Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (6 page)

Henry intended to keep his end of the bargain
(with hopeful plans to persuade her against it if he could possibly
manage it). He was a meticulously honorable man in his way. I give
him that. Not many a king would have given weight to a manipulative
promise he made to a mere woman when so much was at stake. The
royal princess in a marriageable state was of the highest value to
him in political negotiations. Most would have simply ordered her
to marry, sold her off and been done with it. Yet he gave her
permission to marry the man she loved because he was a man of honor
and had given his word, and because her tears had torn at his
heart.

King Louis of France had not planned to
support a score of English ladies, nor did it please him to do so,
so he ordered most of our gaunt, unhappy party back on a ship to
England immediately upon our arrival. Mary and I, however,
remained. Then, after his death, the princess was married once
again (in secret in the event Henry changed his mind and withdrew
his approval; Henry howled with outrage upon learning of the
elopement, and of and his sister’s distrust and betrayal), this
time with joy both during the ceremony and in the years to come.
She returned to England with the rest of the young ladies who had
made the journey with her.

However, Mary and I were
still
to
remain in France. It was an “honor” we were told, bestowed upon us
because of the invaluable service of our father to Henry. We became
full-fledged members of the French court.

On the one hand, I was spared the Channel
crossing. On the other, I disliked France, and had done so from the
day I stepped stinking and wretched off the ship and set my shaky
foot upon her soil. I would eventually grow to love it there, but
my initial reaction was dismay and despair.

From that first day when we were installed at
the palace, our guardians “protected” us from the reality of life
in the French court with strict rules, endless religious tomes and
moral lectures. These teachings were markedly different from the
behavior I observed among the French courtiers.

The people at court were shrill, catty and
innately boorish beneath their sophisticated social polish,
treating young English ladies as bumpkins, or as sexual toys. We
were sometimes the butt of humor we did not understand, which made
the men laugh and the women glare at us, and were sometimes groped
or followed by courtiers who found the stalking of us great
sport.

This worsened with the death of Louis and the
coronation of Francis I, for this new king took part in the sport
himself and led much of the misbehavior.

For me, it was a frightening place among
people strange to me, seemingly all wild people following the
example of a wild and decadent king. It became a living hell when I
was caught in the hunt. I wanted nothing more than to go home. I
ached with it. I often thought of England at night and wept, for
years, but I adapted over time as I was young and had no choice in
the matter. My hints in frequent letters went ignored.

Under the strict religious teachings I
absorbed with great drama, heartfelt emotion and romantic intent, I
may well have become a nun, except for the rapes. I did not speak
of them, but carried a scar on my neck where the miserable jackal
cut me with his knife as I fought. When I whispered to someone the
name of the man who had caused the wound, she made the need for
secrecy clear to me and all who tended me. Hence, news of it went
no further. The very few who knew the truth explained that I was
abed with a fever, not a wound, then sharply warned me to cover my
neck. I received a “gift” of an unfashionable wide choker necklace,
and orders to wear it. I wanted no one to know, and willingly
complied.

I henceforth took to wearing high collars or
wide bands of cloth or metal around my neck to hide the scar and to
deflect questions about its source. When asked, I said I had a mole
I wished to cover. History has kept my secret for me, although the
mole has since grown to “large” and “disfiguring” (It is ever
irksome to hear about yourself as relayed by persons who do not
know, or whose intentions are to discredit you). In time the scar
faded, but I still wore the neckbands because I still saw the scar
there, large and red, even after others could not see it there at
all.

He came back several times and had me. In a
matter of weeks I lost the solidity of my religious faith, for
where was God? I still held tight to the vestiges of belief,
particularly as they pertained to Hell, and read the Bible with a
driving desperation, pulling apart the words in an effort to find
evidence that my soul was not entirely lost. However, I had no
further desire to become a nun, even had the damage been reversible
and I been made physically whole again. Now despoiled and no longer
worthy of God, I concentrated on the art of making engaging
conversation in two languages, and of becoming attractive to men.
If one is not a nun, one must become a wife, and my focus turned
from the one ambition to the other.

Still, for years I saw the scenes during
sleepless nights, replaying the attacks and imagining myself
fighting harder and killing him. I twisted the bedclothes and
gritted my teeth. My blood surged with fury and murderous thoughts
and my soul writhed with hatred and vengeance. With all my other
failings, I now had to suffer guilt for having allowed a man to be
with me in that way, and for fantasizing his manhood painfully
severed and removed. I did not confess these thoughts to a priest
as I might have once. I knew without asking for forgiveness that
neither the priest nor God would forgive me, for the man in
question was one over whom I would surely burn in Hell.

I hated my own impotence most of all. I had
had no choice for a number of reasons, his knife among them.
However, the sin—in my mind—was my own. He called me horrible names
and told me the fault was entirely mine, and I believed him because
I did not know otherwise, and because a man such as he can only
speak the truth. He beat me about the face, and always had the tip
of his knife at my throat. Still, I should have stopped him. I
should have been able to run. I should not have been tempting to
him, somehow.

I fully expected harsh punishment for these
events and my thoughts about them and, throughout my life, I
dreaded facing Judgment. I find instead that I am not to be
punished at all. Here I find that the murderous thoughts were not
sinful; they were born of trauma and pain, and were a natural
progression of healing. I did not nurture them, nor did I act upon
them. I did the best I could, and that is all that is ever asked.
The act itself was indeed a severely punishable sin but the sin, I
am reassured, had never been mine just as Mary had always known.
Not mine . . . I wish I had believed it in life.

The horror ceased for me when I had my first
menses. He chose that time to come to me, lifted my skirts, saw,
and twisted his face with contempt and disgust. He left me unharmed
and turned instead to a little maid of 10 years, never forcing me
again. Still he touched me for the rest of my life, and his actions
led me down a path to my death.

Ah, but he might have killed me sooner. He
would, in a sense, be my killer either way.

Except for those who were present the first
time, only Mary knew about my “visitor”. Our parents did not know,
for action on their part, even had they dared take action, would
have had serious repercussions. They received no word of it from my
hosts, and neither Mary nor I was eager to enlighten them. There
was the obvious shame. I had a strong desire to protect myself from
the judgment and scrutiny of others, and from the fury my mother
would have aimed toward me for letting it happen.

Ill-fortune carries with it a stench and
leaves a wide berth around its victims. Understandably, considering
the undeniable stench of rape, there was little sympathy
forthcoming from the small knot of ladies who had tended me after
the first one. A woman who was raped deserved no sympathy, for it
was still fornication in the eyes of God, and the victim’s fault
not the man’s. Men could not be severely faulted, for they were not
built to withstand temptations of the flesh, as women were. Far
worse were raped children, who were an abomination for having
tempted God-fearing men into performing beastly acts. The women
viewed me as sent by the devil. My deformed finger did not soften
the sincerity of their conviction.

Their inclination was to distance themselves
and to be cold and sharp toward me. I had caught the eye of a man
they secretly knew had unspeakable tastes and needed no act of
seduction to tempt him into performing unnatural acts with a child.
However, they had to take sides. Even had they felt inclined to
pity me, they preferred to side with the influential and the
powerful against the weak, for it was more advantageous to their
ambitions. Sympathy toward me would demand self-examination and the
questioning of their values, with the discomfort that brings. Their
hearts were not large enough to withstand that kind of
scrutiny.

They conveniently forgot the circumstances in
a very short time, and sternly viewed me as a teller of tales and a
seducer of priests. They convinced themselves this was true, for to
believe otherwise would require action on their part—or guilt if
they took no action—and risk to themselves. Rather than suffer a
conflict of conscience versus self-promotion and advancement in
court, they reported me as a troublemaker and revoked a good deal
of the little freedom I had. In the meantime, they smiled and
curtseyed and simpered before my attacker, made his way clear for
other attacks, and averted their eyes when he prowled the
halls.

There were a few outcasts like me among the
young ladies of the court, and our numbers grew. I did not know the
reason for it, then. Our chaperones gave very generalized
explanations for why we were unacceptable socially, or else
amplified our minor infractions. They discouraged unblemished young
ladies from associating with us lest we prove a bad influence,
though their true motive, hidden even from themselves, was to
prevent us from confiding to the other young ladies on the subject
of the rapist.

The outcasts did not have the desire to seek
solace among each other, for none knew the others had experienced
the same outrage. We feared that our own stench would grow through
association with those who were also ostracized, so we suffered in
isolation, stripped not only of our virtue, our God and our faith,
but of our friends and our trust. We each struggled to regain
acceptance from the majority by rejecting each other. We each
thought we were the only one.

Only Mary tended me afterwards each time, and
made excuses for my having to remain bedridden until the injuries
healed. Mary was, as always, very careful about appearances in
front of our chaperones. In public she disassociated herself from
me and spoke to me coldly, but in private she did as she pleased. I
was extremely fortunate to have had her, for there were others with
no one at all. One of these eventually took her own life.

Mary was more knowledgeable than I in matters
of men and women. She had taken pains to learn all she could and
did not think I was at fault.

“The scurvy, bloody serpent,” she spat each
time I came to her, shaking and bleeding, four times in all. “The
bloody pig,” she swore. “‘Tis not thy sin, dearest. He will burn
for it.”

“‘Tis blasphemy to speak so, about a man of
the cloth,” I whispered through chattering teeth. “He is chosen by
God.”

“I think
not
,” Mary hissed. “He doth
perform the devil’s work in God’s name is all. Thou hast been
ofttimes warned of such as he.” She pressed a cold cloth into my
hand and told me to lift my skirts and apply it to myself. I did
and winced. “In sooth, he is the devil himself in disguise,” she
continued. “How better for the devil to hide himself, than as a
proclaimed man of God? Methinks there is no better strategy.”

Touched again by the devil, I knew not what
to think about the state of my immortal soul. I knew I must be
careful to preserve what little I had left in preparation for the
time when I was to face God’s judgment. I was well and truly
frightened.

“’Tis
not thy sin
, Nan,” Mary snapped
through tight lips. “Give it not another thought.” Then she leaned
over and tightly held me for a long moment. We both started to
weep.

Despite the sorrow my situation brought her,
Mary happily adapted to the lifestyle in France. She was not averse
to the gropings and stalkings, and had learned to piously slip past
our chaperones and meet with young men in the far chambers. It
became her favorite diversion, and she did this while retaining a
reputation of chastity in the early years. I did not know for
certain if she was chaste, for she did not offer details, nor did I
ask or want to know. Either way, she appeared to be chaste, and for
a time I believed her to be so. She ever had the ability to wear
Virtue like a cape, just as she had as a child, until the cape
became too tattered to cover her and she landed, quite publicly, in
the bed of King Francis himself. At that point, I could not help
but know.

As for myself, I made the best of things and
passed my days. When, in the very earliest months, the old King
Louis had died and Mary Tudor had prepared for her return to
England, I thought I saw an escape and a reprieve, but found my
father’s earnest efforts and appointment as Ambassador had chained
me for years to come. I was tolerated by the persons in the French
court for his sake and for the sake of my sister who, as ever, had
charmed all within her circle. I even had official position there,
grudgingly given to me for diplomatic reasons and with great show,
but without sincere good wishes.