Chapter Text
Fontainebleau, France
May 19 1521
Anne
The sword fell, but the blade never hurt.
That was the strangest part of it.
Anne had expected pain—white-hot, blinding, biblical—but instead there was only the rush of air and the terrible certainty of ending. A sound like silk tearing. A pressure. Then nothing at all.
Except—
She woke with her hands at her throat.
Her fingers clawed instinctively at skin that was whole, warm, unbroken. Her breath came sharp and shallow, a scream trapped behind her teeth, too large to fit through her mouth. For a long moment she could not move. Could not see. Could not understand why she was still here.
The bed beneath her was narrow. With a twitch she looked up, her eyes met blue velvet embroidered with small golden fleurs-de-lis; reserved for the ladies in service of Her Royal Highness Princess Marguerite of Valois.
Valois…
France
What on earth
She had been in England mere moments ago.
Like a woman possessed Anne ran out of bed towards the vanity sat near the wide windows. Almost tripping as she bolted for the gilded mirror.
A vice grip of grief caught her throat, Anne clawed feverishly at her smooth neck. The smoke and lavender scent sat heavily on her already constricted lungs, the air thick with it.
A smell like a foreign dream, yet oh so familiar.
She took in the sight in front of her; Anne stared at a replica of her eyes, wide and bloodshot . Though they felt like an old friend, rather than herself.
She swallowed; a phantom line throbbed from the back of her neck to the base of her throat where a sword would’ve sliced it, though no wound marked it.
Her neck remembered what her body did not.
The ghost of hands. The cold kiss of steel.
“I am dead,” she whispered voice trembling, a wail building up her throat.
The soft silk of her night robe suddenly felt heavy on her trembling figure as she sank to the floor clenching at her chest; gasping for air as the cry refused to leave her lungs, blood rushed to her ears in a ringing choir and the tears finally spilled over her lashes.
Anne wanted to scream, to wail and trash the room. But she couldn’t, her voice was stuck and it hurt
Her entire body ached and she didn’t know which wound to mend first.
The pain made her voiceless.
She wanted to curse the world, but the words did not echo.
Outside, somewhere beyond stone and glass, bells rang the hour. Footsteps passed in the corridor. Laughter—female, young, unafraid.
Anne squeezed her eyes shut slamming her hands on her ears, her mind threatening to tremble like a house of cards. And finally her voice broke free from the cages in her chest
If this was heaven, it was cruel in its familiarity.
In the year 1521, the French court of Queen Claude was at peace.
Daughter of Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany, the young queen—pious, gentle, seldom raised above a whisper—kept her household ordered and serene.
Her ladies wore silks from Lyon and damasks from Tours. Music drifted through the galleries in the evenings, and scholars came and went freely, drawn by the patronage of Princess Marguerite, whose wit was said to rival any man’s in Christendom.
Among the queen’s ladies-in-waiting was a girl newly arrived some years prior from the court of Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands: Anne Boleyn, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a minor diplomat whose ambition lied thrumming under his skin. She was noted for her dark eyes, her graceful French manners, and an intelligence that revealed itself not loudly, but persistently—like water finding its way through stone.
Princess Marguerite immediately took a liking to the girl and a few sweet words to her sister-in-law and Anne was transferred to companion of the Princess of France.
Anne Boleyn was truly a remarkable child.
No one remarked that she had screamed in the night.
May 23rd, 1521
By the end of the third day, Anne had convinced herself it had been a dream.
A terrible dream, yes—but dreams had teeth sometimes. They borrowed from fears and memories alike. She told herself this as Princess Marguerite’s maid laced her gown and chattered about a wedding announcement among the ladies of the court.
Her hands shook as she fastened her necklace.
She watched herself in the mirror—young, smooth-faced, unlined by grief or rage. Her hair was darker than she remembered it being at the end. Her eyes too large for her face, still curious, still unguarded.
Sixteen, she realized slowly. No. Seventeen, perhaps.
Her stomach turned.
At breakfast she could barely eat. The bread felt heavy in her mouth, the strawberry jam too sweet. Everything was too alive. Sounds pressed in on her—the scrape of plates, the murmur of voices, the rustle of silk—until she felt she might shatter beneath them.
Marguerite noticed, of course. She always did.
“You are pale this morning, ma petite Anne,” the princess said gently, studying her over the rim of her porcelain cup. “Did you sleep at all?”
Anne opened her mouth to lie, but the words wouldn’t come out
“No, I—” She stopped. Breathed. Tried again. “I dreamed of dying.” Her gaze was fixated on the plate of cheese set on the table.
Marguerite’s brow furrowed. “That is no small dream.”
“No,” Anne agreed, very softly, lifting her eyes to the Princess’ briefly before looking down at the table again.
And with that the subject was dropped as Anne let herself be pulled into a debate over which damask would go better with the theme of the next banquet. Anne sighed, this was much better—this was safer grounds away from the torments in the mind.
Anne had expected the day to right itself. For the strangeness to fade. For reality to assert itself as it always did.
Instead Emmanuel du Franblé, son of Armand du Franblé —a fixture in Marguerite’s court, broke his finger in the gardens before noon. And Anne had to clench her teeth to hold in her scream.
The ladies of Queen Claude and Princess Marguerite are gathered in the royal gardens, enjoying their afternoon tea.
The sound came first.
A sharp cry cut through the gardens, followed by laughter that cut off too abruptly. Anne was already standing before anyone else reacted, her chair scraping back hard enough to draw looks.
She turned left at the rose hedge and found him by the low wall near the orange trees, there he was cradling his hand to his chest, face twisted in pain and embarrassment.
“I tried to catch the cat,” Emmanuel said through clenched teeth. “It seemed reasonable at the time.”
Just like last time
Oh no
Her knees threatened to give way as she moved to help him up “Come on, let us visit docteur Paulin” she said softly
The physician confirmed it moments later, clucking his tongue and binding the finger while George complained theatrically.
“Do not worry yourself sick over it mademoiselle Anne, this will heal in no time” Emmanuel tried to reassure her when he saw her pale face
Anne said nothing. She could not trust her voice.
Later that afternoon, Princess Marguerite announced the forthcoming marriage of lady Alice Poutré, to a Pascandre Alétour, Seigneur du Moulin.
The same names.
Anne suddenly felt faint
Please no
It was later remarked that Lady Anne Boleyn grew quieter after that day.
She listened more than she spoke. Her laughter became rarer, more deliberate. When she debated scholars in the evenings—as she often did—her arguments gained an unusual precision, as though she were selecting each word from a finite store.
Some thought she was melancholic, others reasoned she had simply matured.
No one could have guessed the truth.
Anne did not sleep that night, she couldn’t.
She sat at her small writing desk, a single candle burning low beside her, and wrote. Names. Dates. Births. Deaths. Alliances, revolts, uprisings, everything
A king who would love her and destroy her in the same breath. A daughter with hair like fire.
God Elizabeth, mine own heart
She hadn’t let herself visit this part of the dream yet, he womb still felt swollen after her last babes were ripped from life as they bled out of her.
A tower. A scaffold. A sword.
Her hand cramped. She did not stop. When she finished, she folded the pages carefully and hid them beneath a loose stone behind the hearth. Then she pressed her palm flat against the cold wall and made herself a promise.
“No Henry,” she swore. “No English crown.” Cradling her stomach she prayed that her daughter will forgive her “No Elizabeth” she said voice above a whisper
A man’s love was a wind that shifted without warning. She had built a life on it once.
Never again.
When dawn came, Anne Boleyn rose, dressed herself in French silk, and returned to court as though nothing in the world had changed.
But everything had.