irreplaceable, she knew. Then again, Anne had always believed that to the king she was the final choice. No one could predict the unpredictable Tudor king. "Until now I do not know if our presence here is fair."

Lord Archibald repeated to her the very claim he had when they left court. "We cannot have a supreme ruler. You know this now as well as I. Give all this power to one man and he would decay." After all, she had to believe that once upon a time the king had been a good and noble man. Her cousin would not have loved him if he were not. "Henry does not hold our fates, Blair."

"He is the king," she whispered.

"Of this land. Not of heaven," Lord Archibald reminded her. After what had happened to his family the same time that Anne had perished, she could not blame his singe-minded fury.

She closed her eyes and heard Anne's whispered prayer, almost a chant as she said the words over and over before the sword struck her. Lord Jesu, take her soul.

"It was because of the church's excesses, its ultimate power that divided the kingdom, that Anne turned to reformation."

"You would not have a child if you remained in that faith," Lord Archibald reminded her. She still remembered that morning after she agreed to join this protest against the king's supremacy over the church, when she joined the Catholic rebels in this insurgency against Henry and Cromwell's excesses. It was the morning when she woke and found her sickness, realized her menses had not visited her since Arundel. "When you took this chance, when you accepted this sacrifice for the true faith—God had forgiven your transgressions and cleansed you of the sin." And he had willed life back in her body.

"Charles Brandon," she whispered. Blair looked up at Lord Archibald. "We are thirty five thousand against an army of soldiers," she said. "Faith or not, we shall all die under Brandon's sword."

"We can fight."

She was going to have a child. Even Anne knew not to fight against indubitable might. She shook her head. Sometimes it was smarter to know when to accept defeat. "We have nothing—no weapons."

"Faith," he insisted.

Her hand closed around his wrist. She pulled it away from her belly. "Faith did not save your cousin." He winced at the reminder. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No," he breathed. "You are right."

She nodded. "The lives of these people are on your shoulders. There is no shame in giving up—not if it shall save our lives. The throne is stronger. Let us fight when we are just as strong."

May 1536

She wished she could spend all the days of her life now weeping for her cousin. But Anne now lay in an unmarked grave within the Tower walls and she swore she would not suffer the same fate. Everyone knew—even the ignorant masses who had called her cousin a whore, a prostitute—that Cromwell and the king weaved a tapestry of lies and caused Anne's fall from grace. Henry wanted to set aside Anne for the younger and possibly more fertile Jane and Cromwell—Cromwell lined his pockets with gold from the monasteries, which Anne would have none of.

"I shall return to court," she decided.

Nathaniel waited in the small chambers with Dorota, watching the conversation between Chuck and Blair. He held in his hand a rolled parchment.

"No," Chuck said firmly. "You saw what they can do, Blair. They accused you with a preposterous charge!"

"There is no escape from this king. We go back to court, Chuck, or Henry will extend his arm to Arundel."

"Arundel is far from here," Chuck argued.

"There is nowhere far enough from the king," Nathaniel said quietly. He held up the parchment in his hand. "Cromwell abolished the monasteries in York, and my cousin had kept the monastery on Vanderbilt land to help the wretched at home. Cromwell ruined my cousin—he was the golden child, the man who wished for nothing more than to feed the poor in York. And now my cousin is dead after receiving a missive that he had displeased the throne. Tripp had never set foot in court, Bass. Tell me then—do you think Arundel is far enough from Henry?"

Blair glanced up towards Nathaniel in horror. Anne had been part of the decision to dissolve the monasteries, but she insisted it was to contain the horrors within, the travesties committed in the name of the Lord. Never had she thought that the simple decision could yield such consequences.

"Do you truly believe there is still a place for me in this kingdom, Chuck?"

And her husband, blessed was his heart, said firmly, "The king shall not touch you. I shall never allow it."

Her gaze lowered. In many aspects, her husband, as strong as he was and as powerful as he was-as much of a man as he was whenever they were together—was a young boy yet. "Your father was sent to Rome at the king's pleasure," she reminded him. "What if you were sent away? What happens to me? Shall I defend myself against trumped up charges that Cromwell makes?"

"You are the countess of Arundel!" he said in disbelief.

"And Anne was the queen of England!" she argued.

"You are my wife," he gritted out.

"I have no son," she reminded him, "I am nothing!"

Perhaps it was then that Chuck realized their place in this game. They were nothing. His voice was weak when he said, "I love you."

Declaration such as this had its own place. Now they needed to ensure their survival. "Listen to me," she said firmly. "Lord Archibald has a plan. I had always hesitated for Anne."

Lord Archibald explained, "I am amassing support for the Catholic Church, against this business with Henry and Cromwell. We are now thousands of people strong, and my Yorkist fortress is strong enough to ward away the king."

Chuck's lips curled. "You are talking treason." He would never have figured Lord Archibald to have this insurgency in the back of his head. Then again, many of those who tittered around the king's court had dubious loyalty. It was always the case when one claimed supremacy. In fact, Chuck began to respect the man he had only thought was a well-born sloth.

"Treason," Lord Archibald considered. "I am talking about protecting your wife against a king who would rather wipe the court clean of remnants of Anne Boleyn!"

His heart fractured when she stepped towards Lord Archiald. "Chuck, we are talking about ensuring that everything that is yours remains yours, that you are untouched by the course of the Boleyns—Anne is dead, and so is George," she recounted painfully. "You are married to me. If we do this, you shall keep the peerage and your lands, just as you wanted."

He would not have it. He walked towards her until they were toe to toe. "At my wife's expense?" he said in disbelief. He hated that Archibald was witness to this, but he had no choice.

"It is the only way. You have to keep Arundel, Chuck. It's Annie's home."

He took her hands and kissed them. "What do you want me to say?"

Lord Archibald kept his voice firm and steady when he informed him, "The king knows I am affiliated with the northern rebellion. He shall learn of my flight from court as I am under Cromwell's watch. The king also sought my marriage to Lady Blair once to ensure my fealty to his court. We shall claim that your wife has run away with me."

Chuck looked at Blair. Her heart clenched at the hurt look in his eyes.

She said softly, "It shall not be difficult to have the king believe that I broke the sanctity of our marriage. After all, my blood runs the same as Anne's. You were a pawn, a victim. You knew nothing of what shall happen." She took his hand and said the words she never wished she needed to say. "I betrayed you, and you detest me. You are most loyal to the Crown, Chuck. He shall want to do his best by you."

Nathaniel added, "When we are away no matter how loyal you may seem Cromwell shall keep you under watch. You must not write to us, nor shall we send you missives. For all purposes you and Lady Blair are no more. This is the only way we can keep suspicion away from you."

Chuck swallowed. "Did you plan all this, Archibald?"

"No. She did."

Chuck nodded. "Blair, this is masterful," he conceded.

Her tears rained on her cheeks. "If it is for your sake, my lord, I am more than just a childless woman. I am a Howard."

"No," he answered. "You are a Bass." He tightened his arms around her, and she sobbed at the sensation of her body against his. "I love you, countess," he breathed into her ear.

"I love you," she answered, knowing this could possibly be the last time.

"I shall come for you," he swore, his lips wet in the openmouthed way he kissed her cheek. "I shall serve him until he comes to trust everything that I am, and I shall come for you."

In the night, when the carriage rolled out, Blair looked up at the window at the final sight of her husband watching her depart. She raised a hand, her small farewell. He did not move, merely kept his eye on her until the carriage vanished in the horizon. When she could no longer see him, she settled back in her seat and met Lord Archibald's eyes. It was then that she felt the tears fill her eyes, started to choke and drown in the emotions inside of her. She sobbed in her seat, huge, wracking sobs of mourning.

Lord Archibald did not pat her back, nor hush her tears. He allowed her to cry noisily within the carriage. It was the best comforting he had done for her.

In the morning she woke to the dizzying roiling of the carriage. She called for the carriage to halt. When it did, Blair stumbled out and collapsed on her hands and knees out onto the grassy roadside, and heaved and purged herself of the awful, awful grief.

Her hand fluttered to her belly.

tbc