Chapter Thirteen Thomas Wyatt #2
Anne felt her anger rise again, hot and hungry, for Whitehall was the palace she and Henry had renovated during their long courtship.
It was there that Henry had taken her when they were first married, after Thomas Cranmer, newly appointed by the king as archbishop of Canterbury, had finally issued Henry his annulment.
Henry and Anne had traveled to Calais to get King Francois’s blessing, so that they had continental backing for their marriage, then exchanged private vows and consummated their relationship in Dover, before settling back in at Whitehall.
She had never felt happier than she had in those early, heady days of their marriage, when Henry was content to have finally gotten what he wanted, and Anne was content to give it to him.
And it was there, at Whitehall, two months later, Elizabeth already growing inside her, that Henry had more officially married her, in a second ceremony, ordained by a priest, with actual witnesses.
How could he bring Jane there? Did the man have no remorse, no sentimentalities, no sense of place or memory?
Was one woman the same as another to him, one wife the same as the next, a vessel to be bred and bred until the king at last had his male heir?
No, thought Anne, Henry had loved her. Something had turned him astray.
Jane. Or the fall from his steed on the tilting yard, the wound to his head.
When he had fallen, his men said, he had held his hands up, fingers splayed, as though reaching for help, then gone limp and lost consciousness.
Was he reaching for Anne in that moment, for the son she carried in her last pregnancy?
Perhaps he was reaching for Katherine, his first wife, who had, after much delay, died just a fortnight before?
No, thought Anne. No. Henry had loved her.
He had loved her and only her. He had told her so.
The intensity of his love had overwhelmed her.
She had never been desired so fiercely, loved so jealously, guarded so covetously.
“You are mine and only mine,” he’d whispered in her ear, on the night of their private wedding in Dover, when she gave herself to him.
Mine and only mine. Wasn’t that proof of love?
Anne shifted on her feet, and another pebble slid beneath her slipper.
“That noise again,” said Kingston, walking over to the window.
“Is somebody out here?” Once more he stuck his head out and searched the darkness.
Anne’s heart beat hard with fear. What if she were caught?
Would she be jailed? Beheaded a second time?
Or burned as a witch? She wasn’t sure if she could die twice but knew she didn’t want to experience the pain of a fire.
“Let me see,” said Wyatt, pushing Kingston aside and looking out the window himself, first left, then right, then up, then down, directly into Anne’s face. He went pale. “Anne?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Anne looked up at him, mouth agape, unable to speak. “Thomas,” she croaked out, after a moment.
“What is it?” asked Kingston from inside the room.
Thomas stood, silent, looking down at her.
Anne remembered all the games of hide-and-seek they’d played as children.
She’d been so good at hiding, and Thomas so easy to surprise.
She’d delighted in it. When he’d come upon her behind a tree or inside an empty room, she’d jump out at him, shouting Boo!
, and he’d scream and startle. He had the same look on his face now.
She smiled. “Boo,” she said, then stood and ran across the courtyard.
“Anne!” called Thomas. “Anne Boleyn!”
She turned and put a finger to her lips. “Shhh.”
Thomas looked so very happy to see her in that moment, as though, if he could, he would leap through the window, chase her through the courtyard, catch her in his embrace, and never let her go. He wiped a tear from his cheek, though he was smiling. She turned again and ran.
“What is it?” Kingston asked once more, this time more loudly, and looking behind herself, Anne saw him shove Wyatt aside and take his place at the window, his face slack with disbelief.
“ ’Tis a ghost!” Kingston exclaimed. “ ’Tis that good lady’s ghost!” He crossed himself. “Please, good lady,” he shouted after her, “forgive us!”
Anne ran on, across the private courtyard, through Coldharbour Gate, into the open yard of the inner ward.
She didn’t look to Tower Green to see if her scaffold remained.
She didn’t want to see it. She rounded the corner of the wall enclosing the inmost ward and ran toward the Bloody Tower’s open gate.
What time was it? Had she beaten the guards, who must certainly be about to gather for the Ceremony of the Keys?
She paused inside the arch of the Bloody Tower’s gate, cloaked in the structure’s shadows, and peeked her head around the edge.
“Halt! Who comes there?” the sentry shouted, and her heart sank, for she recognized the first call in the Keys Ceremony and saw at Byward Tower a half dozen guards gathered for the official locking of the gates.
“The keys!” replied the chief warder.
“Whose keys?” asked the sentry. Anne knew this script by heart, so often had she heard it.
There was no escaping through Byward Tower Gate now.
She could hide in the Tower overnight, or flee as she had two nights ago, through River Gate, which was directly across the gap between the two walls, a short run; she’d be visible to the guards for only a moment. She decided to take her chance.
“King Henry’s keys!” she heard the chief warder call as she dashed from the Bloody Tower to River Gate.
“Pass King Henry’s keys. All is well,” the sentry responded.
Anne reached River Gate and ran below its raised portcullis, out onto the dock. This time, no barge or boat waited for her.
“All’s not well!” she heard a guard call. “I saw a woman running between the curtains!”
And then she heard the scuffle of boots, and men running.
Before her, the Thames, and surrounding the dock, the thin strip of wharf, lined with unmanned cannons, that connected back to the riverbank on which she’d left Alice.
She had no choice. She turned and ran down the wharf, as fast as she could go, under cover of night, she hoped, under cover of enough darkness that she wouldn’t be taken down by an arrow shot from an arrow slit.
She ran as fast as she could go, her gown tangling between her legs.
She hoisted it up and pumped her legs. The guards ran out on the dock, shouting after her.
“ ’Tis her!” she heard Kingston’s voice bellow, for he must have joined the guards on the dock. “ ’Tis Anne Boleyn!”
Fearing that she would be captured, without further thought, Anne leaped into the water of the Thames.