The Other Side of Anne (4 page)

Avery wanted to laugh. The modern man was dressed like an old-time man, and the old-time woman
wore modern clothes.

Avery found the remote control. He paused the DVD and flipped to the “Modern-Time Photos” section in the file. Charles had not disappointed. The first photo was aptly named: “First Photo, Taken Two Seconds After TT2’s arrival in 2008.”

Well. Well. Most of the eyewitness descriptions had been correct, but Anne was not wearing the—Avery stopped himself. Anne was retrieved two and a half hours before her execution. Plenty of time to modify her final outfit. Avery flipped through the rest of the photos, noting the not-ideal state of Anne’s teeth when she arrived and resisting the urge to linger on Anne’s dark, mysterious, compelling eyes. He was violating her privacy enough already.

Avery continued the video interview.

“Your Majesty,” Charles said, curtsying with his head and affecting a British accent.

Anne smiled back uncertainly. She did not show her teeth.

“Tell me who you are,” Charles continued.

Anne swallowed. “Anne Boleyn Tudor. Is that correct?” Avery had to replay the words several times. Even with
his discriminating ear, Anne was hard to understand. Her modern English speaking skills had progressed immensely.

“Anne Boleyn Tudor is your name, so yes, as we discussed. If you do not understand me, stop me. Okay?” Charles said.

“I will.”

“I will stop you also, if I do not understand.”

Anne nodded.

“What happened this morning, Your Majesty? In 1536?”

“I heard your voice. I perceived a light of the most glory and entered it with you.”

Charles grinned encouragingly. “Let’s go back a bit. You are married, correct? To the king of England.”

“Yes.”

“Do you love His Majesty?”

“His Majesty is a most goodly prince.”

“Is that your true belief?
Speak your mind. We will not punish you.”

“Am I a witch?” Anne whispered, her eyes large and round.

Charles laughed. “My dear queen, you are no witch. Answer the question. Did you love your husband?
Do
you?”

Mandy had
used to volunteer at shelters for battered women. Avery went with her once. That was enough. Too depressing. He preferred the comfort and sameness of old documents, of hard-to-read English. He hated the look in the battered women’s eyes, the same look in Anne’s eyes on the television. Anne Boleyn had not been battered in the traditional sense, but she had been abused sure enough. Her father and uncle practically put her out to hang, her husband killed her brother and four of her friends, was going to kill her, and now this strange man with this strange voice who was probably a devil claimed she would not be punished if—but she would be punished. Why would she not be?

“I love His Majesty,” Anne said, her voice quavering. She was lying, and Avery stopped the video. Charles had approached Anne all wrong. Benjamin Franklin’s retrieval
had gone smoothly and surpassed Charles’s wildest expectations. No doubt Benjamin was thrilled to find himself in modern times and had waxed eloquent about his life.

However, Anne Boleyn was not Benjamin Franklin. Enough of this crap.

Anne made a point to note the time Avery fled: two-fifteen p.m., a Saturday. Avery had stayed five minutes. Time, so scarce to Anne in 1536, was her friend now. Not the vague concept of time, but concrete red time, the numbers on her digital clock. Reassuring red time, ones and twos and threes and fours and fives and sixes and sevens and eights and nines. These numbers helped keep her sane and grounded. These numbers helped her measure.

What to make of her captor’s son?
Avery Franklin certainly was handsome; Bella’s pictures denied him justice. Avery was the kind of man whom back in Tudor England, Anne would have despised or been secretly in love with, and covered it up by despising him.

Anne, her first year here,
read both of Avery’s books. She had read many, many Tudor books. She had also viewed Tudor films and television shows. Charles, Benjamin and Bella wanted her to, and Anne agreed. Picking her battles. If nothing else, the books, movies and shows helped her pick up modern English. Her captors hoped she would comment on what she read or saw, make some remark. Anne did not. Again, picking her battles. The books, the poor pitiful ignorant books. And they were better than the movies and shows! The books got much wrong, and they were bare bones, scratching the surface as if only the surface existed. What the books got right…Anne particularly hated reading about her stepdaughter, Mary, known to the world now as the namesake of the alcoholic drink Bloody Mary. Anne had been horrid to Mary. Anne had been petty, jealous, vindictive, and Mary died a wretch, unhappy, no doubt realizing that the swollen tumor in her stomach was not her long-awaited child and that her non-Catholic half-sister, the witch’s daughter, would be queen.

Elizabeth
...Elizabeth.

Precocious
Elizabeth, Anne’s sole survivor, molded in the image of Henry VIII. The books said that when Elizabeth was an adult, she made people weep because she looked so much like her father. Elizabeth had been smart not to marry, to not cede her power and control to a husband. Or maybe she had been an imbecile to deny herself the happiness and pleasure of love, duty to her country be damned. After all, this was the country that killed her own mother, hapless, alive Anne.

Anne felt another weeping spell coming on. Dear God. How could she be alive and well, and her daughter four hundred and nine years dead? The woman who sat on the British throne today was
Elizabeth II, no direct relation of Elizabeth I. Or of Henry VIII, for that matter. For all of Henry’s obsessing about male heirs, his genes lasted a pitiful generation. The royal family today was directly descended from Henry’s elder sister, Margaret. Still, Anne liked the fact that the British queen’s name was Elizabeth. Sometimes Anne pretended that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was her own Elizabeth Tudor. Sometimes Anne pretended that Elizabeth’s four children were her own grandchildren, and that Elizabeth’s only daughter, the Princess Royal Anne, had been named after her dear, precious grandmother Anne Boleyn.

When a knock sounded at five-fifteen, Anne knew it had to be Avery’s; the other knocks were different. More intrusive. Another knock came, soft and hesitant, and then a: “May I come in?”

“The doors are without locks.”

“I don’t want to presume to...I don’t know.”

“They monitor me,” Anne said. “On camera, everywhere. In the bathroom. They record what I say. They record our words. Whether you enter matters little.”

The door opened. Avery was pale, but Anne had no intention of making matters easier for the man. She sent
him a steady, penetrating gaze, and he stopped in the middle of the room. He dipped his head and said: “Your Majesty.”

Anne kept her face still. How
much time had elapsed since someone bowed his head in deference to her? Called her “Your Majesty?” Her first week here, nay, her first month here, her captors had been rats scurrying about, curtsying, “Your Majesty”-ing rats. The glow faded quickly—in less than a year. Because of what they saw as her sullenness. Her non-cooperation. Bah. No doubt the shine eventually would rub off for Avery Franklin too, but for now, Anne liked having a subject again. She was a queen. A
QUEEN!
She deserved the corresponding respect.

Anne rose from the bed. “Sir Franklin.”

Avery blinked rapidly. “Sir? I’m not—”

“Please,” Anne said. “Humor the old dead queen.”

“Right. Yes, of course.”

Awkward silence.

“How are you?” Avery asked.

“How am I?”

“Yes, how are you, Your Majesty?” The question, the concern, seemed sincere, but adoration filled Avery’s eyes, an adoration absent earlier. The same adoration Anne’s captors displayed at first. They who had their prize, their queen, their TT2, their witch.

Shall I tell you what you are thinking, Sir Avery Franklin? You are thinking: I cannot believe it. I am in the same room as living, breathing Anne Boleyn. How shall I get her to answer my questions? What is the best way to get into her good graces? Will she sign my books? Oh, this i
s unbearable, this secret!

“How am I? I am alive, and my daughter is four hundred nine years dead,” Anne replied.

“The time machines are broken. They cannot get Elizabeth.”

“It matters not. I do not wish this curse upon
Elizabeth. It is right to let her stay where she is.” Anne knew that one thing. She felt it surely and certainly in her bones. Her daughter should stay where she was. Her daughter should not become a prisoner like her mother.

The way Charles explained the time machines
situation to Anne was thus: Every time they tried to set a time machine to various dates and latitudes and longitudes, the machine simply would not work. They did not know why. It refused to work, period. They built other time machines. These, too, failed. The only visitors from the past, it seemed, would be Benjamin Franklin, Anne Boleyn and Time Traveler Zero. Anne wondered if Avery suspected his other identity.

“My father said you have been home a few times—many times—since you got here,” Avery said.

For a moment, Anne saw the browns and grays of the crowd. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to disassociate from the emotion of the moment. She refused to give Avery Franklin anything.

“Is the smell different?” Avery asked gently.

The question was unexpected. Very. Anne gave Avery points for originality. “Yes. The smell. Being in this time has spoiled my nose.” People in this place called Arlington, Virginia, United States of America, smelled good. But sterile.

“Do you like the smells here?” Avery asked.

“Shall I perish under the blade of the sword, do you think, Sir Franklin?” According to the books, Sir William Kingston, constable of the tower, escorted Anne to the scaffold. So far, history was as it was. Some two thousand people turned out to witness the spectacle of her death. Anne’s last words were exactly as she practiced in her mind that last morning in 1536 before the sun rose.

Avery’s jaw tensed
, and Anne couldn’t help but notice the vivid blues in his eyes. A truly handsome man, that Avery Franklin. “Is that what you want, to die?”

“It depends when you ask me.”

“I am asking you now.”

Anne gave a humorless laugh. “My heart beats
nearly five hundred years after I was supposed to be beheaded. Today you ask me what I want. Today I say I am glad for it, glad to be alive. Tomorrow I might be less happy.”

Avery nodded, and Anne saw on his face that he understood. Avery, like Anne, loved and hated Charles Franklin at the same time.

“May I sit?” Avery asked.

Anne
bent her head in assent. She and Avery sat on opposite sides of the bed, and Avery asked how Anne passed the time. “I read,” Anne said. “I cook. I take long baths. I watch television. I walk outside. I paint. I play video games. I dance to a fitness program. I ride the exercise bike and the elliptical trainer. I partake in the conveniences of modern life. In other words, I drift. And you, Sir Franklin, how do you pass your days?”

Avery
snorted. “I used to pass many days with Your Majesty. I traveled to places you have been and searched for documents you wrote. Your alleged birthplaces—do you realize that history knows not the year of your birth, or even the place of your birth? Were you born at Blickling Hall in 1505?”

“You surmised that in your book.”

Avery smiled, a smug, self-satisfied smile. “Am I right?”

Anne found herself drawn to Avery’s
arrogant smile. Drawn in
that
way. Like she had been drawn to the men of her past. That would not do. “Sir Franklin, do you imagine I perceive not your plan? I am no fool.”

“What?”

“You are on their side, pretending to be my advocate.”

“I’m not. I promise you, I’m not. My father is dying. He won’t live a
month. After he’s gone, you become my responsibility. What would you like me to do?”

“For now, I should like to rest. Good
evening, Sir Franklin.”

Something flared far back in Avery’s eyes, some glimmer of hurt and pain. “Very well, Your Majesty. As you wish.” Avery got to his feet.

Wait. Do not go.

Avery paused, as if Anne had spoken aloud. But she had not. She was sure of it.

“Your Majesty?” Avery asked. “Were you going to say something?”

Without thinking, Anne dropped her gaze to Avery’s chest. What was the skin underneath
his shirt like? Smooth? Hairy? What kind of hair? Unruly or tidy or something pleasantly in between? What color were Avery’s nipples? Red, pink, brown? What did they taste like? Were they sensitive? All this Anne wondered in a second’s spark, until she realized she was looking.

She snapped her gaze back up to Avery’s face. The look they exchanged took a mere heartbeat, but it was long enough for something to happen, long enough for Avery’s expression to shift. Long enough for something primal to pass between them. Long enough for the area between Anne’s legs to roar to life.

“You are dismissed,” Anne said icily.

**

Anne lay in bed and watched the clock as the red numbers slid from 11:59 to midnight. She replayed the way Avery’s blue-green eyes communicated with her. In that primitive instant, he looked at Anne like Henry had. Before he found out she could not bear a son. Anne had given Avery something, exposed her soul for a stupid, impulsive moment.

Avery Franklin. Anne wanted to know more about him. She perceived that Avery saw through her, through the surface of Anne Boleyn, and saw her as a person. For
she was not Anne Boleyn anymore; she was a woman held prisoner in a so-called enlightened time. She was the victim of an abduction, the victim of a greedy man whose thirst for knowledge knew no bounds. Power corrupted. It corrupted Henry VIII—and Charles Franklin. It had corrupted Anne too. Would it corrupt Avery given enough time? Anne wondered, as she had countless times, why she did not tell Charles and Benjamin what they wanted to hear. Why she did not cooperate and divulge the secrets of her history and the secrets of Henry VIII. If she did, she might gain some measure of freedom. Lure her captors in with so-called trust.

She was stubborn, that was what she was. Stubborn and prideful, and her own life, her own secrets, were all she had to
cling onto.

Anne slipped her right hand between her legs.
She pictured Avery Franklin. The eyes, the watchful, hungry, ravenous, technological camera eyes continued to watch her, but she knew how to touch herself and remain still.