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Anne is down, but never out.
Their Lenten breakfast marks at least one cause of her failure: eggs slide over the iron pan and onto their plates, and he, in penitent observance, insists he cannot share her bed, no, not even just for company, we cannot imperil our souls …
Two, she is with child. And so he treads around her as though she were made of glass, and will not share news of the council with her, for fear of ‘endangering her’.
But she must know what is happening, in the world: she must know, for herself , and for her daughter, and so she pursues him, as though they were courting, all over again, as though she were earning his confidence, all over again.
And so… she has had enough. Enough, of Madge Shelton, blushing at all those secret smiles , enough, of his fickle lack of courage, and insisted upon visiting him, every night, without fail, and… with, fail.
He eats efficiently, and deposits his plate , and slides back into bed , turning to his side, shuffling, punching pillows into shape and slumping against them.
Anne has had to abstain, for courage, and ventures, turning to her own side:
“You will embrace your pillows, but not I?”
“They are softer than you. And…how about… why don’t…you hold me for once?”
“Are you joking?”
“Obviously you are not as soft as a cushion of feathers, Anne. What can I do about that?”
“No, the other thing. “
“What other thing?”
“Do you wish to be held?”
Henry acts as though he has not heard her , nuzzling farther into his pillow.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he snipes, voice edgy with resentment, adding, “not that you would care.”
She has to summon past feeling: what was it like, before he had betrayed her? What had it felt like, to see his pain, before he had weaponized her love?
What would she have done?
Tentatively, Anne shuffles closer to him, and winds her arm about his torso.
He freezes, as though wary of the gesture, and then, sags with relief, and clasps her hand to his chest, tightly as a relic.
“What is the matter? What has you so tense?” his wife asks, kneading at his shoulders and neck.
“His lordship… the Earl of Kildare ,” he explains, as she drives her thumb into an especially tight muscle of his neck, eliciting his seethe, the syllable of each title , a sneer, “has sent complaints of his conditions in the Tower to the council.”
“How very wicked…when you show yourself more merciful than many a Christian prince in your sparing of his life!”
“I know, darling… I know it,” the King gives, sighing into his pillow.
“Suffering a rebel to live! The Emperor would stamp out such a one in a heartbeat, and so would Francois… I marvel at the arrogance of these men, thinking to censure you, to endorse the censure of you, by and through the Bishop of Rome… some other foreign potentate,” Anne scoffs, whisking her hand as if banishing the thought of their armies (much as she had, in the golden age of their betrothal: let the Emperor come, and find what it is to meet 10,000 of my Uncle’s men alone … that day would dim St Albans to the very recesses of this realm’s memory!), “as if they would not see your actions in a like manner to them, as a declaration for war!”
As she clings, and descends her mouth to patter kisses upon his neck; familiar, although distant, sensations of their bond return, swiftly, to him…
His stomach dropping, and the warm, sensual urge in his groin…
She seems to sense his need instinctually, with all the practice of a wife, her hand soothing him the rest of the way along, and his mind empties of all others…before God, he does not need maidens. He has a soulmate already. He never spends himself better than under her reverent, gentle, and knowing care …
