The Last Boleyn(163)

Staff loosened his firm hold on Mary as she moved like a sleepwalker toward her father. The horror of what the paper said, her mind could not encompass yet. But her father was crushed and in pain, that she could feel deep inside. She put one hand on his shoulder, but he stared into vacancy as though she were not there.

“Father,” she said gently. “Father, I know you are thinking of all your dreams and of George and Anne. Go home to Hever and mother. They will comfort you.”

His eyes fastened on her tear-streaked face. “Leave with your husband, Mary,” he said as though exhausted. She could barely discern his words. “I am staying. The king has ordered it, but something must be done to save it all. Surely something can be done. I only have to think about it now.” He turned away, stooped, and her hand fell off his shoulder as he went. She fought the urge to chase after him and throw her arms around his thin neck, but Staff’s hands were on her again and he half-pulled, half-carried her down the far side of the gallery, gaily decked with Tudor white and green. He took her, unprotesting, through the gardens to the stableblock. It was only when he lifted her on Eden’s back and she turned to glance back at the palace that her calm became hysteria, and Staff had to carry her before him on Sanctuary until they reached the outskirts of London.

In a little inn on the edge of Lambeth, he held her on his lap and let her sob. While the grooms and Stephen hovered nervously with the horses in the street, he made her drink wine and eat fruit and cheese. “Can you ride, my love? If you do not think you can, Sanctuary can handle the extra weight until we reach Banstead.”

She turned her swollen eyes slowly to him. “Banstead?”

“Yes, lass. I can fetch our son from Wivenhoe after we make it to Hever. I want us far away from here and I do not care if we never see His Grace’s fine palaces again. Your mother has need of you and you of her. We can make it from Banstead to Hever by noon tomorrow.”

Mary nodded slowly. Her head hurt terribly, and she was certain she would be sick if she had to get on a horse. “I can make it to Banstead, my Staff. If you are near.”

“I will be near every step of the way, my love,” he comforted, his mouth pressed close in her hair.

What will happen to George and Anne? she wanted to ask him, but she was afraid he would tell her the truth and not what she so desperately wanted to hear.

“We are off to Banstead and Hever, then.” He swung her into his arms and strode for the door. “And never fear that our dreams will crash about us like that, my sweetheart. Our dreams are quite a different thing.”

She looked up dazedly into his worried face. Pain etched his forehead and wrinkled his firm brow.

“I shall remember that, my lord, no matter what befalls,” she said, and he shouldered open the inn door to put her on the waiting Eden’s back.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


February 5, 1536


Hever Castle

Hever stood cold and bare against the gray Kent sky as they approached. The ivy cloak of the castle was gone for winter and only the clinging tendrils of brown vines etched the walls. The forest’s trees stood stark and straight, and the eyelike windows reflected only the flatness of the threatening sky. Mary’s tears were long gone and a steely calm held her rigid on Eden’s back. She felt on the sharp edge of jagged screaming fits, but they never came. Surely all the terror and agony would dissolve when she saw mother’s face. If only she could pull herself awake from the smothering nightmare safe in her bed at Wivenhoe!

The horses’ hoofs echoed hollowly off the inner courtyard walls, and they drew to a halt in a ragged circle to dismount. Mary’s swollen eyes scanned the upper windows for a familiar face—of mother, or Semmonet, or a well-remembered servant. Then the central door under the proud Boleyn family crest opened and her mother rushed out dressed in velvet black.

“Mary! Staff! I prayed you would come. Thank you, my lord, for bringing my Mary home.” She darted between Sanctuary and Eden. Her slender arms were tight about Mary, and the tears came flowing free from them both.

“You know, mother, you already know of Anne’s arrest,” was all Mary could manage as she pressed her cheek into her mother’s silvery hair. It began to snow tiny, random ice flakes, and Staff urged them both inside.

Semmonet stood bent and more crooked than ever, leaning on a carved staff at the entry, her face a mask of shocked agony. Mary embraced her tenderly then desperately, and the Boleyn women helped the old governess into the solar, as though she were one of the family, while Staff gave orders to his servants. The portrait of the king stared down unblinking on them all as they passed.

“Sit here, Semmonet. I am so pleased to see you on your feet. Mother had written that you keep much to your bed,” Mary said, amazed at her own small talk when all the eyes of the room were fastened hard on her.

“I only forced myself up today after the tragic message came from Lord Boleyn that the Queen was arrested yesterday. No one else was here who knows both our George and our dear Anne so well, and my Lady Elizabeth needed to talk.”

“Yes, of course, I see.” Mary sat on the arm of her mother’s chair and leaned into her with her arm around the fragile woman’s shoulders.

“You see, my children,” Elizabeth Boleyn began, holding up her hand for quiet as both Mary and Staff began to speak, “I have been awaiting some tragedy for years and years now, ever since I saw the king myself, and the king offered to make me his mistress—he was only Prince of Wales, then, you know—and when I refused because I was new wed and in love with my lord, the king was angry. Well, I could understand that, but when my Lord Thomas was even more angry with me...indeed, something inside me died, and I knew from then on the Bullens would live in danger. The king said so quietly, ‘I do not command, I only request,’ but I could see clearly what he meant and that to serve him was danger. But I never thought it could be this terrible. No, Staff, wait. I would say more.