Chapter Twenty-Four The Witch
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Witch
Anne thrashed her head, attempting to dislodge the man’s hand. As her hood slid to the side, she could see the man was Simon. His breath stank of alcohol and his eyes were glassy.
“Hold still, you vile whore!” he demanded, his voice barely above a whisper. Anne supposed he didn’t want to wake his fellow campers, who might not look kindly on his violating the wandering woman they’d taken in with promises of safety.
Anne squirmed beneath him, but his weight was heavy.
He straddled her body, pinning her arms down with his legs.
“Get off me,” she mouthed into his hand, glaring at him.
Her eyes shot to the campfire, which had burned down to embers in the night.
The men slept soundly around it, kept in a deep slumber by exhaustion and wine.
Above them, the full moon shone through the leaves of trees, casting a pale light.
“I just want to see,” Simon said. “I want to see if you’re the great whore.” With his free hand, he began to claw at the silk collar around her neck. A few of the stitches Ethel had sewn popped. This encouraged Simon, who pulled harder, using both hands to pry at the collar.
“Get off of me!” Anne shouted. Then, “Help! Help!” She could see a few of the bodies around the campfire shift.
Where was Zeus? She wished she’d tied him up closer to her.
From a few yards away, the bull snorted.
Anne tipped her head back. She could see the beast tugging against his rope, head down, horns forward.
She clucked her tongue, calling him to her.
The bull tugged harder against his rope, straining against the trunk of the tree, which creaked and moaned.
The rope rubbed against the tree’s rough bark, where, Anne imagined, it must be starting to fray.
Simon didn’t seem to notice; he was busy pulling at her collar.
She turned her face toward the campfire. “Help!” she called again. Simon struck her, hard, against her cheek. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Shut your hole!” he spat. “I must see. I must see if you’re her, if you’re the dead queen.
” He yanked harder at her collar, which gave way, finally tearing from her neck.
Simon yanked his hands away at the sight of Anne’s scar.
In his surprise he sat back, his weight heavy on her hips. She stared at him, her anger rising.
“Look what you did, you sodden-witted bag of guts,” she said. “Look.”
“I—” began Simon, but he didn’t finish his sentence. He reached a hand down and ran a dirty finger over the thick pink scar. She hated the feel of it, this criminal’s hand on her most intimate mark.
“What did you think you were going to find?” Anne demanded. She could hear Zeus huff and strain against his tether. If she could keep Simon talking, surely the bull would break free and come to her aid.
Simon sat silent, transfixed by the scar. When he found his words, he said, “I want a ransom.”
“Excuse me?” Anne asked. “Do I look like I have money? I’m the living ghost of the dead queen, with only the gown on my back and a single bull as my companion. Where do you suppose I keep my purse?”
“Others will pay for you,” spoke Simon. He dug his knees harder into Anne’s arms. She could feel bruises forming there.
“The king’s men. They’ll pay to have you arrested so they can kill you again, so they can burn you as a witch, for who else but a witch could come back from the dead?
” Simon turned his attention to her bodice, pulling at its front.
“I’ll check you for a witch’s mark. My mother told me witches have a brand on their bellies, put there by the devil, so they can nurse their demon offspring. ”
Anne panicked. The diadem she was saving for Elizabeth and the last of the coins she’d stolen from the Tower mint were in her bodice.
She didn’t want this greedy, drunken criminal to get them.
She wished Alice were here with her dagger, fast reflexes, and bravery, with her strength.
Though Alice wouldn’t have been foolish enough to make camp with a band of strange men in the forest.
Anne tipped her head back again, clucking to the bull, who tugged harder at his rope. Simon freely stuck his hands into Anne’s bodice, his rough fingers scratching against her breasts.
“Aha!” he shouted, pulling out a pound. “My ransom!”
By now several men had risen from the fire and were walking toward them to see what the commotion was.
“She’s the dead queen!” Simon shouted to them. “She’s the dead queen and a witch and I’ve found money in her bosoms!”
“What?” shouted one of the men, looking on in horror at the scene before him. Anne saw the friar fall to his knees and cross himself, aghast.
“I’m telling you she’s the dead queen, come back to haunt this good country!” Simon shouted.
“You’re mad,” replied one of the men from the fire. “And drunk.”
Anne clucked her tongue again and the bull strained harder against his rope.
“The bull!” another of the men from the campfire shouted. “ ’Tis about to break its tether!”
Simon looked over at the beast just as the rope snapped and the bull charged toward him.
He scampered off Anne and ran toward the river.
The bull chased him, darting between trees with impressive agility.
Anne rose and brushed the dirt off her back, tried to straighten and retighten her bodice, to tuck her treasures back into it.
She grabbed her collar from the ground, shook it to dislodge the bits of dead leaf that clung to it, this swaddling cloth, this link to her daughter.
Elizabeth, she thought. Elizabeth. She needed to get out of here so that she could help Elizabeth.
At the riverbank, the bull caught up to Simon and stabbed one of his long horns into the man’s bowels.
Simon screamed in terror and pain. The bull threw the man into the air with a flick of his powerful head.
For a moment, Simon arced upward, as though he had taken flight, then he fell, landing in the river, his head smashing against a large river rock.
In the moonlight, all could see his limp body, face down, bleeding from the head and stomach, lifeless.
The bull huffed and pawed at the ground, turning to look at the men around the fire, who stood petrified.
Anne saw her chance. “Don’t move,” she said. “Or he’ll strike again.” The men looked at her. She could feel their eyes linger on her scar, on whatever they could see of it in the moonlight.
She clucked her tongue to call the bull back to her. He trotted over obediently. These men can see who I am, she thought. Simon had announced it, and they could see the scar on her neck. There was no use trying to lie or hide. But they were afraid, and she could use that to her advantage.
“I am the dead queen,” she proclaimed, loudly, to the men. And when they stared at her, dumbstruck, unmoving, “Well, bow down to your queen, before I set my beast upon you too.”
The men fell to their knees, bowing their heads, a few muttering “Sorry, madam,” or “Your Majesty.”
Anne knew she needed to flee the camp. She had these men in her thrall at the moment, but there were more of them than her, and Simon was right that the dead queen resurrected would fetch any one of them a high price.
She put a hand on the bull’s withers, and as though he’d been trained to do so, he bent down.
She stood on her tiptoes, hiked her skirts, threw one leg over the beast’s broad back, and settled herself there.
The bull rose. The rope that had tied him to the tree still hung around his neck.
Anne took it up, like a rein. She clucked her tongue and the bull took a few steps forward.
She took a last look at the men, bowed down before her.
“If you follow me,” she said, “I’ll curse you so your privy members shrivel and fall off.”
Then she kicked the bull in the flanks with both heels and galloped into the woods.
—
Anne had always been a strong rider. She’d ridden as a child at Hever Castle.
All three Boleyn children had. She’d chased George around the castle grounds, each child on their own pony.
Hers had been named Cinnamon, for her chestnut-colored coat and mane.
Anne’s auburn hair, lighter in childhood, had been only a shade different from the pony’s, so when riding her she’d looked like she was somehow related to her, like she was her human foal.
George’s pony was white and he’d called him George, after himself.
In this way, they’d each been twinned in their small steeds.
They’d galloped through woods and meadows, practicing jumping over small brooks and downed trees, scaring foxes out of their dens.
In France, she’d been called la chasseuse, “the huntress,” for her agility on a steed and her adeptness at sport.
She’d felled many a deer and could shoot her bow from the back of her mount, gripping the animal with her strong thighs to hold herself steady as she drew back the bowstring and aimed.
And of course, with Henry she had hunted frequently.
It had been one of their shared pastimes.
He loved that she was as skilled as he at riding and hunting, though she had to be careful not to outshine him.
She had to intentionally miss shots so that the king himself might pierce the chest or neck of a buck, whom his servants would then chase down through the woods and slaughter.
She had to slow her pace on her steed so as not to outrun him.
She had to come in second, always. All this she was willing to do because Henry was her king and her lord, because he professed to love her, because, together, they were changing the course of the history of England, prying it loose from the decadent, greedy hands of Rome.
And because after a hunt, they would fall into bed, exhilarated, and give in to passion.