A/N: Hello! New chapter, slightly longer. Still in that schizo phase I talked about last time, but some nice stuff is on its way =)

To my anonymous reviewer, thank you for your compliments on the last chapter! I really appreciate them. The Henry/Anne dynamic is tough to write, and I try to keep it realistic but add some more drama. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Also, guys, is there a reason you're not reviewing? Is the direction/content of the recent chapters not to your liking? Please let me know how you're feeling about it – your reviews and comments are what develop me as a writer.

This new chapter is published in honor of Hilary Mantel's BRILLIANT 'Bring Up the Bodies,' which is a sequel to 'Wolf Hall' – if you've not read Wolf Hall, you MUST. BUTB came out yesterday and I'm pacing myself, since it'll be years before Ms. Mantel publishes the third and final Cromwell installment.

In other news, I recently found out that I have been accepted to the Yale Writers Conference at Yale University for this summer! I am thrilled, as a young writer, especially because this is the first year for the YWC. Hopefully I will be able to take the opportunity and learn and continue to develop in the craft =)

Best wishes to all!

28 April – Morning

i.

As Nan tugged the black gown over her shoulders and smoothed its skirts toward the floor, Anne swallowed, timidly asked: "Did he… has he… any word?" Her maid flinched, shook her head, her eyes downcast. "I thought not." The days of kind messages sent after an argument were long past.

"Hair up or down for mass today, Majesty?" Nan rubbed rose oil between her palms and smoothed it over Anne's neck and shoulders.

"Up. No sense in playing at maidenship," Anne shrugged. "Have you some sort of messenger who alerts you of my impending rise each morning?" Nan was always the first of the queen's household to report in the morning, despite often being the last one there at night.

Nan chuckled and guided the queen into a chair. "Just doing my duty." The truth was that she dared not abandon her mistress for too long; her situation was precarious, as was Anne's emotional health. Should anything happen to the queen, Nan wanted to be there to aid her.

"You are more devoted than most." Anne perked up. "Have you thought of what masque you'd like to do when we go to France? I promised you the lead role, and then never breathed another word of it."

"Your Majesty would know better than I which role would be best suited for my capabilities."

"A maidenly, virtuous heroine would be best…" Anne brought a pewter wine goblet to her lips, chuckled against the rim. "Narrows the field considerably."

While Nan put her hair up, selected the right pair of black slippers, and discreetly covered the cut on her lip with a bit of Turkish clay-lotion, Anne's other ladies assembled in her bedchamber. Bess offered a tray of fruit slices. "Your Majesty has hardly eaten…" she began.

"After we hear mass," Anne cut her off. "Hunger does not alter routine." She let out a stabbing laugh in the middle of the service when her stomach growled angrily, interrupting the chaplain, and turned to nod in acknowledgement at Bess. Her ladies flushed and looked away uncomfortably.

At the final amen, Anne crossed herself and rose. While she thanked the chaplain and apologized for her huger pains, she vaguely heard the chapel doors creak open and clank shut. She turned and started down the aisle to see a guilty looking Jane and Sir John Seymour. Sir John shifted awkwardly, the feather on his cap bobbing above his head. Jane stayed perfectly still, but she seemed to contract, as if holding her breath or bracing for a blow. Stillness hung over the room, from the bare beams of the vaulted ceiling to the layer of dirt on the rough stone floor. Anne glanced behind her. Her ladies had swept into a cluster at her back; even the chaplain looked interested in the scene before him. She squared her shoulders and started down the aisle.

Anne felt Nan hurry to be closer behind her, to help rush her from the chapel if necessary. No need. Anne feared no one, Jane Seymour and her ineffectual father included. She continued straight toward the wide-eyed blonde, whose father closed in behind his daughter. He regarded Anne wearily, as though she was a nuisance rather than his anointed queen. Uncomfortably, Anne wondered how many times she and members of her family had looked at Katherine thus.

Staring Jane down, Anne did not check her step. If she refuses to bow before me, I will have her thrown out of the palace for disrespect, she vowed, Henry be damned. I am still the queen. Fortunately for Jane's sake, she did drop a brief curtsy and then rose, eyes on the ground.

"Mistress Seymour," Anne greeted her, her voice clear and strong. "Sir John." She nodded at him. Begrudgingly, he bowed to her. "I trust you are both well this morning."

"Very much so, Your Majesty," Sir John responded without a hint of warmth or respect.

Anne eyed Jane, who stood very close to her now. Anne could have reached out and slapped her. "Jane," she pretended to tease, "for a lady with a post in my service, I hardly see you. My ladies and I have just heard mass. Perhaps when you are finished here you would like to join us in my apartments to break your fast." She was aware how false her generosity sounded.

Jane stammered a little. Sir John opened his mouth, and Anne stayed him with a hand. "The invitation is for your daughter. Allow her leave to answer." Several long moments ensued while Jane's eyes flicked between every face in the room. In panic, Jane's face lost some of its serene attractiveness; her angelic softness receded. Anne raised an eyebrow. "Jane? Have you gone mute?"

"I cannot. Thank you for the invitation… Your Majesty."

The corner of Anne's mouth twitched into a smirk. "No need to apologize, Jane. I did not expect you to accept. I think you are quite skilled by now at refusing royal invitations." She forced back a wicked grin as a few soft gasps sounded behind her. She had not been so brash in public for years.

Awkwardly, Jane tried to retort. "Indeed, Your Majesty," was all she could manage.

"I once was too," Anne continued. She heard Nan move behind her, perhaps trying to coax Anne into walking away, not continuing this dialogue. "Very skilled at the same, in fact. Imagine the practice you'd get over six years." Jane shuffled her feet, her blonde hair spilling over one shoulder. Anne's own hair was pulled up, and she imagined how severe she must look to Jane. "And look at all the good it's done me," she added, sweeping a hand over her sober gown.

Jane's father had watched the scene unfold from two paces behind Jane, and now he stepped forward, uncomfortable. "Your Majesty-"

"Sir John." Anne's tone was crisp. She silenced him with a look this time and turned her gaze back on Jane. "For my part, Mistress Seymour, I hope you fare better." Unconsciously, she touched the sore spot on her lip. It was healing rapidly, but she had no doubt that Jane, along with the rest of the court, had heard what happened. Jane stared at Anne in horror. Why not have it plain? Katherine had confronted Anne with much harsher words, although in private. Anne straightened her spine, reminding herself to stand up straight. She had been slouching lately, sinking under the weight of her cares and heartbreak. "Perhaps the motto, 'ad finem saeculorem,' should be changed." She snickered and glanced at her ladies. They peered back at her. "It seems to me that 'ad vitam aut taedium' would suit better." Anne let out a true giggle, and was not bothered when no one else chimed in. She sighed, still laughing, and relaxed. The curse of anxiety seemed to have lifted from her. She reached out and patted the stunned Jane's shoulder: "Good day, Jane. Sir John," she nodded sideways, smiling, and floated from the chapel. Her ladies trailed along behind her.

Jane tried to steady her breath. Her heart pounded from proximity with the queen. Her sister was the last of Anne's ladies to pass her, and she reached out and caught Lissie's arm, pulling her in. Lissie spoke Latin. "What did she say?"

Lissie wrinkled her brow. "Did you not hear her?"

A little jerk as Jane tugged at Lissie's arm in frustration. "The Latin. What did she say in Latin? The marriage motto is 'to the end of time.' What did she say would be more appropriate? Ad vitam…"

"Oh." Lissie looked uncomfortable. "Ad vitam aut taedium. It means, for life, or until boredom."

ii.

Madge and Lissie combed her loose hair while Nan put the pins back into their jar. It seemed that Anne spent more and more time on her appearance as her other options for activity diminished. She opted for a new, shorter corset, and she sucked her breath in: "lace it tight."

Bess held onto Anne's shoulders while Nan attempted to tighten the corset further. "Your Majesty, this corset is large on you," she murmured. "I cannot tighten it further. I would have to pad it."

"None of my clothes fit anymore," Anne moaned, theatrical, as she hiked up her chemise to cinch her garter stockings. "Guess I shall have to order new ones. Speaking of – where is my new white dress?"

It fit her like a cloud. She called for pearls, ropes of pearls, and she wound them around her neck, seed pearls and oyster pearls and polished mother-of-pearls. They dripped over her protruding collarbones in a surprisingly unattractive fashion: she was so pale, so close to looking sickly, that the loose white silk did nothing for her. Instead of looking like an angel, she looked like a ghost. Anne saw it when she looked in the mirror. She stared long, tilting her head to one side, pursing her lips. "Earrings," she decided. Earrings would fix it.

And so they brought her earrings, choices of long dribbling pearl earrings, or fat round pearl spheres to hang just below her earlobes. But then she thought that earrings might be too much, and so she suggested, "just brush my hair out again."

"What has gotten into her?" Madge whispered as she and Nan refilled their wine goblets.

"I haven't a clue." Nan took a sip. "Perhaps a way of distracting herself."

"Ladies, where is my rouge?" the queen called from the other room.

Finally, with thrice-brushed hair hanging to her waist, Anne faced her reflection. Her lips and cheeks were brought to life with cosmetics; her eyes were as dead as they had been all day. The gown still hung off her frame, and although the fabric was beautiful, even two layers of it did not hide the fact that Anne simply did not fill out this beautiful gown. The mounded pearls on her collarbone threatened to crush her chest, where Nan had rubbed another helping of rose oil. A set of opaque stockings had been rejected in favour of the more fashionable ones in Spanish lace.

"I need shoes," Anne pointed out without comment.

"Yes, madam," Nan agreed, happy that the queen had ended the heavy silence that hung over her rooms. "Slippers or heels?"

Anne tilted her head back and forth again, looking at her face in the mirror rather than at her gown. "Riding boots."

"I beg your pardon, Majesty?"

She turned. "The white ones. And find the matching gloves. I desire some fresh air."

iii.

"Out for a ride?" Cromwell's nose wrinkled. "Why? She rarely does that."

Mark shrugged wonderingly. "I know not. There was no mention of it before. I had no prior knowledge." The boy had cultivated a relationship with a young lady of the queen's household, and was becoming rather adept at reporting on Anne's itinerary.

"Who went with her?"

"Her ladies."

Cromwell's jaw twisted as he chewed on the inside of his mouth. After a long blank stare, he twitched his head dismissively. "Well. She may ride as she will. She is, after all, the queen."

iv.

Anne urged her mare, Melusine, over a fallen tree branch. Melusine cleared it without difficulty, but the acidic rush in Anne's stomach as they flew through the air made her feel more alive than she had in weeks. She leaned over Melusine's neck, angling her body against the horse and leaning into her trot. Faintly, she could hear her ladies behind her, their protests mingling in the distance: Majesty-slow-down-my-lady-we-cannot-keep-up-Your-Grace. Her breath caught as she felt Melusine draw her further and further from her household, her ladies, her duties. How often had she been alone in the past ten years? The dull edge of her riding boot tapped Melusine's flank, and the horse burst into a smooth run, without pretense of patience or ceremony. "Faster," Anne murmured as they burst out of the mossy thicket and into brilliant sunshine. She did not want to look behind her; she did not even want to acknowledge her ladies' existence.

They slowed to a stop as Anne disappeared against the horizon, a pearlescent dot with flying dark hair. Lissie put two fingers against her closed eyes. "Dear God. We have lost the queen."

"One does not lose a queen," Mary Shelton pointed out, gazing after Anne with raised eyebrows. Admiration was visible on her face. "She is not a child. She lost us."

"Would you like to explain that to His Majesty?" Madge huffed.

"We cannot go back without her, surely," Bess's eyes darted around. "We cannot return without her. What will we do? How will we explain?"

"She will likely come right back," Nan consoled them. "She would not run away entirely. Perhaps she just needed an hour to herself." Her words were confident, but her uneasy face watched the path that the queen had just taken. She straightened her hat and swung down from the saddle. "Come, let us take a rest."

Bess Dormer hopped down next. "Her dress will be ruined."

"That's the least of our problems." Lissie slid from her mare's back and landed lightly on the ground.

"Until she realizes that her white silk has become a rag," Bess maintained.

Nan shook her head as the Sheltons dismounted. "She knew what she was doing." She squinted after the queen again: nothing. "We shall wait an hour. She will certainly be back."

v.

"Sir?"

"Mark?"

"The ladies are back." Mark was still walking toward his desk when he said it.

Cromwell waved a hand. "Wonderful. Thank you." He placed his quill back against a memorandum that stretched before him on the desk.

Mark took an anxious step forward. "Sir, the ladies have returned. Without the queen." Wide green eyes shot up to regard him. Cromwell was silent for several long moments.

"Have they said where she is?"

"They know not. She departed from their company. They could not catch her."

Cromwell was on his feet. "Could not catch her…" he trailed off, brushing past Mark. "Stay here, wait for my return."

Anne's ladies loafed about in her antechamber, genuinely lost without their mistress. A copper-haired one shook out her skirts, thin puffs of dirt expanding about her, while Elizabeth Seymour poured wine. She started when she saw him, as though he was there to shout at her. "Good afternoon, Master Secretary."

"Where is the queen?" he responded, trying to keep the urgency from his voice.

She looked uncomfortable and glanced around for help. "We are not sure. We all went out riding earlier this afternoon, and… she galloped ahead of us, and we lost her."

"She outran you all?"

"She is very good on a horse," Madge Shelton piped up, sounding defensive. "Surely you know that, sir."

"Why would she do that?" He looked at the auburn one. She shrugged timidly. Clearly he was asking the wrong people. "Where is Mistress Saville?"

Nan slipped through the door that led to the presence chamber. "Good afternoon, sir," she said coolly, her face telling him she was no fan of his. "May I help you?"

"The queen is gone?"

"I am sure she will return of her own accord soon. We went riding and got separated." She fixed a flat, polite smile on her face.

"I am told she deliberately outpaced the rest of you. Is that true?"

A pleasant shrug. "You shall have to ask her that when she returns, my lord."

Apparently she was not the right person to ask, either, and she was correct: only Anne knew, only Anne could have known, what she was doing. "Did she take anything with her?"

"The clothes on her back," Nan said, shaking her head.

"She was wearing a white silk dress," Madge Shelton offered, "and pearls." Nan glared at her, but Madge seemed oblivious.

"Not riding attire?" his tone demanded an answer of Saville, who shook her head minutely. "Good day, ladies." He spun on his heel and closed the door behind him. In the gallery, he could not decide where to go. He took a deep breath and tapped a finger against the wall as he thought. What if she were fleeing England? She could not. But she might.

When Cromwell was admitted, Henry was scribbling the last words of a letter. He beckoned his secretary with one hand and sprinkled sand on the drying ink with the other. "Cromwell, how go the preparations for May Day?"

"All moves apace, Majesty." He shifted his weight, suddenly unsure of what to say.

Henry raised his eyebrows. One palm rested on the face of the letter, the other on the chairback. Cromwell wondered if he was getting ink on his palm. "What brings you here, then?"

"Majesty…" Cromwell cleared his throat. "It seems that Her Majesty Queen Anne went out riding with some ladies of her household earlier this afternoon, and got separated from the group. The ladies have returned without her and have no knowledge of her whereabouts."

Henry's mouth opened slightly as he absorbed the words. "So she is gone?"

Cromwell made an expansive gesture. "Not gone, but misplaced."

"Misplaced. The Queen of England, misplaced. Where…" Henry's gaze seemed to revert inward, then fixed on Cromwell. "Running away?"

"I know not." He shook his head.

The king wiped a hand over his face – the hand from the letter, and Cromwell was relieved to see no ink smears on Henry's forehead. Cromwell wondered if it was a letter to Jane. "She cannot run away," he said baldly. "She…" Cromwell thought he heard emotion in Henry's voice: could it be possible that she chose to leave him? Was Henry not supposed to be the only one allowed to leave his marriages? Henry cleared his throat. "Find her. Seal off the ports, no private vessels in or out until she stands before me. Post people on the roads, question people in the towns as they move further from London. Get someone up to Northumberland, tell the Earl… tell Harry Percy," the king shook his head, almost sneering, as he remembered Anne's first love, "he is charged with the north. Tell him not to let her through. And if he apprehends her, she is not to be lodged in his castle. I want her returned to this palace immediately." Henry pointed to the bare floor in front of him.

"Yes, Majesty."

"Send out the retainers. Bring her back, Cromwell."

Back in his office, Mark stood in the same spot where Cromwell had left him. "Find the others." The secretary slid into his chair and flicked a fresh piece of parchment onto the middle of his desk. He dipped his quill.

Mark assembled William, Nicholas, and Thomas within minutes. The four boys, all of similar age and experience, and all of whom had come to Cromwell from merchant families in London, stood before him in matching liveries. Mark shut the office door without being prompted.

"The queen has gone missing," Cromwell said flatly, pressing his palms together. "She seems to have fled from her household during a group ride earlier this afternoon, and she has not returned yet." The boys nodded, not in unison. "Royal retainers have been sent out to locate her, and the king demands she be brought back here at once. I want the four of you to go now and join the search, but independently of them. Work together. If you find her first, you must ascertain her plans." He deepened his gaze to ensure they understood the gravity of what he was saying to them. "The king thinks she is trying to flee England." Fortunately, none of them laughed. Their late-adolescent faces were as hard and blank as his own. He waved the letter he had just finished writing. "I am also going to give you this letter. It is addressed to the merchant-sailors who are active in the London ports now, and you will see that I have included as many specific surnames as possible. You all may be familiar with some of these people." He beckoned the boys closer, and they drew into a tight knot in front of his desk. "As I said, if you find her, ascertain her plans. This is a list of people whom I know and trust. The letter suggests compliancy with whatever you may ask of these merchant-sailors. Ascertain her plans and work accordingly." As he spoke, he folded the letter, poured the wax, and sealed it. Four pairs of young obedient eyes followed his movements. "Do not come back with this letter. Shredding is insufficient; burn it or eat it if you have to. Fear not," he added at their startled expressions, "this type of ink will do you no harm. I have eaten many a letter in my day." He held out the letter, and after a moment, William stepped forward and took it. "You all understand discretion, do you not?"

"Yes, yes, sir," they murmured, one on top of the other.

"Find her first," he repeated, sitting back in his chair and waving them from the room. "Ascertain her plans." He scratched the back of his head, kneading his own thinking muscles without Elizabeth to do it for him, and wondered if there was a punishment on the books for a secretary turning double traitor and helping a queen escape who was unwanted and doomed anyway. Or if he would get to write it himself.

vi.

Anne patted Melusine's velvety muzzle as she stepped carefully along the bank of the brook they were following. "Careful, my love," she soothed the mare, ignoring her silk train as it dragged across the muddy ground. "Though all the care in the world cannot always save you. I suppose that is a lesson one must learn a difficult way, or else one never truly learns it. Easy enough to say, much more difficult to grasp."

"I suppose I imagined marriage and queenship would be similar to my courtship, but with added security and physical fulfillment," Anne mused. She paused to rearrange her ropes of pearls, which had gotten tangled during the ride. Melusine was still panting. "Instead… well, it simply did not work that way. I should have realized nothing would ever be that simple." She shook her head. "But again, without learning that, one would never know."

She turned to Melusine. "Do horses get married?" The mare's sweet large eyes peered back at her, and Melusine actually bobbed her head back and forth, as though denying it. Anne chortled, her characteristically loud laughter echoing in the quiet surroundings. "I thought not. And you all seem to copulate with one another as you wish. Humans are not that way," she explained, smoothing Melusine's mane. She chuckled again. "Well, some humans. Men more than women, I daresay. Is that not something? Men are permitted to act like animals do sexually, or at least, when they comport themselves thus, everyone excuses it as being 'only natural.' But women are expected to behave with all the loyalty of an animal, and none of the other natural urges."

"This is the most alone I have felt in ages," Anne continued, slackening Melusine's reins in her hand. The mare immediately bent her head to nibble, and Anne wandered closer to the water, each foot on a different rock. "The most in control of my destiny. Think of it," she turned back to Melusine, who had moved a few feet past her in search of greens. "The queen of the realm, always watched, always restrained. Never able to feel alone or singular or powerful. The queen," she repeated, to make sure Melusine understood. A leafy weed sticking out of her mouth, Melusine regarded Anne with that same blank stare as she chewed. Anne wondered how often Henry had felt this way. They used to discuss private matters, matters of the heart and mind and spirit. She wondered where that level of intimacy had gone, while knowing that she would never know. The thought barely served to sadden her by now. Anne dipped the toe of her white boot into the brook, withdrew it. No wetness made its way inside. Well made.

"I wonder how many mistakes I have made in my life. I wonder if I have time to right the wrongs I have done." She was aware how ridiculous her circumstances were: standing at the water's edge festooned in white silk and expensive jewelry, philosophizing with a single mare as audience, but she could not stop. In spite of herself, she thought of Mary Tudor, the younger, her step-daughter. For years she had been able to refrain from mentally putting herself in Mary's shoes, but lately as she watched her own world unravel, she could not help but wish their interactions had been different. She thought of her sister, who probably had had yet another child by this point, and who reportedly led a happy and quiet life with her husband. She thought of the measures her father had undertaken on her behalf during those years of her courtship, this category blank and dark, as he had repeatedly advised her not to fret over anything: leave it to me. She knew what her father was capable of, and now, being almost a decade older, she wondered the extent of his own mistakes; she wondered how many he had hurt and compromised to put her on the throne; and most of all, she wondered how she could have willingly turned a blind eye to whatever misdeeds he had transacted in her honour. She doubted she had time to right these. She thought of a desk, of mussed hair and gold chain links. She could not erase her mistakes. They would come with her wherever she went. She had raced away from her ladies, thinking to free herself and spend a few hours in solitude and peace, only to find that one cannot separate oneself from one's life, one's past, one's knowledge. Not even a queen. Especially a queen.

"Do horses make mistakes?" she asked Melusine, who continued chomping and did not favour her with a look this time. "I suppose not on the same level that humans do. Particularly ambitious humans." She thought of Cromwell, wondered what share of his own mistakes he could account for. Certainly he would be able to throw together a list of hers. "It is human nature. We step on one another. We see only our own paths, only our own desires." Her own marriage was the best example of this. Although she had recently come to the realization that she no longer possessed the motivation to try to win Henry's love again, the ache was no less sharp when she thought of their past love. "Although those change, and we never consider it that way. We never think of the larger effects. We only see what we want and how our mistakes impact ourselves." She closed her eyes and she could feel her lace collar being ripped off again. "We let our urges rule over us."

Anne slid her pearls through her fingers, thinking of all the gifts Henry had bestowed upon her. She had treasured them, coveted them, the jewelry, the silks, the crown. She had checked at nothing to have them. Now she saw what they were worth to her. She pitied Jane Seymour, truly, for she knew not what she sought. The indifference of a man's stare, a man who had once lived and breathed for your presence, burned more than the hunger of poverty ever could. The corner's of Anne's mouth twitched up, her eyes melancholy: a sad smile. She turned to look at Melusine, tears filling her eyes. "Think anyone has missed us?"

vii.

Henry's page rushed into Cromwell's office yet again, the same one that had been dashing to and fro for the past hour. "Master Secretary, I apologize for the trouble–"

"No need, what's the message?"

"His Majesty wants to know if any progress has been made."

Again? This young lad had been in here thrice in sixty minutes. "None yet." He took a look at the boy. "Tell me: what is His Majesty's state?"

The boy shook his head. "He is in a rage. He demands for someone to deliver his wife to him at once."

"His wife," Cromwell repeated. "I see. Well, please assure His Majesty that his retainers, as well as a legion of my own boys, are out looking for Her Majesty and that we expect to be able to bring her back with all speed. I am doing the best I can."

"His Majesty wants to know what will be done if the queen is harmed." The page extended the words cautiously. Cromwell's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Who should harm her?" The boy shrugged. "Tell the king in no uncertain terms that if any injury has befallen the queen, those responsible parties will be dealt with at my hand." As he said the words, his conviction shocked even him. He would rip the fingernails off any hand that harmed her. And here he sat waiting for her to come home so he could finish helping her husband get rid of her.

"Yes, sir." The page bowed and began to step away. Cromwell beckoned him back discreetly.

He leaned over the secretary's desk. "Is he throwing things?" Cromwell whispered.

"Just some fruit." The page whispered back. "No figurines or books."

The level of Henry's rage could sometimes be gauged by its physical manifestations. "I see. What's your name, boy?"

The page straightened, backed off. "Daniel."

"Daniel. Good lad. Off you go."

viii.

They spotted her at the other edge of a bare, mossy field; mossy only in appearance, as the soil had not yet been tilled and tiny blades of grass peppered the earth. She was a white figure, steady, perched atop a horse that ambled out of the forest behind them.

"Is it?" William murmured, quiet as though he feared she would hear them.

"Looks more like a ghost."

"Of course it's her," Nicholas hushed. "Come, let's go."

She had seen them by now, and she made no move to run. They met in the middle of the field, the queen's disarray becoming apparent as they neared her. Her white dress was muddy and grass-streaked, and the hem more resembled a mop than a silk garment. She looked frail and small, but surprisingly not weary. Cromwell's boys made no move to dismount in her presence. "Your Majesty," Mark called, bowing on horseback, "are you all right?"

"Fine." Her tone was guarded as her eyes darted back and forth. "You have come to apprehend me, I suppose?" She looked at their plain liveries. "Cromwell's service?"

Mark cleared his throat. "Yes, my lady, Master Secretary sent us. His Majesty is very concerned for your safety. Your ladies returned to the palace without you."

"We got separated," Anne agreed, or made it sound like she agreed. "So, have you come to do His Majesty's pleasure or Master Cromwell's?" She fluttered her eyebrows, trying to suppress a smile.

"We…" Mark looked around awkwardly. "We have instructions to, to ascertain your plans." The phrase had sounded so much better when Cromwell said it.

"Begging your pardon?"

"Master Cromwell," Nicholas jumped in, "wanted us to determine your plans before proceeding. That is, what you planned to do, given your separation from your ladies."

Her eyes took in the four young faces. Genuinely confused, her mouth opened and closed. "I have no plans," she said at last. "I was separated from my ladies, and now I am making my way back."

The boys exchanged looks. Mark wanted to say to her: if you wish to run, we can arrange it.

"If Your Majesty wishes to return," he said finally, "we will be happy to assist you. To make sure that no harm comes to you."

Still uncertain, Anne smiled. "Very well. If you are assisting me, no one can fault me if I get lost. But I do ask that we ride in quiet. I am fatigued." The boys nodded in compliance, and a chorus of yes-Your-Majesty sounded before they settled into silence.

They were not far from Greenwich, and as Mark suspected, the king's own retinue soon intersected their path. Mark sensed them, in the distance, before he saw them. He reined his hunter in and drew him alongside the queen, doffing his cap deferentially. "Majesty, forgive me, I agreed to ride in silence." He looked her in the eye, trying to pour the same meaning into the gaze that his master managed to do. "You wish to return to Greenwich?"

She did not seem to understand the question. "Yes," she responded carefully, as though she did not see what other option she had. She regarded Mark carefully for a few moments, and thought, and the beginnings of the idea seemed to dawn on her. She nodded in affirmation. "Yes. I wish to return to Greenwich."

Henry's retainers stopped short when they saw the group of five, and the relief was evident when the two parties neared and the queen's presence was confirmed. "Majesty," one of the Tudor-rose-embroidered liveries said. "We have come to escort you back to the palace."

"Suddenly I am so popular," Anne giggled, pretending to bask in their attention. She patted at her bare collarbones. "Let us move, shall we? The air is cooling."

Mark hung back and watched the queen shift from side to side on her mare, her long hair nearly touching the animal's back. He felt the secretary's letter in his pocket, ran his fingers over the seal, and suddenly spurred his horse forward. "I am going to run ahead and inform the secretary," he explained to Anne, pressing is cap to his heart. "I wish you a comfortable journey, Your Majesty. Gentlemen," he nodded at the group of males, in plain and embroidered doublets, and took off.

He found Cromwell pacing back and forth behind the great heavy door of his office, pressing his knuckles against his cheek so he could chew on the tender flesh inside his mouth. Mark noticed that he did this when he was anxious. When Mark was admitted, dusty and half-panting from the gallop back and from dashing through the courtyard and up the stairs, Cromwell looked ready to shake him. "Well?"

"The queen has been found," Mark blurted.

"Found?" A thousand pictures ran through Cromwell's mind as he deconstructed Mark's five words. If Anne had merely gotten lost, he would have said, the queen is on her way. If she had been intercepted on her way back, he would have said, the queen found us. If she was dead, the queen is dead. Cromwell's heart lurched. He pictured her half-bludgeoned, having been found by some angry poor women who recognized her and claimed retribution for The Good Queen Katherine. He pictured her having fallen into the hands of highwaymen, who would rob and rape her without thinking twice. Highwaymen often cut off the hair of women in order to sell it. He thought of Anne without her beautiful hair. "Found?" he repeated, hardly refraining from shouting at Mark.

"Found," Mark repeated. "Not far from Greenwich."

Was that all he was going to say? Cromwell wanted to grab him, shake it out of him. "In what condition?"

"Perfect." The answer was immediate. "She says she simply got separated and was on her way back."

Relief flooded the secretary. "Did you…" Cromwell trailed off.

Mark flicked the letter out and passed it to him. "I tried. She insisted she wanted to return her, so we escorted her and joined with a number of His Majesty's men. They are coming back now."

Footsteps sounded in Cromwell's corridor again. "Enter!" Cromwell bellowed, and in walked Daniel. "Mark, meet Daniel, a royal page. Daniel, Mark."

"How do you do," Daniel said politely.

"How does the king?" Cromwell interrupted.

"Pacing like a lion." Mark noted the description and thought that the secretary had looked similar when he came upon him. "Wants to know what progress."

"Tell him the queen has been found. She is in custody of his men and mine and is en route to the palace now."

Daniel was back not a quarter of an hour later, looking like a puppy who had just been introduced to his master's boot. "His Majesty wants you in the courtyard to meet the queen," he told Cromwell, looking confused even as he said it. "He is on his way there now."

Cromwell snagged Mark's elbow. "You, too."

Thomas Cromwell had seen many different things in his life, but the scene that presented itself on the steps of Greenwich Palace as the sun dipped low in the sky was truly unique. Henry, festooned in brilliant red with gold adornments, lounged and pawed indeed like a lion. Several members of his household had been assembled, as well as the queen's ladies. Vaguely, Cromwell wondered who had sent them. Distant noises told him that the party had arrived at the outer gate and were dismounting, their horses being led away to cool down. "Cromwell," the king acknowledged him with a nod, one hand on a hip like an impatient child.

"Majesty." Cromwell maintained his physical distance, suddenly very uncomfortable at the scene he sensed was about to unfold before him. The merchant-sailor letter had been burned in the fireplace in his own office. Mark stood behind him, silent and shifty-eyed.

Anne came into view at length, walking up the wide cobbled road from the stableyard, flanked on either side by two young men in Tudor jackets. Cromwell noted that Nicholas, William, and Thomas formed a wall at the back of the procession. His eyes shifted from Anne to Henry, who had gone still at her entrance. He watched her come toward him. Anne's eyes took in the scene before her: Henry in the middle of the wide palace stairs, with Cromwell on the left and her ladies clustered on the right, their ivory blending against the walls of Greenwich. Cromwell wondered if it looked like a church scene to her, with Henry as the priest, Cromwell as the almoner, and the ladies as the choir. As Anne approached, she did not check, and her face did not change.

When she reached the stairs, she stopped before them as though at an altar. She curtsied to Henry. "My lord."

"Wife." Henry sniffed. "Where have you been?"

She bobbed back up. "I was riding with my ladies earlier today," she indicated them, "and I was separated. I spent a little time in a forest and was escorted back."

It was a perfectly reasonable answer, but Henry's frustration and anger was so apparent, and perhaps so frightening to him, that he needed a reason to lash out. "And what did you think you were doing, riding out without proper escorts to begin with?"

Anne's brow scrunched. "I have always ridden out with only my ladies," she pointed out.

"You have not always gotten lost," Henry shot back, relentless. "You have not always set the court in a panic. You have not always wasted afternoons. You have not always been such a fool."

In spite of herself, Anne stepped backward. "I did not aim to get lost," she offered. Cromwell watched the stare that passed between husband and wife, watched as Anne lost her nerve. He looked for the cut on her lip from yesterday but did not see it.

"You should be more careful. Does it not bother you that these men have wasted their day in search of you? As though not enough time has been spent on you in the past," he snorted, and Anne's face flinched as though he was swinging a fist at her. "Can you think of no one but yourself?" Henry's face flushed. He raised his voice to the level that one would use when shouting at an unfaithful lover, not a woman who had spent an afternoon riding on her own.

Bewildered: "I am sorry."

"You should be!" Anne shrunk from his bellows, her shoulders squeezing forward in defense of her chest, the way a beast protects its torso from exposure. Cromwell noted that her skin tone nearly matched her white gown, which was uncharacteristically ill-fitting. She must be losing weight, he decided. The shadows around her collarbones confirmed it. Her chest was bare. Had her ladies not said she was wearing pearls? He glanced over at them: nervous faces, eyes darting between king and queen. Everyone looked that way.

"I meant no harm," Anne tried again, her voice soft. Her eyes flicked about, too, instinctively looking for an escape, although she could never take it. Her eyes were captivating, had they always been so?

Henry rolled his eyes. "Surely. You never do. Enough; up to your rooms and no more trouble." With that, he stepped aside and gestured for her to walk past him into the palace. Several long moments dragged as Anne stared at her husband in disbelief at being ordered to her rooms like a child. Slowly, she made her way forward, picked up the ragged hem of her gown, and padded up the steps into the Hall. Her ladies squirmed among themselves for a moment, embroidered damask rippling like bedsheets, before scurrying after their mistress.

The men were left standing about and staring at one another as they all tried not to look at the king. Cromwell wondered why he had assembled them out here for this public display of his temper. To show his power? With the sunlight glancing off Henry's red jacket and illuminating Anne's white shroud, Cromwell thought they looked rather more like demon and angel.

"Thank you all for your vigilance and service," Henry smiled generously at the scattered black jackets, then turned to Cromwell: "Come."

Back in Henry's rooms, as the king muttered "ridiculous" and "selfish woman," Cromwell kept a blank face and wondered what Henry was looking for in his apothecary box. The king had, by reports, been on the brink of hysteria at the prospect of Anne being harmed; now she was back and he his feelings for her reverted to disgust. A person could get dizzy trying to follow the king's emotions over the course of a single day.

Henry shoved a small brown vial at him. "Give this to her."

His hand came up to get it: "What is it?"

"Give it to her, put it in her wine, I care not. I need peace." The king rubbed his temples. "There are few ways to silence that woman." He looked to Cromwell for agreement. Personally, Cromwell thought Anne had been quite silent on the steps just now.

He sought a question that would be acceptable. "Will she taste it?"

Henry shook his head. "Not unless she is a sorceress. So perhaps." He walked Cromwell to the door, put a hand on his arm, looked into his face. For one moment, he feared the king could read his thoughts. Then Henry said, "The work done is good, but it must come faster, Tom. D'you understand?" Cromwell nodded. Henry looked strangled by that jacket, his eyes burning brighter and his face beginning to flush again. "It's there. It's yours to find. Get it from her ladies." With that, he opened the door and propelled his secretary out.

Sick at his stomach, Cromwell put the bottle in his pocket. He went straight to the queen's rooms, not caring who saw him. As he expected, the queen's women were all tucked away in some distant corner, probably in her bedchamber, stripping her bare out of her ruined dress. He tried not to let his mind form that image. The jug of wine on the table in the small room where libations were kept was filled halfway, and he paused, asking himself how to manage this. The king had obviously meant for only Anne to drink this, and he had no choice but to administer it, lest he have to answer to the king about why she was not asleep within the hour. But it would hardly do for her whole household to fall unconscious, and that would insinuate foul play. No window to pour it out of. He swirled the wine in the jug, then poured it into waiting goblets. Four. Right. He would drink three.

He nearly gagged: was this wine all sugar? The brown bottle appeared, small and lethal. He paused. What if this was not a sleeping draft but poison? What if he killed her? He remembered daydreaming of killing her in this exact way, but at a banquet rather than alone in her rooms. He did not want to kill her. He shook it off. Henry would not make that mistake. He would not kill her by this method. It would be lawful, public, not covert. Cromwell sniffed the solution, and smelled nothing. It seemed like a lot. What was the proper dosage? Anne obviously had no fat on her; to give too much could be a death sentence. Bile built in Cromwell's stomach as he began to fear being seen. He emptied a third of the bottle into the single remaining goblet, knowing that Anne would receive the only available wine, and the ladies would wait for more. It was a small amount, but it would be enough put her to sleep. He would not be responsible for hurting her.

Cromwell turned, satisfied, and found the copper-haired girl staring at him from the threshold. He could never remember her name. Wondering how long she had been standing there, he picked up the wine and handed it to her. "For the queen." Her eyes were wide. She looked afraid of him. He saw his advantage. "Give this to her."

"What did you put in it?"

Hell. "A relaxing posset."

"Not poison?"

"Of course not. Something recommended by a physician." Well, Henry's physician had probably recommended it to Henry at some point.

She held her ground, the goblet at an arm's length as though she would not accept it. "Why can a physician not bring it to her?"

"It is the king's wish." He looked hard at her. "You recognize my face, mistress. I recognize yours as well. I will not forget it." He indicated the goblet. "That is for the queen. Do you understand?"

She backed up a few steps. "Yes, my lord." He nodded and brushed past her. Her imploring voice followed him: "It is not dangerous?"

"No. You have my word." As he walked back toward his office, clenching the brown bottle in his pocket, Cromwell tried to remember the last honest conversation he had had with someone. He tried to remember what giving someone one's word meant to most people, what it had meant when it had meant something to him.

UP NEXT:

"Her conduct in my line of vision is without fault. I will not be swayed into saying something accusatory. Perhaps it would be best to leave me, as Jane's sister, out of this entirely."

He smirked. "Ah, but as I recall, you were given ample opportunity to leave the queen's service altogether. You cannot pick and choose which responsibilities you'd like as a member of her household, madam."

Lissie nodded in understanding. "But," she held up one index finger, "what about when Jane is queen? Will you not need someone to pass information to and from her?" Her smirk mirrored his own. "I feel certain you do not wish to rely upon my brothers."

"And why would I rely upon you, when you will not even cooperate now?"

"My survival, as a Seymour, would depend on it then."

His eyes flashed with genuine interest. He settled into his chair. "You do not think your survival depends on this interview?"

"Not really. I can hardly imagine you beating me to death. At this point, my brothers would do worse than you. I endure it. They think they have control now, and you let them think that, but I imagine when my sister is crowned that much of that pretense will fly the chamber. They will no longer steer our ship; you will. It seems the wiser loyalty to cultivate."

He looked at her unassuming face, a button nose much more attractive than her sister's, a few freckles here and there. She looked like any pretty lady of the court. Who would have thought she possessed abilities of reckoning on par with himself?