For God and Gold (Anne Boleyn Fanfic)

Chapter 1

Her spine is straight, and her eyes are dry. She is kneeling on the scaffold and praising the mercy of the Most Christian Prince who had raised her to Olympus and then condemned her to die.

It is the month of May, and the world around her is rioting with life. The realization of that almost breaks her, almost wrings unbidden tears out of her eyes. She had always loved the warm footsteps of the late spring, the cusp of summer, the time of lilac. In the gardens of Hever Castle, these bushes are blooming, except none of the Boleyn children will read beneath their shade again. It's like a children's rhyme - exiled, beheaded, and... beheaded, too? No, that would not work. Children abhor repetition, after all. She has only had one living child, but she remembers her own early years. Perhaps, of course, she had simply been a particularly headstrong child, who later grew up into a particularly headstrong woman.

A headstrong woman, about to become a headless one.

A shock of darkness. A taut blindfold upon her eyes. She cannot see the spring now, the heavens waking up into blueness.

She can still hear the birds singing. She wishes she could fall quiet and simply listen to their song for the last time, but she has a ritual to perform, a pious apology for crimes she has not committed, unless she wants her daughter to suffer.

She wonders if little Elizabeth is screaming in her nursery now. On the other hand, she might be sleeping now, the deep and sweet sleep of an innocent, unaware that, soon enough, her mother is going to sleep an equally deep sleep of the damned.

The mercy of the Most Christian Prince. It was not enough for Henry to take her good name and her life, her legacy and her future - he had to take her voice, too, to force false praise from her tongue.

But then, so many people she has known throughout her life - from her uncle Norfolk who condemned her to die to Cardinal Wolsey, himself long dead - have desired for her to curb her speech into meekness, at least from time to time.

Now Henry has finally succeeded in forcing her to do just that.

She is blindfolded, but her eyes are open beneath the cloth.

Anne is restless, even now - turning her head this way and that, touching the edges of her blindfold.

She starts counting in her mind. Ten seconds left for her in the world. Nine. Eight. Seven.

The strike comes, treacherously, on the count of five, and that splash of pain is bright and sudden, and then there is nothing.

***

The light is making the space beneath Anne's eyelids bright. There is fine linen under her skin, not the hard wood of a scaffold. She can still hear birdsong.

A wave of relief floods her. That does not feel like Hell at all. Purgatory is a popish mirage, as any good friend of the Gospel would know, so the only other option must be Heaven.

Anne smiles silently, victoriously. They might have branded her an adulteress and a witch, but she has shown them. She has shown them all, if on the other side of the veil. The Almighty knew her innocence, even if the earthly judges were resolved to disregard it.

She opens her eyes.

The space around her looks very much like the bedroom in Hever where she used to sleep what now seems like countless years ago. The coverlet with white falcon flying across it had been embroidered by her own young hand, if clumsily so (that was finished before she went to Mechelen and perfected her ladylike accomplishments under good tutelage). Anne runs her hand over it, as though it was the soft fur of a beloved cat.

'Good day to you', she whispers. 'I haven't seen you for such a long time. Or is it morning? How does time fly in Heaven?'

'Anne! You are awake!'

The joyous cry comes from the doorway, and when Anne raises her head, she sees her sister.

Her heart sinks.

Has Henry really been vindictive enough to rope her into that sordid accusation, too? Discontent until he killed every Boleyn child?

Beheaded, beheaded, beheaded.

'Heavens', Mary is by her side in a trice, 'you look as though I were a ghost'.

'Are you not?'

'You can joke! That is a good sign. For many a day, we could get nothing out of you but feverish ramblings.'

'Days?' Anne asks, feeling disoriented.

'More than a week, to be honest. You have barely eaten anything. Mother said it's quite a horrible thing, given that you have always been too thin by half, but she does have a habit of fretting over nothing'.

''That is one way to put it'. The corner of her mouth quirks bitterly. She has never quite understood Mary's blithe acceptance of so many things in life. Had Anne been in her place, shoved by her family into the beds of two kings and treated as a harlot in consequence, she would have been dreaming of tearing throats with her teeth.

But then, were her family's ambitions regarding her, Anne, all that different?
And has she not seen dreams of this nature, especially after the news of her father's cowardly escape to the country reached her soon after the accusations did?

'We were so afraid for you', Mary continues, squeezing her hand. 'My husband barely allowed me to come visit you. He is terribly afraid for my health. Well, I suppose he is not wrong - the sweat is a horrible thing - but...'

'The sweat?'

Mary raises her eyebrows, and in that moment there is something in her expression of poised surprise that would have made any onlooker realize that she and her dark sister are indeed children from the same cradle.

'What did you suppose you've had, Anne? Blue sickness?'

'I thought I was dead', Anne replies honestly.

At this, Mary's expression softens again:

'Has it really been so horrid?'

'Worse than you can imagine'.

'Oh, Anne. But you are better now, aren't you? Doctor Butts really can work miracles. Well, it's not for nothing that His Majesty trusts him'.

Another bout of head-spinning, one so strong it makes Anne fall back upon the pillow.

She knows when she has had the sweating sickness, when she was recuperating at home in Hever Castle. With some effort, she can even remember Mary's visit, even though she had disregarded it the first time around, her mind on higher things.

It was June, the cusp of summer, the time of lilac.

It was eight years before she had knelt upon the scaffold.