The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn Read Online Free PDF

passion we have shared, the love we pledged , but it is shifting into something more resembling pity.
Spring 1524 – Hever
     
    Winter is losing its grip, although the wind still bites. Green shoots are showing in the garden and lamb’s tails shiver on the hazel trees. Within the house the servants are throwing wide the casements, shaking out the bedding while Mary huddles before a lazy fire, her belly too swollen with  the king’s child for her to move around and warm herself. It is mid-morning, and if I do not stir myself Mother will set me some menial task as a way of punishing me further for my wilfulness.
    “Why can’t you be more obedient, like your sister?” she says. Like my sister? My ears can scarcely credit it. They wish me to be more like Mary, who bears a child that is not her husband’s? For all the benefits Mary’s immodesty has bestowed upon the family, I shall never be like her.
    I tie on my cloak and slide out the kitchen door, duck through the yard where they are unloading apples from a cart. A boy, struggling with a heavy load toward the storeroom, pauses to let me pass . I reward him with a wide smile, thankful I am not born to toil.
    In March the garden is bare, tidy. The paths are swept, the shrubs trimmed, burgeoning buds depriving the early bees of nectar. The gardener whips off his straw hat and pulls his forelock. “Fine mornin’, Mistress,” he mumbles but although I nod my head, I do not tarry. I make for the orchard, duck beneath lichened limbs, through the gate and into the meadow.
    Here, the spring grass has not yet re-coloured the faded windswept clumps of last year’s uncut hay . Several times I stumble, turning my ankle. I put out a hand to stop myself from falling and my veil slips, my cap askew. I drag it from my head, tuck it up my sleeve and struggle on with the wind in my hair.
    Now I am free.  I can breathe again.
    I have always loved the meadow. When we were children, Mary, George and I would crawl in the long sweet grasses, making hideaways, sharing stories, embarking on adventures. Today, the ghost of our memories follows me, our childhood spirits dancing at the periphery of my vision, laughing like wind in my ears. They were happy times, although we did not know it then. We never know happiness until it is gone.
    At the top of the rise I pause beneath a stand of trees and scan the horizon with a hand to my ribs to ease the pain in my side. I am slightly out of breath, the winter has robbed me of my usual vigour. The wind is blowing my hair all over my head, I must look like a Gorgon. I put up a hand to trap it, sweep it from my face.
    “I knew you’d come!” A man leaps suddenly from a branch above my head, making me squeal.
    “Thomas! What are you doing here? You scared me half to death. Why aren’t you at court?”
    “The king took pity and sent me home to nurse the megrim I’ve been suffering.”
    I cast an eye over his robust frame, his rosy cheeks and fair windswept locks. He is the picture of health.
    “You look very well to me.”
    His eyes are as blue as the king’s. They bore into mine, a hint of laughter disguising something deeper.
    “Now I have gained the thing I lacked , I am fully restored.”
    Disconcerted, I turn away and begin to walk along the ridge where the grass is shorter beneath the trees. He follows, a little behind. “I’ve written a verse.” He fumbles beneath his doublet and draws out a parchment . The wind takes it, threatens to whip it from his fingers.
    “Another one? I hope it’s better than the last.”
    “You are a cruel mistress.” He clears his throat. “It isn’t quite right yet, but I have the gist of it. Are you going to listen?”
    I slow my pace and, spying a fallen bough, I move toward it, perching on the rough bark while he praises me with gentle speech.
     
    “The flaming sighs that boil within my breast,
    Sometime break forth, and they can well declare
    The heart's unrest, and how that it doth fare,
    The