by Jane Feather
Rosamund murmured her thanks before repeating, “Indeed, madam, I would much prefer not to attend the executions.”
Ursula tutted. “Sir Francis expects you to be there, you and your brother. The family as a whole must show its loyalty to her majesty. Your absence, now that you are returned to London, would be remarked, and given your present rather parlous position with the queen, you will not wish to imply any lack of respect.”
Rosamund had rarely encountered the steel beneath Lady Walsingham’s pleasantly amenable exterior, but she understood that in this matter she had no choice. She cursed her stupidity in leaving Scadbury. She had had the choice to stay, but it had not occurred to her that she would be compelled to witness the morning’s barbarisms as quid pro quo for a change of scene.
“Very well, madam. If I must, I must.”
Ursula nodded her approval. “You must, my dear. Henny is bringing up hot water and some food for you to break your fast. We must leave before the crowds become too thick and unruly. Once the prisoners on the hurdles have left the Tower, the streets will become impassable.”
She hurried away to see to her own dressing, and Rosamund, heavyhearted, got out of bed and went to the window, opening the casement wide. It was a warm morning, but overcast, and she could already hear a low rumble from the streets, as if a crowd was gathering.
“Here’s water, mistress.” Henny bustled in, setting a filled ewer on the washstand. “And there’s a manchet of bread and smoked eel. We’ve all been given leave to attend the spectacle, and everyone’s anxious to get to St. Giles Fields for a good view. They’ve set up a special gallows there because ’tis more open than Tyburn and more folks will be able to see.” She chattered on as she helped Rosamund dress and seemed not to notice the young woman’s monosyllabic responses.
Rosamund nibbled at a little of the bread and fish and washed it down with half a mug of small beer, but she was already feeling queasy at the prospect that lay ahead. Dressed in the tawny velvet, she threw a hooded cloak over her shoulders and went down to the hall.
Sir Francis came into the hall from the street as she reached the bottom stair. “Good, the carriage is outside. We must make haste, the streets are already filling and soon the carriage will not be able to pass.”
He hurried her ahead of him with a hand between her shoulder blades. Ursula, already ensconced in the iron-wheeled carriage, patted the bench beside her as Rosamund climbed up. “Sit here, my dear.”
Rosamund did so and Sir Francis took the bench opposite. The carriage was far from a luxury vehicle, the benches plain wood, the windows shielded with leather curtains, and it moved slowly across the cobbles with a bone-shaking rattle rough enough to loosen teeth. Rosamund moved the leather curtain aside and stared at the sea of humanity keeping pace with the vehicle. Children rode on parents’ shoulders, youths and girls chattered and sang, hoisting ale mugs as they went. Crones and matrons, dressed in their Sunday bonnets, bustled along, holding tight to the hands of small children.
The stench of unwashed humanity reminded Rosamund vividly of the reeking audiences at the theatre and in the bear pit, and she fumbled for her pomander at her waist. Beside her, Lady Walsingham held a lavender-soaked handkerchief to her nose, and after a moment Sir Francis leaned across and twitched the curtain into place.
At last the carriage came to a halt outside a house in Holborn, and Sir Francis stepped out, leaning in to take his wife’s hand as she descended. The crowd ebbed and flowed past the carriage, but the vehicle was drawn up close to a door opening directly onto the street, and they were protected from the stream of people by the body of the carriage.
Rosamund jumped down while Master Secretary was ushering his wife into the safety of the house. He turned to Rosamund and with a sweep of his arm moved her ahead of him into the building. “Follow my wife upstairs.”
She climbed in Ursula’s wake and found herself in a large, sparsely furnished chamber with mullioned casements overlooking the street. Ursula was standing at the open window. “It is a very good view,” she pronounced over her shoulder. “Come, Rosamund, stand beside me.”
Reluctantly Rosamund stepped up and looked out across the green expanse of St. Giles Fields. The gallows stood on a cart stark in the middle, with a ladder leading up to it. A huge cauldron was set over a merrily crackling fire, and she wondered what on earth it could be for. A hooded man stood beside the gallows, two boys beside him. The massed humanity swayed and shouted in the street below, spilling onto the field jostling for a place near the gallows.
“Ah, Sister. Good. You are here already.” Thomas entered the chamber in the company of men unknown to Rosamund, except for Kit Marlowe, who looked as drunk this morning as he had probably done the previous night. The group crowded up to the window, forming a half circle, and Rosamund found herself pushed forward so that her knees pressed against the windowsill.
The roar of the crowd grew louder, and at last she could make out the procession threading its way between the lines of spectators. Seven hurdles pulled by seven horses, each hurdle bearing a trussed figure. Beside them and in front marched the pikemen, their pikes held in front of them. A herald at the head of the procession blew a trumpet to clear the path through the jeering crowds.
Rosamund, unable to move back into the room for the press of people behind her, stared, as if paralyzed, at the scene unfolding below.
“They’re taking Ballard first,” she heard Thomas say as one of the figures, dressed only in a rough homespun shirt, was untrussed from the hurdle and hauled to the ladder, his legs dragging uselessly behind him. He was held up by the two hangman’s assistants and forced around to face the crowd and a man in the collar and black robes of a Protestant minister, who approached carrying a Bible.
“Ah, they have appointed Dr. White to seek their conversion and repentance,” Sir Francis said, sounding satisfied. “The good doctor is very sound of doctrine. The queen finds his sermons most enlightening.”
“ ’Tis to be hoped those traitors will find it so also,” one of the observers stated.
The Protestant minister began to harangue Father Ballard, his voice carrying over the crowd. The prisoner listened in silence, then when the doctor had fallen into an expectant silence, he made the sign of the cross. The crowd roared its disapproval and cheered as he was dragged up the ladder to the gallows, where the noose was fastened around his neck.
The cart was pushed from underneath and he swung twisting in the air for the barest instant before the hangman stepped forward, his knife raised.
Rosamund watched in a paralyzed horror as the executioner sliced off the hanging man’s genitals. His scream rose on the muggy air, then became a crescendo as they cut open his belly and pulled out his entrails. Her gorge rose and she pressed a hand to her mouth. She wanted to look away but she couldn’t. They cut the body down and butchered it, hacking it into quarters, and then she saw what the cauldron was for. They threw the pieces into the boiling water as they severed them. Beneath the window a man was selling hot pies from a tray around his neck, crying his wares above the shouts of the crowd. The smell of meat rose on the air.
She swayed and would have fallen if the man behind her hadn’t held her up. “The lady is about to swoon. Give her air.” It was Kit, his own countenance a ghastly green as he pushed his way forward through the half circle. Men fell back and let him grab Rosamund’s arm, pulling her back into the room.
She slumped onto a stool, her fist still pressed against her mouth. The roars of the crowd still reached them, the screams as the other men were hanged and butchered, and she didn’t need to see to visualize exactly what was happening.
“Tilney died well,” someone said as they moved away from the window, the spectacle completed. “Babington swooned and could not speak as they hauled him up.”
Rosamund saw Anthony Babington as he had been by the river at Whitehall. A courtier to his fingertips, handsome, debonair, elegant, charming. Now merely pieces of flesh boiling in a
cauldron. Had Will watched him die? Will, who had pretended to be his friend in order to betray him.
“I didn’t hear Tilney’s words.” Thomas poured wine from a flagon into cups set out on a board against the wall.
“After Dr. White had harangued him on a point of doctrine, he said only, ‘I came hither to die, Doctor, not to argue.’ There was dignity in it.”
“Aye, but he’d have done better to repent.” Sir Francis took a cup of wine from Thomas. “Give one to your sister. She is like to swoon at any moment.”
Thomas regarded his sister in some puzzlement as he handed her a cup. “Are you unwell?”
“Such a spectacle, Thomas, is not for everyone,” Ursula chided sternly as she came over to Rosamund. “Indeed, I found it hard to watch myself.” She took Rosamund’s hands, chafing them. “It was necessary for you to be here, my dear, but I should probably have encouraged you to keep to the back of the chamber away from the casement.”
Rosamund could only shudder. She sipped the wine, and the nausea faded somewhat, but she knew that the scenes of that day would haunt her nightmares to her dying day. She glanced across at Kit, who was leaning his shoulders against the wall behind him, his eyes unfocused.
“I must go and make report to the queen.” Sir Francis moved to the door. “Thomas, you will see Lady Walsingham and your sister home, once the crowds have thinned. The carriage awaits downstairs.”
Thomas did not look entirely pleased with this instruction, but he bowed his acknowledgment, and one by one the men who had witnessed their part in Master Secretary’s schemes come to fruition that morning left the house, except for Kit and Thomas.
“I think it will be safe enough to leave now, madam.” Thomas turned from the window where he had been watching the street. “The crowd is merry enough, and dispersing quickly into the taverns. The streets should be passable.”
“Good, I own I have had enough of this place.” Ursula gathered her cloak around her. “Rosamund, my dear, you will be better for the peace and quiet of home. You will soon forget what you’ve seen.”
Rosamund shook her head. “Never, madam.” She rose to her feet, angry and resentful that Ursula had forced this horror upon her, but more that she could so lightly dismiss its effects. She wanted to go back to Scadbury to lick her wounds, as far from Seething Lane as she could get.
“Kit, do you come with us?” Thomas adjusted the clasp of his short cape at his throat. “There is room for four in the carriage . . . if you permit, Lady Walsingham.”
“Certainly. I have not before made Master Marlowe’s acquaintance, but I understand from my husband that you are something of a playmaker, sir.” Ursula drew on her fine kid gloves.
Kit managed a courteous response, but all he wanted to do was find the nearest, darkest tavern and drink his way to oblivion. He bowed, said, “If you’ll excuse me, madam, much as I appreciate the offer, I have business elsewhere.” He gave Thomas a curt nod and brushed past him on his way out.
Thomas looked put out, but he could do nothing about it. He escorted the ladies to the carriage and climbed in after them.
Back in Seething Lane, Rosamund did the only thing she knew to exorcise the morning’s horrors. Slowly and deliberately she committed them to paper, re-creating line by visual line every aspect of the scene, from the steaming cauldron, to the blood on the knives, to the rubbery entrails, and the man’s face uplifted in agony. And when it was done, she lay down on her bed and fell asleep.
She was awoken by Ursula late in the afternoon. “Do you feel better, Rosamund? You have slept long.”
Rosamund sat up, her head a little muzzy, her limbs still heavily lethargic. “Yes, thank you, madam. I don’t know why I was so tired.”
But Ursula wasn’t listening to her. She was looking at the drawing, her face shocked. “You drew this . . . it’s a horror. What possessed you, child?”
“I needed to make sense of the horror. Drawing it seemed the only way,” Rosamund said simply, swinging her legs so that she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry if it disturbs you.”
“It does disturb me. There’s something indecent about such a drawing.”
“Do you not think that there was something more than a little indecent about this morning’s spectacle, madam?”
Ursula regarded her for a moment, frowning. “Your tone lacks respect, Rosamund, but I will excuse it. You suffered this morning, and had I known how strongly you would feel, I would have ensured you were protected in part.”
Ursula smiled suddenly, an almost cajoling smile. “Now let us say no more about it. Soon it will fade. We have company for dinner, so wear the rose velvet gown and dress your hair with that lovely silver fillet of your mother’s. I’ll send Henny straight up.”
She bent and kissed Rosamund’s brow. “There now, my dear girl. An unpleasant business, I agree, but over and done with. . . . I will send Henny directly.” She picked up the drawing again with a grimace of distaste. “We can’t leave this lying around.” Scrunching the paper in her hand, she left, taking it with her.
Rosamund would have liked to protest at this unilateral destruction of her work, but decided she’d upset Ursula enough for one day. She could summon little enthusiasm for the evening ahead, but she was a guest and could hardly refuse to join her hosts at the board.
Henny was rather pale when she came in to help Rosamund dress and said little for quite a while. But finally she asked, “Did you witness the executions, Mistress Rosamund?”
“A little at the beginning.” Rosamund turned her back so that Henny could lace the rose velvet gown. “In truth I hadn’t the stomach for it.”
“Oh, no, neither did I, Mistress Rosamund.” Henny shuddered. “I was sick and lost my breakfast. The others all laughed at me.” She smoothed the folds of the gown over the farthingale with a practiced hand, before taking up the hairbrush.
Rosamund sat on a low stool, her rose skirts billowing around her, as Henny brushed her hair until it glowed like burnished copper, before fastening the silver fillet around her forehead. Looking at herself in the beaten-silver mirror, Rosamund was surprised that she looked the same as usual. Somehow she had expected the morning’s horrors to be etched on her countenance. She turned as the door opened.
“My dear, I wish you to wear this.” A broadly smiling Lady Walsingham fastened a pearl and silver pendant around Rosamund’s neck. “And this girdle at your waist.” She handed Henny a thin belt of twisted silver thread.
Rosamund rose from the stool and Henny fastened the belt. “You are too kind to me, madam.” Rosamund, for all her low spirits, couldn’t deny her pleasure as she fingered the pendant at her throat and the delicate girdle that accentuated her small waist. The pearl in the pendant matched the seed pearls embroidered on the gown.
“Nonsense, you must look your best.” Ursula stood back to examine her. “Yes, you will do very nicely, my dear. A most pretty picture. Now, if you are quite ready, we will go down. Our guests are already assembled.”
The first person Rosamund saw as she entered the parlor was Sir Roger Askew. He was an old friend, so it was not surprising to see him a guest at the Walsinghams’ dinner table, but a little question niggled at the back of her mind. Is there some connection with his presence and Ursula’s instructions as to the rose velvet gown and the borrowed gems?
She curtsied to the room at large. Besides Sir Roger, there were two other guests, one she recognized immediately: Thomas Watson. He bowed and greeted her with smiling informality. “It has been a long time, Mistress Walsingham, but I understand you have been in the north. Permit me to make you known to my wife, Mistress Ann.”
Rosamund curtsied to a plump woman, rather older than herself, in fact rather older than Master Watson she thought. Beside the robust, larger-than-life presence of witty Tom Watson, Ann Watson seemed small and almost mousy. It must be hard to live in that shadow, Rosamund thought, smiling at the woman. Ann returned the smile with a shy one of her own and a murmured greeting.<
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“You remember Sir Roger, Rosamund,” Ursula prompted.
“Yes, of course.” Rosamund turned to him with a curtsy, lowering her eyes. “Sir Roger.”
“Mistress Rosamund, it is a great pleasure to see you again,” he said quietly, taking her hand and drawing her upright and slightly to one side. “I understand you have been in the country since your return from Chartley.”
“At my brother’s estate in Chiselhurst. I came to London with my brother only yesterday.”
He nodded. “I understand you witnessed the executions this morning?”
Rosamund met his gaze. “I will regret doing so to my dying day, sir.”
“An unedifying spectacle, I’m sure. I did not attend, but I understand no cruelty was spared.”
“Well, the ones tomorrow will be luckier.” Sir Francis had been listening to the conversation with half an ear. “I spoke with the queen this afternoon, and when she heard of the severity of the executions, she decreed that the rest will be permitted to hang until they are dead, before the drawing and quartering.”
“Oh, Sir Francis, pray do not talk of it,” Mistress Watson begged, her hand at her throat. “It is too dreadful.”
“Dreadful, madam, yes. But intended to be so and rightly. These public deaths are to be a deterrent to anyone who might contemplate treason. It is necessary for the safety of the realm.”
“You are rather pale, Mistress Rosamund,” Sir Roger spoke softly. “The subject distresses you.”
“It is a distressing subject.”
“Yes.” He looked at her averted countenance before saying, “So, shall we talk of pleasanter things? Tell me about your family home. Scadbury, is it?”
“Perhaps Sir Roger would care to walk in the garden, Rosamund,” Ursula suggested, opening the door onto the garden. “We shall dine in fifteen minutes, but a little fresh air will do you good. The evening air is so soft.”
Rosamund could only accede, but her earlier suspicion was becoming a certainty. Ursula was up to something, and she wasn’t being too subtle about it. Rosamund offered Sir Roger a faint smile. “Do you care to stroll in the garden, sir?”