Dear Heart, How Like You This (32 page)

I felt shocked at what five years had done to Anna. It was not that she had aged so much—though she was now twenty-five—but her fragility had increased to such a point that I could not help thinking that her outer flesh was being slowly burnt away by all the battles she had fought during these last five years.

“Cousin Tom, ’tis as bad as all that?” Anne asked, laughing at me.

Obviously my face had given away some of my thoughts. I mentally shook myself, thinking as I did that her appearance of greater fragility only served to increase her semblance of loveliness.

“No, my Lady. ’Tis only when last we met you were at the close of girlhood. Now I have the pleasure to meet the lovely woman for the first time.”

“Gallant, as always, dear Tom.” And with those words she left me to continue along the line of other Calais officials come hither to welcome the royal party. Soon, I watched the King and Anne as they were both led to waiting horses for their journey to the castle, realising for the first time that one of the ladies riding alongside Anne was my cousin Mary. In recent years, Mary—who now had two children—and I rarely crossed paths.
Perchance
, I thought,
here in Calais we might meet and speak—enjoy some moments remembering the past
.

Making my own slow way back by foot, I passed the Duke of Suffolk, surrounded by his men. The Duke cast me a hawkish glance as I gave him a hurried bow. Quickening my pace back to the castle, I found myself plotting ways to avoid the Duke during his stay.

For the next few days I stayed busy attending to my various daily duties. Thus, I could only see Anne when the castle’s household sat down to dinner and, of course, the dais was too far from mine for us to be able to engage in conversation. Not that we could have sat side by side; Anna had gone far beyond the simple fare of talking in such a place with one like I. A few days after the royal party’s arrival, the King and his attendants left for Sandyfield to meet with
François
of France. This was the main reason for King Henry’s visit to these shores: to gain the French King’s support for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. King Henry also hoped to gain
François
’ assurances that he would use his influence with the Pope to help our King achieve his desire for a new wife. While King Henry went to parley with the French King, as no French noble woman of suitable rank had agreed to accompany the French King to meet with Anne, she remained at Calais with the Duke of Richmond.

Not long after the King departed Calais, I received a young boy in my chamber, with a message from my Lady requesting the enjoyment of my music. I took my lute out from its wrappings, made a quick check to see if it was properly tuned, then followed the page to Anne’s apartments.

I was not surprised when I came near to her rooms to hear the sounds of Anne’s own music coming through the closed doors. For a few heartbeats, I stood and listened. Anne’s playing had never sounded better. There seemed to me a far greater depth in her music, a depth not apparent the last time we played together.

I entered the room to find Anne, with her little dog Purkoy curled up at her feet, attended by several ladies and, to my great surprise, also the Duke of Richmond. Why was I so surprised to see him present, and apparently in good spirits, here in Anne’s chambers? To be utterly truthful, I felt surprised because I would have thought that the young Duke could have no liking to pay court to the woman his father, the King, hoped would provide him and England with a true heir.

’Twas well known that King Henry had made moves, beginning with giving his bastard son the titles that had once belonged to his father, before becoming King of England, to have his only living son recognised as a solution to the Tudor succession. I had even heard that the Pope suggested to the King he marry his bastard son to his daughter Mary, the boy’s half sister, thus to satisfy those who saw her as the rightful heir to the English throne. Not surprisingly, Catherine of Aragon, the girl’s mother, refused to consider such a move.

As I moved into the chamber, Anne saw me and stopped her playing. She smiled brightly, and then turned to her attendants and the Duke.

“Now your Grace and good people, you will hear such music which is fit to be heard by the ears of angels.”

I kissed her hand in greeting.

“Yours or mine?” I asked her in a voice meant only for her ears.

Anna laughed.

“Both of ours,” she replied, laughing again. Yet I thought I could see a heavy sadness shadowing her eyes.

Thus, for the next hour we forgot about our audience, and played our lutes together as we had done often since our childhoods. In due course, after playing many, many songs with meaning to us, a string on my lute broke, and I halted to make repairs. Anne then ceased strumming her lute too. The Duke and all the other attendants broke out in loud applause.

Some called out “Bravo!” and asked for us to play more.

We both looked at each other in amusement and then turned to our audience, bowing slightly. Gazing at me, Anna laughed. It did my heart good to see her happier than when I had first entered the room. It did my heart good just to be thus so near.

“Enough, my good people,” Anne said to those listening. “My fingers are out of practice and they ache now from all the playing. Excuse me, your Grace, if I take this time to converse with my cousin Wyatt.” With that, she gave her lute to one of her ladies, curtsying slightly in the direction of the Duke, and stood. She then held out a hand to me.

“Come, my cousin Tom. Give your lute to Madge, and come over to the window so you can tell me what you know of home.”

I took her hand, giving my lute to the girl Anna gestured to, a girl I recognised as another of our many relations. We walked, hand in hand, closely followed by several of Anne’s attendants, and even closer by Anne’s dog, to the enormous window at the end of the room that looked down upon the port of Calais. Dropping hands, Anne and I stood, with Purkoy yawning and scratching between us, looking out at the vivid blueness of the sea and sky—there seemed to be no end or beginning to either one or the other. And while we stood there, gazing out to this vastness of the seemingly infinite, we talked of things less complicated by the power struggles affecting our daily lives within the world in which we lived.

Trying hard to ignore those attendants who, we could not avoid noticing, were trying their best to listen to what we said, Anna imparted to me, as gently as she could, sad and tragic news from home. Simonette had swiftly sickened of a fever and, just as quickly, died. Peacefully and without much pain, Anna told me, with brimming tears lighting up her dark eyes. We both were silent, sharing together the grief we felt for the loss of this genuine godsend, that truly magnificent woman who had been the real maternal force of our younger years. I took Anna’s hand in mine, though circumstances dictated that it was only for a brief moment, and looked back out at the sea.

“I wish I could have been there. I cannot believe that I will never see Simonette again. Never again in this life…”

Blinking away my own tears, I felt myself suddenly filled by the memory of a golden summer afternoon. I could see it all so clearly, aye, so very clearly… Shaded by a tree from our favourite oak grove—her skirts spread out on the ground like the outstretched petals of a daisy—Simonette cradled upon her lap Anna, fast asleep, index finger popped into mouth, while helping Mary read her hornbook. And not far from her loving care, two small boys played sword fights with one another…

By and by, we put aside our common grief and went on to talk of other things.

“Can you guess, Tom,” Anna asked, “why the King raised me to be Marquess of Pembroke in my own right?”

I grimaced. “I know, Anna. George wrote to me the reasons. The King believed it would make you secure about his efforts to wed you and increase your prestige when meeting with the French King.”

Waving her index finger at me, Anna laughed a little. “Your face tells me, Tom, that George told you all.”

Smiling wryly, I shrugged. I moved closer to Anna, speaking for her ears alone. “I cannot say anything against the wisdom of protecting any children resulting from your relationship with the King—although pray allow me a degree of doubt about what this means to the King. Anna, he has wanted you in his bed for a long time now. This just helps the day come for him.”

Anne frowned, gazing out the window. “You must admit the King has waited a long time for the day to come…”she chewed her bottom lip. “All his women have been easy conquests for him—like my sister Mary.” Anna gazed aside at me. “Have you seen my sister?”

I pressed my knuckle against my mouth and shook my head. “Only from a distance. I have looked out for her, but she seems to have disappeared since the morning of your arrival.”

Heaving a sigh, Anna gazed down, thoughtfully bringing her fingertips together, over and over. A few nails showed evidence of being gnawed. She glanced up at me. “I am starting to wish I never asked, nay begged, Mary to come to Calais with me. She’s found herself a new lover and spends almost every moment in his chamber.” Anna shrugged. “She does not seem to care how embarrassing this is to me. I am disappointed in her, Tom.”

“Mayhap she does not realise this?”

Bending down to stroke her dog, Anna shrugged again. “She knows and does not care. ’Tis like my sister and I speak a different language—I do not understand her and she does not understand me. Thank God, time has only served to strengthen the bond between George and me.” She smiled at me. “And as for our bond, Tom, I also thank God for that.”

Anna shared with me recent news of George, who was with the Duke of Norfolk at the court of the Pope on a mission for the King regarding “His Great Matter.” George’s marriage continued to go from bad to worse. Still there was no sign of an heir, nor did Jane ever show any hint of being with child. Other events had consoled George somewhat; his mistress had recently given him a very welcomed son, even if born on the wrong side of the blanket.

After conversing long about this and other homely things held close to our hearts, Anna looked to me and said: “Tom, I need to ask a boon of you.”

I glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow. So surprised was I that a rising star such as Anne, Marquess of Pembroke, could ask an ordinary court official such as me for a favour.

“Aye, Anna?”

She smiled. “This is something I wouldn’t ask just anyone—but I know you would do it so well.”

“You have made me curious—what’s this something I would do well?”

“Help me entertain the French King when he arrives at Calais.”

“Entertain King
François
? Whatever do you mean, Anna?”

But even as I asked the question, I didn’t doubt for one moment that she already had a firm idea on what she wanted.

“I had in mind to arrange a revel based on the hunt of the white hind. It would do me a great service if you could think hard on it, so to compose one of your beautiful sonnets for this performance.”

I laughed, bowing to her.

“How can I refuse, Anna, when you but honour me? I will attempt to do my best to compose something suitable.”

Alas, too soon we realised that it was time to part. Indeed, the darkening of the skies outside the chamber’s window told us that it would be soon time to prepare for the evening revel. Thus, I kissed her hand again and took my leave.

Sometimes, it seems to me, even with the best intentions, a poet cannot prevent his hand from writing other that what he planned. That is what happened as I tried to write the sonnet Anne had asked of me. What appeared on the paper had suddenly materialised from deep inside of me, something deeply personal, something that I doubted I would enjoy sharing with one and all:

Who so list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, helas, I may no more:

The vayne travail hath wearied me sore.

I am of them that farthest commeth behind;

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,

Fainting I follow. I leve of therefore,

Sins in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain:

There is written her fairer neck round about:

Noli me tangere,
for Caesar’s I am;

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.