Epilogue
Epilogue
GREENWICH
May 19, 1536
Blaze stood in the king's privy chamber looking out upon the River Thames. Yesterday had been rainy and extremely windy, but today the sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky. Across the river the king's fleet bobbed in the gentle flow of the incoming tide. It seemed as if nothing had changed, Blaze thought, and yet everything had changed.
She had not been in this room, had not been to Greenwich in nine years, and oh, what had happened in that time. Breaking with the church in Rome, the king had finally been freed from Catherine of Aragon. He had married Anne Boleyn, and their only surviving child, the princess Elizabeth, had been born in the same year. The king was now forty-five, and still had no legitimate son. The tragedy was not just for Hal, but for England as well.
He had called for her once more. The royal messenger arriving like an unwelcome voice from the past less than a week ago. This time there had been no argument between herself and Anthony. He had known that she would go, but this time he came also. She had wanted him to come, for they had grown so together over the past years that to be apart was too painful. So, leaving their children in Lady Dorothy's care, they had come to Greenwich.
The king had changed. He was no longer quite so slender, but then, Blaze thought with a wry smile, neither was she. She was thirty years old now, with a marriageable thirteen-year-old daughter. There was a sadness, however, about Hal, and a new harshness about his mouth that had not been there before. She had curtsied low on their meeting this morning, and he had taken her into his arms and just held her for a long minute.
"How many sons do you have now, Blaze Wyndham?" he asked her.
"Four, my lord. Philip is now nine, Giles is six, Richard, who is four, and Edward, who is but a year old this April past."
"Your husband is fortunate in his wife and family," the king said, and she heard the sadness in his voice.
"Oh, Hal, I am so sorry!" she told him.
"Do not be!" he said fiercely. "You warned me! They all warned me of Anne, but I could not hear any of you, for I was blinded by my passion for her, may God help me!"
"She loves you," said Blaze. "I could see it even nine years ago. She was so afraid of losing you."
"Love?"the king roared. "The witch knows nothing of love. Of lust, aye! But nothing of love! Had she loved me, she would not have committed adultery with my friends, and involved herself in incest with her brother. Nay, Blaze. Anne did not love me."
He dared her to dispute him, but Blaze, who did not for one minute believe in any of Queen Anne's alleged crimes, realized that she must remain silent. Anne had failed in her primary duty to give the king a son, and now she would suffer for it. Rumor had it that the king had already picked himself another young flower of English nobility to make his wife. "I will not argue with you, Hal," she told him. "Only tell me why you have called me here."
"You and Will are my only real friends, Blaze," the king said.
"I tell him that Margot is his friend too," replied Will Somers, who was also with them. He stroked the small brown monkey that he cradled in his arms. Will had not changed. He was still lean and stooped, with his strangely young face that in a way resembled his pet's.
"Margot, as I recall," said Blaze, smiling, "bites."
"And has a great preference for royal fingers," muttered the king. Suddenly through the open window there came the distinct low boom of a cannon from upriver. Both Blaze and Will crossed themselves, but the king's face was a blank, giving no hint about what he might have thought.
"It is done then," said Henry. "The witch is dead." He looked to Blaze. "I have brought you a long way simply to hold my hand in my hour of need, as you might do for one of your children. Thank you."
"I am, sire, ever your most loyal servant," Blaze answered him quietly.
The king smiled at her. "Aye, Blaze Wyndham, my little country girl, you are, are you not? Well, you are free to go now. Back to your husband, who is pacing so impatiently in my antechamber. Back to your beloved RiversEdge, which perhaps I shall even visit someday."
"And where will you go now, Hal?" she asked him.
"To Jane," he said simply. "It is not like the last time, is it? Catherine is dead these five months past, and now Anne. I am free to marry my gentle Jane. Surely God will smile upon this union, a true union, and we will have a son."
"Oh, Hal, how I pray for it," Blaze told him. "Jane Seymour is a good and sweet lady. You will be happy with her, I know it! God will indeed bless you with a son for England." Blaze curtsied low to him, and smiling, she backed from the king's privy chamber out into the other room where her husband eagerly awaited her.
Together Blaze and Anthony hurried from the palace down across the green lawns of Greenwich to where their barge was awaiting to take them upriver. They went hand in hand, laughing and talking happily to one another, totally unaware that the king was watching them from his windows as they went.
I have loved three women in my life, Henry Tudor thought. Two are now dead. Blaze calls her gentle Jane, and indeed she is. I think I shall come to love her too. He watched as Anthony helped Blaze down into their barge. He watched as the earl entered the barge himself, and it pulled away from the royal quay. Aye, the king thought again, I have loved three women in my life. Two are dead. Farewell, my little country girl. Farewell!