Read Anne Boleyn: A Novel for Free Online

watching the long graceful boat edging into the landing steps, and the noise as people came running. A crowd always gathered round Wolsey, self-seekers hoping to be noticed.
    The King raised his voice for his page, and the boy hurried in from his post outside the door.
    “Go to the Queen,” Henry ordered him. “Request her to send Mistress Anne Boleyn to me; I have a mind for music, and command her to play to me.”
CHAPTER 2
    Anne did not become the king’s mistress that night at Greenwich, nor on any of the other occasions when he sent for her that winter.
    They supped together and rode together, and he ordered her place at the maid of honor’s table to be moved higher, so that he could see her when he dined publicly with the Queen. But she refused as firmly each time he approached her as she had done on their first evening alone. No one even considered the possibility that Henry’s relationship with her was still technically innocent, certainly not Wolsey, who viewed it with dislike but a certain complacency. He knew his King too well to fear Anne’s ascendancy would be of long duration. Henry hungered quickly and was quickly appeased; the new mistress would be retired like all the others—better provided for, perhaps, as the King was unusually generous to her. He began sending her little sentimental gifts; a gold pomander filled with French perfume, a well-bound book of love poems, gloves and small trinkets, and presents of delicacies for her table. He sent for her at all hours on some pretext; attendants used to hear them laughing as soon as they were alone; sometimes they played and sang duets, Henry’s baritone blending with her clear voice.
    The King was in love, but only Anne and her brother George knew that his love was unfulfilled.
    The first night he had come up behind her and caught her in his arms, and been abashed when she begged him to let her go. Completely unused to resistance, for a moment he was angry. But she stood before him meekly, all vivacity and impudence forgotten, and asked him gently not to attempt anything against her honor.
    She was virtuous, she said, and by God’s grace she hoped to remain so. After a moment she asked him if he wanted her to leave. Moodily he turned from her but swung round as she went to the door, telling her to stay where she was. That evening, like the bear-baiting, threatened to be spoiled, and his disappointment changed to irritation with himself. The harmony between them was disrupted; he supposed he had better dismiss her...But Anne had gone to the window and picked up the lute. She began to play one of his compositions; and by the time it was finished, the King was standing by her, listening, and they were perfectly at ease again.
    When she left, he kissed her on the cheek according to court custom, and his desire leaped like a flame, but she withdrew before he could make a move. The urge to touch, to kiss and fondle was so strong he sweated when she came near him, and though the form of his desire was the same with Anne as with all other women who aroused his fancy, the intensity was not. The violence of it bewildered and goaded him, and when she did surrender, he thought hotly—and she would in time—he might well find the satisfaction neither wife nor mistresses had ever given him.
    The King gave a masque and a ball before Christmas, and Anne spent days choosing her costume and headdress. She ordered a dress of scarlet velvet, with a collar and long sleeves lined with cloth of gold, and a mask of black satin, sparkling with gold embroidery. The theme of the masque was the elements, and she asked Catherine’s permission to symbolize Fire. The Queen assented coldly; thanks to the King’s brutal display of preference, her natural dislike of Anne had become hatred. Once she had gone so far as to order Anne to stay upstairs and mind her dogs at one court function, because her nerves were quivering at the insult offered her so publicly. Furious, Henn’ had