After Flodden (41 page)

That troubling detail made him pause. He sat up and read the letter again. Calm enough now to make the words stand still under his eye, he saw there were too many witnesses to the
Frenchman’s story to dismiss it as a lie. Truly it seemed as if his protégé, the young man he had taken under his wing, was the viper who had tried to bring down the king and
his country.

He cast the letter aside and closed his eyes. Would his torments never end? But whereas a month ago he would have retreated to his bed and pulled the covers over his head, he was stronger now.
Summoning the messenger, he wrote a swift note to the Jedburgh sergeant, advising him that he would shortly be sending a guard to bring the prisoner back to Edinburgh. He pressed a meagre coin into
the messenger’s hand, and directed him to an inn on the high street, where they would feed him well.

When the man left, still sniffing, Paniter buttoned his tunic, tied a cloak around his neck, and made for the castle. There he gave orders for a guard of twelve to be assembled the following
morning, and a cell to be prepared for the spy, and the interrogation he would face. ‘Special implements required?’ the castle governor asked, inspecting his nails. ‘No,’
the secretary replied. ‘I can make him talk.’

Yet when he came face to face with the spy, he had little appetite for questions. After an hour with him, Paniter had had enough. His guilt was not in question, and pressing him for details
would reveal nothing he wished to know, and perhaps more than he would want to.

Paniter had endured many unpleasant encounters in his career. None compared with Flodden, but on his death bed, many years later, he would rank the time he spent with Gabriel Torrance in his
cell second only to that horror. The grimy, pale young man who stared back at him from his chains was unrecognisable. He had lost none of his hauteur, but the face that Paniter had once thought
handsome was overlain with a malevolence that took his breath.

‘I treated you like a son,’ Paniter said, with a note of peevishness, as if the courtier had been guilty of bad manners, rather than a heinous crime. The secretary stood before the
prisoner, who squatted against the wall, his arm in a filthy sling. Yet it was as if Gabriel loomed above him, so overbearing was his presence. Paniter’s pulse raced as the green eyes swept
over him.

‘You were kind to me, I grant,’ said Gabriel, giving no sign of discomfort at being pinioned in leg-irons. ‘But there are many rotten fathers in this world. Feeling fatherly
does not in itself make you a parent, or give you any hold over me.’

Paniter searched his face. ‘Gabriel, Gabriel my lad, is it really possible you were passing secrets to the English all the time I knew you?’

‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘It was I who was the spy. With my little eye. I saw everything, and I did not like much of it at all.’

‘Do you have accomplices? Are you part of a wider plot? Give me names, and I can lighten your sentence. One alone will suffice.’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘I worked by myself. Why would I want associates? My aim was simple, to bring victory for England, and shame for Scotland. I could do that single-handed.’

In his agitation, Paniter paced from wall to door. Outside the guard watched through the grille.

‘Were you being blackmailed? There must have been a reason why you turned against the country. I need to understand, boy. You make no sense to me at all. You had everything. You had a
future, yet you have behaved worse than a cut-throat.’

A flash of spirit put colour into Gabriel’s face. ‘I am an Englishman, sir. That is all you need to know.’

‘Not Irish as you said? Not the son of a viscount?’

‘Not Irish, and not Scottish. I am indeed a nobleman’s son, but I was born an Englishman, and everything I have ever done, from the moment I could first speak, was for my homeland.
For my family.’

Paniter rubbed his face. ‘Laddie, you make no sense. You are as thirled to Scotland as I. You were educated here, brought up here – why would you want to destroy this
country?’

‘I have told you. My allegiance is and always will be to the English king. There is nothing more to say.’

Paniter sighed. ‘Yet you fought at Flodden. What if the English had killed you there, or you had cut them down?’

Gabriel spat, the first and only coarse gesture the secretary ever saw him make.

‘Of course I did not fight. How could I harm a hair of my countrymen’s heads? No, you old fool. While you and your gang were running around demented, I was well away from there. Only
an idiot would have been blind to what quarter the wind was blowing.’

‘And your arm, the wound – was that all a pretence too?’ Paniter’s voice was low.

Gabriel gave a thin smile. ‘Sadly not. That was the work of Master Brenier, the only noble stroke in an otherwise woeful demonstration of swordsmanship. I probably did the Scottish army a
favour keeping him from the battlefield.’

The back of Paniter’s hand cracked across his face, knocking his head against the wall. His ring caught his eye, and blood began to ooze down his cheek where it dripped, unheeded, onto his
shirt. Gabriel continued to smile.

‘I could throttle you this instant, and no questions would be asked,’ Paniter hissed, rubbing his knuckles. ‘You would not be the first man I have killed bare-handed. But I
wouldn’t sully myself.’ His lip curled. ‘You are a disgrace to the race of Adam and Eve. Even England deserves better than the likes of you. If King Henry ever met you, he would
be disgusted to think you were in his service.’

Gabriel paled, but he said nothing.

Paniter clasped his hands before him, as if to keep them from flying again at the courtier. He trembled with rage. ‘Only you will ever know why you have acted as you have. I no longer
care. If you had shown one good reason, I would have asked for clemency on your behalf. As it is, I will cast you to the court, and the gallows, without a word. Yours will not be an easy death,
young man. May God have mercy on your pitiful soul. If indeed you have one.’

‘And on yours,’ the courtier whispered as Paniter summoned the guard to open the door. ‘And on yours,’ he repeated, louder. The secretary glanced over his shoulder. The
knowing smile with which Gabriel met his eye, and the sting of those words, would be with Paniter until he died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

21 December 1513

The spy’s execution was set for the shortest day of the year. This was Paniter’s decision. The darkest time, he told the privy council, was a fitting date for
ridding the country of such a man. Gabriel Torrance’s body would still be growing cold as the year began to turn and with it, one could pray, the fortunes of the nation. Nobody would be sad
to see the solstice pass, to watch new hope born with each lengthening minute of light.

Unvisited but not forgotten, Gabriel sat in his cell. When the prisoner was brought before the high court, Patrick Paniter looked at him as if he were a stranger, though a tic jumped in his
cheek. There was to be no trial. After all, the man had confessed, without the least persuasion. But for the record, and so none could accuse the infant king’s court of foul play, various
procedures had to be observed. The first of these was a written testimony from Benoit Brenier, which the judge read out, raising his eyebrows at every oddity of grammar or expression.

‘Do ye have anything to add tae that?’ the judge asked Gabriel when he had finished, peering at him as if he were a specimen in a physician’s jar. The courtier shook his head,
and primped his sleeve. The rest of the day passed in a tedium of legal detail and ritual as privy councillors and court clerks trotted to and fro with scraps of paper, muttering to each other,
scribbling amendments, and enjoying the solemn fuss of it all. Throughout, Gabriel stared out of the window at the gunmetal sky, his face impassive.

At last the session was brought to a close. With a rustle of cloaks, the high court rose. ‘I hereby pronounce ye, Gabriel, Viscount Torrance of Blaneford and Mountjoy – or so you
style yourself – guilty of treason,’ intoned the judge. ‘This being the most awful of crimes on this country’s statutes, far exceeding murder in its vileness, ye will be
taken on a date still to be appointed, to the place of execution. There ye will be hanged till ye are near death, then taken down and quartered. Only at this point will your heid be cut off and
your agony put to an end. Thereafter your various pairts will be displayed around the city walls as a warning to any who might be tempted to follow in your wicked ways. There the said pairts will
hang until a year henceforth, when your family will be allowed to bury ye in unconsecrated ground.’

Above the court chamber, a bell tolled. Those gathered in the courtyard below bowed their heads, listening to the verdict. The bell rang on, not stopping until the thirteenth strike. The crowd
murmured with satisfaction. It was the worst of penalties, and it was just.

Gabriel had one task to complete before he was ready to leave this life. He pulled a sheet of paper towards him across the damp cell floor, but before he had lifted his pen his eyes filled with
tears and, putting his head on his knees, he sobbed as if his heart would break. These were the only tears he had shed since he was a child, and had realised that his mother did not recognise him
from one day’s visit to the next. ‘Who’s this sweet little poppet?’ she would ask, fingering his curls, not seeing in their sunny profusion the mirror of her own.

Drying his eyes, he lifted his head. The guard leered at him through the grille, but Gabriel did not see him. These days the only people he noticed appeared in his dreams, or in the faded hours
around dusk. They would hold lively conversations, amusing the courtier so that his laughter would bring his jailers to the bars, wondering who was with him.

‘Beloved Mother, star of my soul,’ he began, the writing slow and messy and painful. ‘It is as I feared. I must go ahead of you into the next world. My plans have come to
nothing, and my hopes for our home together must wait.

‘If you hear terrible things about me, I entreat you not to believe them. If Mamie speaks cruelly or meanly of me, tell her that to the end I have been true, honest and loyal to you and to
her, and to our fine family name. I have done nothing to besmirch its honour. Quite the opposite. Your next letter may be from the king of England, thanking you for your son’s part in his
glory. If he should not write, I advise you to contact him, though I have not his direction. He will want to reward you handsomely.

‘I am well, I am not afraid, and I pray the same is true of you. While I am gone, the good Lord will take care of you. And when we meet again, all will be well with us, all manner of
things will be well.

‘Do not forget me, mother.

‘Your only, and most loving son,

Gabriel’

The guard sniffed when he took the letter, holding it between thumb and finger as if it would contaminate him. Gabriel leaned back against the wall and nursed his aching arm. There was no more
now for him to do but count the days to eternity.

*    *    *

On the morning of Gabriel’s execution, Patrick Paniter rose early. He washed in water so cold it made the blood course around his body. Goodwife Black helped him into his
shirt and hose, and buckled his boots. She too would watch the execution, though from the street. Before breakfast she left the secretary to spend an hour with his bible, as was his habit these
mornings.

It was mild for the time of year, as if the gods wanted a good turnout for the traitor’s death. The remnants of the city’s nobility had gathered, dressed in their brightest colours.
Ordinary citizens came out in cloaks and caps of red and yellow and blue, and those who had no fine clothes carried ribbons to wave. There were to be no mourning weeds. This criminal’s death
was a cause for celebration.

The gibbet stood at the mercat cross on the high street, where four streets spilled into a cramped square, frowned down upon by stern, crooked houses. As they caught their first sight of the
scaffold, people quietened, like mice under a hawk’s shadow. Soon, however, their chatter resumed, and by the time the hour was close, and Paniter arrived to take his seat, the babble was
like bedlam.

Picking up his trailing cloak, Paniter climbed onto a rickety stage close to the gibbet, set with benches for courtiers and dignatories. From here they would have a clear view of proceedings. He
sat with the privy councillors, and they talked of everything but what was shortly to unfold. He heard of the young king’s painful teething and he learned that the queen’s finest horse
had been surpassing itself, though for decency’s sake it was ridden only at private races. It was too soon after Flodden for public games.

At ten minutes to noon, a guard of pikemen marched through the crowd, and stood to attention at the foot of the scaffold. Their blades caught the sun, sending arrows of light flashing across the
square. Drummers began a low, rattling roll, and gradually, row by row, the people fell silent. The drums beat on.

The slow marching of boots could be heard, coming down the street from the castle. People craned to see as a column of soldiers appeared, a horse dragging a dray in their midst. Strapped to the
dray, like a hog trussed for the spit, lay Gabriel, his hair gleaming greasy and gold in the noonday sun. He was dressed in a shirt, hose and riding boots, the linen grimed, the boots stained.
Paniter was shocked at the gauntness of his face. This man had betrayed him, his friend and mentor, as well as the country, yet he could not be unmoved by his suffering. He braced himself for what
was to come.