“You look alarmed, George,” she said, laying aside her book.

“I have alarming news.”

“Tell me quickly.” She gave a somewhat hysterical laugh. “I think I am prepared for anything.”

“The King is philandering.”

She threw back her head and laughed.

“I cannot say I am greatly surprised, George.”

“This is no ordinary philandering. It is important, when we consider who the girl is.”

“Who?”

“Jane does not remember her name.”

“Jane!”

They exchanged glances of understanding.

“Jane made it her affair to discover this matter,” said George. “This time I think Jane has done us a service. She described the girl as meek and mild as milk.”

“Ah!” cried Anne. “I can guess who she is!”

“She is of our enemies,” said George. “It may well be that she has been made to do this to work your ruin, Anne.”

Anne stood up, her cheeks flaming.

“She shall be banished from the court! I myself will see her. She shall come to me at once . . . I . . .”

He lifted a restraining hand.

“Anne, you terrify me. These sudden rages . . .”

“Sudden! Rages! Have I not good cause . . .”

“You have every cause in the world, Anne, to go carefully. You must do nothing rash; everything you do is watched; everything you say is listened to. The throne shakes under you! You must say nothing of this to the king; you must feign ignorance for a while. We must go secretly and in great quiet, for this is no ordinary light flirtation.”

“There are times,” she said, “when I feel I should like nothing better than to walk out of the palace and never set eyes on the King again.”

“Be of good cheer. We’ll think of something. There is one point you must not forget: Give no sign to the King that you know anything. We will, between us, think of a plan.”

“It is so . . . humiliating!” she cried. “By my faith! I have suffered more indignities since I have been the Queen than I ever did before.”

“One of the penalties of being Queen, Anne! Promise . . . promise you will go cautiously!”

“Of course, of course! Naturally I shall . . .”

“No,” he said, with a little grimace, “not naturally, Anne; most unnaturally! Remember Mary . . .”

“What of Mary?”

“You know well to what I refer. How could you have been so wild, so foolish, as to say that if the King went to France and you were Regent, you would find a reason for putting Mary out of the way!”

“This girl maddens me. She is foolish, obstinate . . . and . . .”

“That we well know, but the greater foolishness was yours, Anne, in making such unwise statements.”

“I know . . . I know. And you do well to warn me.”

“I warn you now. Remember previous follies, and keep in good temper with the King.”

“I had thought he seemed more tender of late,” she said, and began to laugh suddenly. “To think it was naught but his guilty conscience!”

“Ah!” said George. “He was ever a man of much conscience. But, Anne, he is simple; you and I know that, and together we can be frank. He has great pride in himself. His verses . . . If he thought we did not consider them the best ever written in his court, he would be ready to have our heads off our shoulders!”

“That he would! He has indeed great pride in himself and all his works. George . . .” She looked over her shoulder. “There is none other to whom I could say this.” She paused, biting her lips, her eyes searching his face. “Katharine had a daughter, and then . . . all those miscarriages! George, I wonder, might it not be that the King cannot breed sons?”

He stared at her.

“I understand not,” he said.

“Not one son,” she said, “but Richmond. And Richmond . . . have you noticed? There is a delicate air about him; I do not think he will live to a great age. He is the King’s only son. Then there is Mary who is normal, but Mary is a girl and they say that girls survive at birth more easily than boys. There is my own Elizabeth; she is also a girl . . .” She covered her face with her hands. “And all those still-born boys, and all those boys who lived to breathe for an hour or so before they died . . . George, was it due to any weakness in Katherine, think you, or was it . . . ?”

He silenced her with a look. He read the terror behind her words.

She said in a whisper: “He is not wholly well . . . The place on his leg . . .” She closed her eyes and shivered. “One feels unclean . . .” She shivered again. “George, what if . . . he . . . cannot have sons?”

He clenched his hands, begging her with his eyes to cease such talk. He got up and strode to the door. Jane was in the corridor, coming towards the room. He wondered, had she heard that? Had she heard him rise from his seat and stride to the door? Had she retreated a few paces from the door, and then, just as it opened, commenced to walk leisurely towards it? He could not tell from her face; her eyes glistened; she had been weeping. It seemed to him that she was always weeping. He would have to be careful with her; he was sure she could be dangerous.

“Oh . . . Jane . . . I was just telling Anne . . .”

Anne threw a haughty glance at her sister-in-law, but Jane did not care, as George was smiling at her.

“Come inside,” said George.

Jane went in, and the three of them sat together; but Anne would not speak of this matter before Jane. She wondered at her brother’s show of friendship for his wife. Could it be that he was reconciling himself to his unhappy marriage, trying to make something out of it at last?

The King hummed a snatch of a song. Anne watched him. He sparkled with jewels; he looked enormous; he was getting corpulent, he was no longer the handsomest prince in Christendom; he was no longer the golden prince. He was a coarse man whose face was too red, whose eyes were bloodshot, and whose leg was a hideously unwholesome ulcer. His eyes were gleaming; he was the lover now, and she remembered the lover well. How often had she seen that look in his eyes! Always before, the look had been for her. Strange indeed to know his desires were fixed on someone else—strange and terrifying.

She said: “The song is charming. Your own?”

He smiled. She was reclining on the bed he had given her before her confinement. It was a beautiful bed, he thought. By God, she should think herself lucky to have such a fine bed! He doubted whether there was such another bed in the world. Its splendor suited her, he thought indulgently. Anne! There was no one like her, of course; not even little . . . Well, he had never thought she was, but she was sweet, and Anne was fractious and could be maddening—and a man needed a change, if but to prove his manhood. He felt tender towards Anne at moments like this, when she said: “The song is charming. Your own?” It was when those great black eyes of hers seemed to look right through him and see more of his mind than he cared for anyone to see, that he was angry with her. She was more clever than a woman ought to be! Learned foreigners delighted to talk to her of the new Lutheran theories, and did great homage to her because she could converse naturally and easily with them. He liked that not. Any glory that came to a queen should come through her king. Her beauty might be admired; the splendid clothes she wore, also; but her cleverness, her sharp retorts that might be construed as gibes . . . No, no; they angered him.

He would have her keep in mind that he had raised her up, that she owed all she now enjoyed to him. By God, there were moments when she would appear to forget this! She could please him still, could make him see that there never had been any like her, nor ever would be. That in itself irritated him; it bound him, and he did not like to be bound. He could think with increasing longing of the days before he had known Anne, before this accursed leg began to trouble him, when he was a golden-haired, golden-bearded giant of a man, excelling all others in any sport that could be named; riding hard, eating, drinking, loving, all in a grander manner than that of other men; with Wolsey—dear old Wolsey—to take over matters of state. She had killed Wolsey as surely as if she had slain him with her own hands, since but for her Wolsey would have been alive to this day.

More was in the Tower. And she had done this. And yet . . . there was none could satisfy him as she could; haughty, aloof, as she well knew how to be, always he must feel the longing to subdue her. Sometimes his feeling for her was difficult to explain; sudden anger and fury she aroused in him, and then as suddenly desire, blinding desire that demanded satisfaction at any price. Nay, there was no one like her, but she had cut him off from the days of his glowing manhood. He had met her and changed from that bright youth; during the years of his faithfulness he had been steadily undergoing a change; now he would never be the same man again.

But enough of introspection! He was trying hard to regain his youth. There was one—and she soon to be in his arms, looking up at him with sweet humility—who would assure him that he was the greatest of men as well as the mightiest of kings; who asked for nothing but the honor of being his mistress. Sweet balm to the scorching wounds the black-eyed witch on the bed had given him. But at the moment the witch was sweetly complimenting him, and he had ever found her irresistible in that mood. The other could wait awhile.

“My own, yes,” he said. “You shall hear me sing it, but not now.”

“I shall await the hearing with pleasure.”

He looked at her sharply. Did she mock? Did she like his songs? Did she compare them with her brother’s, with Wyatt’s, with Surrey’s? Did she think they suffered by comparison?

She was smiling very sweetly. Absently she twirled a lock of her hair. Her eyes were brilliant tonight, and there was a flush in her cheeks. He was taken aback at the contemplation of her beauty, even though he had come to know it too familiarly.