HENRY REX

why must one want to die young in battle at all, rather than grow old? but he supposed that he had no right to judge: he had thought the same thing at one point. let me die a young hero, known to all, than a man known to none. but he had thought then that he had no chance to make a name for himself. but he had seen that in time, and with hard work, he could get there. he was there! here, in the king’s inner circle, his most trusted adviser. staying alive had been worth it. truthfully, he did not like the thought of being away from court, but he would not reject a gift from the king under any circumstances. he bowed his head humbly, “your love and friendship are the dearest gifts that i could ever be bestowed, and i ask you graciously to let me keep that in my heart forevermore. i wish for nothing other than if the day should come that my life may be in peril, that you might think kindly of your lowly servant and that you should help me come back to your service, as there is nothing that would please me more to assist you until the end of my days.” he was rarely one for such flowing and emotions displays of feeling, but he must make his devotion known to the king. or lest he regret not doing so. oh jane. dear, sweet jane. he had known her first, but this matters not. “she was in the chapel all day praying for your majesty’s health,” he answered. “she did not move until sundown,” he continued, hands folded in his lap.

henry was a changeable man, and that had always been true. as he listened to cromwell’s answer to his proposal of a brief holiday from court, that changeability was even more prevalent. “in that case, i think it best that you remain then. i need you close, i need the people i trust most by my side.” cromwell could have allowed him to die, as all others had, but he had taken action. perhaps there was treason to riddle out. he needed thomas close as he pondered it. “your king has great need of you... for i have been given a new purpose in life that i mean to make the BEST of. i can think of no one i can trust more with my business than you.”

“i have an interest in our international –– matters, in regards to both politics and our military. theology and philosophy are not quite so appealing.” he answered after a slight pause. “but, naturally i would be more than pleased and honoured to have any position in your court.” he added with a slight smile and hands folding behind his back. 

“not for a PRIDEFUL man.” or woman. he remembered anne, and he remembered her pride too, and the spats they had, and how she wouldn’t apologize to him and make peace. but he hadn’t either. so a gap had been formed and it had come to either her or him and he always chose himself. it had been easier to get her blood on his hands because he believed she would have done the same. he still believed that it might have been true. but it didn’t change that he had killed her. that he had killed her for henry. he would have been happy enough to see her in exile, to let live, but… henry had wanted her obliterated. everyone must be. in henry’s eyes he can see how he really felt about him, how he always had. thomas had been useful, but he doubted henry any more forgot how lowly a man he really was. he stuck his finger out accusingly, naggingly shaking it at him. “you didn’t want him dead? you would have just let him rot in prison rather than execute him? i wonder why that is so hard to believe when i wasn’t granted such a fate. don’t start lying to me now, henry. you were doing so well,” he said mockingly, without any hint of fear. somehow, it angered thomas to hear that henry had loved him, even on the chance that it might be true, though he found it hard to believe. did men have killed those they thought of as family? “if he was only like family to you, then he was a father to me, for i LOVED him a thousandfold than you did. i begged you to reinstate him, just as i begged anyone to possibly assist him, even for a little money to keep his household running. he lived in miserable circumstances, ailing, and praying for you to take him back.” it had broken his heart to see wolsey like that, so sad and fragile. “i can blame you for taking my life. and i will take a life in return from you,” he vowed, caring little for fairness.

“i did not set my intentions against him, i will remind you. he committed treason, and he took advantage of my good will towards him. i forgave him again and again for the misdeeds he did against my name in public and in private... for i cared for him. he was dear to me, in my heart, and yet he conspired against me with mine enemies! and yet for all his wrongs i did not wish to see him dead. i would never re-instate him for i could never trust him as i did... yet i had a mind to forgive him if he were to repent and humble himself.” publicly. so there would be no doubt. so all would know his actions and words against the king were a lie. “but it seems what i wished was again what i wished for did not seem to matter.”

for once, it was a relief to truly speak his mind. he could never unburden himself to mortal men, at the risk of unmanning himself as their sovereign. he studied the other, contemplating how he would respond to his further line of questioning. he chose, instead, to be honest. “i regret your death, of that i am not ashamed to admit. i have spoken of it often, how i allowed others to manipulate me. i had other matters on my mind, and i was displeased. i allowed it to happen without taking an active role, it is true. i wish it had not been so.”

“There have been many burdens that have fallen to my shoulders. This one I mind not so much since it has always been the people of England whose favor I could most easily keep.” Elizabeth knew the barb would not go unnoticed but she was older, and he was dead. The bitter part that crept into her soul could rear its head.

Pouring herself some wine, she raised a brow at him. Something that had slipped past him? Nothing slipped past him. He’d had the best of everything if she remembered the stories right. Taking a seat her dark eyes studied him a moment before she remembered his last obsession. “Ah, you speak of my not marrying. Well, as I told my council, I am married. To England. And that is how it shall remain.”

     “I am most aware of His Majesty’s frustrations and I do not wish to follow in others’ example with an empty promise,” she could at least give him a false security, enough to stop a full blown war and wait a little longer for Henri II to produce a son.  Maybe she would decided to keep a second alliance with England if Edward lasted long enough (rumors spoke of his weaknesses), but not at the price of her allegiance to France or the loss of her country and her daughter.  “My dearest brother Claude would come to England in Mary’s place until she is old enough to marry Edward.  While I trust your hands are most caring, I cannot so easily leave the country to which I have pledged my own,” it took her months to even secure this visit and she feared she would never get another. “Would a proxy and other written terms please His Majesty?”

he was not pleased by this offer. it was unreasonable in his eyes - for he was set to lose everything and her not a single thing. if he so wished, he could choose to find great insult in it.

“it pleases me not.” he leaned forward in his chair, his eyes fixated upon her now with no hidden displeasure. “nothing you offer assuages my fears that you will soon enough break your word as others have. and you send your brother in the stead of the child i ask? some might think it unwise, that you might be planning some ill scheme with him so close to the crown.” paranoid, perhaps, but he had never been easy to trust... and he had enemies in all corners of the earth. only a fool would accept such terms, he truly believed.

“Greek is the one I enjoy the most. I also enjoy Italian and Latin. Blanche Perry, one of my ladies, taught me Welsh as well which is a fascinating language.” Elizabeth answered sticking to the very safe subject of languages. She had noticed the pause and wondered if she should have not mentioned it. Kat had said he had once enjoyed the sport, but she also remembered her telling her that her mother had enjoyed it as well. And thus the words remained unspoken between them.

“I watch over him as often as I can, when I see him. He is a dear boy and I enjoy my time with him.” Many would have thought for what had transpired Elizabeth would push her siblings away, would fault them what happened between their mothers. But Elizabeth truly loved her brother and he loved her back and so they enjoyed their time. They played when they could and she watched over him as an older sister should.

she had his full attention once more, and he gave her a small smile in return of her answer. she was a sharp girl, and despite her gender being a disappointment to him... he had a feeling her intelligence would be an asset to him and a boon to england in due course.

“i hope to continue to be deserving of your grace.” thomas pretended to believe him, but he knew what the truth was. henry liked to appear as a good and gracious king, to be lavished with praise for his generous heart, but it was only so as to bolster his ego. but so as long as the king continued to bestow upon him his favour, it didn’t matter the reason. “not yet, your majesty.” he had hardly found the time to do so, though it was something that he wished to do. for in this particular case, he quite agreed with henry. he wanted his likeness immortalized in paint. 

“then i will send one of our masters to your home by next week’s end.” he had made up his mind now, and he would ensure that it would be done. “perhaps master holbein.” he was quickly becoming a favourite of his, and to part with him on thomas’ behalf meant a great deal.

Many had crossed his path and only few had offered Ivar much new to discover that was no part of politics or warfare. The food, Ivar knew. The drinks, some of them he knew. This drink, however, was new to Ivar and although it had a very unique smell, it hardly tasted as disgusting as it reeked, but it was not entirely to Ivar’s favour either. He did not tell the other, and quietly swallowed the sip of beer before he cast the Englishman a frown. “Is it not selfish to think there is only one god?”