Salvation

by Harriet Steel

  ‘Of course, and thank you again.’

  *

  Meg was too tired to stay awake that night but she woke early, her mind full of anxiety. In the cold light of morning, last night seemed like a dream. Unquestioningly kind as Beatrice and her brother had been, they were bound to be curious and want answers soon. She didn’t know what to tell them.

  After a while, there were faint sounds from the next room, where Sarah lay. Slipping out of bed, Meg crept out into the passageway and knocked on her door. ‘Sarah?’ she whispered. ‘It’s me, Meg.’

  Sarah lay in bed looking brighter than she had for many days. ‘You must tell them the truth about our family,’ she said firmly when Meg had confided her fears. ‘But I’m afraid only you can decide what to say on your own behalf. One thing I do feel sure of, though, is that Beatrice and her brother would not want to do you harm.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Meg said gloomily.

  When Meg dressed and went downstairs, Beatrice was nowhere to be seen. As Meg ate her breakfast with Bess and Agnes in the kitchen and then took some up to Sarah, her fears mounted. The storm had blown over but from the upstairs window, she saw that it had ripped whole branches from some of the trees in the park. The sky was still a leaden grey. A journey today would not be easy.

  Several hours passed before Beatrice asked her to come to the Great Hall. Clearly it had once been a magnificent room but Meg noticed signs of decay in the shabby furniture and the worn brocade curtains that hung at the tall, narrow windows. An enormous fireplace of carved stone dominated the long wall opposite the windows and a cheerful fire blazed in the grate.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ Beatrice asked. ‘I’m sorry Richard isn’t here. He is occupied with other matters this morning.’

  Meg felt a surge of relief. It would be easier talking to Beatrice by herself.

  ‘I hope you will forgive Alice’s behaviour last night,’ Beatrice continued. ‘She is not always so uncharitable but she brought Richard and me up after our mother died. Sometimes I think she forgets we are no longer children and quite capable of making choices for ourselves.’

  ‘Even if your choice is to bring strangers into the house? I doubt many people would have done so.’

  ‘You needed help. I hope no Christian would have left you on the road.’

  ‘I fear not everyone thinks as you do.’

  There was a pause. Meg felt her heartbeat quicken. ‘I expect you wonder why we were there,’ she ventured.

  ‘I confess I do. Are you prepared to tell me? I don’t wish to pry, but as you are in my house, I would like to know.’

  Meg lowered her eyes. ‘Your generosity gives you every right to. I only hope that when you do, you will not regret you ever helped us. Sarah and her family have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. My case is different. However you judge me, I hope you will pity them.’

  She looked up at Beatrice’s face; the kindness in her dark eyes was reassuring. Suddenly, Meg felt as if a great weight had slid from her shoulders. She began to tell her story.

  11

  February, 1587

  A raw east wind made Lamotte’s eyes water as he rode out of London on the road to Fotheringay. His breath hung in miniature clouds on the icy air. It was evil weather for travelling, but Walsingham required him to witness Queen Mary’s execution and he must obey. Walsingham had refused to attend himself. He was suffering from one of his frequent bouts of ill health, but even if that were not the case, Lamotte suspected he would have stayed away. In the face of tremendous odds, he had done what was necessary to protect his queen and country. He was not a man to gloat in victory.

  Over three months had passed since Mary had been found guilty of treason and a less cautious monarch than Queen Elizabeth would probably have long ago signed the death warrant. Characteristically, however, Elizabeth had prevaricated, giving impenetrable answers to her ministers’ pleas. Lamotte knew he was not alone in suspecting she would have preferred her cousin, Mary, to be assassinated, to avoid having the Scottish queen’s blood on her hands. But what man in his right mind would do that? Almost certainly, the queen would preserve her honour by denouncing and executing him afterwards.

  The snow blanketing the road had already been churned up by other travellers. In places it had hardened into treacherous sheets of ice. Often, Lamotte had to slow his horse and ride with great caution to avoid a fall. ‘Seventy-five miles on this God-forsaken road,’ he muttered, ‘seventy-five miles with nowhere but flea-ridden wayside inns to lay my head.’

  It was with relief that a few days later he trotted over the drawbridge into Fotheringay Castle. A cart piled high with barrels of beer and tuns of wine rumbled into the outer bailey after him. Over by the kitchens servants unloaded sides of beef and mutton from another cart; boxes of onions and roots were stacked nearby. More servants bustled in and out of doorways with bedding and chamber pots, no doubt preparing visitors’ lodgings.

  Leaving his horse at the stables, Lamotte walked through to the inner bailey and entered the keep. Mary’s gaoler, Amyas Paulet, met him at the head of the stairs and took him to his private quarters.

  ‘She will be told tonight that the execution is due to take place at eight o’clock in the morning,’ Paulet said grimly. ‘The business is best done with as little ceremony as possible. I don’t want Mary to have the opportunity to make trouble.’

  Lamotte wondered what trouble a frail, middle-aged woman, already condemned to death and surrounded by guards, could make, but he let the remark pass.

  ‘You have a letter for me from Sir Francis?’ Paulet asked.

  With a nod, Lamotte handed it over and watched Paulet scan it. He found him an unprepossessing man with his pinched, sour face and drooping moustache.

  After a few minutes, Paulet folded the letter, placed it in the box at his elbow and turned the key. ‘As always,’ he remarked, ‘Sir Francis is most exact in his instructions. You may tell him the queen’s body and her worldly goods will be disposed of as he commands. Does he wish you to remain here until the proceedings are over so you may report to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I advise you to see John Hobbey, our steward, without delay. He will find you lodgings.’

  Bowing, Lamotte withdrew and went to find Hobbey.

  *

  When he entered the Great Hall the next morning, shortly before the appointed hour, Lamotte was glad to see a good blaze roaring in the big fireplace. The room was empty of furniture except for a low dais, looking uncannily like the kind of stage a company of travelling players would use, set up at one end. Black velvet covered the whole construction and a high-backed chair with a footstool, also draped in black, stood in one corner. Opposite it was the block.

  Yet in spite of its lack of furniture, the room was far from deserted. In defiance of Paulet’s wishes, it buzzed with onlookers. Lamotte guessed there were at least two hundred people gathered there.

  ‘Local knights and gentry eager to have something to tell their grandchildren,’ the man walking in beside him chuckled. ‘A thousand more by my reckoning in the outer bailey, but they are common folk.’

  As the hour of the execution approached, the crowd grew restive. Lamotte had not attempted to talk with anyone; he thought it best to draw as little attention to himself as possible, but he had picked up plenty of snippets of the chatter around him. He would be able to assure Walsingham that in Fotheringay at least, Mary’s death would cause little sorrow.

  He shifted his weight and rolled his shoulders to ease his aching back. The straw mattress last night had been lumpy and thin. Breakfast had not been much better. The sooner this was over and he was on the way home the happier he would feel.

  Three hours passed and still there was no sign of Mary. At last, the sheriff’s men arrived and took up their stations by the stage, their halberds planted in front of them and their eyes staring blankly ahead. The noise stilled to a hum and then silence as the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent
entered the hall. Amyas Paulet came next, walking ahead of Mary herself. Four guards and two of her women brought up the rear. Both of the women wept.

  Apparently oblivious to the officer on whose arm she leant, Mary led the forlorn little party to the dais and, with the quiet air of one going to her prayers, slowly ascended the three steps. As she took her place on the high-backed chair, the audience remained very still. Her small figure, dressed also in black, was almost lost against the black velvet drapes and the feeble light dulled the gleam of her white veil and ruff. The only colour it could not suppress was the vivid auburn of her hair.

  A murmur rose from the onlookers. Lamotte studied her closely. The outlines of her beauty were still visible in her melancholy, dark eyes and wistful mouth, but her heart-shaped face was lined and careworn. So this was the woman for whom so many men had died: Babington, Rizzio, Darnley, Norfolk and the thousands who had lost their lives on northern moors and scaffolds in the Great Rebellion; the woman whose legend had hung over England like the sword of Damocles for twenty years; the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret; the woman who, in the view of staunch Catholics, had a better claim to the throne of England than her cousin, Elizabeth.

  The clerk to the Privy Council stood to read the execution warrant. As his words died away, a shout of ‘God save Queen Elizabeth’ rang out. Lamotte marvelled at Mary’s calm expression in the face of death.

  The clerk sat down and, rising stiffly, Richard Fletcher, the Dean of Peterborough, prepared to speak. Clad in black with hunched shoulders and a scrawny neck, he had the air of a vulture.

  ‘Madam,’ he began in his braying, nasal voice, ‘the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, notwithstanding this just preparation for the execution of justice to be done upon you – ahem – for your many trespasses against her sacred person, offers you the comfortable promises of Almighty God to all penitent believing Christians.’

  Lamotte winced at the mangling of language. Mary raised her hand in an imperious gesture.

  ‘Master Dean! Do not trouble yourself or me, for I am settled in the ancient Catholic and Roman religion, and in its defence, with God’s help, I mean to spend my blood. I am not afraid to die, and I pray for my cousin’s soul.’ Her voice was clear and musical, and Lamotte felt himself respond to its seductive timbre. Around him, men craned forward.

  The dean bridled. ‘Madam, I did not come here to dispute with you.’ He flushed as a ripple of laughter rose from the audience.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Mary lowered her eyes. ‘I thought you wished to discuss religion.’

  ‘This is unseemly, madam.’

  Her chin lifted. ‘Do you not think what you do today is “unseemly”, sir?’

  For a moment, their eyes locked. If it were possible, Mary’s face had grown even paler in contrast to the dean’s choleric flush, but her bravado, Lamotte saw, was paper thin; already tears streamed down her cheeks.

  The dean abandoned his lecture and started to pray. Mary stumbled from the chair and fell to her knees. In a voice choked with sobs, she prayed for the Catholic Church and for her own deliverance. She prayed too for her son, James, to whom she had, many years ago, been forced to surrender the Scottish throne. Finally, she prayed for the salvation of Elizabeth’s soul. Her ladies-in-waiting joined in, drowning the dean’s words, as the audience watched aghast.

  The Earl of Kent lumbered to his feet. ‘Madam, I beseech you, settle Christ in your heart. Leave aside these popish trumperies.’

  Mary ignored him.

  Sweat pricked Lamotte’s forehead. How much longer would Paulet let this farce continue? As the scene teetered on the edge of disaster, Bull, the executioner, stepped to Mary’s side and spoke quietly in her ear. With a shuddering sob, she ceased her prayers. Bull helped her to her feet and led her to the block. She waited calmly for him and his assistant to disrobe her, her face transformed by the ghost of a smile.

  ‘I have never had such grooms attend me before, nor put off my garments in such company,’ she remarked. Once more, her voice was clear as water.

  The black dress slipped from her shoulders to pool at her feet. With the rest of the onlookers, Lamotte gasped. Underneath, she wore a scarlet shift, the scarlet of the Catholic martyrs. Walsingham would be enraged.

  She gave Bull her blessing and forgiveness then one of her ladies stepped forward to tie a white kerchief over her eyes. She knelt and put her neck on the block, stretching her arms out on either side.

  With a shudder, Lamotte watched Bull’s muscular biceps swell and ripple. The tension in the hall was palpable.

  ‘Into your hands, Lord—’ Mary cried out, but before she could finish, the axe fell. The audience gasped as the blade struck the knot of the blindfold and rebounded. A barely audible moan broke from Mary’s lips.

  Bull hefted the axe again. This time his aim was true. Blood spurted from Mary’s severed neck as her head toppled to the floor. Laying down the axe, Bull grasped a handful of her luxuriant, auburn hair to lift her head for all to see. A gasp erupted from the crowd as the head, covered only with grey stubble, fell and rolled away, leaving Mary’s wig dangling in Bull’s hand.

  Lamotte felt a surge of pity. A final, pathetic secret had been revealed for all to see.

  *

  ‘The witch made fools of us.’ Amyas Paulet’s ugly face twisted in a scowl. ‘The insolence: praying for Her Majesty’s soul. And didn’t I say none of her people should be allowed to attend her?’

  ‘Enough, Paulet,’ the Earl of Shrewsbury said sharply. ‘A man would have to be inhuman to have denied her the comfort of her people at the end. How could Kent and I refuse her entreaties?’

  Kent nodded.

  ‘Certainly, when she was in your charge, you had difficulty resisting her,’ Paulet rasped.

  Shrewsbury’s hand shot to the hilt of his sword then he turned his back on Paulet and stalked to the far end of the room. Kent gave Paulet an uneasy look.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now,’ Paulet snapped. ‘Lamotte, tell your master all the clothes and drapes will be burnt as he commanded. The heart and other organs will be removed and buried secretly. The plate and other valuables have already been secured and her servants are confined to their quarters until arrangements can be made to send them away. You may leave for London at your earliest convenience.’

  Lamotte left the room, glad to escape the poison in the air. Outside, he picked his way over the icy cobbles. The acrid smell of smoke drifted in from the outer bailey. So the bonfire had already been lit. Flames sputtered around the freshly sawn wood of the dismantled dais and as servants threw on the blood-spattered drapes, the fire picked up heat. By the time the scarlet reminder of Mary’s pitiful defiance joined them, it roared. Lamotte watched the fabric writhe and blacken then it was gone.

  Later, as he snatched a meal from the kitchens and collected his horse, he wondered whether Mary’s memory would be so easily eradicated.

  He rode wearily into London and found swifter messengers had outpaced him by several hours. The city was already rejoicing: bells rang from church towers and bonfires were being built in the streets. He stopped to watch a procession go by accompanied by a deafening chorus of pipes, tambours and musket salvos.

  Only his steward, Brocket, was at home in Throgmorton Street. ‘I’m sorry, Master Lamotte,’ he said anxiously, ‘there’s such a stir in the city, it’s as if a black cloud’s been lifted and no mistake. I let the rest go and see the fun. I hope I did right.’

  ‘It’s all right, Brocket,’ Lamotte yawned. He flopped into his favourite chair and stretched out his legs. ‘Pull these boots off, will you, and find me some clean clothes? I seem to have brought most of Northamptonshire home with me. Is there any food in the house?’

  ‘I’ll go to the kitchens and find out, Master Lamotte. If needs be I’ll prepare something myself, just as soon as I’ve fetched the clean clothes. Shall I light the fire before I go?’

  ‘Thank you, Brocket. Were there
any messages for me while I was away?’

  ‘No messages, master.’

  Left alone, Lamotte went to the fire in his stockinged feet and spread his hands out to the flames. His toes throbbed as the blood coursed back. With a sigh, he looked forward to his comfortable bed. He only hoped Cook had left something tasty in the kitchen. He had little faith in Brocket’s efforts.

  *

  When he woke the following morning, his first thought was of Tom, but before he went to Newgate, he must make his report to Walsingham at Seething Lane.

  The door opened and Brocket appeared with his breakfast.

  ‘Is James sick?’ Lamotte asked. It was usually the manservant’s duty to attend him in the mornings.

  Brocket flushed. ‘The celebrations went on rather late last night, master.’

  ‘I see.’ Lamotte broke off a piece of bread and smeared it with damson jam. At least jam was a food the English knew how to cook. ‘I’ll be out all day. Have dinner ready at five.’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  The simplicity of ordinary folk was touching, Lamotte thought as he ate his breakfast. They seemed to believe all England’s problems could be solved at a stroke by the death of one frail woman.

  Restored by his night’s sleep, he set out an hour later for Seething Lane, but when Walsingham’s secretary opened the secluded door at the back of the house, he was brisk and dismissive.

  ‘Sir Francis is not receiving anyone today.’

  ‘I think he will see me.’

  ‘My orders are clear, master: no visitors. Sir Francis is unwell.’

  A worm of irritation stirred in Lamotte but he decided to retreat gracefully. If Sir Francis was in no hurry to hear his report, so be it.