Chapter Seven A Bargain #2
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Anne said.
This woman was from the fenlands, then. A prostitute and a fenlander, and yet she was composed, well-dressed, and clean, and had treated Anne with some kindness.
Anne reached out a hand to touch the woman’s, to try, again, to sway her sympathies. “I’m Anne,” she said.
“Ah!” the woman exclaimed. “An omen! She shares a name with the monstrous queen but escaped her jealous husband instead. Oh! And just like your rogue husband, the king has a new mistress too! Truly there are many parallels in your stories, my lady, for have you heard the king is now betrothed to be wedded to…well, her name escapes me. Some noblewoman. Katherine. Or another Anne? No, no, wait, Jane! He’s betrothed to an Englishwoman named Jane.
Jane the obedient, she is called. Don’t know that I’d like to be called ‘the obedient.’ Seems a woman might want a bit more willfulness to survive in this world, but then I suppose I’m not engaged to the king. ”
Anne fought to keep her face impassive, though the reminder of Henry’s hasty betrothal to Jane rekindled her anger.
And, the woman was right, “the obedient” was a pathetic moniker.
Even so, she shouldn’t let on. “The world is full of scoundrel men, I suppose,” she said, “but I wouldn’t presume to criticize the king. ”
“Wise,” the woman said. “I still cannot help you.”
“Forget about the jewel as payment,” Anne said, scrambling for a way to entice the woman into helping her.
She wanted—no, she needed—a protector, someone to look out for her, someone strong and savvy to help her navigate Southwark and the bridge crossing, to help her get back to London.
“I can pay you in coins. All the money I have, less what it costs to cross the bridge. And more, when we get to my husband’s manor,” she added, digging herself deeper into her lie.
“Nobody can trace coins. Nobody would know I’d stolen them from him to give to you. ”
“It isn’t the issue of payment,” the woman continued. “I’m leaving Southwark today. I have other obligations.”
“But don’t you live here?” Anne asked, gesturing around the cramped room.
“Oh good Christ, no!” the woman said, laughing. “Neither do the others.” She nodded toward the empty beds. “I suppose a woman as fine as yourself wouldn’t know about these things.” The way the woman said fine made Anne understand she meant anything but.
Anne looked at her, confused.
“We’re not whores, we just work as whores from time to time,” the woman explained.
“When money is low. When taxes are due. When rent is due, or the crops fail, or a husband’s business is slow.
When the beer she brews at home molds and spoils instead of turning into sellable drink.
That’s when a woman comes here, or to another house like it in the stews, to make a crown or two to bring home. We don’t live here, we just visit.”
“Oh,” said Anne, embarrassed by her lack of knowledge. “Please pardon me. I did not know.”
“ ’Tis fine,” the woman replied. “Why would you? ’Tis why I’m here myself, to earn enough to clear some debts and buy a stock of flour for the coming year.
My young ones are back home, where I pay a woman to keep them while I come to the city to earn some money.
I have to return home, pay her, and retrieve them.
For she has her own food to buy and debts to pay. ”
“Can’t you send the money in a letter? Then you could help me.” The woman stood, and so did Anne, keen to hold her interest, to persuade her. “For more money, of course,” she added.
“Listen to her! ‘Can’t you send the money in a letter?’ As if I don’t want to see my own babes! As if the money wouldn’t go missing before it arrived.” A meanness flashed across the woman’s face. “Can’t you send someone else to fetch your daughter?” She turned and walked toward the door.
“Wait,” Anne called after her. “I can make it worth your time. I can pay you five pounds.”
The woman stopped, her hand on the doorknob.
“Just think of the security that sum would buy you, would buy your children. You only have to take me over the bridge and to my husband’s home.
He’ll be gone on business for three days,” Anne lied, “so I can sneak in easily and get your payment. From there, you can catch a fine carriage north to the fens with the money you’ll earn.
You can help me get my daughter. Then I can help you. We can help each other.”
“I don’t need your help,” the woman replied. “To be clear, I’d be helping you. You’d be paying me. And there’s a difference between the two.”
“Yes,” Anne replied quickly. “Yes, of course.”
“The bridge crossing takes but a few hours, and you’ll need to pay your toll and mine too.
You should have enough for that with what you stole,” the woman said.
“That’ll be for starters. When we get to the other side, we’ll go right to your husband’s manor, for my payment.
You get me for one day only.” Anne nodded.
The woman looked outside—the sleet had turned to rain, but a thin sheen of ice clung to the window—then back at Anne.
“You’re badly dressed for this weather. I don’t suppose you’ve got any warmer clothes stashed away somewhere? ”
Anne pulled on the sleeves of her red kirtle. Even in this fire-warmed room, she was cold. She thought of her gown, soaked in blood and shoved under the bushes behind the tavern where she’d sewn her head back on. “No,” she replied.
“Right,” said the woman, “of course not. Late May and the weather is as fierce as November. ‘Autumn in spring,’ as my dear mother used to say. And you’re here in nothing but your kirtle. Though I suppose you ran in the night. Perhaps you didn’t have time to grab proper clothing?”
“Yes,” Anne said. “That’s it exactly.”
“I suppose you can borrow one of my gowns,” the woman said, “and a cloak.” She pulled open the door. “Though I’ll expect payment for the use of both. You can add that to your bill.”
“Thank you,” Anne said.
“Well, are you coming?” the woman asked, impatiently.
Anne followed the woman down the hall, to a cramped dressing room with half a dozen trunks.
“Many of these girls are Southwark girls,” the woman said.
“They come for a night and don’t bring any possessions.
” She drew a key from a small purse at her wrist and slid it into a lock on one of the trunks.
“But those of us that journey from farther away have to keep provisions here.” The lock popped open and the woman raised the lid of the trunk, pulling out a gray wool gown.
“It may not be as fine as you’re used to,” she said, holding it up to Anne, “and ’twill be a bit large on you, as you’re awfully thin and a bit shorter than I, but ’twill do.
” Anne nodded and reached for the gown. The woman pulled it back.
“My lady,” she said, “not to be indelicate, but would you first like to bathe?”
“Why?” Anne asked.
The woman cocked her head. “You have a certain odor.” She paused. “My lady, you smell like piss.”
Anne stared at her. What she said was true. Anne knew it. She could feel her cheeks begin to flush.
“Perhaps when your lord husband was strangling you, you may have wetted yourself?” the woman added, trying, Anne imagined, to provide an explanation for the stench that laid the blame for it on someone else’s actions.
“The bathing tub is downstairs. Women who need it bathe in the mornings. ’Tis likely being filled now. Shall we make use of it?”
Anne considered, then nodded. Though she didn’t want to take a bath in a tub shared by many prostitutes, the woman was right; she stank and the stink made her stand out. Better to bathe, so she could move among the living unnoticed.
Downstairs, in a small room, the woman shooed away another prostitute who was pouring a pot of hot water into a wooden tub lined with bedsheets.
“Here,” she said to Anne when the room was empty. “You may undress and bathe. You’re lucky. You get first use of the tub, while the water is warm and clean.”
Anne looked at the tub. It was not as fine as what she was used to.
At Hampton Court, she had bathed in a copper tub supplied with running hot water, filled with herbs and oils, attended by her ladies and maids.
At the other palaces, servants filled bronze tubs with steaming water.
In France, she had bathed with the other ladies-in-waiting, in a large open bath scented with lavender into which they all climbed once a week, so as not to offend Queen Claude with their smell.
She remembered her friend étiennette, whose back she helped scrub, who scrubbed her back in return, as they splashed playfully in the large French bath.
No, it was not what Anne was used to. But it would have to do.
The woman helped her unlace her kirtle, then turned her back as Anne slipped off her smock, garters, and red stockings and lowered herself into the tub.
The water felt good; its warmth drove the chill from her.
“Is there any soap?” she asked the woman.
And, remembering her French baths, continued, “Perhaps some lavender to crush into the water?”
“Lavender?” the woman said, amused. “My lady, you are in a brothel. We have one bar of soap that we share. We haven’t herbs to scent our baths.
” She handed Anne a bar of soap that Anne guessed was made from animal fat.
It smelled a bit like sheep, but when Anne rubbed it between her hands, it lathered. She used it to wash her body.
“Will you not take off your collar?” the woman asked.
“No,” Anne replied, taking care to keep her neck above the water, away from the delicate silk, away from her stitched wound.
“I’ve seen bruises before. You needn’t be ashamed,” she persisted. “You might be more comfortable.”
“I said no,” Anne replied forcefully.
“Suit yourself,” the woman said, and left Anne alone to finish her bathing.
—
When Anne was done, she dried herself with a linen cloth set beside the tub.
The woman had gone upstairs to fetch a new smock for Anne to wear, having discovered the smock she had been wearing was the source of the piss smell, and Anne slipped into it, then into her red kirtle, which the woman helped tighten after determining it was clean enough for Anne to keep wearing.
Anne took a moment to slide back on her garters and red stockings, also deemed clean enough for further wear.
“My, so fine,” the woman had said, impressed with the delicate weave of the wool stockings.
Then the woman helped Anne into the gown, tightening the laces to fit her slight frame.
It was hard to believe that only four months earlier Anne’s belly had been round enough for her to loosen her bodice, to show off the baby growing there.
It was never too soon for a queen to flaunt her fertility.
When Anne missed three menstrual cycles and her belly rounded out, she’d been fast to do so.
How quickly the bodies of women expand and contract, Anne thought, how very changeable we are.
The woman pulled the laces of the gown one last time, knocking the breath out of Anne, then tied them.
“Let me fix your hair,” the woman said, and before Anne could stop her, she’d pushed her to sit on a stool.
She removed the kerchief Anne had stolen from the tavern keeper’s wife, brushed and pinned her hair into place, then covered it with a clean white cap that matched her own, which she must have procured when she went upstairs to fetch the clean smock.
“Here,” she said, handing Anne a summer cloak.
“ ’Tisn’t as warm as mine, but ’tis better than nothing, and ’twill have to do.
” She stood back for a moment, giving Anne the same appraising look she’d given her when she woke.
“You are a beauty, in your own way,” she said, nodding, pleased with the outcome of her labors.
“ ’Tis more visible now that you’ve cleaned yourself.
Right, then, let us be on our way.” She turned, exited the little bathing room, and began walking toward the brothel door.
“Wait! I don’t know your name,” Anne said, hurrying after her.
The woman glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes like the good blue of the sky. “I’m Alice,” she said.