ANNE. Get it get it!

CELIA rushes off.

Enter HENRY with a bowl covered by a bloodstained cloth. He holds it still, looking at it.

Enter CROMWELL, followed by SIMPKIN and SLOOP.

SIMPKIN. Your Majesty, it would be best not…

CROMWELL. Let him.

HENRY lifts the cloth and stares. He freezes with horror.

CROMWELL gestures to SIMPKIN, who comes forward quickly and takes the bowl from HENRY’s hands.

SIMPKIN, with SLOOP, takes the bowl to a far corner of the stage.

HENRY cannot move.

HENRY. Why does God do this?

CROMWELL. If Your Majesty… wishes to pray with me?

HENRY. ‘Pray’? I don’t want to pray. I want to know why! Why!?

He lurches away and exits.

SIMPKIN lifts the cloth on the bowl. He and SLOOP stare.

SIMPKIN. It’s got gills. And flippers.

They giggle.

SLOOP. That’s what she’s given England. (Laughs.) Fortune’s wheel.

CROMWELL. Throw that thing in the cesspit. Now!

SIMPKIN replaces the cloth. He and SLOOP are about to exit.

And no talk of the Wheel of Fortune, all that crap, there’s no fortune, no fate. Just the eye of God in Heaven staring down on what we do, crawling on this Earth! We are what we do!

They hesitate.

Go on, get out!

SLOOP. Yes, My Lord.

SIMPKIN. Yes, My Lord. (To SLOOP.) A wobble.

SLOOP. The Wheel of Fortune is wobbly.

They exit.

CROMWELL remains on the stage.

Scene Nine

ANNE, LADY ROCHFORD and JANE are still onstage.

Enter CELIA, distressed.

CELIA. Ma’am, I couldn’t stop the midwives, they…

ANNE. He saw it? Oh, God in Heaven…

Enter HENRY.

LADY ROCHFORD, CELIA and JANE curtsy.

ROCHFORD / CELIA / JANE. Your Majesty.

He waves them away. They move quickly and regroup, trying to overhear.

ANNE. Do you hate me?

HENRY. No.

ANNE. It is hateful.

HENRY. No.

ANNE. I am hateful.

HENRY. No no, my love.

He kneels and embraces her.

ANNE. What does it mean?

HENRY. I don’t know, Anne.

ANNE. It can’t be God’s Will, Henry. It can’t.

HENRY. If it is, we will bear it.

ANNE. No no, He wants you to have a son.

HENRY. Then you will give me one.

ANNE. What if I can’t?

HENRY. Then that is God’s Will and we will bear it.

ANNE. I will give you a son.

HENRY. Yes.

ANNE. Yes.

A moment.

HENRY. Oh, to be alone with you.

ANNE. ‘On some unhaunted isle.

HENRY. Obscure from all society,

From love and hate…

ANNE. From love and hate and worldly foes.’

HENRY (smiles, settling her against him). Well, worldly foes you have seen off, my love. Two Chancellors of England, Wolsey, Thomas More… ‘I have lain their heads at your feet.’ Could be a lyric in there.

‘Her rival’s rosy head,

Lain upon my true love’s bed’… (Laughs.)

ANNE. We should not be coarse about God’s Will.

HENRY. No no.