AN: I found myself initially finding it difficult to even start this chapter because I was scribbling away at my Plantagenet inspired historical. But I finally forbid myself from working on it until this was finished. The ending was a bit eerier than the ending of the other historicals, but this was to me the most fitting way to end. I hope you would think so too.
Part 14
One day soon he would arrive triumphant back home, and save for trips every few years to the French court that had adopted Blair and her Boleyn cousins there would be no reason ever to step out of the borders of Arundel. Where today his beloved castle was dark in disrepair, with the death of its lords and the mismanagement that bled its coffers to the very scraped bottom, Chuck Bass would take Arundel back to its very wealthiest best, so grand that it should come close to being the home that Blair and their little miracle would deserve.
He walked side by side with Lord Nathaniel Archibald, on the way to be received by the king. He studied the somber face of the man, who to his side clutched the demands of the Northern regions, knew he was looking at a doomed man and wondered how very innocent Nathaniel could be if he truly thought that Henry would read through the demands and grant him every one of them, and he could return back home to York bearing the good news.
As if the man could hear his very thoughts, Nathaniel turned to Chuck with a small curve of his lips, his eyes defeated yet resolute. "What other way do you see this ending, Bass?" Nathaniel asked him.
And Chuck knew the surprise registered on his expression, to know that the very last Vanderbilt approached this with a clear mind. "I am Chuck Bass," he answered with a faint trace of self-deprecation. "Did you not hear, Archibald? I am a coward."
Nathaniel nodded and stifled a grin. "The coward son that ran off to the continent after bedding the queen's cousin. Son of the coward who failed to secure his grace's divorce. Nephew of the coward who retreated into a corner of England to die after draining his young bride's accounts."
"Some other lifetime we would have been the very tightest of allies, Archibald."
Nathaniel hung his head briefly, paused in his stride. He looked towards Chuck, then nodded. "I believe it so."
"I would have been gone long before, and not taken the cloak of a dead cousin to speak for the North," Chuck told Nathaniel, and he hoped the man would recognize the admiration in his voice. "You must forgive me, but I shall not hear your side lest I be swayed. I need to cower now and put back together my family."
"Tis not cowardice, my lord, but self-preservation. This is not your yoke to bear."
At the end of the hall, Chuck saw the king's men gathered to receive Nathaniel Archibald. Chuck saw from afar the seated king, who nodded to him, pleased at his achievement. He had brought to the king the leader of the rebellion and Chuck bowed to the king in acknowledgment.
Nathaniel was flanked almost immediately by lord of Henry's Privy Council, and both Suffolk and Norfolk walked with Nathaniel to the king. Chuck remained behind, observing for the first time the flurry around him of a busy court. He turned around and imagined Blair fitting right into the court, but could not come up with a picture other than his wife in her smock sitting on the creaky old swing, pregnant and smiling up at him in his mother's garden.
By God, he needed to be home and soon.
"My lord Arundel!" he heard a strange yet familiar voice call.
Chuck turned towards the quiet call, and was surprised that it had come from the Lady Mary. The young woman waved him to her, and even when removed from succession one could so easily see that her nobility had not wavered, nor had her bearing of one that would be queen. He walked towards her and bowed briefly, with enough respect that he could show her the courtesy she required.
"My Lady Mary, what a surprise to see you in court."
The young woman smiled to him, then reached for his hand. "My stepmother had taken up my cause, my lord. By the grace of God I am welcome again in my father's court. I have as well humbly submitted to my father and accepted him as the head of the Church."
Yet it was he whom Mary approached, who was witness to her clear lines of communication with the rebels in the north. "Take care, Lady Mary," was all he could say.
From behind her skirts Chuck noticed a more modestly dressed toddler with a shock of bright red hair. The eager eyes of the child brightened at the sight of him. "Lady Bess," he greeted and bowed his head. Without another thought he knelt before the child and drank in the sight, so infrequently he saw her, so desperately he had failed the one vow he made to Anne. "How do you do, princess?" he asked her.
"My sister and I fare better with the new queen, my lord," Lady Mary offered.
A lie, perchance, at least with regard to Elizabeth. But the child seemed hale and healthy, and in those last moments of Anne's life he thought that a healthy child far from the misfortune that ran through the Boleyn blood would have made the queen happy.
Lady Elizabeth wandered from her sister, and Chuck frowned at the sight until he noticed a maid following closely behind the toddler. He pulled himself up once again to face Lady Mary.
"How fares your wife, my lord?" Chuck noticed that the queen had approached now, Jane Seymour, the maid that once Blair had cursed for sleeping with Henry behind her pregnant cousin's back. "You may speak in front of the queen, Lord Arundel."
"Really, you are asking of the pilgrimage then," Chuck told Lady Mary, "for I know no reason for the queen to be burdened with my wife's welfare. My countess is Anne Boleyn's bosom cousin, after all."
"Pray, my lord, that we should forget yesterday that we may move forward to a brighter tomorrow for England," Jane offered to him. "I want nothing but peace."
As he had told Nathaniel, the moment this was over, he would return home and live the rest of his life in the country. There was no need to ask about the betrothal that took place before Anne Boleyn's blood was even dried on the block, nor about the marriage that transpired before news of the queen's execution even reached the north.
Instead he told the two the reason for his presence at court. "Lord Archibald confers with the king now, in personal negotiations bearing the petitions from the Pilgrimage."
Lady Mary clasped her hands before her, then turned to the queen, who looked towards the king's chambers with a look of concern. It was then that the chamber doors opened. Jane jumped slightly in surprise. Her bearing eased somewhat at the sight of her husband the king and the ruddiness of his cheeks as he slapped Lord Archibald on the back in a gesture of friendship.
It was then that the queen rushed over towards the king and curtsied deeply. She did not rise until the king bade her do so. Then when she did she reached for Lord Archibald's hands and received a kiss on her cheeks in greeting.
"They are her cousins, both Lord Nathaniel and the departed Lord Tripp Vanderbilt," Lady Mary whispered to Chuck. "The queen seemed most concerned of her cousin's fate. What pleasant surprise, my lord, that everything in court now falls into place. It seems the king had struck a deal with the Catholics from the north." She glowed as she looked at him. "Peace, Lord Arundel, at last."
And so it was that Lord Nathaniel Archibald struck a deal with the king of England, a deal negotiated personally that fulfilled the dreams and ambition of many of the religious north, a cause for which many Vanderbilts had laid their lives for, one that took the life of the last direct Vanderbilt heir. Chuck watched from the center of the court as Nathaniel emerged unsteady on his feet, overwhelmed by the sheer grandness of his achievement.
"Peace from us," he uttered to Chuck when finally they stood almost toe to toe. "Peace from the north, quell the rebellion and dismiss my followers, and the king has agreed that the killing of the priests, the burning of the monasteries would cease. Within the year, the king has acquiesced, to gather Parliament in York." He turned to the Lady Mary, and Chuck confirmed once and for all that the king's eldest living child had as much to do with the greatest threat to Henry's reign as any usurper from abroad or fanatic from the north. "Peace from us, my lady, begets peace from the crown."
"And Cromwell?" Lady Mary whispered.
"The Lord Protector is beyond the reach of justice."
Lady Mary's face fell, and Chuck looked around. "This is not the time and place for a list of your successes, lest others hear. For now, by your leave, I shall away to York and my wife. Her time draws near."
"And the king?" Lady Mary prompted.
"The king would rather I wed a girl he would choose from me than respect vows I have made twofold for the woman I loved long before I married her."
"It comes as no surprise to me, my lord, much as I adore my father."
Nathaniel begged for leave from the king to dismiss his men, which Henry granted happily and with all the bluster of a man who was well aware his word made the world tremble. Eager, and wasting not an hour longer, Chuck started off with Nathaniel in another journey across the treacherous country roads to make haste to York.
The journey was dangerous, arduous. The entire time there was torrential cold rain. Yet rather than stop and seek shelter in the cobblestone cottages or inns from the towns they passed, Chuck and Nathaniel pushed on forward to make York in the shortest possible time. It took too long, even though they made the distance in shorter time than one would think possible. Upon their arrival to Nathaniel's castle in York, Chuck waited for the gates to open with an anxious grip on the reins of his horse.
"I can see you so eager you are stomping at the bit much more than your mare," Nathaniel called to him.
Around them converged several of Nathaniel's men, leaders in their own right during the Pilgrimage that gathered tens of thousands in his estates. Chuck barely listened to the instructions that Nathaniel provided to disband and to send home the men. The moment the gates opened Chuck made to move forward only to find Blair on foot, running towards them in greeting, quick on her feet though heavy with child. Chuck jumped off of the mare and tossed the reins to one of the men, then strode quickly, quicker and quicker with every step, towards his wife.
He met her halfway across the bridgeway, and caught her up in his arms. Chuck whirled her around until they were breathless, the cold damp air making thin the air and fast making him gasp for breath and lowering her to her feet.
As she laughed she raised her lips so that he would warm them with his kiss. Her fingers buried in his hair at the back of his head and she pulled him down for a longer kiss.
"I had feared for you all the time you were away," she whispered to him, holding on tight to his body.
He clasped her hand in his and drew her close to his side as they walked hand in hand into the castle. He knew behind her Nathaniel was thanking the men around him, sending them back to their homes. They had won their bid to be heard by the king, and for all intents and purposes this rebellion was theirs. Henry would come to York and hold Parliament, and they would be able to lay out their grievances and seek for justice in front of the king. It was, for Nathaniel Archibald, the last of the Vanderbilts, just the beginning.
Yet for Chuck it had ended. "I would take you home, but you are too close to term to brave the roads, countess," he told her. "If we leave now, before the king even knows that I have come for you, no one else needs to know that we are together. Arundel is too far from London for Henry to know."
Even as he said it, even as she smiled up at him in agreement, he knew that she knew it would be mere months until the king's men would knock on his door. No one abandoned the king the way he did; no one flouted his will the way he had done.
It was perhaps an entire week that Blair had spent with her husband, and as she grew heavier each day she held onto his arm as he shed the cares of London and the court life. In her smock and a heavy cloak Blair walked the surroundings of the castle and enjoyed looking out the vast expanse of the moorland and the greens that surrounded them. When she was up high looking out at the greens it seemed as if they were in another country, like Henry could not reach them, like they were the only ones that existed.
"Another country," she whispered.
He dropped a kiss on her head, then lifted up her chin. "What did you say, Blair?"
She shook her head. Because he loved Arundel. It all started with Arundel. And she knew it would end with Arundel. She loved Arundel. She would not leave Arundel, or Annie. Or even Anne as she lay in an unmarked grave.
Blair turned away and looked down at the vast empty lands before her, restive it seemed and she wondered if it did not forebode that soon she would give birth. Blair paused at the spasm in her belly that immediately brought her almost to her knees had her husband not been there to support her. From over his shoulder which she gripped almost painfully she saw the long line of armed men coming from the direction of London. She cried out both at the pain of the onset of her labor and the fear.
"Henry!" she gasped by Chuck's ear. "You need to get away!"
His brows drew together. He met her frantic, pained gaze. And then he turned to where she looked and saw what she did. Again, in his arms, she cried out. "I am not leaving you, Blair."
They had come for him, and were it not for the fact that he had her and a child coming he would have proudly surrendered, beheaded for the simple truth that he would not allow the king to dictate who he would take to wife. Chuck lifted up Blair in his arms, winced every time she cried out in pain. He made his way back to the castle and rushed up the stairs to the birthing chamber, calling for the midwife that had been prepared long before.
"They are coming," she sobbed. And even in her pain, Blair grasped Chuck's hand and kissed his palm, over his knuckles, the back of his hand, his wrist. "Please leave. They are to come for you and I cannot bear it."
"I shall not leave you," he told her calmly. Once she had suffered through the indignity of her insides being ripped apart, the agony of a messy, dangerous, painful birth and the death of a child. All alone. "Never again."
It felt like hours. The midwives came, and the servants hung tapestries and shut the drapes, keeping the chambers warm and dark. The arras had been prepared, but not hung yet as the birth had not been expected until Blair went into confinement in another week. It scared him, truly. He knew as much as it was time that the sight of Henry's men brought on the birth.
"They would ask you to leave, Chuck." Her hand tightened around his. "I would that you stay, that I know they have not taken you from me."
He sat by her head and placed a kiss on her sweaty brow. "They shall drag me kicking and screaming or fall at the point of my blade before I leave your side."
The midwife assisted Blair from the bed to the birthing chair. Blair leaned back, yet kept a close eye on Chuck that he would not suddenly be taken by the approaching men. One of the midwives warmed almost oil in her palms and then parted Blair's gown, massaging the oil onto Blair's belly.
There was a pounding knock on the door. Chuck stood to peer outside and the midwife cautioned that the light and cool air not come into the birthing room. "Chuck!"
The birth was progressing quickly. Blair bore down as the pain escalated. One midwife knelt before her while the other kept her hands steady on her stomach, feeling and guiding the position of the child. She screamed. Again, this relentless pounding. Blair opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could, grasping the arms of the birthing chair until her fingers were pried open and she was clutching at Chuck Bass' hand, his other warm around her fist.
The child slipped from her body, and the unfathomable pressure released. She fell back on the birthing chair gasping for breath, her limbs slack and boneless. She turned her head, craning her neck to see the child. The midwife slid a finger to the child's mouth and removed some mucous, then slapped the child's bottom. The child released a howling cry, and to her great joy and embarrassment so did she.
"My child is alive," were the first words from her mouth.
She could not care that the women worked on her between her legs, did not even feel when the afterbirth released. Chuck was beside her, looking at the child and placing a kiss on her temple. "You are a wonder," he whispered to her. "And you were right. You have given me a son."
The frantic knocking continued. The midwife took a linen blanket and draped it over her to give some privacy as they assisted in cleaning her. Chuck drew himself up and away from her reluctantly, then pulled open the door slightly open. Blair watched from her seat as Chuck curtly nodded, then closed the door behind him. He turned back to Blair, who held the bloody child in her arms.
"The king's men?"
Chuck nodded. When Blair tensed, he assured her, "They did not come for me." And then, morosely he continued, "Nathaniel was arrested for treason. The king's men have taken him, and had mentioned not a word of my name."
"Treason," Blair repeated. Anne was tried for treason along with other charges.
"As we made our way home from London to Yorkshire, there was a rising in Cumberland and Westmoreland nor far from here. The king has taken this to mean that Nathaniel has broken their agreement," Chuck said in a daze. Blair held the child closer to her. "It does not matter that he was in London or on the road, with no way to lead another uprising at the time."
"It was a ruse," Blair concluded. "The king agreed to negotiate so that Nathaniel would break apart the pilgrimage and his army would leave him unprotected."
"He was a step ahead of any one of us," Chuck whispered.
She hung her head, then clasped her hands together, a feat considering the newborn in her arms. "I shall pray for his soul," she told Chuck. Blair did not need to wonder if Nathaniel Archibald knew. In those last moments in the church, right before she took the vows to marry Chuck again, a marriage that she was certain would not hold in the eyes of the English law, the pious and the principled last son of the Vanderbilts took his Last Rites.
Some were made for greatness, to take the crown, to achieve in their lifetime all that they could possibly desire and more than they could ever deserve. Like the king.
Some of us were cursed by the very skills that they had, the very power they could take that could so consume them and their hearts full of love. Like Anne.
Some had hearts so big and dreams so grand that they fell in its pursuit, and most calmly would they fall. Blair wanted to believe that that was Nathaniel. From the moment he took Tripp's dream as his, this was truly the only way it could ever end.
And then her cold eyes turned back to Chuck, "When will the travesty of his trial begin?"
~o~o~
Blair stood at the ship, watching England grow small in the horizon. She turned to look behind her when she heard his footsteps, and smiled at the sight of her husband. "Come to say goodbye to England, my lord?" she called loudly so that her voice would carry over the strong wind.
Chuck stopped beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It shall be until I see her again," Chuck answered. "I have left her before and I have come back to her. I can never leave her forever."
The last memory of England she would have, despite Chuck's insistence that she not do so, was standing at the ramparts staring at Nathaniel as he was hoisted up to hang in chains from the walls of York Castle. High treason and the very worst execution that she knew, because she well knew how long it would take for Nathaniel out in the sun and in pain to die of suffocation and dehydration. This was the memory she would carry with her upon her return to the country where she and Anne had first connected, in a court of happy memories. This was the memory that she would hold to her heart and the vision she would return to each time either she or Chuck would be weakened and desire to return to Arundel and Annie's grave.
"Not until Henry is dead and buried," she swore under her breath. "Not one of us would ever set foot on English soil again, Chuck. Not even for Arundel."
His arm around her tightened. "I would that you not carry as much hatred in your heart," he asked her, kissing her shoulder. "We shall begin anew in France, you and me, and little Archibald whom even now Dorota guards in the cabin below."
She looked up at him. "Swear to me now you shall not follow in Anne or Nathaniel's footsteps, and you shall never lay eyes on that king again."
"Swear you will sink your hatred to the bottom of the Channel, and you will not carry it with you to France. Swear that Archibald and I shall have all of you, Blair."
She closed her eyes, let the winds blow against her face, allowing the sea to wash away all the death and all the grief that had visited her the moment she set foot upon England. There were a great many graves that she would walk over in her nightmares—Jack, Annie, Anne, Nathaniel. Yet every one of those graves she would leave in England, every one of those souls helped take her where she was, to the people with whom she was going to pull together the scattered pieces of her heart.
Blair opened her eyes and looked into the clear brown eyes of the man before her. "I swear."
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "Then so do I swear. The king shall never darken our lives again."
"We shall see Arundel yet," she assured him, "in a year, a decade, or even more. We shall come home to Arundel and the lighthouse, sit in Annie's garden with Archibald. We shall do all this, Chuck, after we dance upon the grave of the king."
fin
Oh and btw, you will find the next historical in the Crossover section within the week. Experimenting with a crossover historical. Much of the plot is already written. I promise it's interesting enough to overcome the weirdness of a crossover historical.