The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (36 page)

The crowd was growing thick now, most of it in a holiday mood. Many had brought baskets of food, which they handed about to their companions. There were even family groups, with children. Close to us, a couple of small boys were enthusiastically acting out the last sufferings of the victims, dancing about with pop eyes and protruding tongues and then flopping their heads sideways, after which they collapsed on the grass, giggling. Hugh regarded them with distaste.

“We were right to send Meg home,” he said.

“Yes. When she wrote pleading to be here, I wrote back telling her to spend the day in prayer. I wish I wasn’t here myself, but . . . ”

“I know. We have to be.”

There was a murmur at the back of the crowd and heads began to turn. The cart was approaching. The sun was too bright, I thought angrily. It had no right to shine so tranquilly on such a scene.

A further squad of soldiers armed with pikes and staves were
escorting the cart, beating back the crowd with the staves. There was only one vehicle, drawn by two patiently plodding draft horses. An impassive driver had their reins. At the back stood a priest, presumably reciting prayers though his voice couldn’t be heard above the raucous shouts of the crowd. The rest of the passengers were frightened men and women with their hands already bound behind them. They had pale, dirty faces, many streaked with tears. Some stared blankly; others crouched and shivered as if with ague. They were all humble folk, convicted of commonplace offenses. Edmund Dean was not among them. His was a crime of greater stature and he was to die tomorrow. We would not be here for him.

We couldn’t see Gladys at first and for one moment I had a wild hope that some last-minute mercy had been extended to her; that the queen had after all intervened and the news had not reached us yet. Then I saw Brockley and Dale, keeping pace with the cart, as near to one corner as the escort of pikemen would allow, and there, huddled in that same corner, was Gladys. Her gray hair, unwashed now for nearly three months, straggled over her face. She kept tossing her head, trying to throw the strands out of her eyes. She looked tiny, as though terror had made her whole body wither, and her eyes kept darting from side to side. Her mouth was twisted. She seemed hardly aware of the Brockleys, though they were within a couple of yards of her.

The cart came to the gallows’ foot and stopped. The executioners moved forward to meet it.

“Steady,” said Hugh. “Try not to faint!” I realized that I had sagged against him, and straightened myself. I had no business to give way. I must catch Gladys’s eye if I could.

“I wish
she
could faint,” I said. “Just faint and not know what’s happening.”

“Here are the Brockleys,” said Hugh.

They had been finally pushed away by the escort and had found their way to us instead. Dale was tired from the long walk and her pockmarks were standing out. “Oh, ma’am, I feel so sorry for her! She was whimpering, all the way. We could hear her. Oh, ma’am.”

“Master Hillman’s here,” said Brockley. “He joined us at the Marshalsea.”

I realized that a man standing behind Brockley was indeed George Hillman. He greeted us soberly. “I felt I should come. I’d have been part of the prosecution if that man Johnson had had his way, testifying to the potion that gave me a bad night. I was at the trial. Master Stannard, Mistress Stannard, I was so impressed by the way you gave evidence in Gladys’s favor. You tried so hard, and your lawyer reduced Johnson to powder. I really had hopes for your Gladys then. But two physicians and three vicars were too much for you. Especially Dr. Fleet. He did the worst damage.”

“I’ll never forgive him,” I said. “Never. The others were bad enough, but Fleet . . . ! I can do nothing about Fleet,” I said vindictively, “but the vicar of Withysham holds a living that is in my gift. I intend to rid myself of him.”

At the gallows’ foot, some brief formalities had been in progress. The captain in charge of the escort had handed a list to the captain of the guard already present, and they had been checking the list against the people in the cart. Distracted by Hillman, I had looked away. Now, a scream from the cart made me turn sharply. The executioner and his boy had climbed into it and were fastening nooses around the necks of the condemned. They were trying to put one on Gladys. She was twisting in their hands and shrieking in terror.

Surprisingly, her cries were echoed, from some distance away, behind us. The echo was followed by a horse’s shrill whinny and the sound of hooves and shouts. Startled, we turned again and saw a rider forcing a way through the crowd, which had now spilled onto the road. He was laying about him with his whip, to get people out of his way, and the scream had come from someone who had either been knocked down or hit with the lash.

The head of the horse was visible above the hats and hoods of the throng. As it came nearer, we could see that the animal had been ridden hard. It was a chestnut but its neck was black with sweat. Its eyes were white-ringed, and there was foam around its bit. The rider, cloak flying and whip still flailing, was swearing at
the crowd and shouting:
“Hold!”
at the soldiers and the executioners. The captain of the soldiers around the gallows raised a hand in acknowledgment and shouted a command at the executioners, who ceased their work. Gladys sank weeping onto the floor of the cart just as the rider reached it.

Without dismounting, he threw back his cloak, revealing that beneath it was the red and gold of a gentleman pensioner, one of Elizabeth’s personal attendants. He pulled out a scroll, broke the seal, unrolled the parchment, and handed it to the captain of the guard, who looked at it for a few moments, bowed, and handed it back. The horseman asked a question and the captain consulted his list and replied. Puzzled, the crowd jostled and murmured. The captain shouted for silence and held the horse’s bridle so that the horseman could have both hands free to keep the scroll open while he read its contents aloud.

“Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, by God’s grace the prince of this realm of England, being informed that the verdict on the prisoner Gladys Morgan is unsound, and unwilling that any subject of hers should be condemned unjustly, herewith commands that Gladys Morgan be pardoned and set free. Given under Her Majesty’s Hand and seal, this twenty-eighth day of October 1569.”

He let the scroll roll itself up again and looked down at the captain. “Release the prisoner Gladys Morgan,” he said.

Gasping, I clutched at Hugh. “We must go to her,” he said, and pulled me forward, calling to the captain and the messenger as he did so. Astonished faces in the crowd turned toward us but people gave way and we were there to receive her when the executioner lifted her over the side of the cart and into our hands. Hugh took hold of her firmly and then gave her to me. “Take her! I have something to do.”

I put my arms around Gladys, feeling her terrible thinness. She had always been bony but now, after weeks of poor victuals, she was more bones than flesh. She smelt as bad as she had ever done and her hair was stiff with dirt, but I didn’t care. I could only be glad to hold her close and safe while Hugh took a purse from his belt and murmured something to the captain, who
beckoned the executioner down from the cart. As I drew Gladys away, I saw Hugh speaking to the man and taking money from his purse. Presently, he came after us, looking rueful but relieved.

“I’ve done what I can for the others, out of gratitude. Let’s get away from here.”

But getting away was impossible. The crowd was too thick and it was pressing forward, wanting its show. Lacking a sixteen-hand horse and a long whip, we could not force a path farther than Master Hillman and the Brockleys. Gladys, in any case, was hardly able to keep her feet. Sobbing helplessly, she sagged in my arms and I almost had to carry her. The Brockleys greeted us round-eyed, clutching at her and patting her shoulders, hardly able to believe what had happened. The red-and-gold-clad messenger was still nearby, watching the proceedings from his saddle, and at the gallows, the dreadful show was beginning anew.

Gladys slowly turned in my grasp, turned to look. And then, to my horror, she found her voice again and for one appalling moment, I thought she was going to destroy her own pardon.

“They were a-going to kill me and for what? For
what
? They kill folk for nothing. A loaf of bread stolen or a pocket picked when a family’s so hungry the babes are all crying and their mother don’t know which way to turn! Wicked it is, indeed to goodness. That man putting ropes round their throats ought to be ashamed. He ought to be accursed, that he ought. He . . . ”

I think she had passed into such a state of fear and shock that she did not realize that what she was saying was dangerous, and mercifully, she was in any case mumbling rather than shouting. I don’t think anyone in the crowd could make out the words. But I shook her, to silence her. “Gladys!” I said furiously. “Be quiet! Be quiet!”

It was Hugh who said: “Gladys! No curses now! Pray!
Pray!
You too, Ursula. Do as I do!”

I have never known what I believe about God or the afterlife. The priests seem sure, but where is the proof? On just one occasion, I had reason to think I had encountered a ghost but I’ve never been certain, and it had grieved me very much that after Gerald’s death, I had never felt his presence, never had any kind
of contact with his spirit. He had loved me. If he existed anywhere, surely, he would have tried to reach me, to impart a sense of that love, an attempt at comfort. He never had.

But all the same, I didn’t know. No one does. Gladys’s life had been saved, but if she were to spend the rest of it with curses on her lips instead of prayers, what would be her fate in the next world, if such a thing existed? At the top of his voice, ignoring laughter from people in the nearby crowd, Hugh had begun to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and realizing what he wanted, I joined in, nodding to the Brockleys and nudging Gladys to do the same.

Hillman joined in too. Hugh went on with the prayer, finished it and began to repeat it, leading us on. A few of the more decent souls in the crowd also added their voices. The priest who had accompanied the prisoners sensibly took this invasion of his prerogative in good part, raised his own voice in unison with us, and helped us along. And, to my infinite thankfulness, Gladys at last joined in with us as well, lifting her cracked old voice in the cleansing and holy words that no witch would ever say, while on the cart, the executioner and his assistant were doing their work.

I watched. It was hard, so very hard. I wanted to shut my eyes, to run away, but I did neither. It seemed necessary, as an act of gratitude for Gladys’s life, to send looks of compassion and well-wishing toward those desperate souls; to be—since Gladys no longer needed it—their friendly face at the last.

I stood holding Gladys in the crook of my arm and bore my part in the prayer for their sake as much as hers. The priest kept the prayer going, over and over, and somehow or other, it built up, overwhelming the jeers and laughter, until it had won almost the whole crowd over and nearly everyone was taking part.

The cart was already under the gallows. The executioners shinnied up their ladders and fastened the ropes. The expressionless driver chirruped to his horses. I wondered what they thought of it all, those obedient, good-natured animals. Did they marvel, in their uncomplicated equine minds, at the way the human beings around them were chanting; did they sense the fear of those in the cart or the tangle of emotions—avidity, pity, horror—emanating from the crowd? If so, they didn’t show it.
They had been taught to trust the two-legged creatures in charge of them, and so, dutifully, they plodded forward, pulling the cart out from under its passengers. Who died.

In nearly all cases, quickly. Hugh had paid the executioner originally to see that Gladys’s end was not prolonged; a few moments ago, he had paid for the same service for those she left behind. Executioner and aide earned their bribe, moving rapidly along the line of frenziedly kicking legs, seizing one pair of ankles after another and giving the downward jerk that broke the victims’ necks.

Even so, what they endured in the few seconds before they were granted oblivion, I don’t want to imagine.

Then it was over. The last prayer ended and silence fell. Dale and I were crying, but noiselessly. Gladys was crying again too, but these were healthier tears, of pity and sorrow, which are honest things.

But when the crowd, its death-lust assuaged, at last began to disperse and we could move away, my legs felt like lead. And Gladys was a problem, for she could hardly walk at all.

We could not think how to transport Gladys the half mile to the inn where we had left our horses. If my legs were like lead, Gladys’s legs appeared to be made of tissue paper. They gave way if she walked even a few steps. “Brockley and I will just have to carry her,” Hugh said.

We were assisted, however, by the royal messenger, who rode up to speak to us, observed the difficulty, and although clearly filled with distaste at the sight and smell of Gladys, agreed when I asked him to help by taking her up in front of his saddle. I wouldn’t have dared to suggest such a thing, except that I recognized the man. For Gladys’s sake, we had decided not to go home until all was over, but—because I had a faint if only a faint hope of influencing the queen in her favor—I had joined the court and attended Elizabeth for a while during her Progress through Hampshire. I had never been given a chance to revive the question of Gladys and this last-minute reprieve had astounded me. But in Hampshire, I had come to know some of her gentlemen pensioners by name. I addressed this one by his. “Master John Haywood, isn’t it?”

“It is, and for you, Mistress Stannard,” he said, “I will perform this service, but as soon as you can get this retainer of yours, if that is what she is, into a soapy bath, the better!”

“Contacts at court are so useful,” Hugh observed, grinning at me, trying to lighten the air.

Hillman was remarking that he knew the inn to which we were going, and that horses could be hired there. “I want to hire one,” he said. “I have lodgings in the City. I came on foot through London, with the Brockleys, but it’s a long walk back. May I come with you?”