The Price

Disclaimer: I am not a Theologian, a Historian, or a TV Producer; I therefore do not own anything.
Warning: This piece is AU, it contains OCs and a strong element of sexual violence, if any of these distress you, please turn back now. If you are ever a victim of Sexual violence, please, contact your local Rape Victim Advocacy Program. There is no shame in getting help.

Chapter I: How Far

He did not want to see her, he did not want to speak with her, or hear her plea. He wanted nothing to do with her or her heretic of a husband. The snake in his Eden. And yet when he made the liar a Baron, he'd given him – and his wife certain rights, ones yet to be striped by a Bill of Attainder. And so,

"Baroness Cromwell." Was announced.

She entered the room quietly, with none of the vivacity of their first meeting years ago. Then she wore simple clothes in bright colors her smile more beautiful than any ornament. Today her clothes were rich but the colors were dark, nothing but sobriety in her expression. She was thinner, her face held shadows, eyes once a deep sapphire were now a tired, watery blue, the glow had been leached from her skin. And yet, he watched her breasts swell full against her décolletage, her figure was as pleasing as it ever was. Her lips were still deliciously full. She was still a beauty, an unhappy one, but a beauty none the less.

"Your Majesty." She breathed sinking into a curtsey, head submissively lowered.

"Mistress," He said vitriolic. "You are here on behalf of your husband I suspect."

"I am." She said and dropped to her knees before him, her hands folded as if at prayer.

"Most merciful sovereign, My King, Your Majesty, have mercy upon my husband, my poor, miserable, most unworthy husband and your loyal servant." Henry felt his member fill at her position, the proximity of her full, moist lips to his half hard cock was a tantalizing display. The Baroness was a beautiful woman, one the Baron did not deserve nor could possibly satisfy. And yet Cromwell loved his wife more than anything, even a short acquaintance with the man was enough to discover that. She was that which he valued most, and she was on her knees before him.

"Most loyal servant?" Henry spat, "You husband is not but the most black of villains. Dishonest, unfaithful heretic, lying, cheating Knave who violated my trust and abused all that I gave him whilst I was taken in by his lies. He was loyal to his own agenda and nothing more. His punishment fits his crimes." A quaking came upon her that did nothing but inflame the Kings senses. The power he had was an aphrodisiac above all others.

"Death would be a relief, not a punishment."

"What?" Henry demanded taking the woman's jaw with a bruising force, pulling her face up, daring her to contradict him again. She swallowed he could feel the muscles of her throat contract against his hand, her neck vibrated as she spoke.

"The pain of death would be brief and finite. You want to punish Thomas, make me pay; taking his life would be brief and minor in comparison to taking other things." Henry jerked her to stand, hand still wrapped around the pale column of her neck.

"Go on." He growled.

"Taking his influence, take his power; banish him from court, bar him from politics. Brand him a latter-day Cassandra and forbid him from writing. Death is quick; preventing him from participating in politics would be hell on earth for him. Please," she whispered, "Take his politics, but not his life." Henry looked into the eyes of the heretic's loyal wife; they begged him with all of her soul. Take his politics, take his wife. A cruel idea curled his lips and turned in his mind.

"You love your husband Mistress?"

"With my whole heart." He leaned in a breath from her bow mouth, hand ghosting from her neck to dip a finger between her breasts.

"Then how far will you go to save him?"

***

"His Royal Highness King Henry VIII." Constable Anthony Kingston announced, stepping into the tiny Tower Cell of the treacherous heretic Thomas Cromwell. For his part the King's former first minister felt his heart stop as his Lord and Master appeared in the door along with his wife.

"Your – your Majesty!" he breathed, hand to his chest, ensuring his heart remained in the cavity and not his throat as he bowed.

"Thomas Cromwell, you have been convicted of heresy and usurped and deliberately misused royal power." The King boomed as if the voice of God himself was sentencing him to death. The King's broad hand squeezed Elizabeth's shoulder, eliciting a small wince from his beloved. "The punishment for this is Death, as decided by a court of your peers," Cromwell felt the blood drain from his face, "But your wife has convinced me to commute your sentence." The King removed his hand from Elizabeth's neck, from beneath his palm a sight appeared that robbed Thomas of breath. He did not hear of his banishment, he did not register the King's smug exit. He knew nothing save for the mark at the junction of her neck and her collar. The red brown mark, the size of a shilling caused by the nipping and sucking of a lover.

"Elizabeth?"

***

"It is your choice Mistress – Block or Bed?"
"Your choice."
"Block or Bed?"
"Block or Bed?"
"Block or…"

The air had been sucked from the coach; it was too much to endure. The silence blanketed over them all like rocks added to an accused man's chest. Gregory had tried to fill the vacuum, but his mother could not look at him or his father, and his father could not take his eyes from the mark of another on her neck. The glowing brand that was the cause of the painful, penetrating silence. Tragedy hung in the air undisturbed.

Frain House was mostly black when the carriage arrived late that night, the few lit windows singing through the darkness like a siren. The ride would soon be over.

"Father!" Gregory's wife Elizabeth, Bette to her family as her mother – in – law was Bess, awaited their return in the foyer, large with child she had remained behind as her husband and her mother in law went to fight for their family. She rushed into Thomas' weary arms, kissing both stubbled cheeks, so happy to have him home and whole. Thomas hugged her back with all his might before placing a large hand to her swollen middle, feeling the kick of his third grandchild, the simple joy of living to see it born a blessing unlike any other.

"How are you,Bette, my child? And the babe?"

"Both delighted and relieved to have you with us again." Elizabeth said sincerely, "Henry and Frances will be so glad to see you."

"Where are they now?" Thomas asked hurriedly looking around as if the toddlers would pop out of the wood work and attach themselves to his legs at any moment.

"In bed, Father mine, it is after eleven o'clock."

"Good, good, I… I do not want for them to see me like this." He gestured to his unshaven face and unwashed clothes, he looked older, haggard, nothing like the great, handsome man he once was. Elizabeth nodded silently, her children were not but babes but he was a proud man, unwilling to show his weakness to even a child of three. There was as moment.

"Well," Gregory finally said breaking the uneasy silence, "I am sure a real bed is calling you Father, shall we retire?" Elizabeth watched as her mother in law jumped at Gregory's light touch on her arm as he offered to escort her to her chambers. She shied away from his helpful hand as if it were a fist. Her face and neck grew hot, the mark along her clavicle glowing, her eyes finding the floor to be the most interesting view in England. The second Baroness Cromwell felt her brows knit together in concern at the uncharacteristic behavior of her senior. But her confusion could not last, her father offered her his arm and they made their way – silent once again – to the Frain House guest chambers.

The door had barely closed behind them before Thomas turned to her.

"I am not yet cold in my grave and you are with another?" His voice cracked, large tears of betrayal welling in his lifeless eyes. "I had rather died believing you loved me than lived to know the truth! For how long Elizabeth? For how long?" Tears over took him and he sank upon the large bed, a strangled sob muffled by his hands.

"Thomas, Thomas, please," Elizabeth whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks like rain on a window pane, "Please believe me. I love you." She was desperate for his arms, to feel that he was with her, that he loved her, that he was real but the rest; the rest was just a dream. She wanted to wake from her nightmare, open her eyes and find herself at home, Thomas snoring as he always did, everything right in her world. But the pain, the pain told her that this was not a dream.

"Go. Just. Go." He was sending her out, pushing her way when all she wanted was to be held close. He would never hold her again. She had saved his life.

And ended her own.

***

"Did you hear that?" Elizabeth asked Gregory as they readied for bed, the sound of wood slamming against wood echoing down the hall. Gregory paused, ear tilted towards their closed bedchamber door, he then shrugged a lean shoulder and slid into bed.

"It was probably my parents," He said passively, "They always had a very… healthy… relationship. I can only imagine their congress after an ordeal like this." He paused, shuttered, and shook his head, "On second thought, I don't really want to." He pulled his wife to his side and they bedded down for the night. "It is nothing to worry about, Love."

"If you say so, dear." But as he snuffed the candle she felt intuition and the babe kick. Something was not right. She could feel it.