VIII

without agreement from the Pope,” I say, “what then? Do you think he sends me a letter of congratulation and wishes me every happiness? Hm? I think he excommunicates me and invites all the kings of Christendom to come and deprive me of my throne.”
    Anne walks up to me. She stands very close. She says, “Since when did England fear? Since when did you fear… anyone? France will support you against the Emperor. We Boleyns alone will give you ten thousand troops. Free of charge for a whole campaign season.”
    I smile. “If you can raise that many, I’ve given you too much land.”
    “I will lead them myself if necessary.”
    “Christ.” I slip my hands around her waist. “I believe you would, too.”
    “This is not about me,” Anne whispers, her face close to mine. “Or Catherine, or the Pope. It is about you – only you. God has spoken to you. So. Do you want to provide this empire of England with an heir – or don’t you?”

 
♦  ♦  ♦  VII   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    With a window-shattering boom, the great guns of the Tower fire, greeting the arrival of the water procession. The Thames is a riot of noise and colour as far downstream as the eye can see.
    A huge model dragon, terrifying as a pagan god, rears up from one barge, surging along in juddering bursts as the oarsmen pull their blades through the water. Its head swings from side to side, its mammoth jaw drops open, spews out flames and sparks, and then snaps shut again.
    In another barge monsters with bulbous eyes, grotesque limbs and lolling tongues spit more fireworks, while hideous wildmen in suits of straggling fur roar and snarl beside them.
    A third barge carries a floating craggy mountain, topped by a golden tree stump. On this, a great white falcon has landed. The bird – moulting a scattering of real feathers as a stray streamer slaps it on the wing – wears a crown on its head, and where its claws grip the gilded wood, flowers are sprouting: red and white roses, in fertile abundance.
    In amongst these monstrosities the wherries nip and weave, the silk- and tapestry-clad barges of the City guilds plough in formation (their on-board musicians labouring valiantly against the din), while the lords and bishops, in their own barges, vie for attention by the ostentation of their display. And all about, flags and bell-tipped pennants snap and jingle, and the sunshine flashes where it can on the odd inch of free water.
    I, meanwhile, am waiting.
    From this chaos Anne emerges at last, climbing up the wharf steps from her own barge, like the sun creeping over the horizon. She is a golden creature emerging from the filth of the Thames – a phoenix of renewed hope, rising from my blighted past.
    The wharf is packed with people. Down a corridor of spectators I see her; she comes towards me, stepping carefully on her dainty, golden-slippered feet.
    Her cloth-of-gold mantle trails behind her, wiping away the old ashy lies and untruths, the blasphemies and superstitions. Her strange, elfin face is a shining vision of triumph and certainty.
    I have met her challenge.
    I have broken free of the Pope, broken with a thousand years of mistaken tradition, and asserted God’s truth: that I am the Supreme Head of the Church in my kingdom, and that no one has power over me but God Himself.
    Old Warham has died; by my permission my new Archbishop of Canterbury has judged the case, and declared that Catherine and I were never truly married in the eyes of God. And so at last, I have a wife: I have married Anne.
    She was right (as she so often is): Wolsey was no help. And now he is dead, too. Taken by illness, he breathed his last on the way to the Traitors’ Gate of this very fortress, whispering to his friends that Anne was a night crow who haunted me like an evil spirit.
    But the evil was in his own heart only, and here’s the proof: look at her now.
    Her slight frame is swollen by the child in her belly: my son.
    I am standing on the drawbridge that links the wharf to the Tower. This is Anne’s formal reception into the Tower as my queen – in three days’ time she will be crowned in Westminster Abbey. Before me stands a greeting party: my Lord Chamberlain, my Lieutenant and Constable of the Tower, and those noblemen and bishops not already on the river.
    Behind me stands the monstrous edifice of the Tower itself, the fortress I once saw as a swallowing beast, a gate to hell, a place of horrors. Today, Anne will shine a light in its