sarah eve kelly

This teaser comes from my completed novel, The Fidelity Trial. Here we find Anne Boleyn on the fourth day of her imprisonment in the Tower of London, trying to make some pleasant conversation with her captors and figure a few things out. Comments and lambasts &c. Enjoy!

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5^th May 1536. Lieutenant’s Lodgings, The Tower.

‘They have all confessed, you know,’ Lady Shelton said.

Anne looked up from her writing desk. ‘This paper is very difficult to write on,’ she replied. ‘Surely there is no harm in sending me my own paper. Please ask Cromwell if he would be so kind.’ Here she paused. ‘Confessed - to what?’

She still had not been told the charges. ‘The musician Smeaton, Henry Norris, Francis Weston -’

‘Weston!’ Anne cried. ‘Is he here now as well?’

‘All the guilty parties are being gathered,’ Shelton said.

‘Being gathered,’ Anne muttered. ‘So what? They are guilty of what?’

‘Adultery with you, madam.’

‘A - ‘ Anne could not complete the word as laughter burst out of her. She leaned back in her chair and howled with it, losing her breath and gasping it in again, great bursts that began low and teetered higher and higher until she was almost frightened by the sound of it - two women now, she knew not which, were at either side of her, holding her, shouting at her to be calm, and she was reminded of her miscarriage, when her legs were held open so her child could be taken from her.

When the laughter subsided she shrugged both shoulders violently to get the women away from her, and pressed her forehead into her slim hands. ‘He’s gone mad,’ she said at length.

‘Who, madam?’ Shelton asked.

‘Who?’ Anne repeated, and felt a bubble of mirth rise in her again. ‘Who knows? Cromwell! The King! They’ve all gone mad.’ She spied Lady Kingston, scribbling in a corner. ‘What are you writing, Lady Kingston?’ she called. ‘Tell them I don’t think my loving husband is truly mad. Whoever will get that letter.’ She rattled into silence. ‘He’s doing this to test me,’ she said after a moment. ‘Henry’s doing this to test me. He isn’t mad at all.’

Lady Kingston kept writing.

Anne looked up at Shelton, whose face was blank and white. ‘What of your nephew, aunt?’

‘Madam?’

‘To what has your nephew George Viscount Rochford - to what has he confessed?’

‘Why, madam -’

‘The others. Cromwell says it was adultery, does he? Well, what of my brother? He can’t possibly - ‘ she paused. Shelton moved into the next room. ‘He cannot - it can’t be true.’ Anne’s eyes trailed Shelton through the door into the bedchamber. ‘Aunt!’ she called. ‘Do they mean to make the world believe that I have fornicated with my brother?’ She heard the rasp of Lady Kingston’s quill. ‘Oh, leave off, won’t you,’ she hissed.

‘They say that Mark Smeaton is being kept in irons,’ Lady Kingston said by way of reply.

‘Of course he is,’ Anne said, distracted. ‘He isn’t a gentleman, he’s not entitled - oh, my God, George!’

Shelton did not return.

‘George,’ Anne murmured again, and then stood and strode over to Lady Kingston, who scrambled to get her papers out of Anne’s reach. ‘Write whatever you like,’ Anne said with a brittle smile, standing over her. ‘I’ve no interest in it. Write whatever you like, whatever you like. I want only some proper paper.’ And she snatched it out of Lady Kingston’s lap. ‘Those poor men,’ she said, resuming her seat at the writing-desk. ‘Those poor men, they haven’t my mettle, you see, and they’re being kept here because of me, and George… I will make this right.’

Smoothing Lady Kingston’s much finer paper with her forearms, Anne picked up the quill on the desk. It was not hers, but it would do. ‘I suppose you’ve got better ink than me, too,’ she said to Lady Kingston, and began to write.

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