FLAME OF DESIRE (42 page)

Hugh Seton rose to his feet again, anxious to remove the red-haired, bearded Vickery from the room and the mind of those in judgment. Seton motioned to one of the guards, the doors were again opened, and all eyes turned in that direction.

“Courtenay,” Heather breathed. “Edward Courtenay.” She remembered well this man who had been her friend at court. Surely he would not say anything to harm Richard, even though he himself was deeply implicated in this plot of usurpation.

Playing on the drama of the moment, Hugh Seton asked, “What is your name?”

“Edward Courtenay,” came the obvious answer.

“And you are the same Edward Courtenay who is of the blood royal?” Courtenay nodded. “That same Courtenay who has been judged to be guilty of plotting to seat himself upon the throne of England beside the Princess Elizabeth.”

“I wanted to marry Mary!” Courtenay objected, not one to condemn himself before so large a crowd.

“But when Mary spurned you, your thoughts were to be king without her.” Courtenay started to protest, but Hugh Seton put up his hand. “Enough. You are not being judged this day. I only want you to tell me whether or not the man sitting there”—he pointed directly at Richard—“is a fellow conspirator, and if so, what part he was to play.”

Courtenay was silent a long while, and Heather thought that perhaps he was wrestling with his conscience. It would be difficult to send a man to his death by telling a lie. She prayed that he would look at her, and at last he did, his eyes strangely sad, as if he really had no stomach for what he was about to do. Still, that did not excuse him when he said, “He was.”

Richard Morgan had been silent through all the testimony, but now he rose to his feet in rage. “Liar!” he spat. “You are a treacherous liar.” He was quickly subdued.

“What was his duty to be in all this?” Seton continued, relishing his victory like one in his cups relishes his drink.

Courtenay looked down at the ground. “He was to rouse London against the queen. London and Norfolk.”

Heather listened to the rest of the testimony in a daze. How could he have lied as he did? What kind of man would do such a thing? As he walked to the back of the room, he passed by her and she could not hold her tongue.

“How could I have ever liked you? You are selfish, spoiled and think nothing of ruining a man’s life!”

He looked at her with all the sadness of a wounded puppy. “Do not judge me too harshly, Heather. A man does what he must to survive.” With that he walked away, and Heather wondered if he had been promised that he would keep his head if he would cause Richard to lose his. Surely there had been no love lost between the two men, all because of her.

Richard could say little in his own defense. It was written upon his face that he realized that his doom was sealed. His eyes sought out Heather with a gentleness which touched her soul. Even with his world tumbling about him he was concerned for her welfare.

“I can only say that as God is my witness, I never plotted against my queen. I was, I am, and I will always be your most humble and loyal subject. May God forgive those who have perjured themselves this day.”

The judge declared Richard guilty. It had not taken long for them to come to such an agreement. Turning toward Mary, they saw her nod her head, saying that she too thought Richard guilty. There was nothing more to be done. “You will be taken to Tower Green and there you will be beheaded in two days time.”

“No!” Heather rose to her feet, not being able to keep her silence any longer. “You are sending to his death an innocent man.”

The judge thundered in anger. “God has given his judgment.”

“God? What has God to do with this mockery? It is the devil who rules here. How he must be laughing now.” Her eyes turned toward Seton, to find that he was indeed smiling in his triumph.

“Take the prisoner away,” he shouted.

Richard stared at the crowd. He was glimpsing his last moment of freedom. Now he would be taken back to a dark, cold cell and then to the scaffold on Tower Hill. “Heather,” he whispered. “Heather.”

She heard him call her name but  was silent as the grief of the moment shattered her. All she could do was look at him, watching as he was taken from the room and out of her life. People spoke to her, but she did not hear them. Her mother and Tabitha pushed her toward the door, but she did not feel their hands. She only knew that her life was ending, that her heart would be severed from her body with the strike of the headsman’s ax.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Heather stared at the letter the messenger had brought to her, remembering Richard’s words in the courtroom. Truly the devil was in command, his laughter rumbling forth with the thunder and lightning which raged forth in a furious storm. He was mocking them even now.

“Edlyn is dead,” she whispered, reading the words again. She could hardly believe it. Sadness tore at her heart. The poor, poor woman, never to have tasted truly of happiness, and now she was dead. “How did she die? What killed her?” she asked the messenger, a tall skinny lad she remembered well from her days at Norfolk. She could not help but feel a twinge of guilt at having left Edlyn behind, but there was naught that she could do. Everything had happened so fast, and she had thought that Undine would take care of the young woman. Again she asked, “How did she die?”

He looked at her without expression in his eyes. “Just wasted away, seems loike. Cain’t roightly saiy.”

“Wasted away?” Heather’s gray eyes widened in horror. “Did Undine not tend her?” The remembrance of the indignities that Agnes had made the poor childish woman suffer flashed before her eyes. Had she replaced one woman’s cruelty with that of another? Undine had seemed so kind, so solicitous of Heather’s approval, and truly fond of Edlyn.

“Old Undine tended her, all right,” he said, averting his eyes. “Was by her bedside day and night. It was the Lord’s will, it was.”

Heather shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. The Lord would not take from this earth a being so completely innocent of any wrongdoing.” She brushed the tears away with the palm of her hand. “Edlyn was as guileless as a child.” Closing her eyes, she crumpled the note. First Richard and now Edlyn.

“Now you are free to marry wi’ the lord,” the young man said, barely  realizing just how cruel and heartless the words sounded.

“Don’t say such a thing!” Heather exclaimed, drawing back from him. That others would echo his words tore at her soul. “I mourn for Edlyn, truly I do.”

He studied her face before he spoke, and seeing that she meant the words she spoke, the young man held back the torrent he had nearly uttered, the congratulations that Undine had bidden him to say. This woman before him did not gloat at her good fortune as Undine had said she would; instead, she seemed on the verge of despair.

“’Twas the “king’s disease,” old Undine told me,” he said instead. “Edward.”

“The ‘king’s disease’?” Heather thought back to remember that ailment which had taken the king’s life. There had been those, Richard included, who had whispered that the boy-king had been poisoned.

“Aye. Her hair fell out of her head, it did, and her body shriveled up to near nothing. Took a long time to die, but she breathed her last and gave up the ghost on Wednesday last.”

So while Richard had lain in his prison cell awaiting his fate, Edlyn had been dying, wasting away in a torturous, agonizing manner. And now Edlyn was gone and Richard doomed to the headsman’s ax. Surely none of God’s doing, but the devil’s instead.

“I be going now, mum. Be you all roight?”

“Yes,” she murmured, reaching in her pocket to pull forth a gold coin. Handing it to the lad, she looked into his face once more, and he was taken aback at the misery written upon her face.

“Shall I tell them that the lord will be comin’ for the funeral?” he asked, feeling the hurry to put this unpleasant errand behind him.

“No. Richard will not be coming home.” She knew that since Richard had been declared traitor his lands would be forfeit. Would Seton get his hands upon that which he had so long looked upon with evil jealousy? Yes. The land would soon be his. The people might just as well be prepared for what was about to happen. “Tell them that the lord of the manor has been housed in the Tower, that they will soon have a new lord.”

He stepped back as if she had struck him. “New lord? What of our Lord Morgan?”

“He has been wrongly accused of treason and unjustly sentenced.” She could say no more, too fresh in her mind was all that had been spoken in court against him.

He stepped forward as if to comfort her. “What can we do to save him? It will be the axe. I will raise the countryside and we will swarm like bees to save our rouightful lord. You have but to saiy the word.”

She was tempted to do just that. So very tempted. Damn Mary Tudor to hell and back, damn Seton and all the others who had betrayed Richard, and a pox upon Courtenay for turning his back upon their friendship, thus taking from her the man she loved above all others. Let the bastards feel the sting of the sword, let them quiver in fear of their lives as she had trembled in fear of the death sentence for Richard. “
’Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’
,” she thought, and yet reality grasped her. To do such a thing would mean more killing, more bloodshed, and most likely the heads of all Richard’s followers. Not even for Richard could she so doom them. There was no hope.

“Go home, boy,” she cried. “Go home and pray for him, tell them all to pray for him.” She watched him leave through the fog of her tears.

The axe, she thought, managing only barely to control the hysteria which threatened to consume her. My Richard’s noble and handsome head to be severed by the executioner’s axe. She had to do something. She would not stand by and allow them to so mutilate him.

Visions of his rescue darted through her mind. Perriwincle could aid her. They could steal into the prison and free him and hide him in the wagon as they had that night when he had been wounded. She would risk anything, do anything to save the man she loved. And yet, even as she thought of these things, her heart knew the truth. There was nothing that she could do to save him. Nothing. She could only be there by his side and tell him that she loved him ere he died. And yet….

Falling to her knees, Heather closed her eyes and prayed.

Chapter Sixty

It was dark in the prison cell. Dark and silent. Richard looked out the tiny window knowing that when the sun loomed again in the sky he would meet his death.

“At least the headsman’s axe is quick and painless,” he murmured, remembering his uncle’s execution. The only thought that rally pained him was how Heather would react to his death. She was a young and beautiful woman with her entire life before her; she must not let his death blacken her heart. He cringed at the thought of her seeing his head perched atop a pole on traitor’s gate. “I who was the queen’s most loyal subject.”

Walking back to his cot, stumbling in the dark, he felt numb, as if his head had already been severed from his shoulders. The anger was gone and in its place was a lethargy, a deep sadness for the follies of mankind. On a small table by his bed was a plate of food, but he had no appetite. What use was it to eat? Instead, he lay down and tried to envision all the pleasant memories and moments of his life. Closing his eyes, he fought against sleep, longing only to think and to dream. So lost to his own private visions was he that he did not hear the scuffle outside his door, nor the voices until the door opened. Standing before him, robed in black, was his brother.

“Roderick1”

“Father Stephen,” the priest corrected him with a sad smile. He cast his eyes in the direction of the guard. “It is his right to be forgiven for his sins. Leave us alone.”

The guard shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve been given my orders. You shouldn’t be here at all. There is time enough tomorrow to give this one his last rites. If you hadn’t put up such a fuss, I would have forced you to leave.”

“I am this man’s brother as well as his priest. Can you not show common decency and let him confess his sins in private?”

“But you might do something to help him escape, and it would mean my head.” The guard nervously toyed with the keys.

“I am a priest. A man of God. I give you my word that I will not use force to free this man, nor will I take him beyond these walls.” He touched his cross as if to seal the vow.

“Well…You being a priest and all…” The man crossed himself as if to ward off any guilt for what he was about to do. Being himself a loyal Catholic, always most respectful of monks and priests, he decided that there could be no harm in allowing the man to soothe his conscience. “You may stay a few moments.” The door shut with a resounding bang.

Father Stephen waited a long while before he spoke, just long enough to make certain that the guard was not listening at the door; then he whispered, “Listen to me and listen well. There is only one way that you will leave this Tower, and that is to die.”

Richard’s eyes widened in surprise. He had thought his brother was here to offer comfort or to listen to his sins. He was not prepared for this. “To die? What in God’s name do you mean?” It was against the laws of the church to take one’s own life, and surely Roderrick would not want to endanger his own soul by taking the life of his brother. Murder was a most grievous sin.

Blue eyes met blue eyes and Richard could swear that he saw a gleam of mischief in his brother’s gaze. “I have a certain root with me, a potent herb which when chewed and swallowed gives the appearance of death to him who has partaken of it.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew it, holding it forth for Richard to take. “You must use it. Only thus will you have any hope of cheating the headsman.”

Richard twirled it over and over in his hands, fascinated by it, mesmerized by the thought of its power. It could give him life by bringing him the appearance of death. Life from death.

“This will still your breathing. There will be no sign of a pulse. You will to all men appear to be dead. I will come quickly to claim the body and insist upon taking it back to the family estates in Norfolk.”