Kit looked away and didn’t answer. A few interested bystanders lined the streets but it would seem the fate of a small bunch of conspirators attracted little interest in the public. The cart lurched again and he winced as the barely knit bones of his hand jarred.
‘Are you fit enough for trial?’ Gerard asked, catching the pain on Kit’s face.
‘I’ve a few broken bones, not a broken mind,’ Kit replied. ‘Anyway, my trial will be brief. I told you, I will admit complicity.’
Gerard shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Lovell. Those footpads did more than break a few bones. Looks like they knocked the sense right out of you.’
~ * ~
Westminster Hall had seen the trial of a king. Now it would bear witness to the trial of those who would seek to kill a king. Kit looked up at the vaulted roof and shivered. Despite the warmth of the day, the air in the hall felt chill. A guard pushed him forward and he shuffled towards the bench where the other three sat. The great room yawned cavernously behind them. When the King had been tried, stands had been constructed to hold the gallery of spectators. For this trial there would be no witnesses.
He had known Thamsine would be waiting outside and looked for her in the crowd. Despite telling her to stay away, at the sight of her familiar figure, distinguished from the rest of the crowd by her height, her fine dress of dark blue, and the chestnut hair that curled from beneath her wide-brimmed hat, he felt comforted. In the six weeks since she had arranged an improvement to his conditions she had visited him every day. They had been short, hurried meetings but they had made the days pass and given him something to look forward to, some reason to hope.
The four accused were seated on a backless bench, facing a raised platform where a table had been neatly set with feathered pens, ink and papers, ready for the judges. No spectators and no jury. In that respect Gerard was right. If they were tried before a jury they would undoubtedly be acquitted.
The four judges filed in and took their seats without even looking at the accused men. He didn’t recognise any of them. Not that it mattered. The whole proceeding was a sham.
The charges were read and the men asked to plead. Gerard, as the senior in age and rank, rose to his feet.
‘I refuse to submit to the jurisdiction of this court,’ he declared, his beard jutting imperiously at the bench of judges.
‘And I.’ Vowells rose beside him. ‘We are innocent of the charges laid before you and we demand the right to a fair trial by a jury of our peers.’
The senior judge’s eye moved to Fox and Kit. ‘And you?’
Kit rose slowly to his feet. ‘Sir, you have before you, no doubt, a full confession signed by me, admitting my complicity in a plot against the Lord Protector. I see no point in disputing the jurisdiction of this court when such evidence would secure a conviction before any court.’
There was a general nodding of heads and the eyes moved to Fox.
Fox, less sure of himself, rose to his feet. His hands shook as he nodded. ‘I too have signed a confession,’ he said. ‘What Captain Lovell has said answers my case as well.’
‘Be seated. Lord Gerard, let us hear your argument as to why this court is improperly constituted.’
Gerard argued long, loudly, and to no avail. At the end of the day his arguments were dismissed and the trials commenced.
Through the haze of his own self-despair, Kit heard his name. He looked up.
‘I call as witness Captain Christopher Lovell,’ the prosecutor said.
Kit rose to his feet. ‘No. I will not give testimony against these men.’
‘It’s not a matter you have a choice about, Captain Lovell.’
‘I refuse to answer any questions,’ Kit said. ‘You have my confession, you need no more.’
‘You will answer the questions,’ the senior judge glared at him, ‘or it will be the worse for you.’
‘How much worse can it be?’
‘The difference between life and death.’
‘I will not bear testimony against these men.’ Kit looked across at Gerard and Vowells. ‘I have done enough.’
He sat down and they called Fox. Unlike Kit, he proved happy to talk, digging deeper graves for his conspirators with every word. Kit lowered his head and closed his eyes, willing himself away from this place, in Thamsine’s arms, in the world they had planned where they were safe and free of England.
The guilty verdict was delivered without consultation, and any deliberation on the severity of sentence seemed to be arbitrary.
The senior judge cleared his throat and read from a paper before him.
‘As to the accused Lord John Gerard, this court finds him guilty and sentences him to death by beheading. As to the accused Phillip Vowells, this court finds him guilty and sentences him to death by hanging. As to the accused Somerset Fox, the court finds him guilty, and in view of his admission of guilt and co-operation, sentences him to banishment to the island of Barbados. As to the accused, Christopher Lovell, the court finds him guilty and takes note of his admission of guilt, but in view of his close complicity in this heinous design, sentences him to death by hanging. These sentences to be carried out as soon as is practicable.’
Kit hardly heard the words. Just for a moment, after the sentence on Fox was pronounced, he had hoped that some influence external to the court would prevail. He raised his head, scanning the room for John Thurloe, but he was not present. Rage rose in his chest. He had trusted Thurloe, taken his advice, co-operated, and yet he would still die.
~ * ~
Thamsine set her mask and hat down on the table and pushed back the stray tendril of hair that clung to her damp forehead.
‘Thurloe won’t see me,’ she said.
‘I didn’t think he would.’ Kit set down his beloved copy of Francis Bacon and rose to his feet.
Thamsine gave a faint half smile. ‘You must know every word in that book by heart.’
Kit picked it up again, flicking through the well-read pages. He held out the book to her.
‘Take it, Thamsine.’ His mouth curled in a rueful smile. ‘It’s all I have to give you.’
She took a step back. ‘Don’t talk like that.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Thamsine, Thurloe won’t see you because there is nothing he can or will do. I go to the scaffold in the morning.’
She straightened her shoulders, and he could see the strain in the line of her jaw and her throat as she swallowed. She would not make a scene or make parting any more difficult than it already was. That, in its own way, was harder to bear than hysterics.
‘Talk to me of ordinary things, Tham. Tell me some gossip.’ He smiled and walked around the table, folding her in his arms.
She leaned her head against the soft linen of his shirt.
‘May has a suitor,’ she said.
In the two months of his incarceration her appearance had changed. The chestnut hair shone with health. He kissed the gleaming locks, smelling the faint scent of rosemary and chamomile.
‘Who is her suitor?’
‘A carter. He’s a good man, solid and reliable. Just right for her.’
‘What about Nan?’
‘She is honing her tongue. I swear it grows sharper by the day, but she is pleased for May, I think.’
‘And Jem?’
‘Henpecked by Nan. She all but runs the inn now..’
With closed eyes, he caressed the nape of her neck, curling his fingers in her soft hair and trying to impress on his memory her warm, living scent.
‘And your sister?’
‘She has her good days. Since the children have been with her, she has been better.’
Thamsine gulped and her shoulders stiffened as the tears she had been struggling to contain escaped.
He held her closer and they stood locked in an embrace. There seemed to be so much to say, and yet words were inadequate and unnecessary. All that needed to be said was in the tears that soaked his shirt, the feel of her silken hair in his hands, and in th
e touch of his lips on her smooth forehead.
‘I’m sorry, Tham. So sorry,’ he whispered. ‘It shouldn’t have ended like this.’
‘No.’ Her voice sounded muffled by his shirt.
In a sudden, swift movement he released her, his hands cupping her face, flushed with her distress, her tears spilling from her eyes. With savage ferocity he kissed her as if he wished to draw the life force from her and hold it within himself. Thamsine’s tears spilled unchecked down her cheeks and onto his hands.
He pushed her away and strode to the window, looking out but not seeing the busy courtyard, his back to her, his arms wrapped tightly around his body. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her again. He couldn’t trust himself to remain strong.
‘Go, Thamsine,’ he said in a voice tight with emotion.
‘Kit … ’ Thamsine’s voice wavered.
‘Go … ’ he said softly. ‘Please, for both our sakes.’
He heard the door open and shut. His left hand clenched the barely healed fingers of his right and he welcomed the pain. He needed the pain.
She appeared in the yard below him, moving stiffly as if a puppeteer controlled her limbs. Halfway across she stopped and turned to look up at his window, her face wet with tears. He swallowed, fighting back his own tears as she then turned and walked away with her head bowed, as if it were she who walked to the scaffold.
~ * ~
In the dark, lonely hours before dawn, Kit sat at the table and wondered what he should be feeling. Death had always loomed at the edge of his consciousness, but always a sharp, brutal death on the battlefield, not a calculated, judicial determination of place, time, and means.
He had asked for and been granted paper and a pen, and he grasped the pen awkwardly in the fingers of his right hand. The fingers had knit as well as they could but they were stiff, the joints unyielding. He would never wield a sword again but then, he supposed, that was really of little importance now. He could at least try and write one last letter.
‘Dearest Thamsine,’ he began, and sat chewing the end of the pen. The awkward letters looked like the ill-educated scrawling of an eight-year-old child, not his usual immaculate hand.
He set the pen down and with a shuddering sigh closed his eyes, the memory of their farewell too painful. There had been so much left unsaid, so much he needed to say. Written words seemed so much easier than spoken words. Everything he had planned to say to her that afternoon had entirely escaped him when confronted with her love and her grief.
With renewed determination he picked up the pen and began:
By the time you read this I will be dead. It is strange to know the exact hour of my death, a privilege not afforded many. I try not to think of the manner of my end and just pray that it will be swift. It is customary, I suppose, at times like this, to have regrets, but I find myself curiously thankful for my life. I have made many mistakes and done many things of which I am not proud but at no time could I ever say that my life was dull. One of the few good things I have done, and by far the best, was to pluck you from the crowd on that cold day in February. These few months that you have been a part of my life, you have brought me absolute joy and taught me for the first time what it is to love a person completely and unconditionally.
I have nothing of any value to leave you. A poor showing for my life, I know. Eveleigh and the empty title that goes with it will devolve to Daniel. I have to trust to Thurloe’s assurances that he will return safely. Pray for Daniel, Thamsine, as you pray for me.
Kit paused and shook his aching hand as he pondered how to conclude this farewell.
Finally, my dearest Thamsine, I can do nothing more than wish you a happy life. Free yourself of the past ties and enjoy what is now your fortune. If our marriage accomplished nothing but your liberation then I die happy in that knowledge. There is nothing more I can say, words are inadequate, but I will hold your face in my memory until the end. Remember me always.
Yr loving and affectionate husband, Kit Lovell.
Kit sanded the letter, shook off the sand and re-read the scrawl. Carefully, he folded the paper and sealed it, addressing it to Thamsine Lovell, care of The Ship Inn, and set it aside. It still lacked a few hours to dawn, a few more hours to make his peace with the world. He sat by the window to watch and wait.
As the sky began to lighten through the window, he looked up at his last dawn and memories of other dawns flooded him – those he had spent around campfires, before battles, in bed with pretty girls.
He rose to his feet and dressed carefully in a new suit of good blue cloth. Unable to use his right hand, he hadn’t shaved properly since his encounter with Morton, so he had ordered the services of a barber, who had attended on him the previous evening. He intended to go to the scaffold looking every inch the gentleman that he was.
The door opened and Barkstead loomed in the doorway. ‘Ready to meet the Lord, Lovell?’ he asked.
‘You are optimistic about where I am headed,’ Kit replied.
‘I am a great believer in a forgiving God,’ Barkstead said. ‘The pastor is here if you wish to pray.’
‘I’ve made my peace with God,’ Kit replied. ‘However, I have no objections to him saying a few words on my behalf.’
He picked up the letter to Thamsine. ‘You will see this delivered?’
Barkstead nodded and stowed the letter in his jacket. Kit fastened his jacket, hoping Barkstead didn’t notice that his fingers shook in the task. He straightened the collar and took a deep breath.
Barkstead gave an approving chuckle. ‘Very nice, Captain Lovell. ‘Tis a pity there will be no crowd to admire you.’
‘No crowd?’ Kit smiled. ‘I hear Vowells had quite a send-off.’
‘No, for you, ’tis a private affair, here in the Tower.’ Barkstead shrugged. ‘You must have a friend somewhere.’
Kit almost laughed. Was this the best Thurloe could do for him?
After the pastor had pronounced some solemn thoughts on the future of Kit’s soul, Barkstead stood to one side.
‘After you, Captain Lovell,’ he said.
Kit took a deep breath, trying to calm the churning in his stomach. His limbs felt wooden and unresponsive. He closed his eyes and willed them to obey. He would not be dragged to the gibbet, hysterical and screaming, but would die with what little dignity he had.
He could, he supposed as he descended the narrow, winding stairs, have insisted on beheading. It was his right as a member of the aristocracy, but then few people knew who he was, and those who had known had forgotten or were dead. No, he would die, as he had lived, as a commoner and besides, from what the gossip had told him, Lord Gerard’s despatch at the hands of a headsman had been unpleasant in the extreme. “Four goes to lop it off,” the turnkey had said.
A scaffold had been erected in the courtyard and the wood smelled crisp and fresh in the cool morning air. As he mounted the steps to the platform he forced himself to look up. The noose stirred slightly in the chill breeze off the river. His step faltered and for a moment he thought his nerve would fail him.
He looked away, seeing two men standing below the scaffold, well-wrapped in their cloaks, hats hiding their eyes. He barely gave them a glance and wondered if they had their breakfast before or after the deed took place.
‘Any last words?’ Barkstead asked as one of his men secured Kit’s arms behind his back.
In the hours before dawn, Kit had rehearsed a number of well-chosen epithets; now they escaped him completely. He shivered slightly and looked at the banner of the Commonwealth flying high above the White Tower. He thought of Lord Gerard and his lengthy speech to the gathered crowd. For Kit there was no crowd, and professions of innocence, loyalty to the King and to his country seemed misplaced and hypocritical. He shook his head.
The hangman pulled him towards the stool and he stepped onto it.
He swallowed, took a last deep breath of air, tinged with the stench of a London summer, as the man hung the noose around his neck. The
weight of the cord, pulled down by the heavy knot, hung slackly on his shoulders. A well-tied knot would see his neck snap. It would be quick.
He stood poised only for an instant before the stool jerked away from beneath him. The slack in the rope caught and tightened and in that split second Kit panicked. The knot had been badly tied and he realised he would die by slow strangulation. He wanted to protest but already the rope bit in, cutting off blood and air.
The instinct for survival was strong and he struggled for breath – for life – before a red mist closed over his eyes, blocking out the memory of the slender woman with chestnut hair standing in the yard of Westminster Palace. Her face replaced by other images – Daniel’s fear-filled face on a smoky battlefield, Fitzjames’ eyes as he had gone over the side into the murky blackness of the Thames Estuary, other memories of his mother, his home, then nothing.
~ * ~
Thamsine sat in her bedchamber in the pleasant house at Turnham Green. Nan Marsh stood in the doorway, her eyes wet with tears and her mouth trembling as she held out a paper. She’d heard the knocking on the front door and knew what news Nan Marsh brought.
Thamsine did not move. She stared at Nan.
‘No,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I had hoped … a reprieve, surely.’
Nan shook her head.
‘This morning,’ she said. ‘The man who brought this said it was this morning at dawn. Said he died like a gentleman. Jem said I was to bring it to you without delay.’ Nan proffered the letter again. ‘Take it, Mistress Thamsine. They said ’tis from him.’
Thamsine recoiled from the letter as if it were on fire.
‘No, I can’t … ’ She wrapped her arms around herself, fearing that if she took the paper she would fall apart.
Nan swallowed, her mouth tightening. She crossed to Thamsine and took her by the arm.
‘Take it,’ she ordered.
Thamsine snatched at the paper and looked at her name written in an awkward scrawl. She clutched it to her chest and from deep within her a howl of despair rose, an animal noise that had nothing to do with human reason but came from the very depth of primal despair. She sank to her knees on the floor, doubling over as the dry, retching sobs shook her.
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