flanders mare

Though he did not crouch out of deference, nor clemency, the posture was oddly similar to a biblical tableaux. L’apologie: a king under a balcony awning, his knees stooped like saber handles, his neck limbering towards something too bright to witness. This could hardly count as a visit of courtesy, he strove to believe. As far as these went, Henry had not dallied in their beautiful futility since before the jousting festivities. As far as she went, they had not spoken in what, a full week? A fortnight? His timeline intermingled with competitions and gains, culminating resoundingly into the season’s final victory. But winning would not bring reprieve, because what was a tournament if not a preening of feathers? A ritual defiance between higher orders? What was the use in being glorious, if you did not reap security out of it - and security meant tongue biting, and diplomatic fallacies, and odd hours parleys. The only meetings he had nowadays were carefully latticed, as if God themselves wove them into existence, as if they did not owe to men’s conniving but to a holy arrangement.

He did not intend to call upon the princess of Cleves per se; what if it was her windows that framed him, down below in the inner courtyard, a linchpin of bones, tendons and expectations? What if it was her hands that he squinted towards, the space between them as they flitted and steepled, the sunlit spheres? It was still not a visit. He still had nothing to say, and no time to mitigate his silence. But God, had her absence not been a lessening, a debasing of reality itself? To that, Henry had no more to raise than a glare. A rumble and a faint sense of alarm. He meant to tip his head under her eyes, in scant acknowledgement, maybe remark on the weather or the recent outcome that had men revering him. But another set of words throttled through Henry’s intentions, words which were both more senseless and easier to be said. Senseless in their honesty and easy in their humor, the telltale token of the intimacy he hoped lied between them.

“I had to wait to be crowned a victor before I could address you again, it seems.”

    There was many a court resident, English and foreign alike, that bid Anna a merry Saint Valentines when they glided past, arm in arm with another. Or perhaps after a cordial bow, lips warm and soft as they spilled the greeting, like cream in a hot, formal cup of English tea. As it were, she rather liked this stripping of inhibitions, the softening of courtier edges. Which begged to the question--what was Saint Valentines?

    And why, if it was something to be merry about, did Cromwell lock himself away from her questions, from the world, in his study, where he did not respond to so much as a knock--or, a flurry of knocks, more like? No one could dub her as unambitious, the princess supposed.  She posed this inquiry to her ladies, who found it the perfect opportunity to break from Anna's 'speak English, please' rule. They congregated, as if discussing an infectious plot in their mother tongue, intermingling the small tidbits of history they knew with the buzzing excitement of the upcoming events in it's honor. All while Anna was finding the proper position to set her dear parrot's cage--for, she didn't want it too close to the fire, but, how he did ruffle his feathers when he was a trifle too cold. 

    Cromwell's seclusion, in turn, didn't make much more sense. Even so, she passed the kitchen a recipe for gingerbread that she'd ripped from her own cook's book, carefully translating and leaving a tin with a lovely red ribbon for him to find. For if gingerbread could not coax even Cromwell from his hiding hole, then what would? What a splendid tradition, giving out gifts. It was almost like Christmas.

    She was knitting together a gift for Henry when he came for her--though, were her cheeks not still red from his glowing victory? Smile aching from her seat as she watched him parry his way through competition? Even so, she fumbled it into a nearby drawer, smacking it shut, as if the breeze might whisper her surprise. 

                        “I am certain Sir Sheffield meant no harm by his remarks ––––––– even so, your grace, I impart my deepest of condolences for any insult caused. Northern men are not lauded for their ability to hold their drink.” Blue eyes shifted toward the woman in question, as if attempting to gauge her innocence in the matter. “If it is reparation you seek, by my behest Sheffield will more than willingly make a public declaration, absolving your ladies of any tint of misconduct. Although I am certain, given your position as a guest in the English court, that we may allow the matter to pass without such circumstance, so as to not incite canards.”

lia didn’t like english, especially in the company of those who spoke her own native tongue. but unfortunately, one stipulation of the agreement allowing amalia to come to england, to see her dearest friend, was that she play her part as a member of anna’s court. in truth, she didn’t mind it much, her sister’s influence allowing her to approach and study the highest echelon with very little actual interaction with them. her sister acted as a shield between young lia and the upper class, fielding questions and deflecting when the youngest made mistakes or it became too much for her. 

“my apologies, anna.” she murmured, thoroughly chastised. she tugged on the stiff sleeves of the dress, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. “is it too soon to retire? it feels as though there are ants crawling through these sleeves.” she asked, chewing on her lip. to anyone who would overhear, this may seem uncouth and childish of her, but she knew anna would never think less of her.

     Anna’s face melted into an assuring smile, soft fingers wrapping around the shoulder of her little sister, “No apologies, Lia. You’ve done no wrong. Taming a German tongue is no easy task--my rule is designed to make it easier, yes? It is just hard now, but you will see. Soon everyone will be rolling through conversations like full-bred Englishmen. Just you see!” She gave Amalia’s upturned nose a brisk tap with her finger, squeezing her shoulder into her side as they walked leisurely through the hall. 

     Anna was more than capable of venturing into another country without the accompaniment of her siblings. However--that didn’t mean she wanted to. She remembered pestering William to near madness--let Amalia attend with me, please, she will be of much use to me, a comfort to me, brother, please. Thankfully, he’d relented, and Anna had the pleasure of seeing her soft blonde head nearly everywhere she went, no matter what country, what border. She was a steadfast warmth in her heart. 

     TUDORS.TASK 001: STATS feat. anna

“I do not have any idea of when we will be permitted to leave, non.” The Frenchman’s tone was at almost a growl, he was something he seldom was, something he did not like the feeling of. He was worried. Still it would do not a pennyloaf of good to allow this to cloud his judgement or control his temper. With an effort he still his fidgeting. It would not do well for him to be weak at a time when there was a lady in need, would it ?

“I can sympathize, mon amie. My petite Auguste is out there. He was with friends when this happened and I can only hope he is with someone he knows at least and not being locked away with strangers. It is bad enough he knows minimal English.”

     Features falling considerably, Anna reached out, placing a soft hand over his in an effort to soothe him, at least a little. She had no children of her own, of course--she could only imagine the turmoil that twisted inside the man’s chest. It made her own heart ache, “There, there, I’m sure your Auguste is perfectly safe, as is my Amalia. Safe and kept away, like us. The king will see us released soon, and we shall be united, you will see. We must be patient, that is all.”

Henry’s tipped his head like a knight about to receive the sword’s holy end. Her words washed over him with the force of a baptism and the lightness of a mother’s ringed hand. Oh, he could’ve laughed; he would’ve doubled over, filled with such fondness for her precipitated, lighthearted plans, that it truly crushed all defenses. Yet he feared she might take it as mockery. Did he not have a small repute for condescension? The unyielding will and single-mindedness of the Tudors mixing with Lancaster sharpness, the half-French ability to render anyone mute with a jab. He didn’t remember when he’d acquired it, but he must have. Even if the men from his closest circle were spotless ( he tried to push the Boleyns’ influence at the very periphery )  and not one ill-spoken word could be attributed to them, let alone a misdeed, he himself stood on quite other grounds. He was as clean before God as an infant - but just about as ready to subdue the wills of others.

And how dearly he did not wish for her to stop from her reverie, to be brought face to face with the wiles and innuendos, the spreading stains that one had to wield if one was to survive court! How dearly he wanted her to think him above it; the kind of ruler that would do just this, receive a map, turn it into a weapon for education and enlightenment. Receive a woman, turn her hand over, walk her through the gardens unassumingly. What gave birth to it, from whose legs did it crawl, this desire to be the man a woman like her would like? Obey ? No, not obey; associate with, tend to, listen without prepossessed forcefulness.

This wing of the gardens was just as silent as when they’d met. All paths that led to it had been barred - and it unnerved him, but amused him, how Cromwell and the delegates must be waiting at the other end. Waiting for what to emerge? He shook his head for his own sake, like a child that is momentarily unaware he can be seen by others. The thicket in his mind was so carefully built over the years, so impenetrable, that it might keep him in for good, once. One time, when he springs out of bed, ready to see to the day’s orders, and finds he cannot articulate anything instead. Like the old Lancaster, the old madman king, silver-spit pooling at its mouth under York’s pillow. Choking on the very cushions that had seated his subjects.

He had to thread himself out of his thoughts very tenderly, like a comb out of hair. “Of course we will walk.” For a heartbeat, he stared at her hand like a foreign ornament. Then he rose, laced his own through hers, and nudged her gently on the right, cobblestoned path. They scrunched under their riding boots like bones. “I fear we can be rather tragic ourselves, here at court. At least I sometimes fear I am. They would need more gaiety, my people - ever the same demands. Founts of wine, platinum rivers, it really begs the question, what good for? I think I’ll fear even more the time when that question won’t follow at all, and I’ll simply give, yield, squander–”, brusquely, he stopped, at least a verbal pause if their steps did not falter. Half in apology, half in jest, he robbed her of a quick glance and added: “But yes, for flowers on your writing desk I suppose I will always find the coin.”

     “I hope you do not fear me, Henry, for you have not asked me what good for,” She smiled, and bit her elbow into his side softly, teasingly, if only to alleviate the hardening of his cerulean gaze. Not such a silly thing, she thought, for a king to fear a princess. Not the fear one holds for a God, or a creature in the night--something different. Something that resided in the stomach, in the palms, the twitch of a finger. Universal, that. Gold didn’t need to run in your veins for that, nor silver, nor bronze. It aided Anna, surely, to think of Henry’s pedestal, his person, as being tangible, real, his hand in hers, their feet against the pavement, the hearts that throbbed underneath fine linen.

He had just come into the room to retrieve a forgotten jacket that had been cast off earlier, and suddenly he wasn’t allowed to leave it. Felix had been fine for the first little bit, but after a couple hours of this he had begun to pace incessantly, probably driving the poor sweet woman who had been stuck in here with him to distraction. Indeed that did seem the case when she entreated him to take a seat and have a drink.

It was with slight reluctance he acquiesced, taking the seat across her. While this stalled his pacing it couldn’t halt his foot from tapping. “Mes excuses, mademoiselle. I do not know how much it will help, but I shall attempt to settle.”

     Here Anna was, urging someone else to settle, when she, herself, could not. When the flexing of her ankles wouldn’t subside, when the curling of fingers wouldn’t cease. It seemed they were in the same boat, they two--figuratively, and literally. She’d been complacent when they locked the door, but--why had she been complacent? Had she assumed they would simply unlock it again in a few minutes, foolishly? Or was she still stuck on the childlike, bred habit to do as she was told? She contemplated this, cold tea in hand, and set it down with firm, tinny acclaim. 

     Anna’s anxiety was only heightened by the vicomte, whose boots paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth over the floor. Rhythmic, agitated steps as the princess placed her plump hands against the wrought-iron window frame, peering down below at any form of life or rescue in the nearing dusk. 

     Henry. Henry. She hoped Henry was okay, hoped he wasn’t storming about in a fit of temper, brewing within himself, or, worse, in a cloud of fog, darkened by a sense of his own mortality. Even so, she thought, that must have been better than death. It must have been.

     Turning from the window, she walked briskly to a golden tray, laden with tea and cream and cups that had been abandoned in the plight. It was cold, “Dear Vicomte, please, sit, have something to drink with me. It will make you feel better, most assuredly.”

THE WOULD-BE WIVES || edits feat. @annacfcleves, @scymours, @cfboleyn, @catherinepcrr

     “English, sister,” Anna prodded, urged, insisted that everyone in her party, from her chamberlain to her own sister, spoke English rather than German. It was easier, by far, to learn a language when everyone was actively participating, doing their part, “Please speak English.”

     Besides, it instilled a sense a trust with those around them. It might have made them uneasy, Anna thought, to see a few Germans whispering away in a language foreign to them. That was not the impression she sought to give--not when she liked it so much, here. 

A staggering onslaught of thoughts sprawled about him, past figments vying with future projections. Henry recalled all the hours he spent in obeisance to private tutors, stooped over charts and landscapes, when he fervently longed for boundless plains, galloping hooves battering the earth, skies opening before him and his troop. It had seeded a distaste for cartography that neither necessity nor pride could not root out. But now, as the copperplate was spread by Anna’s hands, round fingers hovering about it like an earmark, Henry was swept away.

Some mental crossway swelled with fascination. In a trice, a thunderbolt instant, he saw himself as the kind of ruler who would soberly indulge in such pastimes - not as a means to increase reputation, nor to reap insights that could unearth a rival’s weakness, but for the very altar of culture, unadulterated, self-subsisting. He saw all this in the vein-dappled wrist of a girl.

Her first words were forgotten, never mind they would’ve rendered him red cheeked if he’d processed them. Him fluttering? His pride might have been pitted, gallantry deflated, and more certainly than not the meeting would’ve concluded without a result. Caved-out endings were the only endings that seemed to be reached in this blasted court. The foibles of men and their ego’s nipping at diplomatic sine qua non and personal obligations alike, the same corrosive hubris in all instances. But after the map was unveiled, it pilfered all these games. This, unfurled before him like a flag that surmised humanity itself, cowered the king in Henry and crowned the man instead. He strove to look at her and found he could not. An expression that betrayed too much  scratched at the door, threatening to come to the fore.

“It is… inestimable, Anna.” Etiquette forgotten, one kick of his leg sent all de rigueur elements tumbling into a remote corner. As if culling something that no one benefited from any longer, a redundant thing, an extra limb that hampered true and fluid movements, he dispensed of formality. “I will have it copied and distributed all through the kingdom. I want my subjects to know not only England, but all the lands God tore into existence for our sake.”

     Anna. He’d called her Anna. Not Princess de Klef, not even Anna of Cleves, or the preferred English moniker, Anne. But Anna. Azure eyes gleamed, and she felt her grip on the map falter, nearly sending it toppling to the ground--had she not fumbled into rolling it up once more. Yes, of course, that’s what she was trying to do all along, don’t mind her.

     She found she would miss her name inside his mouth, and wouldn’t mind if he said it over and over. Anna, Anna. She would not spill a drop of it. A smile melted across her lips, “Truly, there’s no better ‘thank you’ I could have received. My fingers are practically trembling with excitement, to write back to Mercator and tell him all English eyes were deemed worthy. That is beautiful, Henry.” 

     The air was cool, the ground beneath her feet was cold, but Anna was pleasantly warm. Safely tucking away his map from the elements, the German hoped that spring would come soon. She’d soaked in longing peeks on her trip, of course, peering out until her eyes watered and her nose was scarlet from the bitterness that laced the winds, but she wanted to see England in full bloom. She hoped the flowers would grow in rich, full clumps, that the hills would roll and bend into streams hearty with gleaming scales and glittering stones.

Oh, mesmerized wouldn’t have covered the slice of it. Elena’s mouth gaped faintly, china-porcelain teeth breaking through the red, as she withstood this rampage of kindness. She’d prepared herself for tight lipped refusal, evasive, jumbled accents, piggish couplings between several kingdom’s vocabularies. Nothing in her past ( or this world’s, for that matter ) warranted such unrepentant joy. And warmth, too, shattering amounts of it, the freshly mocked orange ribbons now twirling golden whenever she jumped forward. Nothing about the princess’s dress jarred her any longer. As she was gripped by Anna - enfolded, rather, a person which would be better suited with wings instead of gloved fingers - Elena could only nod over her loss. Upon release, she stepped back, arm rising to adjust powdered hair as well as mismatched prejudices.

A tinge of shame at her previous judgement sneaked into her voice’s marrow. “Evidently it does bring joy, my lady. Your emotion will soon make me flush.” Though she giggled, a typical lilt that had always become her, the true effect could not be overwritten. She was smitten with this girl, this off the basket mewling thing, that harbored yet such steel heights within herself. She, too, pressed the other’s hands as they bordered the window. “We can meander wherever you wish. Dart into the fish market itself if it pleases you, why on earth not? We have our wits about us.” 

     A slow smile spread onto Anna’s face, not pleased, but rather, fulfilled, as if her dark-eyed counterpart had filled her bowl to the brim with the sweetest cream. What was the point, she’d remarked in huffed, defeated tones to her courtiers, her siblings, of traveling all this way to England, if she could not see England? But you have seen England, they’d insisted, you’ve seen the king, have you not? And yes, Anna had. If the whole of England glimmered as clearly as his eyes did, pools of crystalline blue, when she’d handed him Mercator’s map, surely she could stay here forever.

     “The fish market--yes! We will go together, you and I, dear Elena, you will lead me there,” She wrapped warm fingers around Elena’s thin set, squeezing, beaming, “We will meander, and dart--oh!” All at once, she was set loose again, grabbing hold of heavy skirts as she approached one of her ladies, “Bytzel, would you please fetch our Elena my cloak, the one with the soft mink underside? It’s a dreadful cold outside.”

     Briskly, the German woman nodded, sweeping into a quick curtsy, and went quickly to fetch it, but not before giving Elena a hesitant look on her brow. Unacknowledging, Anna turned back to her, smile still in place. Though most whispers among her party went ignored, her brother, William, had often told her that she was too quick to trust, too quick to sweep whoever she fancied on sight under her breast. But how, she thought, could she not? When Elena’s eyes, like two saucers of chocolate, had struck her so fondly? When she spoke to her with such genuine pleasure?

He had to stunt his hand from rising upwards, from abruptly carving a path towards his mouth at the beset of such a surprise. He lodged his fingers on the lapels of his vest to prevent them from ever committing such a commonplace gesture. But as the situation twisted it seemed to had roped him in its convolution as well, and now Henry grasped for mental balance as possible expressions narrowed and indented on his face. She was here? Alone? The jutting questions were not rhetorical, nor did they seek to pry an answer from the outer world. They merely plied like protective layers in his thoughts, earning him time before he could wield them into acts. She was young, pinioned in the garden like a disparate piece, one that though polish did not blend in the collection. Henry noticed all these things and yet they provided no succor. He felt disbanded form his previous course of action, reattached to a different trail, one he could not command - could scarcely even consent to. How could he earn such a gaffe? Worse of all, how could he fall prey to a miscalculation that was not even his to own?

“ You are jesting, Princess de Klef. ” The misnomer nicked oddly on his tongue, all too aware of the deficiencies in its accent, but his face continued to appear inert. “ Though I suppose I merit the jibe. We have prepared a palfrey for you, I’ve been told. And some refreshments. Several people will be more than discomfited by this shift… ”, he relented, but what he kept back reared its head through the sentences. He was delighted, that was the nagging truth in it. The perturbed balance sent scrawling to the floor might have been the most pleasant noise he’d heard in fortnights. “ As it is, I have only myself to offer, and a chair you were meant to be guided into by an array of fluttering women. ”

     “Your fluttering will suffice, Kaiser von England,” She gave him a smile that warmed her cheeks, if only to assure him. However, despite his words--he didn’t seem discomfited. This pleased Anna, and sent her gliding into her next point of action, “The kindness of you and yours fills me with joy. Lord Cromwell told me the most humorous of jokes just this past hour of a lion and a mouse--I may have fainted from my laughter,” She almost broke into giggles then, but restrained herself, running teeth along a plump bottom lip. 

     Sweeping her skirts to the side, she picked up a gilded cylinder--one she’d set aside whilst she waited--and faced him once more, the gold pleasantly weighted in her fingers, “I’ve brought you a gift from my Deutschland. Gerardus Mercator is my dear friend, and the most talented geographer, calligrapher, that I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting,” She wrapped soft fingers around the top, unscrewing the protective case, “When he heard of our meeting, he insisted on painting you a copy of his latest map--though, I do admit, I’ve stolen a few glances on the way here. I pray you forgive me.”