"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

May 1536

She steals out like a thief in the night, like a witch scurrying to her coven after her night's villainies are done with. They turf her out of her chamber in the Tower - they would have tumbled her out of her bed in her shift if they could but that she was not asleep (will she ever sleep easy again?) - and bid her be gone before morning. It is the King's express command.

One moment, she is kneeling at her window at midnight staring sightlessly at the hoar-white Tower Green. The next there is a mad pounding at the doors and she sways giddily to her feet as the frightened maids open them. There is a lord to speak with her, and he does so peremptorily as you might to a leper and storms out as soon as his message is delivered.

Is it a reprieve? Is it an exile?

No one can say and she does not wait to hear more, she scarcely spares the breath to ask the futile questions because already she is planning. There are horses saddled in the moonlit courtyard, there is her cloak cast upon the coffer and it is a moment's work to don one and clamber upon the other. Her ladies and maids protest that this is not how it should be done - there is no grace, no dignity in it, her chests are not packed, why her hair has not been brushed nor her gown changed in a day (in her melancholy she would not allow them to touch her), she must wait.

She is past caring.

The Tower cuts a scythe-like shadow across the silvered cobblestones in the courtyard. She crosses herself when she looks up at it, shivering so fiercely that she can hear her teeth rattling - like an old woman's death rattle, she thinks. Her women hang about her, lost and bewildered, but the only one she turns to is her little niece. They look like ghosts in their nightgowns and nightcaps, with their cloaks hastily thrown over them.

"Have word sent to your mother and stepfather, Cate," she bids the thirteen-year-old girl. "You must be gone from this place as soon as possible. There is a curse upon it." She touches the girl's smooth golden hair and adds, "Tell your mother I am sorry. Sorry for all the hurt and grief I have caused her and that I love her true as only a sister can."

The girl looks up to her with trusting blue eyes. Her father's eyes. Henry's eyes. "What will become of you, Your Grace?"

Anne shrugs with all the elegance of the French mademoiselle she once was. It is chilly for a night in May, the bluff wind makes her cheeks and eyes smart but she can already feel her excitement rising, drowning out the numbness of months. It is another adventure and she is not an old woman after all. She is still young, still vivacious and God be good, she has her life before her. For now. "Nothing, save that you will never again have cause to call me Grace again I think. And thank God for it, niece."

She turns her back on her ladies, her companions in terror and grief and hopes that she never sees them again. Not even little Catherine Carey, though she loves her tenderly. She does not ever want to see them again, she does not ever want to stand here again, under the shadow of the Tower, and be reminded of that life.

I have shed a dozen skins and lived a thousand lives, she thinks. I am a snake, as my own sister called me. This is just another skin that I must shed. There is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing. And she holds her head high and feels, irresistibly, a smile quirking at her lips. Good God, I am drunk on hope. I am run quite mad to smile like this, when I know nothing, when it might all be one of his cruel tricks. I am mad to live.

One of her guardsman is speaking. "Where to, my lady? We were given no instructions but to take you away to wherever your pleasure was."

Where to, indeed? Hever? She dismisses the thought of her father's castle in Kent at once, they will not want her, they will send her away at once. They were happy to have her and her sister when they were in high favor but now they would rather cast them out as disgraced whores - aye, and call them so to their faces. Not Rochford Hall where that vile bitch Jane Parker lives. She thinks briefly of her sister but Mary is lodged in London. And for sure I will not be allowed to abide here.

"Hatfield," she says finally and smiles at the guardsman. He is quite flustered and it is the most delicious of pleasures to be reminded that she can still sway men with just a smile, just a fluttering of her lashes. "I am minded to see my daughter."

They ride hard for Hatfield House and by dawn, she is dismounting in the square before the manor. "Keep safe, my lady," the guardsman says, bowing to her.

"Thank you," she says, touched. "For sure, I intend to, this time at least."

The sky is yolk-tinted, shot with delicate threads of rose and silver and lavender. The square-cut hedges and the green are wet with dew and she can hear the robins singing in their nests. She sways on her feet, almost dead with exhaustion (she would like nothing better than to tumble into the sweet-smelling damp grass and sleep like a child), but she is smiling. She watches as her entourage rides out and then like quite a common woman, walks into the house without ceremony. Her dusty skirt drags out behind her and the servants who open the door for her gawk as though they had seen a ghost.

Past caring, she ignores them, and begins climbing up the stairs, trying to recall from memory where her daughter's bedroom should be.

"Your Grace!"

There is Lady Bryan hurrying towards her, still in her nightcap and rubbing sleep-dampened eyes as though she still cannot believe that the servants have told her truly. She hesitates, quite perturbed, not knowing how deeply she should curtsey, crossing herself in mortal disbelief that this ghost, risen from the grave, should be walking so calmly in her demesne.

"I fear it shall never be Your Grace again, Lady Bryan," Anne says lightly. "And truly, I know as little as you do of how I came to be here this fair morning."

"My lady?" Lady Bryan ventures, wondering if this at least is safe. "Have you come to see my lady princess?"

"Yes," Anne breathes and suddenly she can feel the tears welling in her eyes. "Her and her alone."

"I- of course, my lady. She is still asleep but-" Trying to make the best of a senseless situation, Lady Bryan leads her stiffly down the hallway and to the nursery.

It is a pretty, sunny little chamber. The latticed windows have been unbarred to let the sweet air and sunshine in. Her little girl is asleep in her small bed, clutching her doll to her heart. Her nightcap is pinned to her hair but a few errant red curls stray on to her pillow. She is frowning in her sleep, as though thinking hard.

"I will leave you with my lady princess then," Lady Bryan says awkwardly and dipping a curtsey, leaves as quickly as possible.

When she is gone, the bright, brittle energy floods out of Anne at once and she almost falls into her daughter's bed. She puts her arms around Elizabeth and feels the sting of saltwater trickling down her cheek as her eyes close shut.

"Mamma?" It is the breathy croak of a child woken out of sleep.

With a very great effort, Anne cracks her eyes open. "Yes, my love?"

Elizabeth has her own black eyes, grave and puzzled. "Why are you here? Is my lord papa here too?"

"No, sweetheart. Just me, come to see my little princess. Are you not happy to see me, child?"

"Of course, mamma. But- but why are you crying?"

"Because I am so happy to be with you, my precious darling. Because I have wanted to be with you for months and months and could not. Hush now, dearest, it is too early for you to be up. Go back to sleep."

"Will you be there when I wake up?" the child asks, suddenly doubtful. "I will not go to sleep if you won't be."

Anne forces her eyes wide open and stares straight at the child. "I promise," she says solemnly. "I would move heaven and earth to be with you, Elizabeth. I will never let them part us again."

That satisfies the child and she curls up closer to her mother. "I love you, mamma," she says and she is smiling now, not frowning, as she closes her eyes. She looks like a red-haired little angel.

"I love you too, my baby," Anne whispers and almost before the words are out of her mouth, falls asleep.

June 1536

Honey-stoned Pembroke Castle sits quietly by the edge of the River Cleddau, stout and square-towered and above all things, safe.

"Is this to be our new home, mamma?" Elizabeth asks her. In their barge, she is wrapped up in furs against the chill that rises off the river so that only her pointed little face peeps out. She is, as ever, bursting full with questions.

"Yes, my love. We will live here together, just the two of us. How would you like that?"

"But what about His Grace, my lord papa? Won't you miss him?" Not yet three but God bless her, already as sharp as a pin.

Anne hesitates for a fraction of a second too long and the clever little girl says solemnly, "You are happy not to be living with him. Mamma, is it true that he is married but not to you?"

"We shall speak of this later, Elizabeth." And not before the servants. She strokes the girl's bright curls, to take the sting from her words and Elizabeth smiles up at her. They are already best friends.

Later in the castle, ensconced in their own apartments at night, Elizabeth asks, "Are you upset, mama?"

They sleep in the same room, in the same bed indeed as a family of peasants with but one bed would. It is not done but Anne is far beyond ceremony now. There is no one to see what she does, nor care, as long as she is wise enough to keep far away. Anne sits before her looking glass in her shift, arranging her hairbrushes on her vanity.

Elizabeth, who loves to brush her mother's long dark hair, toddles hopefully in front of her but Anne laughs and pulls her onto her lap. "Let me brush your hair for a change, child."

Elizabeth pouts. "My hair isn't as pretty as yours," she insists, tugging at a springy red curl.

"On the contrary, it is far more valuable," Anne points out. "It is red just like the King, your father's. It tells the world whose daughter you truly are and no one can say anything to the contrary."

Elizabeth hesitates a moment.

"Yes?"

The words come out in a rush. "So I am truly His Grace's daughter?"

"You are his most beautiful daughter," Anne swears. "With his coloring - nothing like that sulky half-caste Spaniard, the Lady Mary. You would be foolish to believe any scurrilous gossip that said otherwise." The child's tell-tale blush is answer enough - she has been listening to the servants' gossip. And to hear them, you would think that they would not run out of gossip till Judgment Day and each day's stories livelier than the last.

"The King is my father," Elizabeth says slowly. "And you are my mother. But... but you are not married?"

"No," Anne says. "No, we were never married, dearest."

"But you were queen and everyone called you-"

"A false queen," Anne says calmly, denying her life's work, her life's mad scramble to sit on the throne of England. "I am only the Marquess of Pembroke now, the King's former wh- mistress, and I am well content with my station. Queen Jane is the only true queen and you must pray that she gives your lord father a son, indeed that is what we all must hope for."

Elizabeth frowns. "I do not understand," she says. Elizabeth hates not to understand.

"Nor do I, in truth," Anne confesses with a little laugh. "Your father is an alchemist in truth, he can make pure gold out of dross as he did with Jane Seymour, if he chooses. No, don't frown, my sweet. Wiser heads than yours have fallen for understanding - sometimes ignorance is a blessing."

I will be as sweet and insipid and ignorant as Jane Seymour if that is Your Grace's will, Anne thinks bitterly. I would deny my very nature for my life, even if it is a half-life. The Spanish woman did not and she never saw her daughter again. For sure I would do anything to keep my daughter safe.

"But I am not a princess anymore. I am only called Lady Elizabeth, never my Lady Princess." Anne feels a fierce rush of hatred towards Henry, it almost chokes her up and she struggles to control the disgust in her eyes. You were the greatest fool that ever lived, she thinks. You would put aside your beautiful daughter, the brightest child that ever gladdened a father's heart, for hope of a son from that mealy-mouthed Seymour. God curse her and god curse you, Henry. May you never know any happiness in your sons.

"No," Anne says and holds her little daughter tightly to her. "And you must pray that you never become one either. You must pray that your father forgets all about you, that everyone forgets all about you."

"I don't think I should like that," Elizabeth pouts. "I love papa. He is so handsome." Anne laughs and thinks that Henry does not deserve his little daughter's devotion. She hopes the girl will forget all about her father and the old adoration, given time.

"Neither would I, at your age. I was always wild to be admired, to be the center of attention and I believe that you take after both your parents in your vanity, my girl." Anne tweaks Elizabeth's nose playfully. "But sometimes, my love, it is better to be happy and known only to a few than to be at the center of the world and its censure. My sister Mary knew that well enough and I always thought her a fool for knowing her place and keeping to it. But now... now I am not sure."

She can tell that Elizabeth does not quite agree with her but the child is only three. She must forget the glamor of her old life, what child, scarcely risen from the cradle, can hold strong opinions about everything? She will make her baby forget. A quiet life in Wales, a little dowry and a simple marriage to an ordinary gentleman, motherhood - Anne does not want anything more for her daughter.

"To bed with you now, child," she says laughing and Elizabeth, still frowning, goes to bed.

April 1537

The two sisters sit together in the window-seat, watching the rain pelting down. Their daughters are at the other end of the warmly-appointed chamber, Catherine sewing away sedately and three-year-old Elizabeth lisping away in Welsh with her nursemaid.

"She's a bright child," Lady Stafford tells her sister warmly. "Welsh, French and you are having her taught Latin though she is but four. No doubt she can handle it though, the dear thing is as bright as you were." Anne has invited her sister and her family to Pembroke. She likes to have her family about her now and though she can never be close to George again, she still has Mary.

Anne nods absently. "I wish to God that I could throw this letter into the fire and have done with it," she says, toying with the letter she has received just that day. "I wish I could pretend that I had never received it at all."

"You would be a fool to do so," Mary tells her calmly. "It is the King's will that you go to court for Eastertide and so to court you two must go. Come sister, it cannot be so bad - he is said to be merry and well he should be, with the Queen's pregnancy progressing so well. I doubt that you shall be in any danger."

"But why invite me at all?" Anne asks restlessly. "I thought he would have done with me and pretend that I never existed at all. That is his way, the child's way - to throw away a toy when he is tired of playing with it."

Mary shrugs. "Perhaps to see his daughters?" she suggests. "He has invited even us and Princess Mary."

"Lady," Anne says absently. "She hasn't been reinstated, though God knows his dear little queen tries hard enough. It'll be that Seymour cat's doing, I warrant - she will want to queen it over me and have me kneel and kiss the hem of her gown."

Mary throws back her head and laughs. "As you liked me to do," she reminds her sister. "You wanted me to know my place when I was out of favor and you were in. Why should not dear Jane have the same pleasure from having you dance attendance upon her? And you were never kind to her, she will not easily forget how you made mock of her. Underneath the froth and sugar and those sweet doe-eyes, she is a vengeful woman."

Anne smiles unwillingly. "I was as puffed up as a popinjay. I made enemies as fast as I breathed in those days, the more fool me."

Mary pats her little sister's hand affectionately. "Well you shall queen it at her court," she says warmly, "You shall show the whole world how beautiful you are, far more beautiful and desirable than she." She thinks that the reminder of her sister's beauty will cheer her up - it always used to in the past.

But now Anne sighs wearily and turns her face away. "Not I," she says quietly. "I shall be as dull and dowdy as a mouse. I do not long for attention any more, on the contrary I fear it. And anyway, I can hardly afford it. I have been given no allowance, I shall have to make do with the rents I receive. It is well enough when we live quietly in the country but I must learn to be as thrifty a housewife as my dear, dull sister."

"Who is the happiest woman in the world though she is ever so dull," Mary reminds her, dimpling. She is still a pretty woman, Anne thinks, with a touch of envy, warm and bonny and bright-haired. She is preserved by her stolid stupidity, as though it were salt - fools are always happy, she thinks, remembering Jane Seymour. And she calls Elizabeth to her, "Darling, your head will spin if you learn so many new words. Come and sit with your aunt and me and bring your sewing with you."

Elizabeth does not like to sew but she is ready enough to listen to the gossip with her mother and aunt. Mary scoops her up and puts her into the windowseat and Catherine brings her sampler and sewing box.

"Are we to go to court and see papa?" Elizabeth asks, threading her needle with chubby fingers.

"We are going to court because we have been commanded," Anne says, "and we shall come home as soon as we are permitted. It shall not be very joyous, I can assure you. The Queen is not kindly disposed towards either of us and if I were you, I would not be so pleased to be going."

She is trying to teach her daughter something that runs contrary to both their natures - to be ashamed and fearful of the spotlight. It does not hold, the words slip off Elizabeth like water off a duck's back. But Anne must keep on trying.

"And shall I have a new gown?" Elizabeth demands, cutting to the heart of the matter. She has her mother's passionate love of gowns and jewels and nothing makes her happier than playing with her mother's things - except perhaps, strange to say, learning Latin.

"No," Anne says, "we can scarce afford it." That is not quite the truth but Anne thinks it is better that way. If I make out that we do not wish to be noticed, we shall not, she thinks, Elizabeth can be just another of Henry's bastards, like Catherine.

The court is very merry at Eastertide. Pregnancy has put color into Jane's pallid cheeks and limp hair, joy and security a sparkle to her maggot-grey eyes. She wears gowns cut so that they swell around her stomach, though she is but three months along in her time she might as well be nine months with child she makes such an ado of waddling about with her belly thrust proudly before her. She looks like a Madonna, she wears the brocades and bejeweled silks that were once Anne's, royal purple and fertile green and the rich, dark colors suit her fair hair and translucent skin.

Anne grits her teeth and kneels to her and they both pretend that scarcely two years before, Anne had boxed Jane's ears and called her a slut before the whole court.

"Your Grace," Anne says and kisses the Queen's hand, like a tame bitch might lick her mistress's hand.

Jane smiles her trademark sweet smile and says in her thin little voice, "My Lady Marquess. You have been away from court for too long - your gown and hood are out of fashion. And you used to be called the very glass of fashion!" She wears a gable hood - that most dowdy of creations which would have had the wearer laughed out of countenance had it been worn two years ago. It suits Jane's prim spinsterly face though but Anne would rather die than have the fashions dictated to her by dowdy little Jane Seymour.

"I do not care much for these fashions, Your Grace."

Jane frowns. "The country air does not agree with you it seems. You are terribly out of your looks, why you look old enough to be my mother," she says with just a tinge of malice. Then before Anne has a chance to retort, she waves her away languidly as though she is too high and mighty to squabble with someone so far beneath her.

I'll warrant she was frightened I would say something to which she had no answer. She was always known for her slow wits - she was worse even than Mary, Anne thinks spitefully as she is forced to curtsey and step aside.

When the King enters the Queen's apartments, they all rise but for Jane. She sits with her feet propped up on a footstool and he goes swiftly to her, as though he can see no one else. He does not care that she does not rise, his hand goes at once to her belly and he asks her earnestly if she is well, if she wants anything.

"I am well, husband," she says and kisses him. Anne grits her teeth and watches her in her triumph. Then she is forced to admit that if she were in Jane's place, she would do no less. I was bred to be spiteful and malicious and resent any success but mine own. I was bred to claw my place upwards, to be a courtier. Dear God, that is not something I would wish upon my daughter.

"Have you met our dear Marquess?" Jane asks Henry. "She is just come to court." Henry grunts as if he would dismiss the matter but Jane calls clearly, "Lady Anne, do come and meet His Grace." She calls like a woman would call a lapdog and some of the ladies near Anne begin to titter.

She steps forwards and curtseys to them both. "Your Grace," she murmurs and looks up at the man she has not seen for over a year. He looks straight through her, as though she is a pane of glass, a ghost perhaps. She wonders if he is regretting his decision to invite her to court at Jane's behest, his decision to let her live.

"And where is your daughter, the Lady Elizabeth?" Jane presses on sweetly. Her smile is honey-and-milk and Anne would like nothing better than to claw that porcelain face into bloody shreds.

"She is asleep, Your Grace," Anne lies serenely. "The journey has tired her."

"But would you not like to see her, Your Grace?" Jane persists. "She is said to be the very image of her beautiful mother is she not?" That is a bold-faced lie, Elizabeth's resemblance to her father has always been marked upon. What is Jane's game, Anne wonders? She is said to be kindly disposed towards Mary - has pleaded in fact that she be named a princess once more and her place in the succession reinstated. She was said to be a loyal servant to Katherine of Aragon but there is no love lost between her and the Boleyns. But would she see me hang for her hate? Anne wonders. Would she have me burnt as a witch or quartered for treason? Is her spite so overpowering?

"No," Henry says shortly and turns away. He would like to pretend she does not exist and not all Jane's baiting can make him take notice of Anne. Not now at least.

Anne lets out a breath that she does not know she has been holding and rises to meet Jane's eyes. They are like chips of dirty ice.

She cannot be safe, Anne understands slowly as she goes back to her place. She is terrified of me just as I was of Katherine. I am the itch that she cannot help but scratch till it bleeds. She was always jealous of my beauty. She fears that he might turn in lust to me now that he can no longer lie with her. She wants me dead just as I longed for Katherine's death. Little good it did me, so long as she does not bear him a son nothing can make her safe. One moment queen, the next prisoner.

And she shudders in the spring sunlight and wishes herself a thousand miles away.

Her only consolation is Lady Latimer. She is a grave young woman of much charm and behind a sweet facade, a most formidable intelligence. They are drawn together irresistibly, kindred spirits who cannot help themselves. Katherine is the most gracious of women and she has friends all around her, even Henry's daughter Mary, even Jane Seymour.

It is the most delightful of pleasures to walk up and down the maze gardens with her, talking of anything that catches their fancy. For a woman with a reputation for serious-mindedness, she can be surprisingly light-hearted - she has been buried in the country for too long, just like Anne and they cannot chatter away long enough about clothes and jewels. But sometimes the talk strays to graver matters - to the classics and the study of the scriptures, sometimes even the reformation of the church. In her own quiet way, dear Katherine is as ardent a supporter of reform as Anne.

The only thing Anne regrets when the time comes to leave for Pembroke is Katherine's absence. "Write to me often," she presses her.

"I will," Katherine promises her earnestly and they embrace, firm friends.

October 1537

She is at Lambeth House, visiting the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk when the news reaches them.

One of the Dowager Duchess's grandnieces, a pretty little thing, comes running to them in the solar with letters from London. She is round-eyed with excitement, Anne guesses that she has heard the latest news from the messengers in the stable-yard themselves.

"Goodness grief, Kitty, don't goggle like that," the Duchess says crossly. "You look like a fish. You have the manners of a Smithsfield slut, no matter how hard I try to whip it out of you."

Belatedly, Kitty Howard, drops a little curtsey and looks like a flushed schoolgirl as Anne breaks the seal of the letter and scans through it. "The Queen is dead," she says, keeping her voice neutral. She drops her eyes so that the Duchess will not see the fierce glitter in them - even at Lambeth, there may be spies around. "I grieve for Her Grace. We must have prayers said."

Little Kitty Howard gapes at her. "You are most gracious, my Lady Marquess," she gasps. "I could never have been so gracious in your position!"

"Oh Catherine," her grandmother sighs and pinches the girl. "What am I to do with you?"

"She's only a child," Anne says kindly, "Just turned thirteen aren't you, Kitty?"

Kitty nods and Anne thinks her a most engaging child with her dimples and cream-and-roses complexion but a fool for all that. When I was thirteen I had the wit of a woman grown, she thinks detachedly. I would have had to, living in the court of France where my sister was already known as Francis' English mare and men thought of me as a little whore-in-the-making. But she already senses that little Kitty Howard is a stupid girl, malleable and feather-brained. Uncle Norfolk would love her - a Howard virgin almost ripe for bedding. No doubt they will want her at court when she is a little older, especially now that Jane is dead.

She thinks no more of it and her heart sings as she prays in the chapel for hours so that all might attest to her genuine grief. Only when she is putting Elizabeth to bed - she likes to do it herself - does the child say a curious thing.

"Mamma, why do they call you a witch?"

Her heart stops cold but in her gay courtier's voice she says, "A witch, darling? Really how silly. Wash behind your ears now."

But Elizabeth is not to be put off. "The Queen said you were before she died," she says earnestly, "Kitty was saying."

Anne stands very still. "The Queen? Queen Jane?"

"You said there was only one true queen, mamma."

"So I did, so I did... and what did Kitty say?"

Elizabeth senses danger. At once her black eyes slide guiltily away, she never likes to be involved in trouble of any sort. "Nothing," she says too quickly, a clever dissembler even at four years of age. "She wasn't even talking to me. Mamma - you won't scold her? I like her."

That you would, Anne thinks sourly. She is less feckless than a child of four, that one. "No of course not, Elizabeth," she says sweetly, tucking her daughter into bed. "Why would you think of such a thing?"

Elizabeth looks as she doubts her mother, but happy that she will not be blamed, says no more of it. She is like a little cat, her daughter is. And what would you expect from a child born of Henry and me?

Kitty Howard is brought to the great hall to stand trial before her grandmother and cousin, a quivering mess of nerves and shame. Anne and the Duchess are seated, very grand, under the canopy of state, the Duchess scowling darkly, Anne icy. She falls to her knees in a curtsey, red-rimmed eyes for effect, her cheeks glistening with tears. Oh she is very good.

"What is the meaning of this gossip?" the Duchess demands, very stately. "What am I to make of it when a girl in my keeping, a slut of a girl who is to be made into a lady, gossips with the servants in the kitchen and spreads the most shameful stories about her betters? If I were not so tender-hearted, I would have you thrown out tonight and then we would see if you liked living in a hovel again, Mistress Howard. You have no dowry, no wits, no learning and a but indifferent appearance - all you have is your name and your reputation and you do your best to squander both."

"Forgive me!" Kitty wails, bursting into noisy sobs and the Duchess, vexed, boxes her ears. That only makes the girl weep harder. "I never meant to-"

"I'm sure you did not, Kitty," Anne says softly. The girl puts up her wretched face and Anne looks at her gravely. "But you will need to be honest with me now."

"I would never dream of being anything else, my lady! I swear upon-"

"That's enough, never mind your swearing, you dirty little liar," the Duchess says curtly. "You should be locked up for a week on bread and water, aye, in an oubliette like the foul-mouthed child you are."

"You were gossiping with Agnes Restwold and Jane Bulmer when you should have been at your sewing," Anne tells her. "Slander and scandal. What about? And whom did you hear it from?"

"The messengers from London," Kitty answers promptly. "I was just talking-"

"Flirting again," the Duchess sniffs. Anne shoots her a look and she grumbles into silence.

"-and they gave me the news from London, of the Queen being dead. I was about to dash off to give the letters to you but then one of them, the tall one with the curly dark hair and those lovely blue eyes-"

"-never mind his eyes, you stupid girl-"

"-well he said that it might go hard for the Marquess, what with the King in his grief and no one to say what he might do in his frenzy. And I asked why and he said that in her delirium, the Queen made His Grace promise never to marry you again, my Lady Anne. And she raved that you were a witch, as all knew, and you had cast a most terrible curse on her so that she might die in the moment of her triumph. She wanted you dead, she should have begged that you die like the witch you were, she said. And that she was wasting away because it was your ill-doing and-"

Anne rises, retching. "Sit down," the Duchess says sharply, "you are in position to stand. And you girl, be off with you now. You've caused enough damage for one night." Kitty scurries away in relief but Anne shakes off the Duchess's hand.

"I must be gone from here," she says feverishly. "As quickly as possible."

"What, at this hour? Madness! Sit down, child and we shall talk of this in the morning, you are in no state-"

Anne whirls upon her with venomous hatred. "Good god, my lady, do you not see that I dare not tarry even a single day? That fool child had the King's measure better than you do - in his frenzy he is capable of anything. The greater the distance I put between myself and him, the better."

Because he is like a child himself, she thinks, striding out of the hall and already calculating, because he forgets about his toys when he cannot see them. It was so with all his women, from his mistresses to his queens. I was a fool to try my luck by coming so close to London. This is the last time, the very last time.

January 1540

It has been three years since she has been summoned to court and now she is called again to bend the knee to another queen. This time it is a lantern-jawed German princess, swaddled and barreled up in cloth, with innocent eyes and a childlike smile. She looks sedate and fertile enough, a big, healthy girl in her twenties, a good breeder from the look of her, and Anne wonders why she does not seem to Henry's taste.

It is Kitty Howard, one of the Queen's new maids, who tells her, with the vivid glee of the inveterate gossip. She tells her of the New Year's reception at Rochester, where the girl from Cleves had shoved the king away when he came from a kiss, revulsion deep in her too-innocent eyes.

"Of course he was in disguise like a peasant, when he came to steal a kiss, as he likes to pretend not to be noticed," Kitty tells her importantly, "but any fool would have known him for the King for he is the fattest man at court. But he thought himself the handsome prince he used to be, he thought that any woman in the world would be glad of his caresses, fancy that! And she had not the wits to smile and kiss him back - no indeed, she shoved him off and spat at him!"

"She didn't!" Anne cries and like a girl, throws back her head and laughs her high, rippling laugh. Men turn to look at her, as they used to, and at once she subsides. "Poor child," she sighs.

"I would have known better," Kitty assures her, "indeed I did, for I went up to the King and asked him if we might dance for we were both two strangers at court. He seemed to like that."

"I'll wager you did, Mistress Howard, for you are the most incorrigible flirt."

Kitty gleams at her. "But you do not sound very cross with me for all that. Not like my lady grandmother at all."

"No," Anne sighs absently, "I used to be worse."

She dresses carefully that night, for once she cannot help but be pricked by her old vanity, the vanity that she thought to lay aside in the days when obscurity was bliss. Tonight, she wants to invite comparison and notice - to show the world that even in her thirties, she is still a beauty even next to a fresh-faced girl like the new queen.

She wears low-cut scarlet velvet, slashed with silvery satin and embroidered with leopards in gold silk, to bring out the rich tints of her dark hair and olive coloring. She pushes back her silver French hood far back on her head, to show off the smooth glossiness of her hair. Long pearl-and-emerald drops dangle from her ears, sapphire rings glitter on her long, thin fingers and she wears her pearl choker with the gold B with pride at her slim throat.

Kitty Howard fairly gasps when she sees her dressed and claps her hands like a child. "You look regal," she whispers and Anne can see the barest trace of feminine jealousy in her eyes. Kitty Howard knows herself as a pretty girl, but that is all - she can never compare to the grace and beauty of a grown woman like Anne. It is vastly amusing to see Kitty struggle dutifully to control herself and Anne smiles very sweetly at her as though to say, someday you might be like me. Or perhaps not.

There are pretty girls everywhere, as common as daisies in springtime, but a beautiful woman, one not worn out by countless childbearing and a thousand petty demands, ah, that is as rare as a rose in winter.

It is her night of triumph, there is not a man in the room who does not look twice at her - once for her beauty, once for her notoriety. L'enchantresse, she is the fallen queen, an angel of flame and darkness. She is dancing with her handsome kinsman, Thomas Culpeper - partly to make Kitty who adores him jealous, partly because he is the most delicious rogue and reminds her so much of George - when Henry calls her.

She curtseys to him and his plump, stolid queen and feels as though she is made of ice in her terror. Dear God, forgive me for my trespasses, she thinks, I wish I had the sense to wear fustian in place of velvet. I wish I had never given way to my vanity. Four years I've been safe and I've squandered it all now.

"This is my good friend, the Marquess of Pembroke, Lady Anne Boleyn," Henry grunts and the translator at the Queen's side explains. The girl's eyes grow wide for a moment, she puts her hand to her mouth in shock that he should invite his used whore to court (it is not the Cleves way) but she is already clever enough not to say anything. But it is the English way and there are a dozen of Henry's whores, a dozen 'good friends', swanning around at court now - Lady Elizabeth Fiennes, once Bessie Blount, Lady Mary Stafford... Anne's presence is nothing out of the ordinary really. It is to show the world that she is nothing more than a used whore, to be paraded as a common curiosity to the court.

"Very happy meet, Madam Marquess," Queen Anne lisps out and makes an effort to smile.

"As am I, Your Grace," Anne murmurs, still locked in her curtsey. The new Queen does not bid her rise, she is so slow and awkward to command, and it is only when Henry puts a finger under her chin that she is forced to rise unwillingly.

His eyes linger on her creamy breasts, exposed by the low neckline, the slender waist and generous hips of a woman in her best years whose body has not been spoiled by constant childbearing. He looks as though he would like to maul her there and then and for a moment she thinks she would let him, and gladly, if he would forget her afterwards. I would that he used me like a Smithsfield whore for ten minutes, she thinks earnestly, then simmer over his lust and long for me until he could not forget me. For sure, he will not get any pleasure from his queen and he will be sick with longing for all the French tricks that I performed on him.

"You look very bonny, Lady Anne," he murmurs and he strokes her cheek.

"As much as a woman almost forty can, Your Grace," she says gravely, trying to remind him that she is old goods, used baggage. "Nothing compared to Her Grace, who is so fair to look upon."

"Well, you know what the French say," he says confidentially, "Women are like wine - age only improves them. And you were always very French, my dear - indeed you used to take pride in your... special skills."

The translator's eyes widen at this most inappropriate jest and she does not repeat it to the innocent queen who looks questioningly at her.

"Do I have Your Grace's permission to leave?" she asks quietly and he smiles slyly at her. He even winks at her, as though there is a special secret between them.

"Go," he says, "I would not detain you from your admirers any longer. For sure, you have no dearth of them. Tell me, Lady Anne, would you be as kind to me as you seem to be to young Culpeper and all the other pups at your heels, eh?"

She flushes hotly. "He is my kinsman," she answers stiffly, "I am only courteous to him. I would honor and revere Your Grace above all others, I could never be kind to one so far above me." She curtseys stiffly and practically tears away.

Summer 1540

She is invited to join the court on its summertime progress, as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Ostentatiously it is so that she can guide her and teach her in the ways of the court and country and so that Henry can see more of his daughter. It suits no one at all well but Henry and Elizabeth. In a short while he is entranced with his daughter - as no one can help being, Anne thinks with pride. She adores him whole-heartedly and he likes to think that he is the center of her world. He likes to have a pretty daughter to show off, as clever as Mary but with a thousand times more charm, warm and winning and passionately adoring as Mary is not. He calls Mary his pearl of the world but Elizabeth is his Tudor rose and he basks in the love of his daughters during that summer.

It is just another part that he is playing, Anne thinks spitefully, it amuses him for a while to play the doting father and when he is bored he will cast them off again with no thought but for himself.

Elizabeth, the clever little courtier that she is, does well for herself out of it in trinkets and thinks herself well-paid. But Anne, paid in the same coin but forced to endure the King's ever-evident lust, does not think the same. He does not command her to his rooms at night - and sometimes she wishes he would, so that he might relieve himself of the itch. Perhaps he is struggling against his last promise to Jane - that he will never bed nor wed her. But this cannot go on forever, his summer's lust will change to suspicion and hate as hard and cold as winter.

And then he will name me a witch, she thinks with cold certainty. He will regret ever sparing me to be a plague to him forever. He will think it better that I be dealt with swiftly once and forever.

And she knows that she must start calculating again - not for a throne this time, but for her very life.

Kitty Howard is sixteen years old. She has curling auburn hair and guileless eyes and the svelte figure of a water nymph. She has her eyes on Culpeper for his bonny blue eyes but she is easily swayed. The King likes her as he always likes a pretty girl, she was kind to him in his humiliation at Rochester and he does not forget that. He likes to see her dance - as what man would not? She dances like a whore - and he likes the silly way she rattles on because he adores stupid girls.

It is the easiest thing in the world to impress solemnly upon Kitty that if she impresses the King there will be rich rewards for her. She is cheap to bribe into sweet-tempered submission and easy to frighten. And once her Uncle Norfolk catches a whiff of the game at hand, he puts added pressure on the hapless girl.

It is easy to throw this radiant girl before the King, to dress her in a transparent robe and pretend it is all for a masque where she is to be a Trojan princess and therefore ignite his lust, to teach her old tricks that no child of sixteen should know and marvel at all the sluttish tricks that she already knows.

"Good gracious, child, did you grow up in a bawd house?" Anne often demands of the child and Kitty Howard quickly veils her blue eyes with her lashes and mutters something under her breath. But the more slatternly the girl, the better for her - though she cannot help wondering just what the old Duchess thought she was doing with the young people in her care. Anne does not see any future for the girl but as a royal mistress - in favor as long as she is young and keeps her looks, a few seasons, and then married off.

She will love being Henry's mistress, all the furs and jewels she can get her greedy little hands, she thinks, excusing herself, And even if she does not, even if she comes to harm - and she is so stupid that she might, once there is nobody to look out for her as diligently as I do - it is better that she does than me. I have a daughter to look after and anyway, it is a hard world and a woman had better learn to live by her wits. If she does not, then it is not my fault. And so she excuses herself, knowing that she is a hard woman and not caring at all.

Autumn 1540

She is summoned to her Uncle Norfolk's apartments as she was when she was still a young woman with neither name nor prospects, nothing more than her sister's lady-in-waiting. She goes quietly, like a biddable young woman, because now she has neither name nor prospects. Fortune's wheel, she thinks and her lips twist into an unwilling smile as she waits in his antechamber like a pensioner and the gentleman usher goes to the inner chamber to announce her to the duke.

Once upon a time it was he who would be announced to me. Once upon a time I would shout in his face, just because I could. How the mighty have fallen.

She knows it gives him a delicious pleasure to see her make her curtsey to him as he sits in state and stand before being bidden to take a chair.

"Ah... Anne," he drawls and steeples his fingers, "You have done good work for our house. You have been more gracious and more clever than I would have expected of you."

I didn't do it for you, you old fox, she thinks, but drops her lashes over her black eyes and says nothing.

"So how do you wish to be congratulated, niece? Is there not some reward you would fancy for yourself? Oh don't give me that look, you, of all women, would never do something for nothing. You are not your sister."

"Sometimes I wish I were," she says shortly.

He ignores her. "Kitty is to be taken to Lambeth," he tells her.

She looks up at him, shocked. "I thought he would want to keep her by him?"

But her uncle shakes her head. "No, he doesn't want her good name besmirched. She's to be as pure as a little rose, she can stay with her grandmother while this... sorry business is transacted."

She is puzzled. "I thought..."

He smiles wolfishly at her, as though he can guess every thought passing through her mind and it delights him. "You thought wrong than, Madam Marquess. He doesn't want to keep the silly child as his mistress, he wants to make her his queen."

She gapes at him but slowly the pieces of the puzzle fall in place. Why Henry has not bedded at all with his German bride, though she is as strong as an ox and looks to be fecund soil to breed healthy sons on - all the easier to throw off the marriage on the grounds of non-consummation. Why he has never sent for Kitty at night, though he is burning up with lust for her. He is an old man, he wants a pretty young wife, young enough to be his daughter, not a little slut to dandle on his knee.

"Dear God," she murmurs, with a sinking feeling. "I should have seen. And what is to become of the girl from Cleves?"

Her uncle shrugs, it makes no matter to him. "She will be set aside, one way or another," he says. "There are a dozen ways to put a wife aside, these days."

"I won't stay here," she whispers quietly. "That is the only reward I claim. To be left alone while you burn that poor girl as a sorceress or behead her as an adulteress or poison her quietly or shunt her to a dreary convent to a lonely death or to her brother who hates her in shame. I won't stay while you make a queen of little Kitty Howard and when you throw her down in her turn, after he is weary of her."

Her uncle shrugs. "He will weary of her," he concedes. "But not for a few years at least. She might give him a son by then and then I won't need to throw her down. And even if she doesn't, I have a stable full of pretty nieces to parade before him, its no loss if a few are too stupid to look out for themselves and need to be shelved. But you can go if you want now, he will have quite forgotten you in all the excitement. You're used goods after all and the strangest thing was that he ever came to fancy you at all for a time this winter."

She leaves London with Kitty's train but instead of going to Lambeth, she departs straight for Pembroke. Seven-year-old Elizabeth is quite miserable. She uses all the arts of rhetoric that she has been taught, to try to persuade her mother to stay at court but Anne will not be persuaded.

"And that's enough of all your fine foibles," Anne says firmly, going through Elizabeth's wardrobe and having most of the silks and brocades that are her daughter's delight packed away. "Entirely too grand for a child of seven. You will dress more plainly, as befits your age and our residence."

"But it does not suit my station," Elizabeth says smartly. "For I am the King's daughter, mamma." She has been made very well aware of her rank - how could she not, when Henry was so pleased to play the doting father during the summer?

"On the contrary, it does, very much so," Anne says coldly. "For you are nothing more than a bastard, though you might think yourself a princess."

Hurt floods into the child's eyes - for she is just a child, though wise beyond her years in some ways - but Anne stares her down coldly. Better she learn this now than later when it will hurt more, she thinks to herself, though it hurts her to have to hurt Elizabeth so cruelly. But then Elizabeth drops her eyes and curtseying she says, "Of course, my Lady Mother. It must be as you say."

Summer 1541

I am low in spirits, she writes to Lady Latimer. I have been commanded to join the court on progress by my uncle and I have not the power to refuse his express order, not when he is so bent on my presence. He has a task for me. I loathe the court most passionately, it is a cesspool and I am a poor creature trapped in the filthy currents. I have kept my daughter at Pembroke, though she hates it, it is for her own safety. I pray that you never have any reason to come to court, though I miss you dearly.

The young queen, her cousin, is slipping. The queen's rooms are as well-ordered as a spoiled child's, she is as incorrigible a flirt as ever, she delights in the company of men and the most boisterous girls, she ignores the King except when she wants a present and worst of all, she has shown no signs of being with child. "And who better to help prop her up than her cousin, so experienced in the ways of the world?" her uncle asks her with a smile.

Her niece Catherine, has joined the court after her churching from the birth of a daughter - Mary Knollys. Together they are charged with the care of their feckless cousin - Catherine with maintaining the order of her younger maids (a most rambunctious lot of silly, vain sluts) and Anne with the more important matter of getting the queen with child.

She is lucky in that the girl is still in awe of her, the great lady who she looked up to when she was a child in Lambeth, the queen who has risen and fallen on Fortune's wheel and lived to tell the tale. "You have to get a son," Anne tells her bluntly, when they are alone in the girl's bedchamber one night. She is brushing her hair before she sleeps.

Kitty drops her pretty eyes and strokes the delicate lace of her nightgown. "He is not capable," she says, making a moue with her red lips. "You know he is not and I have done everything you taught me though it shames me. It gives him pleasure, but that is all."

Anne smiles at her slowly, feeling like a snake. "I said you had to get a son," she says softly. "But I did not say by who."

Kitty turns around, eyes wide. "You cannot mean-"

Anne strokes her hair as she would her own daughter's. "You must trust me," she says earnestly. "I am the only one who has your best interests at heart. For see, I came to court to care for you though I would have been safer off at Pembroke, wouldn't I? Do you think your Uncle Norfolk cares a fig about you? He has a dozen pretty nieces to squander on the King, you are just one of many and it hardly matters to him whether you are queen or a royal whore."

Kitty bites her lip, she is too stupid to think it through, she only hears the words on the surface and believes her cousin. "But isn't it high treason?" she whispers, her face as white as a sheet. "Adultery in a queen?"

"He would never try you for it," Anne tells her. "He loves you too much."

"Yes," Kitty agrees, her easy vanity taking hold of her. "Yes, he loves me to madness."

"He has never loved any woman as he has loved you," Anne lies shamelessly. "Perhaps he would be glad if you got a child, even if it were of another man's making. Perhaps he would be pleased that the world should know that he was still potent enough to sire sons on a young wife - he would be grateful to you. And you would be happy to have some pleasure of your won, wouldn't you?"

Kitty looks at her sceptically. Anne holds Kitty's face between her own hands and smiles gently at her, like a mother comforting a child with a fairytale. "I was accused of treason, wasn't I?" she whispers. "And I got away, didn't I? And now I am the happiest woman in the world, a peeress in my own right, my own fortune at my command, a free woman who may do as she pleases. Even if you fall - and you will not, he loves you too much for that - you cannot fall lower than me, surely?"

"Yes, you're right of course," Kitty says, smiling, and impulsively she throws her arms around her cousin. "You are so good to me, my lady. I shall never forget you."

Spring 1542

Little Kitty Howard never forgets her - who can forgot one's own Judas? They take off her pretty head with a stroke from a French swordsman's sharp blade. The Duke of Norfolk shrugs, says "Amen" and forgets that he ever had a niece. And Anne creeps quietly back home.

"I killed her," she tells her sister. "I killed her as surely as though I swung the blade myself. I promised her that she would come to no harm and put Culpeper in her bed. Dear God, she was only seventeen and more of a child than my own daughter is now." She shivers all over as though she has the ague.

"And is that the most terrible sin on your conscience?" her sister asks her quietly. And Anne looks up at her with haunted eyes and must confess that no it is not - there are worse. "I do not want to hear them," Mary says, looking sick.

"And I do not want to say them," Anne tells her bluntly. "Speaking of them makes them seem truer than they are."

"But, Anne, they are true."

"But I never speak of them," Anne says. "How else do you think I can rise so blithely every morning, as though I have Fortune's favor? If I thought of every single sin that I had committed, I would lie in my bed and pray till it became my shroud. I have done terrible things but I cannot dwell over them like other women do, perhaps I am too wicked to do so. Perhaps I am going to Hell. When you have done as many foul things as I have, you stop caring about them. But I mean to do good by one person at least, in my life."

"Elizabeth," her sister breaths.

"Yes," Anne says softly. "She is all I care about."

A/N: Slight historical inaccuracies - in April 1537, Katherine Parr was under siege in her husband, Lord Latimer's castle, and not at court. Whew! 10k+ words - more coming up in the next chapter.