Chapter 21
Anne
More than four years had passed since Anne was last in London.
The city had none of the beauty and grandeur of Madrid, and certainly none of the quiet charm of Hertfordshire.
It was busy and loud and dirty and teeming with an energy that both invigorated Anne and exhausted her.
And yet it was London, where Anne had lived and wed and given birth and died.
Some part of her would always be tied to this place.
She had arrived in the earliest hours of the morning, while the sun just barely stretched above the horizon.
Although it was June, the morning was cool, and Anne was glad for the cloak she’d thought to bring along from the convent.
She pulled its edges close as she stood across the river from the Tower, wondering if her friends the Tudor rats still haunted its halls, if the bloodstain from her execution was still there, soil soaked red beneath the grass.
The stump of her missing finger ached, as though it knew where she was and what she contemplated.
There was much to be done, and Anne forced herself to turn away from the scene of her death. She was waiting for a Sisterhood contact, a dressmaker employed by the royal family who was due to visit the current queen and her ladies, including Kat.
For now, Anna von Kleve remained queen of England, though everyone seemed to believe her time was running out. Anne had arranged to accompany the dressmaker to Hampton Court Palace and get a warning to her cousin.
Lina had asked her why she was so worried about Kat, and it was a valid question.
Anne would have been concerned about any of her friends or relatives getting closer to Henry, but what she remembered of Kat gave her even greater pause.
The young Katherine Howard whom Anne had known had been confident and charming, but also flighty, dreamy, and glib.
Those characteristics could make for an entertaining lady of the court, but they would give her little advantage as a queen, and less still as Henry’s bride. There, only the cunning could survive.
If Kat left court before the royal marriage ended, before she became queen number five, surely Henry would lose interest or distract himself with another mistress.
At least, that was Anne’s hope.
When the city bells tolled seven in the morning, Anne noticed a carriage stopping just down the street from where she waited.
A middle-aged woman in perfectly fitted clothes disembarked, and Anne waved a hand, catching the other woman’s attention.
The crowd parted for the dressmaker naturally, for though she was only accompanied by a young apprentice, she had the poise and bearing of a lady with a full retinue of attendants.
Her outfit—a beautifully cut green gown paired with a mint petticoat—made Anne’s black linen dress seem even plainer in comparison.
Anne had to suppress a smile—she was unused to being underdressed.
There were curses she could have used to alter her appearance, but they were time-consuming to plan and taxing to hold.
Instead, Anne was counting on her anonymity as a member of the merchant class and the garb of a widow.
A black dress, hood, and sheer veil covered her head to toe.
To aid in her disguise, she had also applied a crème to turn her hair and brows a temporary shade of deep brown, and she’d painted a small red birthmark along the edge of her left cheek.
Only someone who knew her intimately, like Henry or Kat, would be able to recognize the former queen of England.
“Are you Miss Eliza?” the woman asked when she reached Anne.
Anne nodded, having provided a false name for safety’s sake. She gave a slight curtsy, for she was meant to be a commoner, and held out her wrist, which bore a silver bracelet of hellebore blooms. “I am. And you are Mistress Leighton?”[*1]
“I am.” The woman tapped the stitched hellebore design on her bodice. “Well met, Miss Eliza. Have you been to the palace before?”
This time, Anne couldn’t stop her smile. “Once or twice.”
Mistress Leighton nodded. “Very good. The queen herself will not make an appearance, so don’t be too eager.
Her Majesty Queen Anna is very modest with her own dress and requires little work from us.
” She said the name with soft syllables: Ah-nah.
“Her ladies are another matter, and we shall be serving them today.”
Anne followed the dressmaker and her apprentice—a girl of thirteen named Rebecca—to their carriage for a half-day journey to Hampton Court, Anne’s onetime home.
The carriage was stuffed with trunks of fabrics, beads, and furs befitting the noble class, and Anne thought the clothes were one of the few things she missed about her old life.
Commoners were not allowed to wear fine fabrics like silk or satin, and she’d certainly never be able to dress in velvet again.
It was a shame—Anne had once had an eye for fashion.
They arrived at Hampton Court in the early afternoon, and despite herself, Anne felt her pulse quicken.
The carriage clattered down the long promenade, hemmed by neat hedges and noble trees, and passed through the main gate, a decorative redbrick affair that soared toward the blue sky overhead.
Anne was relieved to see that the king’s standard did not fly—Henry was not at home.
The carriage stopped in the main courtyard, giving Anne a view from her seat of the Great Hall with its rows of magnificent arched windows.
She wondered if her coat of arms was still emblazoned on the ceiling—Henry had been in the middle of that particular renovation around the time he decided to have her killed.
The palace appeared even more extravagant now than when she had lived there, and she estimated that in addition to the king’s and queen’s suites, there had to be room for another two or three dozen courtiers in the sprawling complex, plus all their servants and the palace staff.
An astronomical clock had been added to the inner gatehouse, a device that looked to be nearly thrice Anne’s height.
If Anne remembered correctly, her new apartments were to be above that very gatehouse. Another casualty of her untimely death.
“Impressive, is it not?” Mistress Leighton asked.
Anne smiled tightly. “Fit for a king.”
A team of porters arrived to ferry their trunks to the queen’s suite, and Anne found herself taking the old path through the long galleries to her former rooms. The smell of brick and kitchen fire mixed with the fresh June air and the perfumes of the queen’s ladies.
It all felt achingly familiar, from the tinkle of women’s laughter down the corridor to the creak of the floor beneath her feet.
But there was no time to be swept up in the past, not with Mistress Leighton and Rebecca near, and especially not when they entered the queen’s suite, every tapestry and stick of furniture replaced or redecorated to suit Anna von Kleve’s Germanic influence.
Anne was put straight to work; Mistress Leighton had her measuring bolts of fabric while little Rebecca flitted about with a length of knotted cord, getting precise measurements on each woman.
Most of the ladies-in-waiting of the new queen were strangers to her, though she recognized a few and avoided them, being sure never to make eye contact or get caught searching the room for Kat.
She kept her gloves on to hide her missing pinkie and made her voice husky when she spoke, adopting a faint common accent by softening her t’s and g’s.
And all the while she listened to every word being said.
“The queen should be here,” one younger woman was whispering to a friend. “A proper gown would make her much more appealing to His Majesty.”
Her friend snorted in a very unladylike way. “Instead she’s at another service with her Lady Brigid.[*2] Doesn’t she know piety won’t get her husband to look past her plain face?”
Anne had forgotten how viciously her ladies-in-waiting had gossiped about her, about each other, and about everyone else at court.
The most interesting piece of information came from one of the matrons of the group, who informed two other women that she’d heard from her husband that the king was very upset with his right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell.
“There was the wedding, of course,” the lady was saying, her voice low, “but now it’s said he’s gone corrupt, making deals in the king’s name for his own gain.
That and his own religious agenda have gained him too much attention.
My husband said they plan to arrest him at the next meeting of the Privy Council. ”
The other women gasped, and Anne felt a wolfish sort of delight at the thought of Cromwell’s reckoning. She was so busy listening that she didn’t notice the young woman beside her admiring a deep sapphire silk.
“It’s quite beautiful,” the lady said, and when Anne turned, she saw a flash of chestnut hair and ivory skin and hazel eyes…
…but it was not Kat.
The lady must have seen the disappointment flash across Anne’s face, even behind her veil, because she offered a quizzical smile. Anne recovered her senses and bowed her head.
“It is beautiful, my lady. Shall I set it aside for you?”
She shook her head. “I was thinking of it for a friend, Lady Katherine Howard. She is most becoming in blue, and she’ll soon have plenty of occasion for new gowns.”
Anne’s stomach dropped, but she managed to keep her expression serene. “Oh?”
The other lady nodded, leaning in closer. “She’s off with the king himself today. He’s absolutely smitten with her. I heard he’s already proposed.”