Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (7 page)

Eventually the circle of women all died or
left, or lost influence without the support of the ones who were
gone, and my social position became sound. I was drawn into the
society around me by earnest friendship from some who did not know
I should be spurned, and had no one to tell them so. Furthermore,
my sexual experience would have had no bearing on their opinion of
me, and a rape such as mine would have been greeted with a shrug.
With the coronation of Francis I, the court overnight became like a
brothel where virtually all participated and few condemned.

It was in France that I learned to make a man
keep his distance. It was in that environment of lascivious
pleasures that I first learned to respond to men with sudden,
quicksilver escapes, and where I first issued the charming and
teasing refusals that later drove Henry to near-madness. Through
the years, and in the midst of constant assaults against my virtue,
I feared and hated the sex act too much to succumb willingly. Lest
I be called upon to participate unwillingly, I took the greatest
pains to never walk the halls alone.

Throughout, I made the time endurable by
counting days, and while in France learned much that later proved
useful in making me a polished and educated lady of the court. I
hurled myself into my music, and practiced as if possessed by
demons. I had the greatest admiration for the mannerisms and styles
of the French and adopted them fully, learning fluent French and
potent feminine wiles. From the experience I learned to be as
charming as the French, and more charming than most women in the
English court. It was my duty to learn these things, and I was ever
the dutiful child.

My parents were not displeased with my
progress when I returned to them in 1522 grown, educated, more
attractive than they had hoped, and impressively honed. I was
inwardly battered as well. It settled in the corners of my mouth,
and when I was not being watched, in my eyes.

۞

At this, my memories search even further
back, and I see that this life just past was not the first.
Somewhere within me I must have always known this, for these
ancient memories are as familiar to me as Henry’s face. They play a
part in the work I am performing now. I must sort out my entire
history to understand the tapestry I have woven and to prepare for
the work ahead.

How I came to be Anne is a lengthy story that
does not bear telling. Some things, however, seem more important
than others and I see these first.

In France, there was considerable importance
placed upon the ability of a woman to attract a man. I learned the
lessons easily. On viewing this, I suddenly see myself in Egypt
three millennia before, a common prostitute. I was already
knowledgeable in the art of luring men so I effortlessly absorbed
the lessons taught in France, and even surpassed them. From this
combined background I became a woman who seemed to possess great
beauty, though I had very little. Poetry and songs were written for
and about me. Men swarmed about me, then stuttered and blushed in
my presence. I had countless compliments, yet some knew I was
plain.
I
knew I was plain. Henry, however, did not. He
thought I was of astonishing beauty, always, and through him, I
almost believed it myself.

I see an injury to my husband forced me to
the streets. He could no longer earn a living to feed us and our
children, and would not go out and beg. I went out and begged in
his place, and found that men were not often willing to give me
alms without something in return. I was young and comely, and the
offers came frequently. Less frequently came the pittances I earned
from pleading for food for my babies.

One day out of weariness and desperation, I
accepted an offer and pocketed the payment. I did it again, and
then again. The alternative was starvation. Sometimes a choice is
as simple as that. In England one became a wife or a nun. In Egypt,
one became a wife or a whore and if the husband was shiftless or
crippled or dead, one could live as both. Choices were limited.

In Egypt, I developed a cynical, bawdy wit,
and came to enjoy raucous gatherings of many people. I learned to
play music for the first time in order to entertain my customers,
and I learned to flirt. I came away with a defiant, stubborn
resolve to accept no gifts of any kind from men for, hating the
life and having put it past me, I was too proud to go back, and so
viewed gifts from men, no matter how innocent, as an insult. I also
learned to be ashamed, and to feel myself less valuable than
others, and to question my own worth. Lastly and most importantly,
I developed a vicious tongue.

I missed a lesson in Egypt. There was much I
might have gained from that life, and the most important lesson was
to not judge others for their choices or circumstances. I moved on
to the next life and failed the test. Having rid my own self of the
stigma of the working girl, I chose to place myself above and
separate from women who were moving through that same experience. I
also judged those who either committed adultery or were accused of
it. I chose to be superior and to scorn them, and would usually be
in the midst of the crowd of stone-throwers when more “virtuous”
women attacked those who were less so.

Throughout three subsequent lives, I was
tested. Each time, I had the choice to forgive or to judge and each
time the debt accumulated. As the devoutly religious wife of a
village leader in the last of these three lifetimes, I encouraged
my husband to prosecute and punish women for their sexual
indiscretions. I argued that their actions were against the will of
God. It was also against local law, in that place, that women be
unchaste. I leapt upon each accusation I heard, and saw that guilt
was proven on the basis of suspicion and hearsay as much as on
fact.

During that particular lifetime, and in that
place, it was written that adulterers be cast out with stones and
forced from the village. The punishments I urged were more severe
and, safe in my position of power and righteousness, I created
extreme public humiliation, embarrassment, distress, ruined
families and ruined lives for several women.

For one woman, the punishment was death. She
was guilty but this does not matter. What matters is what I felt in
my heart as I watched her die. I felt vicious self-satisfaction,
feeling I had pleased God and proven my own greater worth.

If administering lawful punishment is ever
sinful, it is one’s heart more than one’s actions that make it so.
The sin comes from finding pleasure in issuing the sentence, or
from doling out punishment beyond the law because it pleases one to
do so. Punishment is a solemn duty. It is not an amusement, or a
triumph, or a means to stake out personal vengeance, and yet I had
made it so.

I should have had more tolerance, not less,
and was to be taught the lesson once more, as Anne. If I failed to
learn it that time, I would be shown again in increasingly more
difficult circumstances until I finally came to understand that I
must show mercy toward everyone, including those who indulge in
behavior that prompts my disapproval. I may not pass judgment even
if I believe God is in concurrence with me.

“Judge not that ye not be judged,” are the
words I hear now. “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be
judged and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you
again.”

My personal feelings, I am reminded sharply,
are of no consequence in the final judgment, which is God’s alone,
and I do not speak for Him. Imposing my disapproval onto others
only succeeds in bringing it back upon myself. Invoking His name as
I do so is blasphemy.

In this manner, I wove my own death and the
events that preceded it.

I see that I already knew Henry in Egypt.

There are snippets of sights and sounds
forcing themselves into my thoughts, and in these I see that I have
been tied to Henry since far beyond Egypt . . . since beyond
memory. I cannot find the beginning of it.

He is always there.

There he is most recently, a crying child, a
small boy and I am dying—his mother—and he wails in terror when I
pass, shaking me to force sight into my open eyes. Who will take
care of me? Where do I go? Screams that make me shudder with grief
for him echo in my thoughts. I did not mean to abandon the child,
yet he has been seared and scarred by my abandonment. I see the
scars I left in him.

Mercifully, I was sent to retrieve him soon
afterward as the Black Plague spread and made a victim of him as
well, unfed, uncared for and alone amid corpses and chaos. Ah, yes
of course, I know of this now. It is so much a part of me, how
could I forget? How could I not have recognized that terrified
child in Henry? His love for me was not, at first, the love of a
man for a woman. It was the desperate need of an ill and orphaned
little boy for his mother, and I did not see that in my
forgetfulness. I see it now. He pursued me and obsessed over me as
only a lost child could or would. I see it all.

The memories move me back through time. I see
us performing together for an audience, scooping up coins and
bowing to the applause.

Earlier, we are tied in marriage to each
other’s siblings, unhappily forced apart although we feel a violent
attraction.

Further back, our most recent roles are
reversed. I am his mistress, minor royalty, and he is my servant—a
slave—and this amuses me. Still remembering his “place” and mine
from that previous lifetime, remembering me as “Mother” later on
and as an equal partner in a number of other lives, he found it
difficult, as Henry VIII, to understand that I was now beneath him
and not worthy of a king. He also found it difficult to silence me,
or to patronize me, or to ignore me when I spoke. I found it just
as hard to hold my tongue or to lower myself before him or any of
the others, in spite of my inferior lineage and their
unquestionable power. He could not make me mind him, poor
Henry.

I see humor in it all, and for a second want
to share it with him. Only Henry would laugh as well, or at least
the Henry I knew in the beginning. I miss him. Even in my anger and
hatred, I miss “that” Henry.

I see so much.

Beyond that, I see we are tested more
rigorously. There are marriages where one or the other is infirm,
and the healthy partner assumes the role of caretaker. There are
lives where we are sworn enemies due to tribal loyalties. There are
lives that place us in destitution, squalor and anger, and lives
where we each cannot stomach the other because of some grievance or
another. When we hate each other, we hate with strong passion. It
comes, I see, and it goes. I see also that, even in the worst of
these situations, we have still chosen to be together, and always
manage to find a way to bring it about. We have a stronger need to
be together, even fighting and hating, than we have to be at peace,
apart.

We always meet somehow, and sometimes clash,
but we are always drawn.

We are not drawn by preference. Hatred and
love are interchangeable cousins, and each of these has carved an
impression on our souls. In the carving we became bound, and with
each successive life, the bond grows stronger. What we can never do
is avoid or ignore each other for, in being bound we can choose to
postpone our pairings, or we can separate after meeting once we
have handled our business, but we cannot choose to never meet.
There will always be circumstances that place us in each other’s
path, accidental meetings, coincidental events. We will almost
always inhabit a place upon the earth when the other is also there,
just as we always have.

We marry in most of these recollections. We
are usually married. Sometimes he is my parent or I am his.
Sometimes we are siblings. Sometimes we are each the opposite
gender, sometimes we are the same gender, but our usual bond is
that of marriage. He is my soul mate. There are such things, and he
is mine. There are bonds stronger than death or marriage vows, and
we are bound in such a way. I would rather not hear this or know
it, but the knowledge comes to me, and I resign myself to it
unhappily. I once would have felt great joy.

Thus far, we have always forgiven and moved
passed it. We will not be together again, I find, until I can
forgive him once more, and he in turn can learn to control his
fearsome temper. To meet before then would bring further damage to
us both.

“Is he not damned?” I ask hotly and with a
small amount of hope. “I should think I would have no reason to
meet him again at all.”

The Voice speaks again: “He deserves your
forgiveness.”

I am very, very angry. I do not want to
forgive. I cannot forgive, just as I cannot stop loving him. I am
changed because of his cruelty and need to heal if I am ever to
forgive. I must forgive because it is Law and I am as bound to the
Law as anyone, but I will require lifetimes away from him before I
am ready, and it seems a hard task.

In the meantime, I want never to see that
life again or think of that place and time or be reminded, and yet
I must because the memories crowd inside me. It is what I must do.
I vow that when I finish, I will place it all behind me, and never
ever look back again. England is a dark and haunted place to me,
and the era when I lived one that will have no appeal even after I
reappear on earth and forget the reason I recoil.

Time passes, how much I cannot say, and I am
still here, forced to watch and examine. It is a long and painful
process.

•
~
۞
~•

All three of us had exceptional minds and a
quick grasp of most concepts, but as females, Mary and I were first
painstakingly tutored as proper ladies of a certain station, then
dismissed as having thoughts of no consequence. We were taught that
God had created us for no reason other than to breed and serve men,
and we accepted it as one accepts the world one is born to. My
thoughts, however, begged for release. My tongue was a quiver, and
each opinion I held was an eager arrow in search of its target.