Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (39 page)

It hardly mattered who touched me now, or
stroked my hair, because I was no longer a queen. Our marriage had
been annulled two days earlier, so Henry could now rest easily and
content for, having stripped me of all the rest, he would have me
die without my marriage and without my crown, and without the
certainty that Elizabeth would ever be a queen. There was nothing
left for him to take from me. Henry’s work was finally
complete.

Well done, my love. Well done.

Then the sun rose and the day came for me, a
sunny day in the height of spring, in May, my favorite month. This
date was a silent anniversary I had passed through my entire life,
never knowing it to be the eventual day of my death, but knowing
now.

One can think preparation is sufficient until
the moment arrives and it is tested. I had been frantic for the day
to come, not knowing how long my mental reserves would hold. I had
experienced near-collapse when the executioner was delayed in his
travels and the execution was postponed. Now, my jailers faced me
and said it was time. I was not, in fact, prepared. I wanted to
run, and I wanted to fight them. But where would I go? Who would
hide and protect me?

Then I thought, “What reason have I to remain
alive?” and willingly submitted myself to them.

We walked in a solemn line to the
scaffold.

I stood and looked over the people in the
crowd, some of whom were tearful but most of whom were there to
cheerfully watch and comment.

I spoke to them all in a final speech. The
entire time I spoke, I awaited the shout: “Halt!” I awaited rescue
by Henry, and watched for running foot soldiers from the corner of
my eye. Henry’s voice and his army never rose against my murder,
though I waited.

I exchanged my headdress for a white cap, and
then turned to my ladies who were weeping. I told them I was humbly
sorry for having been harsh toward them at times and meant it
sincerely, then asked them to remember me in their prayers. I gave
my waiting woman my prayer book in which I had inscribed: “Remember
me when you do pray that hope doth lead from day to day.” She
thanked me, then succumbed to sobs.

I said my own prayers for them. It was their
responsibility to recover my severed head and prepare my body for
entombment when all was done. My poor waiting woman was squeamish,
God bless her, and would no doubt grow ill from it, I knew. I felt
embarrassed and ashamed that I would be in such as state as to make
my ladies ill, and hoped they would forgive me for it.

Finally time ran out, and no Henry appeared.
My death and his abandonment of me were both absolute. Forgiveness
for this betrayal was now sealed away from me by a heavy metal door
that slammed shut within my heart like the door to a prison cell.
Forgiveness was firmly on the other side.

And now, stomach fluids rose and fell in my
throat. I was to face the final moment of my life. The moment was
real, and it had come.

Holy Father . . .
Afraid!

A swell of panic convulsed me and I felt the
madness creeping toward me again. The only cure for it was death
and so, in the end, I welcomed death as my salvation.

My executioner stood waiting, sword waiting,
block waiting . . . crowd . . . waiting. It was my duty not to
disappoint, nor to make them wait.

I looked into the faces one last time,
searching eyes for pity and grief. I saw some, and took comfort. I
felt just slightly less alone.

I knelt before my executioner and was
blindfolded. All was black. I pressed my eyes closed and prayed
while the remarks and catcalls hushed to deathly silence, unearthly
still.

In the midst of this, I heard a bird sing
then heard its wings flap as it flew away. Would the crowd be
watching it now? Forgetting me? I pretended this was so.

I resolved to follow the bird to a better
place, away from here. We would leave this earth together, the bird
and I, and would never, ever look behind us.

My last living thought, as it happened, was a
cheerful one. In my mind, I called out to the bird to wait for me
and, in my mind, it did. It circled back—one friend after all—to
carry me on its wings to God. I might lose my life, I promised
myself, but I was neither crushed nor truly broken. Like a bird, I
was merely poised for flight.

“Where is my sword?” the executioner shouted.
As he swung it into position to strike, the air whipped against my
skin. I could feel it.

“To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu
receive my soul–”

•
~
۞
~•

I am making flour, grinding barley between
two large, smooth stones, while the two little ones play with
pebbles on the dirt floor. I occasionally stop to go and pry these
same pebbles out of the younger child’s mouth, scolding her. My
thoughts wander no further than the narrow boundaries of my life
and, in the midst of this, I am shocked to attention by running
footsteps and shouts outside my dwelling. Startled, I look up to
see a small figure in the doorway, a boy of about 10. He bursts in
and screams that my husband has fallen, and is being carried back
from the construction site. I leap to my feet and run into the
street, terrified.

I can see a stranger in the distance, pushing
through the merchants and villagers. He carries my husband across
his shoulders, arms dangling and useless, eyes closed.

There is still hope. Perhaps my husband has
merely had the air knocked out of him and will recover. Perhaps if
a bone is broken, it will not set crooked. I squint, trying to
force my eyes to see farther and to diagnose the injuries.

He looks as if he might be dead, I think. If
he is dead I might still marry. There are certainly those who would
keep me; I could easily find another man. A worse fate would be
impairment. Even if his injury keeps him in bed for a time, we will
suffer. If he is permanently crippled, he cannot work, I cannot
remarry, and I cannot eat or feed my children.

After considering the possibilities, I select
the one that suits me best, and softly plead to the gods that he is
dead.

Perhaps we will not go hungry. Perhaps we
will not all die as a result of this.

I stand in the street, absently caressing the
heads of the little ones who toddled after me, and watch the man
approach with my husband. The smaller girl pulls at my tunic, and
says her word for milk. I lift her up and press her to my breast
where she suckles, as oblivious to these events as I am oblivious
to her. The older girl clings to my leg and sucks her thumb,
whining softly about something I do not bother to take note of.

I know the older girl. It is Mother. I know
the younger girl. It is Katherine.

Furthermore, I know my husband. He is Sir
Thomas Wyatt from the court of Henry VIII, the passionate,
persistent suitor whom I rejected. He is not as fond of me here, in
fact, he thinks of me as only barely human. I am his woman, nothing
more. He beds me, and eats what I feed him, and beats me when his
mood is foul. I carry bruises, for his mood is not often good. He
also beats the children: tiny girls aged one and two who know more
of how to cower than to hug.

Aye, but that is what men do to their women
to keep them in line. They all do. I am grateful he has not sold
the babies or me into slavery. He has not yet gotten that tired of
us.

The man who is carrying my husband catches my
eye, but says nothing. I motion him into our dwelling, and he
stands, waiting for me to show him where my husband will go.

My husband’s bed is a low cot made of leather
straps that are interwoven and strung across a wooden frame. It has
a half-circle wooden neck rest that protrudes, like a wishbone,
from the head of it.

I think he might do better if he lies flat,
so I spread my reed mat upon the floor. If my husband were
conscious, he would protest the insult of being laid upon a woman’s
bed, but I do not bother for his concerns. At the moment, his
concerns are not
my
concerns, for he is near death.

The man sets my husband down, not altogether
gently, nods at me, then pulls out a pouch and gives me a small,
polished lapis figure of the god Horus. He suggests I trade it for
some food, then leaves while I stand there motionless, still in
shock, clutching the figure in my fingers. Tears spring to my eyes
at his kindness, and I race out to the street to shout thanks
toward his retreating figure, but he quickly disappears into the
crowd, and I do not know if he has heard.

I turn back, uncertain, and examine my
husband’s injuries. I discover the broken bone is in his shoulder,
and I wince. This does not bode well for us. He has an enormous
lump on his head with a trickle of blood running from it, and this
I wipe clean, not suspecting that the greater damage was done here,
rather than to the shoulder. The babies study him and touch him
gingerly, unafraid when he is like this, but hesitant
nonetheless.

I do not know what to do.

I go out again into the street, call aside a
boy, and plead for him to find someone to help me. I cannot pay, I
tell him. He gives me a contemptuous look and disappears.

I try again, and then again, weeping now, but
all brush me aside. They do not like my husband, and view that as
good reason to push his wife away. Finally an old woman agrees to
come, and enters our home with darting looks as if she is searching
for something to steal. I send her away with a curse, and she
curses back at me and spits.

It is up to me, and I do not know what to
do.

•
~
۞
~•

Whatever it was that I did, it was wrong. My
husband healed crookedly with a protruding bone, and one useless
arm. The pupil in his right eye became large and strange-looking
because the blow to his head had been severe, even though the skull
appeared intact. My efforts to clean the external wound did nothing
to heal him internally.

Now, some time later, he seems normal on the
surface, but can no longer control his temper even to the degree he
had before. He still has one good arm with which to hit us, and a
club to extend his reach, but he cannot perform his usual work, or
any other kind of work that he is willing to do. The children and I
live in terror and suffer in hunger, for he demands what few scraps
I am able to find.

I take to nursing the older girl again,
though she had been weaned. I suckle both children and beg on the
streets for food for myself so that my milk will not dry up. I
sometimes eat and sometimes do not. I have to be careful to spare a
little of whatever I receive for my husband lest he grow
discontented and violent, but I sometimes gobble crusts and scraps
before returning home, then tell him there was none. He never
believes me, and often draws blood when he beats me, but at least
my hunger is sometimes quelled for a time.

I still have milk, but as I had feared, it
begins to dry. I am concerned for the babies who are not growing as
they should. They are very, very small, and somewhat listless.
Their hair does not shine. I am afraid they will die.

I have been shown the next scene many times
before. I am forced to view it again with each passing, for I have
never been able to reconcile it in my heart and have often chosen
badly as a result of it. It might have been a passage into
understanding, but it was not, so I am left to watch it again.
Perhaps this time, with this last passing, I learned.

I feel that this time, I have. I see it
differently, now.

The girls need bread and fruit. I cannot
continue to feed them through to adulthood on breast milk—can the
milk even last another week? Still, I hesitate to use the lapis
figurine. I will not part with it. I view it as a good luck charm,
and a reminder of someone’s kindness. It has greater value to me
than the little I would receive in exchange for it, so I continue
to beg, keeping the figurine close to me in a small pouch tied
under my tunic. I will carry it with me for the rest of my life: a
small blue beacon, hidden in a leather pouch beneath my skirt.

Once again I hold out my hand. A man stops
and looks me over, then laughs and grabs my breast. My stomach
chooses that instant to growl, and in the desperateness of my
situation, I do not pull away. Instead, I ask: “What will you give
me?”

He takes a scarab ring from his finger and
holds it up.

“Yes,” I say. I reach for the ring, and grab
it. I already sense that you take payment first.

I know of a place where we can go. There is
an area hidden behind a clump of palm trees, in an alley that has
no traffic. I take him there, and spread palms upon the ground. I
look around me, terrified that I will be seen or that my husband
will find us, but no one passes.

I close my eyes tight, and think of food.

When he is finished, he stands up and leaves
me there without another word. I start to weep with shame over what
I have done, but I have the ring and I know that we will all eat
well for a while. I stand up and dust myself off, wipe my eyes,
then run to the market and exchange the ring for food, enough for a
week.

My husband does not ask where the food comes
from. In truth, he does not care.

When the food runs out, I find another man
with another small treasure. This time I do not cry, afterwards.
This time I do not wait for the food to run out before finding a
third man. I leave at night when my family is asleep, and prowl the
streets for soldiers. My husband does not know what I am doing, nor
can I tell him.

I meet other women who are doing what I do,
and they are kind to me. There is a sisterhood of sorts between the
street whores who know they cannot count upon men, are scorned by
women, and have only each other for support and solace. They teach
me what to do and what to avoid and warn me to carry a dagger. They
show me how to walk and how to look at a man to draw him over, and
they describe certain acts that I must be willing to perform
without revealing any revulsion or disgust. They give me advice in
handling the drunken ones and the mean ones, and name certain men
that I must never, ever go with at all, no matter what they
offer.