"What is it, George?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Something and nothing. Something I cannot tell you and nothing I dare to do."

"Someone at court?" Anne demanded, intrigued.

He pulled up a stool before the fire and looked deep into the embers. "If I tell you, then you must swear to tell no one."

We nodded, absolutely sisters in our determination to know everything.

"More than that, you won't even say anything to each other when I am gone. I don't want your comments behind my back."

This time we hesitated. "Swear to not even talk among ourselves?"

"Yes, or I say nothing."

We hesitated, and then curiosity overcame us. "All right," said Anne, speaking for us both. "We swear."

His young handsome face crumpled and he buried his face into the rich sleeve of his jacket. "I'm in love with a man," he said simply.

"Francis Weston," I said at once.

His silence told me that I had guessed right.

Anne's face was one of stunned horror. "Does he know?"

He shook his head, still buried among the rich red velvet of his embroidered sleeve.

"Does anyone else know?"

Again his brown head shook.

"Then you must never give any hint of it, never tell anyone," she ordered him. "This must be the first and last time you speak of it to anyone, even to us. You must cut him out of your heart and mind and never even look at him again."

He looked up at her. "I know it's hopeless."

But her advice was not for his benefit. "You endanger me," she said. "The king'll never marry me if you bring shame to us."

"Is that it?" he demanded, in sudden rage. "Is that all that matters? Not that I am in love and tumbled like a fool into sin. Not that I can never be happy, married to a snake and in love with a heartbreaker, but only, only, only, that Mistress Anne Boleyn's reputation must be without blemish." that Mistress Anne Boleyn's reputation must be without blemish."

At once she flew at him, her hands spread like claws, and he caught her wrists before she could rake his face. "Look at me!" she hissed. "Didn't I give up my only love, didn't I break my heart? Didn't you tell me then that it was worth the price?"

He held her away but she was unstoppable. "Look at Mary! Didn't we take her from her husband and me from mine? And now you have to give up someone too. You have to lose the great love of your life, as I have lost mine, as Mary lost hers. Don't whimper to me about heartbreak, you murdered my love and we buried it together and now it is gone."

George was struggling with her and I gripped her from behind, pulling her off him. Suddenly, the fight went out of her and the three of us stood still, like masquers forming a tableau, me hugging her waist, him holding her wrists, her stretched hands still inches from his face.

"Good G.o.d, what a family we are," he said wonderingly. "Good G.o.d, what have we come to?"

"It's where we're going that matters," she said harshly.

George met her gaze and nodded slowly, like a man taking an oath. "Yes," he sighed. "I won't forget."

"You'll give up your love," she stipulated. "And never mention his name again."

Again the defeated nod.

"And you'll remember that nothing matters more than this, my road to the throne."

"I'll remember."

I felt myself shudder, and I let go her waist. There was something in that whispered pledge that felt not like a pact with Anne but like a promise to the devil.

"Don't say it like that."

They both looked at me, the matching brown dark eyes of the Boleyns, the long straight noses, that impertinent quirky little mouth.

"It's not worth life itself," I said, trying to make light of it.

Neither of them smiled.

"It is," Anne said simply.

Summer 1528 ANNE DANCED, RODE, SANG, GAMBLED, SAILED ON THE RIVER, went picnicking, walked in the gardens and played in the tableau as if she had no care in the world. She grew whiter and whiter. The shadows under her eyes went darker and darker and she started to use powder to hide the hollows under her eyes. I laced her more and more loosely as she lost weight, and then we had to pad her gown to make her b.r.e.a.s.t.s show plump as they used to. went picnicking, walked in the gardens and played in the tableau as if she had no care in the world. She grew whiter and whiter. The shadows under her eyes went darker and darker and she started to use powder to hide the hollows under her eyes. I laced her more and more loosely as she lost weight, and then we had to pad her gown to make her b.r.e.a.s.t.s show plump as they used to.

She met my eyes in the mirror as I was lacing her and she looked every inch the older sister. She looked years older than me.

"I'm so tired," she whispered. Even her lips were pale.

"I warned you," I said without sympathy.

"You'd have done the same if you had the wit and the beauty to hold him."

I leaned forward so that my face was close to hers and she could see the bloom on my cheeks and my eyes bright, and my color high beside her own drawn fatigue. "I don't have wit or beauty?" I repeated.

She turned to the bed. "I'm going to rest," she said ungraciously. "You can go."

I saw her into bed, and then I went out, running down the stone stairs to the gardens outside. It was a wonderful day, the sun was bright and warm and the light was sparkling on the river. The little boats plying across the river wove in and out of the bigger ships waiting for the tide to set sail for the sea. There was a light wind coming upriver and it brought the smell of salt and adventure into the well-kept garden. I saw my husband walking with a couple of men on the lower terrace and I waved at him.

At once, he excused himself and came toward me, resting one foot on the flight of steps and looking up at me.

"How now, Lady Carey? I see you are as beautiful as ever this day."

"How are you, Sir William?"

"I am well. Where is Anne, and the king?"

"She's in her room. And the king is going out to ride."

"So are you at liberty?"

"As a bird in the sky."

He smiled at me, his secret knowing smile. "May I have the pleasure of your company? Shall we take a little walk?"

I went down the steps toward him, enjoying the sensation of his eyes on me. "Certainly."

He drew my hand into the crook of his arm and we walked along the lower terrace, he matched his pace to mine and leaned toward me to whisper in my ear. "You are the most delicious thing, my wife. Tell me we don't have to walk for too long."

I kept my face forward but I could not help but giggle. "Anyone who saw me come from the palace will know I have been in the garden for no more than half a moment."

"Oh but if you are obeying your husband," he pointed out persuasively. "An admirable thing in a wife."

"If you order me," I suggested.

"I do," he said firmly. "I absolutely command you."

I caressed the fur trim of his doublet with the back of my hand. "Then what can I do but obey?"

"Excellent." He turned and guided us in by one of the little garden doors and the moment it was shut behind us he took me in his arms and kissed me, and then led me up to his bedroom where we made love for all of the afternoon while Anne, the lucky Boleyn girl, the favored Boleyn girl, lay sick with fear on her spinster bed.

That evening there was an entertainment and a dance. Anne as usual had the leading part and I was one of the dancers. Anne was paler than ever, white-faced in a silver gown. She was such a ghost of her former beauty that even my mother noticed. She summoned me with a crook of her finger from where I was waiting to say my piece in the play and dance my dance.

"Is Anne ill?"

"No more than usual," I said shortly.

"Tell her to rest. If she loses her looks she will lose everything."

I nodded. "She does rest, Mother," I said carefully. "She lies on her bed, but there is no resting from fear. I have to go and dance now."

She nodded and let me go. I circled the hall and then made my entrance in the masque. I was a star descending from the western sky and blessing the earth with peace. It was some kind of reference to the war in Italy and I knew the Latin words but had not troubled myself with the meaning. I saw Anne grimace and knew that I had p.r.o.nounced something wrong. I should have felt ashamed but my husband, William, winked at me and stifled a laugh. He knew that I should have been learning my lines when I had been in bed with him that afternoon.

The dance was completed and a handful of strange gentlemen entered the room wearing masks and dominoes and picked out their partners to dance. The queen was amazed. Who could they be? We were all amazed, and none more so than Anne who smiled when a thick-set man, taller than most of the rest, asked her to dance with him. They danced together till midnight and Anne laughed at her own surprise when at unveiling she discovered that it was the king. She was still as white as her gown at the end of the evening, not even the dancing had flushed her skin.

We went to our room together. She stumbled on the stair and when I put out a hand to steady her I felt her skin was cold and wet with sweat.

"Anne, are you sick?"

"Just tired," she said faintly.

In our room when she washed the powder off her face I could see that her color had drained to that of vellum. She was shivering, she did not want to wash or comb her hair. She tumbled into bed and her teeth chattered. I opened the door and sent a servant running for George. He came, pulling his cape over his nightshirt.

"Get a doctor," I said. "This is more than tiredness."

He looked past me into the room where Anne was hunched up in bed, the covers piled around her shoulders, her skin as yellow as a little old lady, her teeth chattering with cold.

"My G.o.d, the sweat," he said, naming the most terrifying illness after the plague itself.

"I think so," I said grimly.

He looked at me with fear in his eyes. "What will happen to us if she dies?"

The sweat had come to court with a vengeance. Half a dozen people who had been dancing were in their chambers. One girl had already died, Anne's own maid was sick as a dog in the rooms which she shared with half a dozen others, and while I was waiting for the physician to send some medicines for Anne, I had a message from William telling me not to come near him, but to take a bath with spirit of aloes in the water, for he had the sweat and prayed to G.o.d that he had not given it to me.

I went along to his chamber and spoke to him from the doorway. He had the same yellowish tinge to his face as Anne, and he too was piled with blankets and still shivering with cold.

"Don't come in," he ordered me. "Don't come any closer."

"Are you being cared for?" I asked.

"Yes, and I'll take a wagon to Norfolk," he said. "I want to be home."

"Wait a few days and go when you are better."

He looked at me from the bed, his face contorted with the pain of the illness. "Ah, my silly child-wife," he said. "I can't afford to wait. Care for the children at Hever."

"Of course I will," I said, still not understanding him.

"D'you think we made another baby?" he asked.

"I don't know yet."

William closed his eyes for a moment as if he were making a wish. "Well, whatever happens is in the hands of G.o.d," he said. "But I should have liked to have made a true Carey on you."

"There'll be plenty of time for that," I said. "When you are better."

He gave me a little smile. "I'll think of that, little wife," he said tenderly, though his teeth still chattered. "And if I am not at court for a while, do you take care of yourself and of our children."

"Of course," I said. "But you will come back, as soon as you are better?"

"The moment I am well again I will come back," he promised. "You go to Hever and be with the children."

"I don't know when they'll let me go."

"Go today," he advised. "There'll be uproar when they know how many people have taken the sweat. It's very bad, my love. It's very bad in the City. Henry will be off like a hare, mark my words. No one will look for you for a week, and you can be safe with the children in the country. Find George and get him to take you. Go now."

I hesitated for a moment, tempted to do as he told me.

"Mary, if this was the last thing I told you to do I could not be more serious. Go to Hever and care for the children while the court is sick. It would be very bad if your babies were to lose both mother and father to the sweat."

"But what d'you mean? You won't die?"

He managed a smile. "Of course not. But I'll be happier in my mind on my journey to my home if I know you are safe. Find George and tell him that I commanded you to go, and him to escort you safely."