THE ROYAL RUNAWAY

Chapter One: Fireside Chat

"I've had it with that horrible man!" Catherine Howard was just seventeen years old, but she felt sure that her knockout figure and sophisticated attire made her seem much older. Unfortunately the pouring rain didn't do much for her hairstyle or her clothes.

"Ach!" Anne of Cleves had to laugh at the bedraggled girl standing on her doorstep. "Liebes Kind, komm aus dem Regen!"

"Huh?" Catherine Howard just stared at the older woman. She hadn't thought to bring a cloak, or an umbrella, and the rain was soaking her skirts and running down the back of her neck.

"Dear child, I ask you to come inside out of the rain!" Anne of Cleves wasn't a beautiful woman, but when she smiled her long and narrow and thin-lipped features seemed to glow with warmth.

"I just came over to say goodbye," Catherine said, stiffening a little as the skinny older woman drew her indoors. Anne of Cleves had a little cottage just a few miles from the royal palace. Just now there was a good fire going and a kettle steaming in the parlor.

"Yes, you will run away and the king will never find you. But first you must tell me everything." Anne of Cleves's homely face wore a hungry look as she settled herself beside the beautiful young girl on the comfortably overstuffed sofa in front of the fire. "How is King Henry? Has he changed? Is he still hunting and dancing and riding? He gives you heaps of jewels and clothing, ja?"

"Heaps of jewels and clothing, ja! I mean, yes." Catherine frowned as she sipped her tea, letting the warmth of the fire bake the chill from her bones. The flames seemed to dance like the wanton girls at court. "Henry gives me all the jewelry and fine clothes I want. But whenever I want to dance with my friends, he summons me to his chamber instead. He goes to bed so early now!"

"Ach!" Anne of Cleves squawked in sympathy. She patted Catherine's hand. "That is what I never liked, a man on top of me, inside of me. All that grunting and groaning, in bed with the king!"

"It's horrible," Catherine agreed. But the fire seemed to bring a soft glow to her cheeks that hadn't been there a moment before. The pretty young queen gazed into the flames with a sort of smile.

"So now you want to leave the king," Anne of Cleves broke in, after a long silence. "Where will you go?"

"Huh?" Catherine had been remembering the look in Henry's eyes when she undressed in front of the bed in the king's bedchamber. For a moment she almost felt like running right back into his arms. "I don't care where I go! I just want to be around people my age, young people. I want to dance, and have fun, and not just say my prayers and go to bed early like a good little girl."

"Ach! I understand, my sweet. You are a woman, not a little girl." Anne of Cleves patted Catherine's arm as she rose from the sofa. "You stay here and rest a minute, while I go talk with my maid in the kitchen. Together we make everything right again, I promise!"

The nasty weather continued all afternoon. Catherine fell asleep by the fire, so she didn't notice when a maid in a rain cloak slipped off to the palace. Anne of Cleves wrote the king a note in German that said, "Come to my cottage at once."

Later that night, a sleepy Catherine was recaptured by the king. Henry's love making was much as Anne described, all grunting and groaning. But he was so kind afterwards. And as she was falling asleep, the royal runaway realized that her best friend in the whole world was actually Anne of Cleves.