Chapter Fourteen The Women Ran Still
Chapter Fourteen
The Women Ran Still
The river water was cold and moved fast. It seeped through Anne’s clothing, her gown and kirtle, her smock, reaching all her most sensitive parts, groin and navel, breasts and armpits, cold against her skin.
It soaked her hair, which slipped out from beneath her cap and whipped around her face, around her head and neck, tugged against her silk collar, and tangled in her cloak, for she’d been pulled all the way under the water by the current.
She knew how to swim, a little, having learned in France at Queen Claude’s insistence—that forward-thinking lady—but the current overtook her and carried her quickly downstream.
Flapping her arms wildly, she pushed her head above the water and gasped for air.
She could see the Tower wharf receding from view in the darkness, and moving quickly by her—or, rather, she was moving quickly by it—the riverbank.
It wasn’t more than a few yards away. She swam as hard as she could toward it, pulling her arms in big strokes and kicking her legs.
She needed to reach land before she traveled too far downriver and passed Billingsgate harbor, after which point it would be impossible to extricate herself and she’d be swept into the currents of London Bridge, churned and tousled under the water, maybe meet her second death, if such a thing were possible.
Anne kicked her legs more furiously and, feeling her slippers sliding from her feet and curling her toes to try to hold them in place, took long, hard strokes with her arms and moved toward shore, toward the riverbank.
She pushed and pushed. In her mouth, the taste of copper.
Her airway constricted with the cold of the water, with the force of her breathing, so that she wheezed with each short breath.
She began to lose strength. She was pulled, again, under the water, the weight of her wet smock and kirtle and gown tugging her down.
Suddenly, there was Alice, like an archangel, storming into the river, swimming in quick strokes out to her, grabbing the back of her gown, and with a strong arm, dragging her toward the riverbank.
Where had this woman learned to swim so well?
Perhaps in her swampy homeland. Alice hauled Anne to shore, where the two collapsed, sopping wet, on the stony bank.
Anne coughed out a mouthful of dirty river water and adjusted her cap, which had come loose and hung by just a few pins.
“You saved me,” she managed to utter, looking astonishedly at Alice, amazed that this woman she had met only yesterday had now thrice come to her rescue, had now thrice saved her from danger—from John, from the pieman, now from the river—had shown her such care.
Alice, in turn, gave Anne a bitter look.
“Why, my lady,” she said, “are there armed guards chasing after you from the Tower wharf?” For both women could hear the guards shouting indistinctly to each other in the night and see the lights of their lanterns as they searched the ribbon of land upriver, from which Anne had dived into the water.
“You said that this would be easy. You said to trust you. Clearly you have been spied. What danger are we in?”
Anne tried to hold her voice steady. “We need to run,” she said, ignoring Alice’s questions.
“Now. We need to leave before they come after us.” She imagined the guards completing their search of the Tower wharf, then returning to Wyatt’s chambers to get his report on the mysterious woman who had run through the Tower and disappeared in the Thames.
No doubt Kingston would be directing them on what to do next.
Would he send the guards after her, assuming her a look-alike to the queen, not the queen but a different woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to her, who must be caught for trespassing on the Tower grounds?
Or would he believe what his eyes had seen, what his mouth had spoken, that she was the ghost of the recently beheaded queen, who could neither, and should neither, be captured nor punished?
Or, believing his eyes that she was a ghost, would he decide anyway that she needed to be pursued and captured?
Anne couldn’t know what he would do and didn’t want to wait around to find out.
“Quickly,” she said. From the ground, Alice grabbed her cloak and purse, which she must have taken off before diving into the river.
She tied the cloak at her neck, slid the purse on her wrist, and the two drenched women scrambled up a nearby set of stone stairs, leading from the riverbank to Watergate Street.
The river water squished in Anne’s slippers with each step she took.
The women ran, holding hands, dripping water behind them, sometimes slipping and sliding through the streets and alleyways of London, to Bishopsgate Street, then through Bishops Gate, and beyond the city wall to the little village of Shoreditch, a good mile and a half from where they’d begun.
In this hamlet, the women ran still, breathless now from exertion, neither woman being used to running this far, over low fences and into the chickenyards of modest houses, between hedges, which caught and cut their skin, until they came to the edge of the borough, where they collapsed in a copse of trees, and looked at each other, panicked.
“I thought you said nobody would see you,” Alice said, when she had caught her breath, the anger she’d expressed on the riverbank flaring back up. “I thought you would be in and out. Did you get the money?”
“I didn’t think I’d be seen, but a man I used to know recognized me.
” Anne tried to brush the dirt and bits of twig from the skirt of her gown.
Though the run had dried the fabric some, the night air chilled her mercilessly, and she shivered.
So did Alice, pulling her cloak, which had been dry but was now damp from the wetness of her clothes, tighter around herself, as if it would make a difference.
“We need to leave,” Anne said, “before we are caught.” Anne thought again of Kingston and the Tower guards, who might be chasing them, or who might be sending an urgent message to the king that the ghost of his late wife had been spotted at the Tower.
As much as she hated to delay finding and killing Henry, she knew she needed to leave London, at least for a couple of days, until things settled down, until the Tower guards searched and found no one and returned to their posts.
“What do you mean, before we are caught?” demanded Alice. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I think you mean before you are caught.”
“You think these men won’t arrest you too?
” Anne shot back. “A common prostitute accompanying a lady with money stolen from the mint? You think whatever judge is assigned your trial wouldn’t have you whipped in public?
Wouldn’t have your hand cut off? You think these men, who know me personally, wouldn’t believe me if I told them you’d kidnapped me and forced me into this theft? That they’d take your word over mine?”
Anne couldn’t believe the words she’d just spoken, threatening to turn Alice in, threatening to have her punished—Alice, who had shown her such care, who had saved her life more than once—and yet Anne had always done what she needed to survive.
Of course, if Kingston or his guards actually caught up to them, they’d recognize her as Anne Boleyn, come back from the dead, and whatever awaited her would be terrible indeed.
“You’d do that to me?” Alice asked, a look of disbelief visible on her face even in the darkness.
“What do you think?” Anne replied.
For several moments, Alice was silent. Then she stammered, “Th-there’s a carriage stop not far up the road from here. We can catch it in the morning. It heads north, to Bishop’s Lynn. From there we can take a boat downriver to my home in the fens.”
“The fenlands?” Anne said. It was the last place she wanted to go.
“Nobody will come looking for you there,” Alice said. “There’s good people there. Trustworthy people.” Anne wondered if that was a dig at her. “People who won’t bat an eye at hiding a stranger.” She paused. “Besides, I can see my babes.”
“Ah, there it is,” said Anne.
“There what is?” replied Alice. “That I want to see my children? Just like you? Aren’t we on this whole journey so you can rescue your daughter? Do you think I don’t want to see my children too? Do you think I don’t pine for them, just because I’m not a gentle lady?”
“Ha! ‘Not a gentle lady’ is an understatement.”
Alice glared at her. “Take off my gown,” she demanded.
“What?” Anne said, disbelieving that Alice would speak to her this way. “What did you say to me?”
“Take it off. I’ll leave you here in your undergarments,” Alice said. “See what I care. If they catch me, let them come with their punishments. Take off my gown right now and see how far you get without me.”
“No,” said Anne, panicking. Alice was right; she’d be helpless without her.
“No, don’t leave me. I’m sorry. I should have considered your desires, your safety.
” She reached into her damp bodice and pulled out five pounds; the money and jewels had held securely there, by some miracle, even in the river.
“Here is the money I owe you,” she said, holding it out to Alice.
“And I have more that I can pay you. I will accompany you to the fens. Please. You can hide me there.”
Alice took the coins from her and examined them, letting out a low whistle. “Five pounds,” she said. “I thought you were deceiving me. I didn’t think I’d see a farthing from you.” She slid the coins into the purse at her wrist.
“Well,” said Anne. The trees cast long shadows in the moonlight, and Anne wished she could slink into them, hide herself, always self-serving, always putting herself first, ruthlessly ambitious, so quick to disregard the kindness of a stranger. What was wrong with her?
Alice sighed. “Well, indeed,” she said. “All right, we can sleep here for a few hours, then catch the morning carriage.”
Alice turned away from her and settled into a soft spot on the grass. Anne lay down beside her, badly wanting to apologize for her deception, for her harsh words. She held out a hand and touched Alice’s back.
“Don’t,” Alice said, swatting Anne’s hand away.