The English Mare

.chapter • Spain;

If God's will was this, she wanted no more of it. The ever looming voyage to Spain had never seemed so welcoming.

Anne's reign had begun quickly. Courtiers flocked to her like flies to rotting flesh. Kitty didn't dare leave her father's lodgings. She waited day in and out for word to come of the calming seas that would see her safely to her mother, but they never came.

It was not until Thomas Boleyn approached her in private, claiming her father to be an ambitious man -how rich this was coming from him - and that she should leave court immediately.

The threats he made. She feared they were not hollow. If the Queen and Anne's late husband, both who were in remarkably good health before their untimely departing, were no more, she knew it was only a matter of time before she too would join them.

But she almost had, Kitty reminded herself. She and Katherine, both, had been poisoned by the Boleyns. Though there was no evidence to prove it. Kitty suspected it was out of fear for the Boleyns and because these vile creatures of the devil promised reform, which, Kitty was quickly discovering, many welcomed.

The day came at last when the waters calmed and she said her good-byes to both her father and Charles. Both men kept face, that is, until Kitty looked more closely and saw Charles eyes had welled up with tears.

Throughout her entire life, he had been her constant companion, and in her days of confinement, their attachment to one another strengthened.

"I pray the tide sees you safe to Spain."

"I pray that it does too," she smiled. "And that the Duchess looks after you. I can see you are unwell, Charles. You haven't been quite yourself these past few days."

His response had been simple, a small grunt, but a smile was forced and tears blinked back. He pulled Kitty into his arms and held her tightly.

"Oh Charles," she felt her own eyes sting, "It will be unbearable without you and father. I don't know how I will do it." She didn't. Her entire life had been spent with these two, even if there were days when she had not seen them, she knew that it would not be long before she did. "Promise you will write?"

Charles nodded his head, "I promise, Kit Kat," he pulled away, allowing her father to take hold of her.

"Papa," she smiled against her father's chest. "I will never rest in your case. She must return, you are her husband and lord."

"Leave your mother be," his smile was sad and weak, but it was a smile nonetheless. "I will rest easy knowing she has you by her side."

"Yes papa," she placed a kiss to his cheek. "I do hope the king will allow you leave to visit. She may be a stubborn woman, but she loves you and I have no doubt she misses you greatly."

With a few final words, kisses and tender embraces, Kitty said farewell to her family, boarded the ship and prepared for life at sea.

Kitty had been here once before. When Anne first began pursuit of their king. She returned again, this time to learn Anne was now queen. And with Katherine gone, she would be recognized throughout the world as so.

"I pray, for all her evil doing, she is barren."

"Charles writes that she is not," Kitty replied, reading the letter that had just reached her. "She is with child. So quickly too. It's a wonder if his majesty waited till they were wed."

Kitty knew, for all the worst she wanted to wish, that her mother would never wish another woman to miscarry or have a stillborn. But if she were to wish anything, anything at all, it would be that the child was born a girl. For a girl in the eyes of Henry, the King of England, is equivalent to no child born at all.

•a.n•

Such a short chapter.
How absurd!

But a chapter nonetheless.