Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn by Nell Gavin

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