A Traitor's Tears (3 page)

It was a beautiful morning with brilliant sunshine, though London, of course, was as smelly as ever, with chimney smoke and horse droppings, food cooking in kitchens with open windows, middens beginning to steam in the warmth. But all such things, sunlight and smells alike, were part of living. Life was pulsing everywhere. It was no day for anyone to die.

Tower Hill was beyond the Tower of London itself, just outside its walls. There were barriers to keep the crowds back from the scaffold, which was a high platform, with the block in the middle and thick straw all around it. My stomach churned more than ever. I knew why the straw was there. It was to absorb the blood.

Grooms were waiting to take our horses. They led them away – probably, I thought, to some convenient stabling or hitching posts. I was sure that the grooms didn't intend to miss the spectacle through having to hold horses' bridles. We continued on foot. Most of the crowd had to stand but members of the court had the privilege of seats and there were benches ready for us. They were closer to the scaffold than I could have wished. We were going to have an unpleasantly good view.

It was quarter to eight when we sat down. I was between Brockley and Ryder. Glancing to my right, I saw that Roland Wyse was a few yards away and at that moment, a man I didn't recognize pushed his way along the row of benches and took a seat next to him. The stranger, who was dressed in black, with a style of hat that didn't look quite English, hadn't been with us on the ride to the Tower and probably wasn't from the court. Perhaps Wyse had arranged his seat in advance for they embraced as they met, as friends do, and then sat talking with an air of intimacy.

I looked away, not wanting to be caught staring, and found myself looking instead at a group of younger people, men and girls, all in black. The girls were tearful and, after a moment, I identified one of them and realized that the group consisted of Norfolk's children and stepdaughters. Ryder had noticed them, too. ‘I suppose they're here so that Norfolk will see friendly faces at the last,' he said. ‘I wonder, does it really help a man, to see his family grieving?'

I shook my head, not knowing the answer.

There was a pause, tense, like the air before a thunderstorm. Then, in the distance, trumpets blared and we heard a slow drumbeat. The sad procession appeared, calling forth a murmur from the throng, half excited, half distressed. The trumpeters walked first, as heralds, clearing the way with noisy blasts, since the crowd was spilling in all directions. The drummers followed, sounding a regular, muted roll like the tread of heavy and inexorable feet. It pounded at one's nerves.

After the drummers came a man who, Ryder told us, was the constable of the Tower. Behind him were guards with halberds and, in the midst of them, a small forlorn figure in doublet and hose but without a ruff, was Norfolk. A chaplain walked beside him, reading from a prayer book and behind them was a man in the dark gown of a clerk.

I looked up at the horrible straw-bedded platform and saw that the headsman had arrived, masked and dressed in skin-tight sable. He held his long-handled axe at his side, not attempting to conceal it.

Silence fell as the guards took up positions round the scaffold, except that I could hear sobbing from Norfolk's family. The guards had their backs to the block, and were watching the crowd in case of trouble. Of all the people present, they would be the only ones who wouldn't witness the end.

The constable came to Norfolk's side and motioned to him to climb the wooden steps to the platform. He did so, looking, as he climbed, smaller and more forlorn than ever. The chaplain and the clerk followed him, and I realized that in a corner of the platform, incongruously, there was a small table where paper, held down by stone weights, an inkpot and a quill pen in a holder were set ready. The clerk at once went to dip the quill in the ink. I wondered what he was about and then understood, because as Norfolk turned round, took hold of the surrounding railing, and began to speak, the clerk began to write. He was recording Norfolk's final words.

I was near enough to see how white Norfolk was, and I could see that behind him, the chaplain, still clutching his prayer book, looked just as bad. It was difficult to hear, for voices carry poorly in the open air and Norfolk's was trembling, anyway. But I made out some of his words.

He said that he had only met Signor Ridolfi face to face once, and nothing had been said against the queen. I lost much of the next few sentences but thought he was saying that they had only talked of money matters. There was something about Ridolfi appreciating the tranquillity of England. A murmur broke out at that and I stiffened, too. There would have been little left of that tranquillity if any of Ridolfi's schemes had reached fruition. He would have loosed a Spanish army on us, dragging the Inquisition in its wake. Norfolk's next few words, though, did in a way admit as much, for he seemed to be saying that in his opinion, Ridolfi was ready for any wicked design. Then he said that God would witness that he, Norfolk, was a good Protestant and loyal to the queen.

In the silence following his speech, he turned away, taking off his doublet. He handed it to the clerk, who put it over his arm, gathered up the paper he had been writing on, and then scurried down the steps to get out of the way. The headsman knelt and Norfolk gave him a purse. It was customary but I thought it must be a bitter thing, having to pay the man who was about to kill you. Presumably to make sure he did his best to make a quick job of it.

The headsman stood up. Norfolk knelt at the block. The chaplain, who now looked as though he might collapse at any moment, read something aloud from the prayer book, but his voice was so faint that I couldn't follow any of his words at all. The axe swung up and its polished blade glittered in that lovely morning sunshine. It swung down with speed and force and blood spurted up, splashing the headsman. He was presumably used to it but I flinched and drew back as though it had splashed me as well.

Norfolk's crouched body seemed to fold on itself and sink into a heap. The headsman leant down, picked up something round which dripped with red, and held it up by its blood-dabbled hair, as he declared: ‘So perish all enemies of the queen!'

I swallowed hard, trying to contain a surge of nausea. Beside me, both Brockley and Ryder had gone rigid. I glanced towards Wyse, wondering how he had reacted and saw, to my astonishment, that Roland Wyse, of the pugnacious jaw and the chilly eyes, was in tears, and the friend at his side was anxiously patting his back, trying to give comfort.

As I watched, Wyse turned his face into his companion's doublet and, judging from the heaving of his shoulders, had abandoned himself to the most desolate weeping.

T
he summons to the queen came soon after our return to Whitehall. Indeed, I had barely taken off my hat, before a page came to fetch me. He led me to the queen's private apartments and showed me through an outer chamber where a number of her ladies were stitching while one of them read aloud from a book of verse, and on into a small room that Elizabeth used as a study and for practising music. It had a mullioned window with glass panes leaded in a pleasing pattern, open this warm June day, so that birdsong came in from outside. The room was furnished with a spinet and a writing desk, a set of bookshelves, and a carved oak settle which just now was occupied by a mysterious object hidden under a silk drape.

Elizabeth was waiting for me on a cushioned window seat. She was simply dressed, by her standards, in a long loose peach-coloured gown with neither ruff nor farthingale, but most people would have thought the damask of the gown, the profusion of pearls – rope, earrings, the edging of her headdress and the glimmering bunches on the ends of her girdle – were highly elaborate. She smiled at me as I curtsied and, as I rose, I smiled back, but I was nervous.

As the years went on, my royal half-sister had become increasingly royal and therefore increasingly intimidating. She was not yet forty and every now and then there was renewed talk of marriage plans for her. At present, it was rumoured that an alliance with a French prince was being discussed. Looking at her now, however, I could not imagine her joined in marriage to anyone. Her face was shield-shaped and she used it as a shield, hiding her thoughts behind it; the jewels and fine fabrics were armour too, holding her aloof from others. I couldn't visualize a man ever finding his way past them.

‘So, Ursula,' she said. ‘What happened this morning?'

I told her, briefly and also truthfully. She nodded. ‘So he tried, at the end, to excuse himself, to say he had never plotted treason with Ridolfi. I thought he would. But he died with dignity.'

‘Yes, ma'am. Yes, he did.'

‘Of that, I am glad. He was my cousin. It is a sad burden, having to pass such a sentence on a member of one's own family.' She did not add,
And you helped to put me in that position
, but I heard the trace of resentment in her voice. It was only a trace, though, and it vanished as she said: ‘A burden, but inevitable if I and the realm are to stay safe. Thank you, Ursula. This morning must have been an ordeal for you, too. You are well? How is your small son? My little nephew!'

‘He thrives, ma'am. A young Hawkswood maidservant, Tessie, has been appointed as his nurse and is caring for him while I'm away.'

‘I hear you have called him Harry. After my father?'

‘Partly that, ma'am. But it is of course a popular name.'

‘So it is. And now, I take it, you will wish to return to your home at Hawkswood. What of your other house, Withysham, that I gave to you so many years ago?'

‘That flourishes, too, ma'am. I visited it earlier this year.'

‘I do hear a good deal about you,' Elizabeth said. ‘As you know, I take an interest in your welfare. There are those who send word to Burghley now and then.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' I said. I knew of Burghley's discreet surveillance and tried not to be irritated by it, knowing that it was for my good.

‘In places close to Hawkswood, I hear there has been unkind gossip about Harry,' Elizabeth remarked. ‘It was to be expected. Withysham, being in Sussex, perhaps gave you a chance of escaping from it.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' I said, none too truthfully, for I had an uncle and aunt near Withysham, whose comments about Harry had been even more scathing than Jane Cobbold's gossip, and for less reason. I had been frank with them, for from the start I had determined that Harry should grow up knowing who he was, and accepted as who he was, with no deception. I had hoped that since my uncle and aunt still held, though discreetly, by the Catholic faith, they of all people ought to have been understanding about Harry. I had been disappointed.

But then, they had never liked me. They took my mother in when she came home from King Henry's court, disgraced and with child and refusing to name its father, and when I was born, they had given me a home as well. But it hadn't been a happy one. My mother died when I was sixteen, and when I was twenty, I ran away to marry my first husband, Gerald Blanchard, which had further enraged Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha, since he was supposed to be betrothed to one of their daughters.

My marital situation was an odd one. After Gerald's death from smallpox, I had married Matthew de la Roche, who was half-French by blood and all French in his ways. I had lived with him in France for a time, though I left my little daughter by Gerald in England, as I didn't want her to grow up a Papist. I had married Matthew by Catholic rites and under a degree of duress, yet I was in love with him and he with me. But he was forever getting involved in plots against Elizabeth and there was never any real peace between us.

When I was on a visit to England because Meg had need of me, I heard that Matthew had died, of plague. Some time after that, I married Hugh, my very dear Hugh, who was much older than I was, but as good and kind a companion as anyone could ask for. And then I learned that Matthew was not dead; that the queen and Cecil had lied to me, to keep me in England, and that he had been told the same lie about me. Elizabeth said that she had also annulled our marriage, on the grounds that the rite was unlawful and there had been duress. But in Catholic eyes, the marriage had been legal in its form and the duress questionable, since for a long time I had lived as Matthew's wife, of my own free will.

After Hugh's death, I had had occasion to visit the Continent. I had met Matthew again and he had rescued me from a dangerous situation. For a short time, we came together and Harry was the result. I had hoped that in the eyes of my Catholic uncle and aunt, Harry would be legitimate, but they hadn't taken that view at all and, between their virtuous condemnation of my morals and the merciless tongue of Jane Cobbold, my plan to face down gossip and rear my son without apology as Harry de la Roche was turning out very difficult. I had set myself a hard field to plough.

‘You will win through,' said Elizabeth, who knew all about the circumstances leading to Harry's arrival. ‘You have a gift for that. And I have a gift for your little son. I promised a fine christening present for him – do you remember? I have kept my word. Come.' She slid off the window seat and shook out her skirts. ‘My ladies helped in the making. They can all embroider skilfully. I have it here.'

It was the object on the settle. Elizabeth drew back the drapery and revealed a child's cot. It was made of exquisitely carved walnut, with a canopy that could be set up to protect its occupant from over-hot sunshine. The canopy was of blue silk with little animals and birds embroidered on it in gold. There were pillows with embroidered covers, sheets with edgings to match, a soft woollen blanket and a sealskin coverlet.

‘It takes to pieces,' Elizabeth said. ‘It will need a packhorse to itself, but John Ryder will go with you, and bring the packhorse back.'

‘It's a royal gift!' I said.