Hey again! Thanks everyone for the reviews, they mean a lot to me.

For all of you Chary fans: there's a new project we (SSLE and myself) started, called Right Here By Me. It's a compilation of one shots inspired in our favourite songs. And you wouldn't believe if we told you how many songs fit Chary like a glove.

Chapter 8

- Is there anything I should know about, Thomas? - Anne asked cautiously the next day. Like Thomas had said to Mary the previous night, the whole country to the sound of canon bells and fireworks, and some people could have sworn hearing them in Calais. The King was announcing to every living soul the pregnancy of his fifth wife, of his English Rose; but, more than that, the decrepit monarch was bragging loud and clear his manhood, his sexual potency. Or so he thought.

- About what, mein lieben? –Anne smiled to the sound of her native tongue in his lips.

- You and Princess Mary?

He pressed his lips together.

- Oh, about that.

- Yes...?

- Well, we... talked last night. I found her half asleep in the couch. She reacted badly to the news of the Queen's pregnancy, as I expected.

- Poor girl, I can't blame her - said Anne, shaking her hand compassionately.

- Neither do I. But when I said she would be summoned to Court to pay her respects to the Queen, things got worse.

- What happened?

- I advised her to make peace with the Queen. She didn't like my advice, although it was for her own sake.

Anne giggled quietly.

- Princess Mary is not the damsel in distress she appears to be, Thomas. You should know that, you've met her since she was very little.

Thomas thought of admonish her for the misuse of the title. It was Lady Mary, not Princess. But he restrained himself.

- She called me an heretical, Anne – he muttered. – She said it was my fault that Anne Boleyn and her father married… since I had presented them Thomas Cranmer. She said that if it wasn't for my heresies, her parents would still be married and she would have been happy as she once was.

Anne took his hand and made him at the edge of their bed.

- I am sure she didn't mean to hurt you that way. She was very distressed due to the news of Kitty's pregnancy.

He tried to smile but failed.

- I'm afraid she meant every syllable of what she said to me, Anne. And, to be honest, I believe that most of her accusations are partially right.

Anne was confused.

- Thomas, you are not an heretical – she said reassuringly. – You know that.

- I don't know what I know anymore! – he blurted in anguish. – I understand her point, I really do.

- How?

He sighed. He would have to tell her the tale of the Spanish princess who became Queen of England and fell from grace in the blink of an eye.

- Anne, there was a time where Henry the VIII wasn't the old paranoid pig you have met – she instantly looked at the door, but it was safely closed. If someone heard them, they could both be charged for treason. – He was a young and handsome prince, full of love and joy. He had married his brother's widow, an act of generosity accordingly to almost everyone, and they were happy. They had Princess Mary, whom the King loved dearly. But then the age and the difficult times she had endured before her second marriage started to take its toll on her. She no longer could give the King the male son he had always desired. She had given birth to a baby boy once, but the poor thing didn't last a month. Henry started to become obsessed with a son. His own experience told him that no dynasty is safe without a son, nor secure without at least two of them. He had a bastard son by Lady Blount, but it wasn't enough, of course.

- Then he met Anne Boleyn – said Anne. She didn't know the whole story, but rumors tended to spread fast across Europe.

- No. He took her older sister, Mary Boleyn, as a mistress. He had two children with her: Catherine and Henry Carey.

- Catherine Carey… - that name rang a bell in Anne's mind. – Wasn't she one of my ladies-in-waiting?

- Indeed.

- I had no idea…

- The King never acknowledged them as his children.

- Because he had already an eye on Anne Boleyn.

- Quite possibly, yes – Thomas nodded. – Then, when he tired of Mary, he moved on to Anne. I believe it was a last-minute move for the Boleyns. They had two beautiful daughters and too many ambitions.

- And Henry fell in love with Anne.

- Yes, completely. But there was a problem. In fact, make that two.

- Katherine and the Pope.

- Yes. Katherine was the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor and the last thing Henry needed was a war with Spain. But he found a way of getting rid of her… rather cruelly.

- She was a great woman, as far as I was told.

- She was – Thomas nodded vigorously. – She was extremely popular among her subjects, rich and poor, men and women. Katherine was a woman of great strength and faith. She never gave up fighting, not for her sake, but for her daughter's.

- She had hopes that Mary would be Queen someday?

- Yes. Her mother was Queen by her own right, along with her husband. Isabella and Ferdinand of Aragon and Castille, the Catholic Kings. She raised Mary to be Queen someday. Everything was right on their lives until Anne Boleyn, until the Reformation.

- But the Reformation was inevitable, as you once said – Anne locked her fingers in his soft hair, soothing him.

- And I will keep saying that. But I didn't think the King would use it against its people.

- No one did – she said calmly. – But I believe you and Mary will get over your differences someday, just like she did with me. She's just sad and tired of her father, tired of the latest events. And I can understand her determination in defending the Catholic faith, for it was her only comfort in times of despair. Maybe you two can come to terms. There are many things yet to be done concerning the Reformation, and some others who can be amended or corrected. I'm sure you will succeed in doing so, very discreetly of course.

Thomas cupped her face in his hands and looked deeply in her eyes.

- What have I done to deserve you, mein engel? (my angel in German). I would be dead if it wasn't for you.

- And I would be unhappy and not pregnant with our beloved child – she said, putting his hand on her still small belly and making him lie beside her. – Everyone deserves a second chance, Thomas. Try to make the most of yours – she said, kissing him sweetly and cuddling him to sleep.