Chapter Thirteen Thomas Wyatt
Chapter Thirteen
Thomas Wyatt
Anne intended to proceed directly to Byward Tower, to exit before the Ceremony of the Keys, which surely couldn’t be more than half an hour from now, maybe less—she should hurry, hurry.
But as she tiptoed through the inmost ward, she heard the voices of two men from a low window in one of the long timber buildings that housed favored courtiers.
Crouching down, she crept closer, her ear trained on the voices, until she was right below the opened window.
“I wouldn’t say no to a suckling pig and a pitcher of good wine,” spoke the first man.
“Something to restore my strength after the bloody performance that’s just played out on these grounds.
” Anne recognized the voice immediately: dear Thomas Wyatt, her childhood neighbor and lifelong friend, who’d been accused of lying with her and imprisoned along with the others, though not executed.
“Sir,” spoke the second man, “you are the king’s prisoner, and not in a position to be making complaints about the food.” The second man chuckled. He was being coy. Anne recognized his voice as well: kind and good-humored. William Kingston, her jailer and confessor.
Anne wasn’t sure how Thomas Wyatt had escaped the axe’s swing.
Given his courtly advances toward her, and their long friendship, it had seemed certain he’d be tried and executed.
Wyatt had always been smitten with her, giving her ribbons and handpicked bouquets when they were children, writing poetry to her when she returned to England a sought-after lady at court.
He was sweet, in his own way, if not a bit entitled.
The son of a powerful man, already married, though miserably, he’d propositioned her to be his mistress shortly after her return to England.
This type of man felt they were owed a woman’s affections, that they deserved not one wife but two.
She supposed Henry had been the same way, except he had more to offer her, and the power to extricate himself from his unhappy marriage, which Thomas Wyatt lacked.
Yet for a moment Anne wondered what her life would have been like if she’d taken Wyatt up on his offer.
Would he have set her up in a country house replete with servants, where she’d have had time to think and write, only visited by him on occasion for playful lovemaking?
She wouldn’t have married Henry, then, wouldn’t have gotten herself into such a mess.
She shook her head. No, in that path there’d be no passionate love affair, for she’d never really been attracted to Tom, only attracted to his attraction to her.
There’d have been no shining sun of Henry’s affections, no coronation, no queenship, and, most devastatingly, no Elizabeth.
The two men prattled on about the food and the day’s mundanity at the Tower, whatever book Wyatt was reading, his request for some paper and ink so he could write.
Anne stayed, crouched below the window, listening.
She knew she should leave but couldn’t pull herself away from the familiar voices of these men who were so recently her companions but now seemed to exist in a different realm of being.
Then the mood between Wyatt and Kingston shifted.
“I never saw such a bloodthirsty misuse of the law,” Wyatt said. “I never saw such a good lady treated so poorly.”
“Sir,” Kingston cautioned, “I am the king’s servant. Be mindful what you say.”
“Tell Cromwell I have my complaints,” Wyatt snapped. Cromwell, Anne thought. Of course, a friend of Wyatt’s father and his protector at court. That’s why Wyatt had been spared; Cromwell was backing him. Good, thought Anne, Wyatt didn’t deserve to die. None of them did.
“She was found guilty, sir,” Kingston went on. “They all were.”
“Guilty,” scoffed Wyatt. “By a false jury if ever there were one, full of sycophants and petty men, those seeking to flatter and control the king.”
“In my opinion, sir, nobody controls the king,” Kingston replied. “And those who think they do end up here, with me.”
Below the windowsill, Anne shifted on her feet.
How odd, she thought, that after death she could still get sore legs.
As if instinctively, she felt under her collar at the gash on her neck.
Still there, the ridged scar and the hastily sewn thread.
She pulled her fingers back out and smelled them.
The smell was pungent and cheesy, like the lint from inside a belly button, or the skin behind a child’s ear.
She shifted on her feet again, and a pebble kicked loose beneath her right slipper and rolled away from her, bouncing a few times on the courtyard stones.
“What was that?” asked Kingston, and Anne ducked lower as he stuck his head out the window and searched the darkness of the inmost ward for whatever had caused the noise.
She was glad he didn’t look down. She was so close, she could have reached up and touched him.
She pressed her thin frame tighter against the wall, hoping the shadows would continue to cover her.
“I’m sure ’twas nothing,” Wyatt replied, dismissively. “And what of her grave?”
Kingston pulled his head back into the prisoner’s chamber and mumbled something inaudible.
“Don’t think I haven’t heard the Tower gossip, Kingston.
Your guards are as loose lipped as a gaggle of old women.
The body missing? Poorly guarded, was it?
Who knows where her corpse lies now, in what criminal’s hands.
” Wyatt paused. “Though one guard told me he thought perhaps her own family arranged to have it robbed, to have the body carried to Hever, buried on family ground.” How Anne wished that were true, that her family had cared enough, or had had the means enough to steal her back, to secret her home.
She also regretted leaving the empty chest in the chapel, instead of filling it with something else or hiding it away, though what would she have filled it with, and where would she have hidden it, and how, her head at the time being unattached to her body?
And wouldn’t a hidden chest, missing entirely, have been just as suspicious as an empty one?
“I would not speak of those rumors any further, Wyatt,” Kingston urged.
“For the arrow chest in which she was laid to rest has been buried, and even the king does not know ’twas empty, and if the people find out—you know how superstitious they are.
Ghost stories will abound. And if those rumors are traced back to you… Well.”
Wyatt persisted. “And now I hear Henry and Jane are betrothed?” Was he looking for a fight? He’d always been a contrarian, loudmouthed. He and Anne had had that in common.
“Yes, sir,” Kingston replied.
“What kind of a fool,” Wyatt continued, “would give up the great Anna Bullen for plain Jane Seymour, mopey and chaste, never saying a word to cross anyone. Never saying a word, period. I wonder, good Kingston, if she can speak at all?”
“I rather think that is the point, sir,” replied Kingston. “A nation can only have one sovereign at a time, and Anne sought to rule from the king’s side. Jane knows her place.”
Anne almost laughed out loud, a madwoman’s response, then caught herself and quieted.
What he said was true. She had tried, at times, to usurp Henry’s power, to direct him, when she felt he needed directing.
What kind of woman tries to boss around the king of England?
What type of woman can’t keep her opinions to herself?
What type of woman accuses a king of adultery at her own trial for being adulterous against the king?
Anna Bullen, that’s who, the woman who doesn’t know when to shut her mouth.
Anne de Boulogne who doesn’t know her place.
Anne who can’t shut up. Just shut up. Just shut up.
Anne realized she was hitting herself on the forehead with the palm of her hand.
Just shut up. Just shut up, she thought, hitting herself again, again.
Just shut up, you dumb whore. One more hit. And then she stopped.
“How long do you suppose it will be before he weds her? Ten days? A dozen? Maybe a fortnight? He won’t wait long, for surely he desires to know her better, to explore her hidden countries, if you understand my meaning.
I suppose he’s brought her right back to Hampton Court and installed her in Anne’s chambers,” Wyatt said, “as if she could ever take Anne’s place. ”
“Sir,” cautioned Kingston again, “watch yourself.”
“Go tell it to Cromwell,” Wyatt snapped. “He knows how I feel. Let him come here himself and drag me to the scaffold.”
“Sir,” replied Kingston, and Anne imagined him lowering his head, deferentially. Ever the gentleman jailer.
“We both know Cromwell’s not going to kill me.
He’d have done it already if he intended to,” Wyatt said.
A chorus of starlings began chirruping on the riverbank, their high-pitched song loud enough to reach the Tower courtyard.
They sound unsettled, Anne thought, all singing the same song of dissatisfaction.
“ ’Tis likely that is true, sir,” Kingston replied.
“At any rate, the king has taken his betrothed to Whitehall Palace. No doubt, as you surmise, the two will be wed soon, and she will be your new queen. I suggest, sir, that you alter your tone toward her. There are some sins from which even Cromwell cannot save you.”