The Devil's Piper

by Sarah Rayne

  Sir William found himself remembering the astonishing endurance shown by those two remarkable men, Thomas More and John Fisher, and he thought that Brother Martin had something of the same quality. Steadfastness. An unswerving faith, an unshakeable trust and a belief in something so strong, something that swept aside the pettiness of the world so overwhelmingly that once you had discovered it, you would face torture and an agonising death rather than deny its existence.

  He questioned Martin exactly as he would have questioned anyone about the escape of a prisoner: courteously to begin with and then sternly, and finally threateningly. Martin defeated him at every turn. He knew nothing, he would say nothing, he would tell nothing, and eventually, Sir William, knowing what his King expected of him, nodded to the four guards who stood sentinel at the door.

  ‘Take him down,’ he said.

  Martin was convinced that Kingston and Rodger Cheke would not have questioned him so fiercely unless Nicolas and Ahasuerus had escaped. He was holding on to the thought, and he was praying for strength to endure what was ahead. Help me to suffer it, God. Let me not break, and let me not betray Ahasuerus. Above all, God, let me not betray You.

  He was taken into the Tower’s most sinister chamber by the impassive guards, and he began to feel as if he was descending into hell. Hell, where the red-eyed demons tear at the sinner’s flesh with white-hot pitchforks . . . Where there is nothing save everlasting torment . . . But God is still with me.

  The guards pushed open the door of a long, low-ceilinged room, filled with leaping firelight and twisting shadows, and as Martin entered, the stench rose up to hit him. It was like walking into a solid wall of terror and pain and blood. Stale sweat and fear-expelled urine and the raw echoes of men screaming in torment.

  The guards thrust him roughly forward, and there was the grim sound of the door closing and of the key turning in the lock. Locked in with the torturers. He looked about him, forcing his mind to calm, but his senses were still reeling and for several minutes all he could see was a blurred mass of crimson firelight and the glint of machinery in the shadows.

  A circular iron frame, studded with evil-smelling tallow candles hung from the ceiling, swinging slightly in the warmth. At the far end a fire burned in a low wide stone hearth, causing the twisting shadows to leap and prance across the stone walls, so that to Martin’s fevered sight, this was truly hell’s fire-drenched cavern.

  As his senses steadied, he saw that standing before the fire were four of the most brutish men he had ever seen. They had massive muscular arms and shoulders, and they were stripped to the waist, in the manner of scaffold executioners. Their faces were impassive, but the firelight gave their eyes a crimson glint and washed over their rippling muscles.

  Kingston and Rodger Cheke had followed the guards and they were seating themselves at a small table near the fire, with writing things set out. At a sign from Sir William, the guards moved, thrusting their prisoner towards a low, coffin-shaped frame at the room’s centre, and Martin’s stomach lurched in fear and panic. The rack. He thought he had never before seen an inanimate structure imbued with such silent menace.

  The guards were forcing him to lie facing upwards. So that they can watch my expressions, thought Martin. So that they can gauge the exact degree of torment. Directly over the rack, the circular iron candle-holder swung gently to and fro.

  The ropes were being secured about his wrists and ankles – there was a stench of unwashed flesh and onion-tainted breath as the guards bent over him – and the ropes themselves were greasy against his skin. As the winches were wound tight and the ropes stretched taut, there was a thin, teeth-wincing screech of machinery. They’re ready, thought Martin, his heart pounding, sweat breaking out all over his body. They’re ready to begin.

  From his place behind the table, Sir William Kingston said in a calm, detached voice, ‘You see what will be done if you persist in your obstinacy. And so once more, I ask you to tell us the identity of the prisoner known as Ahasuerus.’

  Martin thought: if I don’t speak they can’t do anything. Can they? Didn’t Sir Thomas More ‘stand on his silence’? Yes, but More was Henry’s Chancellor, beloved, powerful, extraordinary, and I am nothing and no one by comparison. And even More went to the block in the end. He compressed his lips and waited. How many minutes would they give him before the torture began?

  Several eternities slipped past before Kingston said, ‘You won’t speak?’ There was the ghost of a weary sigh. ‘Very well.’ He nodded to the guards, and Martin heard the terrible creak of the machinery again and with it—

  Oh God, oh sweet Jesus, there was never such pain in the world! His entire body was stretched taut and every joint was wrenched in its socket. Sweat ran into his eyes and he tasted the blood of his bitten tongue.

  ‘Answer!’ It was the implacable voice of the King’s Lieutenant of the Tower now. The detached voice of the inquisitor. ‘Who and what is Ahasuerus?’ And then, as if beseeching, ‘Tell us, man, and save yourself further pain!’

  Through a red mist, Martin saw the not unkindly face of Kingston, and next to him Rodger Cheke, his plump, jowly face red with obscene excitement. His tongue came out to lick his lips, and Martin understood that Cheke was enjoying this, he was relishing Martin’s downfall. But he shan’t see me break!

  The questions came again, cutting through the pain. Who is Ahasuerus? Why were you trying to take him out of the Tower? What was the plot? Who was behind it? You won’t answer? Then again! There was a plot, and we will know of it!

  This time he felt his wrist-joints dislocate with screaming, tearing agony, and as the winches loosened, he sagged, a red mist obscuring his vision. Someone nearby was groaning, terrible sobbing cries of anguish. Someone was lying with him in this grisly coffin-like box, and it was someone whose sweat he could smell and whose blood and pain he could taste. But he was not breaking, he was holding on to all the good things, the safe, sane things: plainchant in the Abbey chapel, and autumn rain, and the mist over the Wicklow Hills and the sun setting on Ireland’s wild, beautiful west coast . . .

  Again the pulleys turned and again the ropes wrenched at his body, and again the pain swept mercilessly through him. His wrists were helplessly, bonelessly out of their sockets, but now searing cramps were clutching his legs, and gristle and bone was scraping in his shoulders as both arms were twisted from their sockets.

  Firelight and God’s mercy and prayer . . . Hold on to it, oh God, let me hold on to it . . . His lips formed a silent prayer, but as the guards bent to their work again he felt his mind splinter and divide, and on one side of the schism was the real Martin, devout and austere, and able to cling to the shreds of truth and courage, but on the other was a poor weak creature who could not bear this pain, and who was within a hairsbreadth of telling them whatever they wanted to know.

  His whole body was a mass of screaming agony, and the creak of the pulleys was inextricably blended with it. At any minute he would give way. In four more heartbeats he would speak . . . In three, two . . . He would betray Ahasuerus, he would betray God . . .

  There was a final jolting wrench and Martin heard himself scream. Impossible pain, unbelievable agony. It soared to an excruciating climax, and then a thick blessed unconsciousness swooped down on him.

  He did not hear Kingston say, ‘He’s not going to talk. Untie him.’

  ‘And then?’

  Sir William hesitated and then said, ‘We must await orders.’ He glanced at Sir Rodger. ‘But I think there can be only one sentence.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  As they brought him out of the Tower, Martin was dazzled by the brightness and bewildered by the noise. How much time had passed since his racking? He had no idea, for time had become meaningless in the dim cell where he had lain, his mind blunted by pain.

  He had managed to drag himself across the floor to gulp thankfully at the water left for him and he had managed to bring his hands together in prayer. But when they came for him, he co
uld not walk and he could not stand, and the guards had to carry his poor mutilated body out into the sunlight. As they set him down on the ground he felt sick and dizzy, but for the first time since his racking, his mind cleared and he could think: I kept faith!

  There had been some kind of deputation to his cell; something about the Oath of Supremacy, something about Ahasuerus again but he had turned his head to the wall and at last they had left him alone.

  A crowd had gathered, and as he was brought up there was a murmur of half-eager, half-pitying excitement. The guards were looping a rope about his neck, and he thought: am I then to be hanged? But he saw the glint of finely honed steel in their hands and he saw the way they avoided his eyes. Nothing so merciful as hanging. Certainly nothing so merciful as beheading.

  ‘No, Brother Martin,’ said Sir William, ascending the scaffold and standing over him. ‘No, there is to be nothing so merciful as beheading. Hanging, drawing and quartering.’ He pointed to the far side of the square. ‘And if you look to your left – yes, prop him up, guard – you can see the stake that is being prepared, no, not for you. But can you see the faggots being piled up? And now can you see the prisoner being brought out?’

  Martin, dizzy with pain and weakness and fear, felt sick despair close about him. Ahasuerus. It had all been for nothing. Ahasuerus was being brought out to be burned.

  As the guards tied Ahasuerus to the stake he scanned the crowd, searching for a familiar face. Absurd of course, no one here could know him. A desolate agony flooded his mind as they secured the gyves, and kicked the piled-up faggots into place. Then it is to end here, exactly as the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem intended. The final stage of the Triple Death. Burning alive. His mind spun out of control and for a moment he felt again the excruciating pain of his nailed hands and the searing cramps in his chest and shoulders as he hung in torment.

  Scourged at the pillar while the sun passes from the east to the west side of Jerusalem . . . The next evening at sunset you will be nailed to the Cruciferum . . . The evening after that, again at sunset, fires will be lit at the foot of the Cruciferum and your body will burn . . .

  He had searched the crowd frantically then as well, but that time he had been looking for Susannah, because he had been so sure she would not leave him to die. They had already been bending to light the fire and the heat had started to rise. Impossible not to struggle. Impossible not to writhe and try to break free, even though every movement was agony.

  And then she had been there. Between one breathspace and the next, she was there. Susannah, the harlot, the sorceress. She had come running into the square, her hair streaming wildly about her shoulders, a gaggle of armed men running in her wake. Ahasuerus had been almost beyond thought then, but he had recognised them as mercenaries: hardened, tough creatures who would give allegiance to anyone who paid them enough and who would fight for any cause if it was made worth their while. Delight poured through his mind, because she was coming to his aid, she had rounded up this raff and skaff army, and she was risking her own life to reach him.

  The music came with them; it spiralled and twisted about the square, pouring down on to the heads of the guards and the Sanhedrin and the black-cowled monks on the crowd’s edge. Despite the curling flames and the choking, black smoke, triumphant delight coursed through him. Susannah coming to rescue me! Running straight at the Temple Guards leading her ruffian army. Singing the music as she comes and forcing her scurrilous soldiers to sing with her. The music was like a great curling wave, and it reared up and hit him with such relentless force that for a moment the agony and the fear was washed aside.

  The Temple Guard had been almost overcome by Susannah’s unexpected attack, and the music had not precisely overpowered them, but it had certainly disconcerted them.

  Now! thought Ahasuerus. This is the moment, Susannah – now, when they are bemused and dazed! The flames had not reached him, but the skin of his feet was already splitting and blistering. My love, my love, if you ever possessed any powers, use them now for the guards’ confusion won’t last! Get me down, Susannah!

  But she was already running towards him, and with her ran three of her ragamuffins, hurling blows and imprecations at the crowd as they came. The crowd were falling back, as bewildered and as dazzled by the sudden onslaught and the music as the guards, and Susannah had a clear path. As they reached the foot of the cross the men flung thick cloaks and blankets on to the flames, stamping at them, grinning up at one another showing blackened, stump-like teeth in their delight at outwitting the Temple Elders and the Sanhedrin.

  As Susannah began to swarm up to where Ahasuerus hung helplessly, there was a rush of movement on the outskirts of the crowd, and the black-robed monks who had bargained for the High Priest’s body, bounded forward and knocked Susannah to the ground.

  They cut me down before the flames could reach me, thought Ahasuerus, staring about him at the grim bulk of the Tower and the guards. The accursed black monks cut me down and forced me into the elaborate tomb and they sealed the lid. I went down into the abyss and the last thing I heard was the music and the last thing I remembered was Susannah trying to save me. Did I die there? Am I about to die again now?

  Fires lit and your body will burn . . .

  But this time there is no Susannah to rescue me.

  Catherine Howard had examined and impatiently discarded a number of plans for Ahasuerus’s rescue: forged pardons from the King, guards ordered out on orders purporting to be Henry’s, some kind of diversion to distract the executioner. There were tales of how relatives or loved ones – even executioners themselves if they were paid sufficiently well – sometimes crept up behind the burning prisoner and strangled him under cover of the smoke. Could the executioner be bribed on this occasion?

  But any of these plans needed an accomplice – several accomplices – and there was no longer anyone Catherine dared trust.

  Coming to Tower Hill today was the most tremendous risk she had ever taken, but not to be there was unthinkable. And supposing a chance to reach Ahasuerus did occur? I must be there, thought Catherine determinedly. I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life, and I’ll never forget any of this, but I have to be there.

  She was hooded and cloaked, her bright hair bound beneath a kerchief to avoid recognition. The King’s ardour was becoming known, and Catherine was accorded a wary admiration when she went abroad these days. There had been endless instructions issued by Grandmother and even her Uncle, the Duke of Norfolk himself. Do this. Be sure not to do that. And, once, when she had rebelled: But don’t you want to be Queen? they had said incredulously, staring at her as if she was an imbecile. She had thought: not if it means having Henry Tudor in my bed! but the words could not be said, not even to her own family. Especially not to her own family.

  Today it had ceased to matter, because today at noon Ahasuerus, her enigmatic, beautiful lover, would burn. And there was nothing Catherine could do to prevent it.

  The crowd was larger than she had expected – did they enjoy watching a burning, these people? Catherine shuddered and flattened herself against the wall on the side of the square. The stake had been built higher than usual – to ensure that there was no stealthy merciful strangling? – and it jutted upwards, a grisly, black outline against the bright sky. A small brazier was being dragged out, the charcoal already white-hot. Catherine stared at it fearfully.

  As the guards brought Ahasuerus out, a ragged cheer went through the watchers, and people began to push closer. Catherine was thrust back against the wall, but she could see everything. She looked at the people and wondered how they would tell Ahasuerus’s story after this was over. Would this execution be woven into the fabric and the weft of the Tower’s bloody history? Would Ahasuerus be a martyr or a sinner? Or would he simply be one more heretic who had opposed Henry Tudor? She had asked Sir Rodger about him, and Sir Rodger had said, oh, she was not to worry; they had discovered the creature to be some kind of Papist spy. And they all knew what happened to
Papist spies, said Sir Rodger, as comfortable as if he had never crossed Smithfield Square by mistake on the morning after a burning, and had never smelled the too-rich, too-greasy smoke that lay on the air like a pall, or had to run into a side street to vomit his breakfast on to the ground because of it.

  Ahasuerus was walking arrogantly between the guards, but Catherine saw him flinch from the bright sunlight and once he brought up a hand to shield his eyes. Bitter fury rose in her because they must have kept him in some dim, underground dungeon; not troubling – probably not caring – to make his last days comfortable.

  But as he approached the rearing outline of the stake he seemed to gain strength. He straightened up and looked at the crowd, authority and defiance streaming from him, and even at this distance, Catherine could see his clear grey eyes shining. She was suddenly deeply grateful to him for maintaining the enigma and the strange allure, even facing death.

  The guards were binding him to the stake, using thin snaking chains, but he seemed scarcely to notice. His head was turned to the far side of the square, and Catherine, looking in the same direction, saw that a scaffold had been erected, and that some other poor prisoner was being dragged up the steps. A monk, was it? The block was there, black and grim, and the guards were sprinkling sawdust. Catherine shivered but turned back to Ahasuerus. I can’t spare any pity for the unknown monk, she thought. I’ll pray for him later – I promise I’ll pray for him, whoever he is – but I can’t think of anything other than Ahasuerus. They’re locking the chains in place now. Oh God, this is going to be unbearable.

  Without warning, the brilliant May sunshine slid behind a cloud and the sky darkened abruptly, almost as if an unnatural night was descending. Huge black clouds massed overhead and a wind scurried across the square, catching at the women’s hair and stirring up the litter and the dust. People squealed and clapped their hats firmly on to their heads, laughing and pointing to where one man’s cloak had gone flapping away from him so that he had to go chasing after it. They cheered him on, enjoying the small diversion, and Catherine hated them.