by Sam Burnell
“Stay down there!” one of them shouted. All of them wore the pinched look of hunger, and that made them dangerous. From where Father Andrew sat, uncomfortably aware of the water seeping through his clothing, he saw on two of their doublets where the soldier’s badges had been pulled from them, leaving loose stitches. Turned off, or deserters, it didn’t matter which, they were still a bad threat.
Then Annie started to plead with them.
“We’ve nothing to give, we are just poor folk…” there was a loud smack and a choked scream; Annie fell to her knees clutching her face.
“We’ll be the judge of that love,” one of them laughed. Paul ran towards his wife, but the knife in the man’s hand stopped him dead.
“Now, some coins, some food and that horse, and we’ll let you be on your way,” the shortest of the group demanded. He addressed Andrew, as the undoubted highest ranking member of the group.
“We beseech you, please have some kindness, these are simple folk who would gladly share a meal with you…” A rough kick in the leg stilled Father Andrew’s words. “I said, I want what coins you have, food and that,” he pointed directly at the pony tethered to the cart, “horse. Now get to it, or you’ll be getting a bit more than a few bruises.”
“In the name of the Lord please Sir…” Andrew tried again.
The man grabbed Annie by the hair and hauled her to her knees, a dirty knife in his hand pressed under her ear. “Get me what I ask for or I’ll cut her ear off, and that’ll be just the start.”
“Wait, wait, I’ve some money, not much but you can have it all, please let her go.” Paul, Annie’s husband started to reach into his jacket for what little he had, and then stopped abruptly.
“Well get on with it or her ear comes off,” the man realised a little too late that Paul was no longer staring at him but at the mounted man some paces behind them who sat quietly on his horse, a sword unsheathed resting on his shoulder.
“Let her go,” Jack stated simply, and then he added, “or don’t, it’s your choice.” He dropped lightly from the saddle and crossed the short distance to the group.
“You should have stopped up there: now it’s three against one. Get him, Sim!”
Sim, the largest of the three, already had a blade in his hand: a professional soldier, he was trained and hardened for a fight. The man standing before him, in torn clothes, with the filth of rough living on him and a sword stupidly balanced on his shoulder wasn’t a threat. He rolled the hilt of his own sword in his hand, and then set the blade to whistle through the air in two quick flashing cuts. Jack just stood unmoving.
“Come on then,” Sim goaded, moving the sword point threateningly toward Jack. “This’ll not take me long; you just keep hold of that woman Giles.”
“Anytime you like,” Jack sounded unimpressed. He was a big man he’d fight on power, not skill. His attack would aim true, but it would be slow, he was sure.
“Go on Sim,” the leader, Giles, called from where he still held the whimpering woman.
Sim growled, and grasping his sword a little firmer, stepped forward to strike. The grim and capable face was replaced by wide eyed surprise, as the blade cut only through air: his target had moved faster than he could have thought possible. The only impact was Jack’s blade slicing up over and taking the blade out of his hand to send it spinning end over end into the mud.
“Let her go,” Jack demanded, the point of his weapon now levelled, unmoving, at Sim’s chest.
“Sim, you useless idiot!” Giles shouted back. He’d dropped the blade from Annie’s ear to her neck and the woman could not contain her scream. “Now let Sim get his blade back or I’ll let her next breath out for her.”
Jack glanced between them. Sim unarmed before him, the leader with Annie’s hair wound round his fist and the third man who’d yet to join in. He appeared as nervous as Annie’s husband did, and Jack guessed rightly that he’d not act unless he was pressed to. Jack lowered his blade and nodded to Sim to go and collect his from where it lay on the black mud. As he stooped to pick it up, his back was to Jack for an instant and it was long enough to flick the knife from his wrist guard and send it on a fast and accurate flight.
Sim, hearing the scream turned; the wet muddy blade now in his hand.
“You’re not bloody well touching me with that,” Jack announced and took the fight to Sim. Jack on a good day was dangerous, but on a day when he neither cared whether he lived nor died was formidable. His reckless abandon added an edge that soon marked itself in terror on Sim’s face, as he realised that he was badly matched to fight the man in front of him.
Jack let their blades touch seven times, smiling as they did, and then with a finality that Sim’s bowels recognised, he shook his head. The first cut went through Sim’s exposed throat and the second, vicious, unnecessary slice, unzipped his stomach. The wide gaping wound spewed forth visceral innards to the mud in a steaming grey, and bleeding heap.
Annie was crawling away. Giles was on his knees now, his face pale, with the knife’s hilt protruding from his chest. Jack made a quick move towards the third man and he ran backward, taking quick flight away from the road into the trees.
Jack advanced on Giles. The man tried to move backward, but bleeding and with a knife between his ribs, it was a hollow gesture. Jack grabbed him under one arm, his other on the hilt and lifted him back upright. Giles screamed, bubbles of blood running down his chin. Jack’s breathing was even, his eyes were wide, and he could smell the blood. When his fist hit Giles it felt good. The bone of his nose splintering beneath his knuckles, the man landed prone on the road, and Jack went with him, fists intent on inflicting as much hurt as Jack had within him.
“Stop,” Father Andrew had hold of one of Jack’s arms, “stop lad.”
Jack delivered one more blow, a choking gasp catching in his throat.
“Stop, come away, he’s dead,” Father Andrew tightened his hold on Jack, feeling the tremors run through his body.
“I know he’s dead, I know it, but I still want to hit him, why did he do it?” Jack rocked back on his heels and covered his face with his blooded fists. God Richard why did you leave me?
It was Father Andrew who took charge then. He rallied the group and before long the bodies were consigned to the bracken cover of the forest floor, and the cart trundled back along the muddy path. Jack, still in a daze, had been helped back into the saddle and one of the boys led his horse. Jack’s crusted blades lay under the cover on the wagon. They were a silent and reticent group that moved towards York that afternoon, the woman and men casting wary glances at their saviour.
That night’s meal around the fire in the dampened woodland was set to be a quiet and strained one. Jack sat apart, aware of the suspicious glances he was attracting. His knuckles were raw; the skin torn and red, Giles’s dried blood on his hands, and the cut in his palm had opened up again and was bleeding steadily. It was Annie who came over eventually and kneeling near him, held out a cup.
“I was saving this, but I think we’ve all a need of it tonight.” Annie smiled. He took the offered cup and she poured him a good measure of aqua vitae. “Go on, try it.”
Jack did: it burnt his lips, and he attempted a smile.
Annie smiled back. “Thank you for what you did. Paul and the others, they’re just farming folk. They feel ashamed, that’s all. We were lucky the Lord set you to join us.” Jack, for once, kept his thoughts on the Divine to himself.
“Come on, join us I’ve a good supper for you,” Annie stood, hands on hips and waited for him to get up, which he reluctantly did. Shoving her arm through his she set their course back to the fire and the waiting group. Jack let her lead him.
“Come on you lot, make room for the lad,” Annie give Paul a nudge with one of her feet.
She had not lied: it was a good supper. There was pottage with meat, and warm and filling unleavened bread, baked on a stone near the fire. Father Andrew produced a second bottle to supplement Annie’s and he foun
d a few new stories which even had Jack smiling quietly. That night, Jack’s sleep was not wracked by haunting memories and he awoke feeling guilty that for a time, he had forgotten.
†
When Mary took the throne, like her father before her, she enjoyed the finery of her position. That she would be remembered as a dark and restrained figure would have been consternation to the keeper of the royal wardrobe who kept the accounts for her lavish expenditure. Henry’s final year had seen a spend on his wardrobe of eight thousand pounds, and Mary had doubled that figure in her first year.
The elegant, deeply pleated velvet dress, extravagantly embellished with delicate Flemish lace were at odds with the hard angular face the Queen. Mary had inherited her father’s small dark piercing eyes, ridged nose and thin lips that were set in a perpetual hard line; there was little soft beauty to be found in her face.
The desk before her was heaped with paperwork, all in neat piles, all awaiting her attention and all of it relating to the repeal of her half brother’s religious legislation. Mary scowled now at the physical manifestation of her wishes.
“Lawyers make it so difficult just to justify their own profession,” Mary lifted one of the sheaves of documents from the table and then dropping it back with a thud, “I am sure they are in league with the parchment vendors. Look at all this.”
Mary glowered at the two Annes; though both knew better than to comment, and both dropped their eyes to their needlework. Anne Bourchier was Countess of Essex and the other, Anne Bassett, a Tudor courtier from a bygone age. It was rumoured that Mary’s father had turned to Bouchier after the death of his one true love, Jane Seymour. That Mary kept around her such women was a constant irritation to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. They appeared to be part of the framework of the Court. Bouchier had later eloped with her lover and borne two illegitimate offspring in Mary’s mother’s time. Gardiner supposed she liked neither of these women, and it was true that in return for their places at Court they had to put up with Mary’s tempers, irritations, and tirades. Both women had outlived two previous Tudor sovereigns, a host of wives, and one also supposed they were by now well acquainted with the Tudor temperament and knew how to deal with it.
“My Lord Bishop of Winchester,” announced the page at the door to Mary’s presence chamber. He bowed low, always sure of his place. His were the hands that had placed, confidently and with purpose Edward the Confessor’s crown on Mary’s head. For him it had been symbolic, a coronation that returned England to Rome and to the Catholic state. The true way.
Monarchs were traditionally crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas Cranmer, who held that post, was a reformer and Mary would not have him preside over her coronation. Instead, it had been Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and her soon-to-be Lord Chancellor that had the honour. He was prepared to overlook that he had to bow to a woman as Monarch, for this stern and unfriendly female was a tool, a willing tool, of the Catholic faith.
Mary’s joyous match to Phillip of Spain had been one of the more repugnant tasks that had been his to carry out; England was not a country that liked the idea of a foreign wedding. For Mary, it was the perfect marriage; Philip was already set to rule Spain, a country she felt close links with through her mother Catherine of Aragon and he was Catholic. Mary truly believed the people supported her choice and her inability to judge public sentiment would be a characteristic of her reign.
“Look at this.” She waved imperiously at the paperwork.
“Your Majesty, I can assure you all is in order,” Gardiner came to stand near the table.
“It has taken months, and now I know why.” Mary was annoyed: her first act after her coronation had been to reinstate the Catholic Mass. This had meant suspending the Act of Uniformity. However, from a legal point this had been reasonably easy and left Mary thinking that reversing all of Edward’s reformist measures would be as simple.
“The Statute of Repeal is a difficult matter, Your Majesty. There are so many affected, the legislation was complicated and so many property issues were implicated as well that…”
Mary cut him off. “You assured me that this would be an easy matter. I know we cannot take the land back from the nobles, there would be an outcry, but surely we can bring England back to the Catholic faith a little quicker than this?” When Henry had dissolved the monastic institutions, he had not only enriched his own coffers but the ruling elite had also benefited from his sale of Church land. This redistribution of wealth was not an easy issue to face. Mary would have returned all the monastic lands and reinstated all the houses Henry had torn down. However, she was a realist, and recognised that without the support of England’s nobility her reign might prove to be a difficult one.
“Your Majesty,” Gardiner said, as calmingly as possible, “we do need to make sure that this is correctly done. You do not want to leave the reformist rabble with a legal loophole for them to attach their cause to.”
“You came to me months ago and told me the easiest and surest way forward was to return the land to the legal position as it was in 1547, before my brother was led astray by Edward Seymour’s reformist ambition. So, surely, why can it not state that anything after this date is no longer effective? Why does this have to be such a complicated matter?” 1547 was the year her brother had taken the throne after Henry’s death and recognition of this year was an important demonstration that anything enacted during Edward’s brief reign no longer applied. “The slate should be clean, his reforms were removed. I cannot wipe them from history but we can negate their effects.”
“I understand, Your Majesty, but the Reformist policies took the Church a long way from Rome. The clergy were allowed to marry; and many had families; Latin was no longer the voice of the Church. There is much change in many lives and we need England to be with you, Your Majesty.”
Once the coronation had been completed, Mary had seen for herself the countrywide support her reign had attracted. It became apparent she had a powerful weapon on her side: the people were loyal to the legal ruling monarch despite the fact that the new legal succession was vested in a woman. Devoutly Catholic, she had quickly decided that it would be an easy task to unravel the religious reforms of Edward and return England to the true religion.
Religious upheaval had been the tone in England since the 1520s. Mary’s father took the first steps away from Rome when he appointed himself head of the Church in a bid to rid himself of his first wife, Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon. Since then it had been accepted in England that the Monarchy, not Rome, ruled supreme. To move England back under the control of Papal authority was another thing entirely.
“Look at this,” Mary picked up the top manuscript and read from it; “whereof hath ensured amongst us in very short time numbers of divers and strange opinions and diversities of sects, and thereby grown great unquietness and much discord, to the disturbance of the commonwealth of this realm, and in very short time like to grow to extreme peril and utter confusion of the same, unless some remedy be in that behalf provided…” Mary threw the document back down. “Did you hear that? Short time it says, not once but twice!”
“Your Majesty, everything has now been given the royal seal and very soon you will have returned the realm to Rome.”
“My people wish this to be so, I will deliver them back to the protection of the faith,” Mary glowered at the documents. “This was not, however, what you wished to speak to me about,” Mary spoke through thin lips. A ringed hand waved the two Anne’s away, and Gardiner seated himself where she indicated.
“Indeed, Your Majesty, it is with great pain that I have to report what is happening within your royal sister’s household,” Gardiner made himself comfortable on the velvet perch.
“You have staff within her household?” Mary enquired. She knew he did, and indeed she herself had suggested that her sister was closely watched.
“For the Lady’s good guidance and for her salvation, I have indeed made sure that goodly souls atte
nd her. Lady Travers and her husband have been part of her household whilst she is at Durham Place, Your Majesty.” Little did he know that Travers was a man with two masters, reporting not only to Gardiner but also to Mary.
“And what does Lady Travers have to tell us then?” Mary asked, her fingers twisting the crested heavy ring that sat on her right hand.
“Lady Elizabeth still adheres to her Protestant ways, and so do her household. She has a copy of John Knox’s latest writing; Lady Travers has seen her reading it.” Gardiner was sure that linking Elizabeth and Knox would finally be her undoing.
“Have they found a copy of it?” Mary asked. Then when Gardiner did not instantly reply, “Well? Did you find it?”
“Kate Ashley believes she has security over Elizabeth’s possessions but when they have been absent from Durham Place, Travers had Elizabeth’s private coffer opened. He has not found the book yet: Kate guards the key and takes great pains to keep everyone out, so Travers is sure it is there somewhere; he has just not found it yet.” Gardener was nervous, his hands fidgeting in his lap, and then he added, “She has her mother’s Book of Hours; Lady Travers has found that in the coffer. It is an affront to the Lord, the book is defaced by her own hand with so many scurrilous lines in it she even wrote…”
Mary cut Gardiner off, “The whore wrote in it, not Elizabeth, and however much we dislike it I can understand why she would keep something belonging her mother.”
“It is Reformist propaganda, Boleyn’s book should not be in her keeping,” Gardiner protested.
“And what is in it that is to be kept secret?” Mary already knew what the pages contained; Travers had already sent her copies of the added scripts. Anne Boleyn’s Book of Hours contained nothing more than love notes between her and Henry. Mary hated it, striking as it did at the marriage which had at that time still stood between her father and mother, but she accepted that it had nothing to do with Elizabeth.
“Anything she wrote would be held up and flaunted by the Protestant cause.”