Death of the Fox: a novel about Ralegh

by George Garrett

  Dean or Bishop, good fortune or bad, he must trust himself that much, be faithful to his version of this world even if he doubts it.

  “Let not your heart be troubled,” the Dean says, feeling a weight lifted from his own heart as he says those ancient words.

  And he knows he has chosen. That he will tell the truth in his report. That he will report his judgment and stand by it.

  Still there remain a few things which he knows he must inquire into, if only as ritual formality.

  DEAN

  You are still regarded by some to be the chief instrument in the death of the Earl of Essex in the Queen’s time.

  RALEGH

  The instrument in the death of Essex was a common English heading ax.

  DEAN

  Have you anything to confess in that matter?

  RALEGH

  Essex was fetched off by a trick. But it was none of my doing. At the time I had no knowledge of it. I confess I was sorry to see him die, but he died well and in justice.

  DEAN

  And so there is justice in your death.

  RALEGH

  With this difference. I am an innocent man.

  Dean Tounson starts a little from his settled composure. Looks closely, past Ralegh’s smile, to the heavy-lidded eyes. In which he can read nothing at all.

  The question of justice, guilt or innocence, pertains to Caesar not to God. The Dean of Westminster must render unto Caesar, the King, that much. Though he may choose to believe the truth of Ralegh’s faith, he cannot permit Ralegh to die professing an injustice rendered in Caesar’s world.

  DEAN

  Do you doubt the justice of the King?

  RALEGH

  I do not question the justice of the law or the King. But if I must die, I will do so with the knowledge in my heart that I am innocent.

  DEAN

  You contradict yourself.

  RALEGH

  Come, sir, if my heart tells me I am innocent, why should I preserve that secret? I could deceive you easy enough, Dean Tounson, if I had a mind to. And I think you know it, too. But I am not so foolish as to imagine I can deceive God, from whom no secrets are hid.

  DEAN

  When you speak from the scaffold …

  RALEGH

  I shall not question the justice of the King. But neither will I acknowledge a guilt I do not feel.

  DEAN

  I trust for your sake …

  RALEGH

  … and your own …

  DEAN

  I trust you will be circumspect.

  RALEGH

  By the grace of God and with faith in his love and favor, I hope to die well this morning, if I can. If I must die.… You came here to minister to me. You have chastised me for my cheerfulness and seeming courage. You have questioned my faith.…

  DEAN

  I must do my duty.

  RALEGH

  I do not doubt you. But I remind you of the Gospel you preach. No man who loves God and fears Him can die in cheerfulness and with courage except he is certain of God’s love. There may be others who can make an outward show, but these are husks. They feel no joy within.

  DEAN

  And do you truly feel joy?

  RALEGH

  My flesh is frail and shrinks from death, and I confess my spirit is weak and heavy. And yet, good sir, the thought of God’s love and mercy is so light and glad within me that I can forgive my flesh and rebuke my doubtful spirit. Joy is the yoke of a Christian, lighter to bear than an April breeze. I praise God and thank Him for the gift of joy.

  DEAN

  I humbly ask your pardon, sir.

  RALEGH

  Let us contend no more. We are both Christians, and you are God’s servant. Let us proceed with the holy sacrament.

  Dr. Robert Tounson, Dean of Westminster, nods and rises from his chair. He turns to beckon to his acolyte. Turning back, he sees Walter Ralegh kneeling before him, head down, hands clasped together.

  Taking up his Book of Common Prayer, the Dean finds the place, puts on his spectacles to read, though he knows it by heart and has never before in public used reading spectacles.

  Servants have brought a small table. The prebend spreads a white linen cloth over it. Nodding, Dean Tounson stands before the table, facing the kneeling man, and begins to read.

  “Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done …”

  When he has taken the communion Ralegh will rise, seeming more blithe than before. He will eat like a farmer with a long morning’s labor ahead, or a man at an inn facing a journey on the open road. And as the day’s sunlight begins to stream through the windows and the servants snuff out the candles, he will call for a pipe and smoke it.

  Leaving the Dean of Westminster to wonder how he shall retell this last gesture.

  All the world knows how much the King hates the habit of tobacco.

  Eight o’clock and the bell of the hall tolling to mark the hour.

  Morning of Thursday, 29 October. Lord Mayor’s Day in London.

  A morning bright and cold. Surprisingly chilly brightness. A clear sky with a few wan white clouds, far sails seen from atop a tall mast, running with fair wind.

  Here below no wind. Only gusts of breeze now and again sweeping Old Palace Yard. Lifting and teasing a scattering of sodden leaves. Rippling and wrinkling pools of water standing from the rain.

  Sun painting the wall and the western gatehouse. Panes of the supper chamber gilded in high polish of sunlight. Extravagant clear light lavishly painting and polishing the wall and gatehouse and splashing over the high wall into narrow Tothill Street.

  Tothill Street, where people come to crowd into Old Palace Yard. A rainbow crowd in holiday finery. Nudged and directed by yeomen and men in the livery of the sheriffs. Going in a slither through the gate and past the gatehouse. Like a many-colored garden snake sliding home. Home not to blackness, but to clear sudden space of Old Palace Yard. Spilling inward, falling loose in that space under a wide sky. Rolling free from this side of the wall like a broken string of beads.

  Behind them, huge, Westminster Abbey. Before them, across the yard to the east, the hulk of the old palace, crumbling towers, roof and gable joined by the long line of Westminster Hall.

  From Tothill Street, sunlight leaping the wall and splashing them with light and shade, they press on foot in their holiday finery.

  A few of the better sort, high and proud, on horseback. Edging through the crowd.

  And coming from the east also. Coming by boat and wherry to land amid shouts of Southwark watermen struggling for space, place to leave off their fares.

  Stepping careful to shore from rocking and tip of boats. Sunlight blazing on Thames behind them, river afire and blinding.

  Stepping careful to shore, to mount the flight of stairs and enter by the river gate, thence across a space and toward the line of houses and outbuildings facing the river. Where windows blossom with the clothing of strangers who watch from window, from doorway, and some upon rooftops. Gate, walk, Abbey, hall, and palace humble them. They come in procession like pilgrims. Noise from river and bankside, noise and voices dwindling and dying behind them. Entering the yard from the east, humbled. To walk slower while voices soften to whispers.

  Tothill Street a humming beehive. Cries of vendors, beggars, and all such. Voices pitched loud to be heard. And noise of voices rising as they make through the gate. Once within the yard, facing the quiet slow walkers from the river, they, too, fall to whispering.

  All moving, from east and west, toward the high scaffold and the barriers. Barriers unseen because of press of the crowd, but marked by glint of halberd, partizan, and pike of the yeomen of the Guard and the sheriffs’ men.

  Entering from east or west they look first toward the scaffold. Where the headsman and a boy stand waiting. Then glance toward the gatehouse, seeing nothing there but a blinding shower of gold. Gatehouse, like the river, is all afire.

  From
this blinding gold, out of this pyre and into the chill and beneath an enormity of wide blue sky where a few clouds fill their sails with high winds, he must come.

  He is tardy for this appointment.

  Many who feared they were late, now smile, thinking already the Lord Mayor’s barge and the procession of barges will be mustering in London and soon coming to this place.

  If he delays further, if he speaks and prays long, two shows will become one pageant.

  The King in his wisdom may have arranged it so. A theater for his benevolent mercy. In which event the throng will toss hats high and cheer his name.

  Or—and think but say nothing of this to friend or neighbor—this King will fuse an alloy of wisdom and folly. Coinage of fool’s gold …

  The upper chamber of the gatehouse is crowded now. Ralegh’s servants, servants of the porter of the gatehouse, Dean Tounson and his acolytes, a yeoman of the Guard, one of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, a portly, fidgety gentleman, and some of his servants.

  Odors of beef, bread, beer, cheese, and wine upon the trestle table still. Of woodsmoke and tobacco. Scents of perfume and pomander. Smell of human sweat.

  Sweatless, the man has his hair combed and brushed a final time.

  Above a ground bass of muted voices in the room, crackle of fire, creak of boots and harness, whispers of cloth, above muted counterpoint, the voice of Robert Tounson is clear. He stands by Ralegh, near as a shadow, reading from Romans.

  “Christ rising again from the dead now dieth not. Death from henceforth hath no power over him. For in that he dieth, he died but once to put away sin. But in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. And so likewise count yourselves as dead unto sin, but count yourselves as living unto God, the Father, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.”

  “Amen,” says Ralegh. “Now I shall have my gown and cover.”

  A servant assists him into his long gown, all velvet, black and sleek as a raven’s coat.

  Another comes with the hat, high-crowned, wide-brimmed, black felt brightened by a single peacock’s feather. And with the hat, a silk nightcap, black, though wrought in subtle stitchery of gold and silver.

  He eyes the nightcap doubtfully.

  “Is it so cold as that?”

  “Aye, sir. It is cold as a key outdoors.”

  “And only a dead mouse feels no cold.”

  “So the saying goes, sir.”

  The clock strikes eight across the yard, rattles panes and echoes in the room.

  The sheriff winces at each stroke.

  “Be not alarmed, Mr. Sheriff,” Ralegh tells him when the clock has struck the hour. “I am almost ready now.”

  He nods to the servant who fits the nightcap to his head, then places the hat, not square on his head, but at a slight tilt over the right eye and the brim in front turned down at the edge. Someone holds a looking glass and Ralegh nods approval, then adjusts the angle of the hat himself.

  Tounson still reading: “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my crying come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from me in the time of my trouble; incline Thine ear unto me when I call.…”

  “Very well, Mr. Sheriff, I am as ready as I shall ever be.”

  The sheriff sighs with relief. There is a movement toward the door and the sheriff moves to take his place with the Dean and Ralegh.

  “Where is your fellow?” Ralegh asks the sheriff.

  “God knows, not I.”

  “Perhaps it is too cold for him this morning.”

  “Aye,” the sheriff mutters. “An ass will be cold even at the summer solstice.”

  Going toward the door now at last. To go down and outside. At the open door Ralegh halts.

  “Wait! I shall wear my ring also.” Turns to the sheriff, whose cloudy face is wet with sweat. “It was given to me by our late Queen. And I should wear it now.”

  A moment while servants search for the ring. Silence except for the sheriff’s deep breathing. Then Ralegh holds out his right hand for a servant to slip the ring upon his finger.

  “Now then, Mr. Sheriff, mop your brow, and let us be about our business.”

  Down the steep rickety stairway one at a time. Ralegh stepping slow and careful so as not to trip on the hem of his gown.

  Bouquet of staring faces clustered around the entrance of the house. From which he plucks one or two he knows. The porter offers him a bowl of strong wine.

  “Here, sir, it is the custom.”

  He takes the pewter bowl, looks at the color of the wine. Raises it and drinks deep. Drinks again and offers it to the Dean. Who shakes his head and continues to read.

  The sheriff shrugs and accepts the bowl.

  “How do you like the mixture?” the porter asks Ralegh.

  “As the fellow said who was drinking a St. Giles’ bowl on his way to Tyburn, it is a good drink indeed, if a man might tarry with it.”

  Yeoman of the Guard laughs out loud. And then others are laughing.

  It is to laughter, then, he steps through the doorway. Laughter behind him, cold clear air greeting him, cold air and sunlight. And a single shout is echoed and becomes a roar in the crowd. Like fire sudden catching in dry twigs.

  Stands a moment outside the door, as laughter fades behind him. Waiting for the sheriff to take his place. Tounson still mumbling, now from the Psalms. Stands a moment, smiling faintly, breathing deep of the air, squinting into the sun and an arras of faces.

  Then as the sheriff stumbles to a place beside him, the smile is gone. He stretches, stands full height, tall above all around him, head and hat high, bobbing like a little boat amid the crowd all around him.

  Walks slowly forward, eyes ahead toward the rude stage, where a man and a boy wait for him. Walks slowly, therefore need not display his limp, while the yeoman and sheriff’s men struggle to make a path.

  The shouting dwindles. Lightly he rests one hand on the Dean. For he has forgotten his cane. Lowers eyes from the scaffold to close faces nearby. And sees with a start a wizened face. A bald, wrinkled head. A very old man. Who must have been a man when he himself would have been a boy.

  How do they manage to live so long?

  He stops and faces the man.

  “Good sir,” he says. “Why have you come here this morning?”

  A portrait of death would have such a face. But the limner would be deceived. See, the old eyes are clear. This oak is still a green one. Not death by any means. Rather the tenacious patient triumph of life. May he live long and die in peace and quiet.…

  “What is it you want, sir?” Ralegh asks him again.

  “Nothing, sir, but to be here to see you. And to pray God have mercy on your soul.”

  “I thank you for your prayers.”

  Ralegh removes his hat. Then the nightcap, which he places upon the old man’s head.

  “Wear this to cover your naked head,” Ralegh tells him. “For you have more need of it than I.”

  Moves on then, holding his hat in his hand.

  Up to the edge of the scaffold and the rude stairway to mount it. Looks up. Huge and shadowy against the sun behind him, the headsman stands, hands clasped behind his back, nodding patiently.

  Ralegh grips Tounson’s arm more tightly now. The sheriff slips a hand below his elbow. And they mount the stairs to stand above the crowd—a field of weeds and flowers swaying. A giddy sight. Or is it his breath is short now? Or does the fever and ague come again?

  From the river, from London, carried upon random puffs of breeze, the peal of many bells. Announcing the Lord Mayor’s Day.

  He looks the headsman eye to eye. Squat and sturdy, a solid stump of a man, heavy-footed and -legged, thick-waisted, broad-backed, neck of a bulldog, head upon bulked sloping shoulders. And the hands? Cutting his eyes away from the other’s to see them. Large, leathery, calloused, thick-wristed, horn-knuckled. Yet calm and passive. And in that passivity, oddly gentle.

  Back to the eyes and face. A plain homely common English face. Work of a country stone carver. Weathered, lined, crum
bled a little by time. But withal an honest, gentle face. A trusty face. The eyes unblinking. Passive and calm. Matching the hands in tranquillity …

  Breeze blowing brisk, tugging at his velvet gown.

  Turns from the man to see the scaffold and its accommodations. Neat and clean. Buckets of water and brushes. Basket of fresh straw. Beside which a boy with awkward large hands seems to shrink and wish to be small. As if—as boys think—every eye were upon him, judging him. The boy does not look at him. Clasps his hands tight to keep them still, looks down at the straw in the basket.

  Ralegh looks to see what he has not yet wished to. A low curved block of hard wood, sanded smooth and paid with a fresh even coat of stain. If final pillows must be wood, this one looks decent enough, adequate. Beside it, flat upon the heavy timbers of the scaffold, is the heading ax. Winking in the light. No fleck of rust on head or edge. Kept with care, polished and honed fine.

  Beside the ax there is a small shiny red leather bag. Modestly embossed, Ralegh’s own coat of arms …

  Red leather bag, his arms in gold. Companion to the other bag, the one he imagines, stolen by Sir Judas Stukely to carry his gold. The red leather bag sent by Bess, then. Her presence here with him as if she had sent him a hothouse rose. Not to be stained or spoiled by any blood. And he knows, without wishing to look, that beyond the edge of the crowd in the cool shadows, itself a shadow with black curtains drawn, a coach is waiting to carry this red bag home. Not Bess behind the curtains. She promised, and that promise was exacted because she could not, must not bear this any more than in mind’s eye she bears it now and for as long as she shall live. Not Bess, but some servant, and no doubt a woman. For this is the duty of women. And which of the women will this be? Why, of course, her cousin Mary, who came with her last night (long ago) by proxy to be the image of youth and now to age into the image of herself. Mary, alone behind the curtains of the black coach, praying for his life now if for no other reason than that she may not have to carry the weight of that red leather bag in her lap. Praying that when she bounces homeward in the coach, the bag shall lie empty and limp beside her.