A/n: Hey, GreenField here! So this is actually a poemfic to Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti, from Mary Boleyn's point of view about Anne's relationship with Henry. Please review!

I was a cottage maiden

Hardened by sun and air,

Contented with my cottage mates,

Not mindful I was fair.

Why did a great lord find me out,

And praise my flaxen hair?

Why did a great lord find me out

To fill my heart with care?

I look out across the fields of Hever from my chamber window, impatiently swiping away a crystalline tear. I have not left my room for several days, since I heard George's news. Anne is getting married. Not married to just any man, oh no – not my ambitious sister – but married to the King of England. Married to a man who was once my lover, who had plucked me away from the simple life I desired, out of my husband's bed and into his own. Now my husband is dead and I have long been dropped, and I am not quite sure how to feel.

I wanted a life in the country, with the husband I loved, my hair threaded with wildflowers and a babe in my arms. It was not much to ask – for any ordinary woman. For a Boleyn, however, it was the biggest ask imaginable.

I came to court one day against my will, trussed up in a golden gown paid for with my reluctant William's money. And the King asked me to dance.

He told me I was beautiful, so different from everyone else, looking like a country maid just stepped out from the woods. He told me that my flaxen hair, something I had never particularly been fond of, was as stunning as spun gold. I, admittedly, was flattered. Maybe a little too much so.

He lured me to his palace home-

Woe's me for joy thereof-

To lead a shameless shameful life,

His plaything and his love.

He wore me like a silken knot,

He changed me like a glove;

So now I moan, an unclean thing,

Who might have been a dove.

I became his that very night. I was married, it was wrong of me and I knew it even at the time. But I was dazzled to my very core; at the time, I even thought that I loved him. Oh, what a fool I was! If I could only have known what I know now: that I meant about as much to him as the deer he slaughtered during the hunt. But at the time...it seemed strangely...right. Our time together was blissful, he named a ship for me, the Mary Boleyn, set to sail the seven seas, and we were happy. Or so I thought. I was everything to him, I imagined. But now...now I am ruined.

Everyone knows, now, of my affair, and they laugh at me. That is why I have retired here, to Hever. But why do they laugh, you ask? Well, that's the best bit.

O Lady Kate, my cousin Kate,

You grew more fair than I:

He saw you at your father's gate,

Chose you, and cast me by.

He watched your steps along the lane,

Your work among the rye;

He lifted you from mean estate

To sit with him on high.

Four years ago, on a not so very unusual day, my sister – beautiful, charming, coquettish Anne – shot an arrow into the target of an archery board, where King Henry had missed the mark just moments before. It was brave of her, I give her that – no-one ever dared to beat the King – but Anne did, and for that, she won the ultimate prize. While she was standing with our father after the tournament, their heads close together, talking with smiles, the perfect father and daughter (she was always his favourite), King Henry, at that time still my Henry, told her that he was greatly impressed by her skill. He invited her to dine with him that evening, and she declined. That was the first move in a game that has lasted for four years now, and looks set to last many more, now that they are betrothed. He told me that he would no longer be 'requiring my services', as though all we had shared was nothing more than that between peasant and a dockside whore. I knew it had not been that simple, but Henry seemed content to believe that it had been, and I could not contradict him. So I nursed my broken heart, and tried to regain the love my William and I had once had.

He tells Anne now that she is too good to be the granddaughter of a tailor, too good to be content with the small castle of Hever where we three grew up. Instead, he tells her she is worthy of the throne. She believes him.

Because you were so good and pure

He bound you with his ring:

The neighbours call you good and pure,

Call me an outcast thing.

Even so I sit and howl in dust,

You sit in gold and sing:

Now which of us has tenderer heart?

You had the stronger wing.

George tells me it is a ruby ring, a ruby to symbolise virtue, because in all this time she has never once surrendered her body to him. I suppose that was my first mistake, falling into his bed so easily. But I never did have Anne's strength, nor her ambitious determination. My second mistake, perhaps my biggest mistake, was believing that I loved him. Perhaps if I had realised that mistake sooner, I could have recaptured the marital bliss William and I once shared before he died. But now I will never get back those wasted years.

The court now worships my sister, I am told. I will have to return soon, she will require me to serve her. Sometimes, I hate her. I will have to go to court and serve her on bended knee, one day curtsey to her and call her 'Your Majesty', rather than 'Annie' as I always have done, and I will have to be seen to worship her also. Behind my back people who were once my friends, who flocked to me in my time of favour, will whisper and snigger and point. I shall be a source of ridicule, and all the while my sister will be the better Boleyn, ring on her finger and Queenship on the way.

O cousin Kate, my love was true,

Your love was writ in sand:

If he had fooled not me but you,

If you stood where I stand,

He'd not have won me with his love

Nor bought me with his land;

I would have spit into his face

And not have taken his hand.

Could I have held out and been his Queen? Could I have gotten as far as Anne has? I tell myself I could not, and I believe that that is true. Sooner or later I would have realised, as I eventually did, that I do not love him, and I would not have been able to back out. When I think on it, now, I am angry with him more than her. Anne is my sister, after all, and I will always love her, despite her betrayal. Maybe she saw in him that he was going to betray me, and thought to spare me the pain by saving time. I could believe that of her.

But Henry, once mine? He would not ever have spared a thought for the pain that I felt. I know now, for sure, that had he proposed to me, I would have spat the offer right back in his face and thrown that outrageous ruby ring at his feet, and damn him if he cut off my head for doing so.

Yet I've a gift you have not got,

And seem not like to get:

For all your clothes and wedding-ring

I've little doubt you fret.

My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,

Cling closer, closer yet:

Your father would give lands for one

To wear his coronet

Ah, I do fear there is something I have forgotten to mention. You see, it is Henry who has lost. Not because he gains Anne's fearsome temper and her rigid virtuousness and her ambition, not even because he loses me, his flaxen-haired country girl. But because I have already given him something I believe Anne never will.

At my feet in this moment sit two golden haired children. A girl – she will not matter to him, though she should. And a boy. He looks like the Henry I once knew, the golden King of England, yet Henry and Anne have no claim to him. This boy born of my sin is my pride and joy, for he is something that they – my sister and my lover – can never take away from me.

This boy, my son, Henry Carey, as he is known, is the true heir to the throne.