Catherine (Divorced).
They find each other in grief. Henry kneels by the edge of the pew and slides his hand softly into hers. She has been here for hours, knelt in prayer, benedictions falling from her lips until they mean nothing, until her back is sore and her eyes squint in the fading spring light.
Her husband is dead and she is a thousand miles away from home. Days ago she had forced her way past an army of physicians to be by his side. Had mopped sweat from his pale brow, soothed him with her touch as his body wracked with coughs. He had smiled up at her with glassy, hopeful eyes.
Now he lies peacefully on the altar, his arms contorted together as if in prayer. The last of the day’s sunlight catches the stained glass behind him, painting him in colour. It makes him look like a child.
She feels like a child now too, for the first time since coming here on a November wind. She has heard them talking in hidden, hushed corners, the men of his father’s court. No one quite knows what to do with her, the Spanish Princess, the almost-Queen of England. Catalina, Catherine. She looks up at his body again, he looks cold. She wonders why no one has thought to cover him with a blanket. She wonders if one day she could have loved him.
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Henry. His hand in hers is steady and sure. It feels like a beginning.
***
Anne (Beheaded).
People say that she is a witch. They whisper in the hallways as she passes, hide from her in the shadows. They say that she has six fingers on each hand, claws instead of nails. That she converses with the devil and has cursed the King. Sometimes, late at night, alone in her chambers, she counts just to make sure. Holds a hand up to moonlight. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. She can’t be certain.
She had been sure of Henry once. Fresh from France, she had charmed him with poetry and music and song, the easy curve of her hips, her blood red smile. They’d danced, flirted, raced across fields on horseback. A handsome pair, two sides of the same coin. In the quiet of candlelight, her head soft against his chest, she’d told him all her dreams for the world, the wonders of her heart. He had kissed her and laughed, said she had a man’s brain. Three nights ago, lost in a blistering argument, she’d flung a vase across the room at him, a scream on her lips. They’d watched it shatter together, the pieces tinkling on the stone floor as they fell. He’d laughed, a cold, cruel sound, and looked at her sadly, You have a man’s brain.
He writes to the Pope daily, she knows this. Knows too that Cromwell is plotting against her, has sent his men to lobby parliament, will travel to Rome himself. She supposes she should be flattered that they are willing to take on God himself to get rid of her.
For tonight at least, she lets these thoughts fall from her head. It is late now and mercifully quiet. She enters Elizabeth’s room softly, excuses her nursemaid with a gentle, but firm smile. Picks up her sleeping daughter. She runs a careful hand over Elizabeth’s soft curls, smoothing away the worries of sleep. Elizabeth opens her eyes and stares up at her mother intently. Anne wraps her hand around tiny fingers and gazes back, wills her to remember this moment.
***
Jane (Died).
Henry hasn’t noticed that she’s dying. Across the room she can just make him out, cradling their newborn son, his face an eruption of joy. Outside she can hear trumpets and drums, bursts of fanfare that announce the arrival of their boy, England’s new prince. She wants to get up and join them. Her head falls back heavily against the pillow. She is so very tired.
It had been days and nights of agony, of writhing in pain. She had felt like her body was levitating, tearing apart at the seams. And then, finally, a wild cry had echoed out from somewhere beneath her. A bundle of bloody cloths floated into view. She took it in her arms. Her child. Her son. A boy.
Henry had burst in then, delirious, euphoric. Bounded over to her, shook her with joy. You’ve done it, my girl! You’ve done it! She had tried to speak, to raise a hand to caress his face, but found she couldn’t. Her limbs felt useless beneath her, her tongue slack in her mouth. Henry had kissed her forehead, squeezed her hands tightly in his. He didn’t seem to notice the grey pallor of her skin, sallow like wax and damp with cold, salty sweat.
Henry is holding his son up to the window now. In the courtyard below she can hear people lighting bonfires and singing. The air is thick with the iron stench of blood, she feels something stuck inside her, beginning to rot. She wants to ask Henry to open one of the panes, to let in the cool, evening air. She had thought she would feel relief afterwards. She looks over at her husband, her son. She is so very tired.
***
Anne (Divorced).
It is her first taste of fresh air in days. The ship had been battered by storms since it departed Antwerp on Tuesday morning. Thundering gales and lashing rain had shook the walls of Anne’s cabin, trapping her below the waves. This morning the captain had sounded five bells, loud peels that rang around the ship, rousing them all from slumber. Clear skies. They’d emerged onto the deck on shaking legs with twisted stomachs, blinking up at the bright November morning. A cold wind whips around them still, chasing at her skirts. She gulps the salty air greedily into her lungs, a starving woman. She thinks that she can see England in the distance.
She knows a portrait has been sent across the sea to him. Hans had arrived one cold February morning at her father’s door, with his easel tucked under his arm. She and her sister had sat in front of him for what felt like days, watching his brow furrow in concentration. She’d tried to make him laugh, to distract him. Sometimes it had worked and he’d swear as his errant hand streaked across the canvas, glaring up at her with reproachful eyes that had soon crinkled with mirth. A booming laugh was her reply each time. Her sister was horrified.
She has not seen Henry’s face. The two portraits were finished, wrapped carefully in brown paper and sent on the same journey she is making now. Only a letter was returned. She runs her fingers across the edge of the ship’s bulwark, tries to imagine. She closes her eyes tight, thinks she can almost make out the squareness of his jaw, the amber of his hair. She wonders what makes him laugh, what his favourite food is, his favourite colour, if he’ll be kind to her or cruel. She has heard the rumours. Her hand moves reflexively to her neck.
Before Hans had left, she’d asked him to be generous. To smooth a blemish here, to straighten an angle there. He had winked a reply. She hopes Henry doesn’t mind. Is sure he won’t.
***
Catherine (Beheaded).
His violence is a thing that shocks her.
At first he had been kind, had patted her head like a father would, called her his jewel, his little fool. Brought her presents, silly little trinkets and baubles, posies from the garden. Now his hand is tight around her neck, his body too heavy against hers.
Earlier he had found her in her rooms, had smiled easily at her, suggested a game of cards. She’d agreed quickly, bored by the weather, by her ladies in waiting, by the closed walls of court. And then, mere minutes into the first hand, he’d placed his fat fingers on her thigh and danced them higher, much higher than was polite, much higher than she could ignore. She’d flinched and thought he must’ve seen it then, how ridiculous he looked, his bloated, ancient body draped over hers. The way disgust flittered over her face, the way her body recoiled sharply away from his.
He was close enough that she could smell the alcohol-reek of his breath, could feel his stubble scrape against her cheek. He’d knocked her backward with the force of his anger. Rearing up, his face bright red like it might burst, he’d charged at her, sending the card table, the counters, their silly little game, spinning across the room.
She feels his hand close around her throat. His little jewel. She imagines her neck is a piece of carbon about to explode into a diamond. The thought makes her laugh suddenly, a bubble bursting from her lips. Henry is surprised into stillness by the sound. Catching him off guard, she thrusts forward with all her might. He stumbles backward. This is not how her story ends.
***
Katherine (Survived).
When Henry falls in love with her and asks her for her hand, she knows that it is her duty to say yes. Even though she is in love with Thomas, Thomas who wants to marry her. This is bigger than her. Bigger than her heart. She thinks of the women who came before her, Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine. Hopes that she is the last.
At court, she breaks herself into pieces until she is not sure if there is anything left. To Henry, she becomes a nursemaid, a friend. She soothes his tempers, places a calm hand in his, whispers quiet, conspiratorial jokes that make him smile. At night, she tends to his aching, ulcerous legs herself, coating them in ointment, wrapping them in gauze, avoids his shameful gaze. He is an old man now, frail and unsteady on his feet. She thinks his time is running out, wants to bring him dignity while she can.
The children, at first, regard her with suspicion. She is hurt, but understands. Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine and now Katherine, again. Still, she tries. To Mary, only a handful of years her younger, she becomes a sister, a confidant. To Elizabeth, she becomes a mother, dries her tears, kisses her skinned knees better. To Edward, she becomes a guide. She teaches him mercy, benevolence, worries that the Tudor blood roars too strongly in his veins for her efforts to stick.
For England, she is a Queen. She is intelligent, pays attention, knows that the country is in danger of splintering apart in a religious war. That around every corner lurks a plot, a heretic. But at court she is silent, defers to Henry on all matters, smiles in blank benevolence.
At night, once the children are asleep and Henry is a snoring lump beside her, she lights a single candle, sits at her desk and reads. She reads and writes and thinks. Pours over papers and scribbles down words until her eyes grow heavy and ache with sleep, until the sun peeks out over the horizon. Sometimes she writes down five names in a sloping, tired hand. Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine. She wants it to mean something, hopes it has not all been for nothing.
And then there is Martha. She hears snatches of conversations between her ladies-in-waiting, broken bits of gossip carried over the palace walls from the city. Demands an explanation. They tell her of a woman, a woman preacher, who argues for a Bible not in Latin, for equality between all men and women. Her ears pink, her heart stutters in her chest. For days she thinks of nothing else.
Curiosity drives her out of the palace one rainy Wednesday afternoon. She is missing Edward’s lessons, Henry’s afternoon game of cards, guilt swoops across her chest. She finds a spot at the edge of the crowd, pulls her cape low across her forehead. Tells herself she will only stay for a few minutes, will only listen long enough to find out if this woman is dangerous, a threat to the crown. But then Martha’s sermon begins. She speaks haltingly at first, but soon she has whipped the crowd into a frenzy with her words. She speaks plainly, deliberately. It is as if she is speaking Katherine's secret thoughts out loud. She feels rooted to the spot, transfixed. Martha looks at her across the crowd and for a moment Katherine forgets to breathe.
They meet in secret after that, snatch moments in the darkness. Once the children have gone to bed, long after Henry has collapsed beside her, she turns away from her desk with its pile of papers and heads into the forest. She trades her quiet nights for conversation, finds herself becoming whole once more.
There is months of this, of arguments and firelight and hope. One night Martha stops mid-thought and fixes Katherine with a gaze that she cannot decipher. She leans over and kisses her. Katherine feels a fire coil deep in her belly. Martha’s hands trace her hips. She feels the fire burst and grow, sparking until it makes the ends of her fingertips tingle. In that moment she is no longer nursemaid, nanny, mother, queen, she is only Katherine. Martha’s name spills from her lips like a prayer.
Later, they lie together in the cold grass. Under the dark, starless sky she feels reckless. She shouts Martha’s name into the oblivion and then her own. And then five more names, again and again. Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine. She screams them into the echoing night. Martha’s hand is warm in hers, she feels infinite, like they might change the world.