Chapter Twenty The Most Happy #2
Had Anne loved Henry, or had their marriage been a way for her to raise her family’s name, to rise to power herself?
Alice asked. Yes, she had loved him intensely.
When Anne had met Henry, he’d been handsome and strong, a hunter and an avid reader, someone who enjoyed the pleasures of life: a good game of cards, the chase of a beautiful woman, a glass of fine wine.
True, he was already married, but illegally so, and moreover his wife was at the change of life, aging out of her beauty and resigned to her chambers, unloving.
Anne had known of Henry’s reputation as a man with many mistresses—her own sister had been one—but with her Henry was different.
He wrote her passionate love letters. He read the books she’d recommended.
He’d waited and waited. Their first night together—Anne blushed thinking of it.
What did Alice do in the months she wasn’t in Southwark?
How did she occupy herself, and keep herself from slipping into the devil’s hands through idleness?
Alice laughed at this notion—“The devil’s hands?
What nonsense”—but then spoke freely of her life in the fens, of the liberty she enjoyed here.
She spoke of daydreaming by the water, of taking a boat out past the fens to the edge of the sea to watch the seals gather and play, of learning birdcalls, of playing chase with her children on the islands that dotted the marsh.
She spoke of happiness and pleasure, of splitting wood for a fire, of cozying up with her little ones and listening to her father spin a yarn, maybe a fairy tale, maybe a tale of the trickster Howleglas.
Had Anne noticed when she fell out of favor with the king?
Had she known her arrest was coming? No; until the end, Henry had professed his love for her, even on the morning before her arrest, as she slipped a flower inside his doublet before the May Day joust. Though they’d had a terrible row the night before, the worst of their marriage, though Henry had questioned her about Henry Norris, about dead men’s shoes, by morning he’d been warm and loving again.
She’d slipped the flower into his doublet and kissed his cheek before heading to the May Day celebrations.
He’d said he loved her. They’d been planning a trip to France.
She thought they would conceive another child there, another boy.
She had no idea the case he was building against her was almost complete.
How did Alice feel about working as a prostitute?
How did she keep from becoming pregnant?
Did lying with strange men bother her? No, Alice liked the power.
She got to choose the men she bedded, and the money she made was hers to spend as she wished.
She was a country girl dressed in finer gowns than she’d ever owned before she left the fens, and she got to buy her children toys and baubles, enough flour to make bread for the months she was home.
It was enough money to pay taxes to the crown, enough to keep her father out of debt, enough to set some aside.
She didn’t love the men, but she didn’t hate them either.
And the work was just a thing she did with her body, as a farmer might use his strength to work the land, or a seamstress her hands to work the needle.
The worst of it was spending time in the Clink Street Prison, which was dark and full of disease, and prone to flooding, and, worse still, ate away at her earnings, for a person had to pay for everything there, from the chains that bound their wrists and ankles, to their daily bread, to the cost of each night’s lodging, if you could call the cells that flooded at every high tide lodging.
But it was an unpleasantness that could mostly be avoided.
She’d long ago learned to keep extra money on herself, so she could bribe the jailer for a quick release, and now she rarely spent even a full night there.
There were herbs to take to keep from having a baby, and Alice kept track of her cycle using a technique Ethel had taught her, so she knew which days to avoid male company.
’Twas something all women should learn to do, in her opinion, for why should a woman be forced to have babe after babe?
Shouldn’t she have some say in her own life?
If there were herbs to take to prevent a baby, to bring on the blood of menstruation, and ways to count days so a man’s seed was less likely to take root, should a woman not be free to do so?
Anne knew some of these methods too, but, unlike Alice, she’d counted days to try to bring on pregnancy, and, although she knew where to get herbs to end a pregnancy, she’d never done so.
Did Anne know why the king had killed her?
She hadn’t really lain with all those men, with her own brother, had she?
No, of course not. Anne spoke a bit of Cromwell, the king’s powerful advisor, but, in truth, she didn’t think Cromwell had talked Henry into having her executed.
Henry didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do.
She had fallen from Henry’s favor, though he’d hidden it while he built his case against her, or had Cromwell do it for him.
She’d lost his son, and that was unforgiveable.
For the entirety of their lengthy courtship, she’d promised him, again and again, that she’d give him a prince, and then she’d let the prince slide out of her, too small to live.
And Henry—already exhausted from his first marriage, from the full married life he’d lived for twenty years with Katherine, from all the babes she’d borne who’d died, or whom she’d lost before they were born—Henry was too tired, too hungry for a son, to wait, to try again with Anne.
He wanted another wife, a purer wife, a younger wife.
He wanted Anne’s lady-in-waiting Jane, who smelled of milk and clean linen, who was well fed and compliant.
Henry’s problem with Anne, ultimately, was that she was herself—loud, bossy, stubborn, too smart for her own good, unable to shut her mouth for the love of God, and unable to bear a son.
Alice and Anne talked on and on. When the stars began to fade and the sky lightened at the horizon, Anne snuggled into Alice’s arms, her body weary, her eyelids heavy, and both women fell asleep.
—
In the morning they were woken by the children running out of the little hut and dancing playfully around them. Anne sat up and straightened her clothing, putting her hands up around the scar at her neck protectively.
“That won’t do,” said Alice, sitting up, too, and stretching into a yawn. “Let’s sew your collar back on.”
Anne followed her into the hut, where Ethel sat by the fire, stirring porridge in a large pot.
When Alice asked, Ethel fetched her sewing basket from beneath the bed.
Letting out a loud “Sweet Saint Anne, mother of Mary!” at the sight of Anne’s scar, Ethel nonetheless sewed the silk collar in place around Anne’s neck.
Perhaps she thinks he tried to slit my throat, Anne thought. Not far from the truth.
“Your husband must be a brute,” Ethel said, spitting on the floor in disgust.
“Yes, madam,” replied Anne, “he is.” And though she’d thought she had cried all her tears the night before, even more slid down her cheeks.
Ethel went back to the porridge, and Alice went down to the river with the children.
She’d taken her boots off so she could splash in the muddy river’s edge with them, and placed them just inside the door of the hut.
Anne dug in her bodice for the jewels she’d stolen from the Tower, pulling out the ruby ring and onyx pendant, leaving the sapphire diadem for Elizabeth, should she reach her.
Ruby for Alice, whose copper-colored hair was fiery and splendid, and onyx for Anne, whose auburn hair was so dark it was sometimes mistaken for black.
She slipped the two jewels into Alice’s left boot.
Something for her to remember Anne by, or something for her to sell and live off, if Anne never came back.
Prostitution didn’t bother Alice, but it bothered Anne that Alice had to leave her idyllic fens to do it, that she had to leave her children, and Anne suspected that, given the choice, Alice would prefer not to keep the company of strange men.
Anne walked out the door of the hut and smiled at Alice, playing happily with the children.
George, who had been fishing on the other side of the island that morning, had returned and joined them in their play.
Alice smiled and waved Anne over. “Join us!” she sang out.
“Take off your slippers and have some fun, my lady.” How badly Anne wanted to do so.
How badly she wanted to join Alice at play, not just now but always. How badly she wanted to stay.
She couldn’t.
She walked over to Alice and took her hand, pulling her to the side of the hut, out of sight and hearing of the children. Alice kissed her, and Anne closed her eyes and gave in to her embrace, for a moment, before pulling away.
“I must go,” Anne whispered, though she didn’t want to, though it pained her to say it.
“No,” said Alice. “Stay.”
“I must go,” said Anne. “I must find Henry. I need to protect Elizabeth. I need to help my daughter.” This was all true, but none of it eased Anne’s pain at leaving.
Alice looked hurt for a moment; then her expression softened.
“I know. But how will you?” she asked. “He is the king, and you are a dead woman walking. What can you do? Stay here with me. We could spend our days together. My father could build us a home on an island where we could live with Martha and Robert. You could learn to fish and be merry. Surely your daughter will be safe under the protection of her own father.”
“No,” said Anne. “You don’t know him. She’s not safe.
He’ll cast her out, declare her a bastard, who knows what else.
” Anne paused, wary to speak aloud the violence and treason of what she’d been planning, but then deciding to.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to sneak into Whitehall Palace, and I’m going to kill him. ”
Alice fell silent. “My lady,” she said at last. “No. ’Tis a crime to even mention the king’s death, let alone to try to kill him. And in your state? You’ll be caught and captured. You’ll be killed.”
“Alice,” Anne replied. “Alice, I’m already dead.
What else can they do to me?” Though Anne knew there was plenty that could be done to her, to this body that refused to die, or, God forbid, to Elizabeth, to her young body, if Anne were caught.
She took Alice’s hand. “You do not know what strength lies inside me. My time is coming. I can feel it. Why else was I brought back from death? I must go. I must save her.”
Alice nodded, though she was crying. “I don’t want you to go,” said Alice. “But I see how a mother’s love drives you. I, of all people, can understand that.”
“You could join me,” Anne whispered, though she knew Alice couldn’t, wouldn’t leave her children, or her fen, and that she didn’t want her to.
She didn’t want to pull Alice away from her home, from the hut filled with loving souls, waiting to welcome her into community, from the wild beauty of this landscape.
Let one good thing stand. Let one good thing stay in this wretched world.
“No, you know I can’t,” Alice spoke, softly.
Then, with resolve, “We will fetch George. We will tell him to take you out of the fens today. My lady,” Alice added, “protect yourself.” She tore a ribbon from the sleeve of her gown and tucked it in Anne’s bodice, lingering for a moment with her hand upon Anne’s breast. “To remember me by,” she whispered, before kissing Anne one last time, then marching to the river to fetch George.