The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  “Thank you, sir.” I handed him back his kerchief. “I am grateful for your assistance.” I waited for the young man to move on, but he just stood there, studying me. He had blue eyes the same color as the hyacinths my mother had sent for from Spain and nurtured in the gardens. His clothes were respectable but certainly not prosperous; I could see the stitching along the sleeves that meant the garment had been altered and refashioned for him. He had not the money to have something made expressly for him.

  “Where are your people?” he asked again.

  “I am alone.”

  “No kinsmen, no servants? You’re a . . . gentlewoman?”

  He looked at me for confirmation. I did not deny it.

  “Then how could you come to Smithfield today? It’s madness. You must allow me to take you from here immediately. A woman alone, young, who looks as you do . . .” His voice trailed away.

  I shook my head, uneasy.

  “Please, there is no need to fear me. My name is Geoffrey Scovill, I am a constable for my parish.”

  Behind us, two old men who had been talking loudly began to brawl.

  “You see?” Geoffrey persisted. “The mob is villainous.”

  “If the crowd is so base, why are you drawn here?”

  He smiled at my tart question, and faint crinkles appeared around his eyes. Now it was certain—he was not as young as I’d first thought, closer to thirty than twenty. “I was sent by the chief constable to observe and take note of the king’s justice. This woman incited rebellion against our sovereign.”

  Hot anger surged through me. “To see a woman die—that pleases you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “She is a mother,” I said. “She has a boy and an infant daughter. Did you know that?”

  Geoffrey Scovill rocked back and forth on his heels, uneasy. “It is a great pity that the condemned is a woman. But examples must be made. Lady Margaret Bulmer committed high treason. She is a danger to us all.”

  “Danger?” My voice rose higher. “She sought to harm no one. She and the others wanted to preserve something, a way of life that has been honored for centuries. Which gives comfort to the poor and the sick. They rebelled because they felt so passionately about their cause. They never sought to overthrow the king but to bring their grievances to his attention. They wanted the king to hear them.”

  Again I heard the laugh of a cynical older man. “Oh, he heard them, there’s no doubt of that. They received the full attention of His Majesty.”

  I walked away, furious he was mocking me.

  He followed, pulling at my sleeve. “Wait, mistress. We are all at the service of the king. If he wishes to make changes in religion, then it is our bound duty to obey, to trust in his legal and spiritual authority to guide us. Do you not agree?”

  “I agree that the people owe obedience to their anointed sovereign,” I muttered.

  He was relieved to hear it. “You must then see—if rebels and traitors are not punished, what sort of message would that send? The monarchy would be weakened; we would all fall into chaos. And yet such a punishment can be harrowing . . .” He squinted at something far away, and then offered me his arm. “Perhaps if you see this, it will change your mind.”

  “I have no intention of changing my mind. I have come here to see the execution of the prisoner.”

  “Then allow me to show you where it will take place?”

  I could hardly turn away the very help I needed. Geoffrey Scovill skillfully moved us through the dense crowd until we came to a long makeshift fence. There was another fence twenty feet beyond, creating a roadway between.

  He pointed to the left and I saw, at the end of this roadway, a large heap of branches and sticks gathered around a tall barrel. A stake rose out of the top of the barrel.

  “That’s where she will be burned,” he said.

  I took a deep breath, struggling to hide my fear.

  “As a constable, I am familiar with the various forms of execution. This is the slower way to burn. It would be more merciful to bring her here and then heap the branches on top. That is what they did in France when they executed Joan of Arc. Today, Lady Margaret Bulmer will suffer far more than Joan.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I demanded.

  “Because this is no place for you.” He shook my shoulder, desperate to change my mind.

  Loud cries rose up from the other end of the roadway. “She comes! She comes!”

  “Too late,” I told Geoffrey Scovill.

  The crowd surged to the right, and I went with them, Geoffrey behind me. It would be hard to lose him now. There was a sea of bobbing heads in the middle of the roadway, more than a dozen soldiers heading toward us. They wore armor and carried pickets on their shoulders.

  In the back, a soldier led a black horse, harnessed to something that dragged behind.

  Geoffrey made a noise next to me.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “She’s coming on a hurdle,” he groaned.

  I didn’t know what that meant. The horses came closer, pulling a long wooden board, the bottom dragging in the dirt. Everyone was pointing at the board.

  “Burn the papist whore!” screamed an old woman. Others took up the screams. The black horse, riled by the commotion, pivoted toward the other fence. Now I could see the person tied to the frame, facing up, arms pulled straight out, to form a T. My heart hammered in my body as I stared at who was strapped to the hurdle. I’d come to Smithfield for nothing. The woman was not Margaret. This poor condemned creature was far too old and poor. She wore a long, torn gray shift and had a dirty and bruised face, with cropped hair hanging just to her ears.

  The soldiers untied her wrists and feet and pulled her off the hurdle. She staggered into the mud and almost fell. One soldier righted her and pointed toward the stake. She stood still for a few seconds, straightened her shoulders, and then began to walk toward the place of her execution. The way she’d straightened her shoulders made me go a little queasy.

  Just then, the sun finally pierced the roiling banks of gray clouds and bathed Smithfield in light. A ray danced off the head of the prisoner, picking up a strand of reddish gold.

  And I saw my Margaret.

  The crowed roared “Traitor!” and “Whore!” and “Papist!” as she came closer. I grabbed the fence and pulled myself along, in front of the people shouting at her. One man hit me as I wriggled in front of him. I barely felt it. I looked over my shoulder; Geoffrey Scovill had been swallowed up by the mob.

  I knelt down in the dirt, sticking my head out of an opening in the fence. I shouted: “Margaret! Margaret! Margaret!”

  As she limped forward, I could see her eyes were half open. I screamed her name now, so loudly I thought the muscles in my throat would shred. She blinked and looked in the direction of my screams.

  Something quickened in her eyes. She came toward me.

  The people clustered right around me roared in approval. They’d get a closer look at the prisoner now. Two of the soldiers started over. In seconds they’d have her and pull her away.

  Margaret looked right at me. I saw her lips move, but I couldn’t hear what she said.

  I fished in my dress and took out my Rosary beads. I forced my arm out through the opening in the fence and threw her the beads. They landed in the dirt, at her feet. As she knelt to pick them up, an old woman leaned over the railing and spat on Margaret. The spittle landed on her left breast. “Burn, you papist whore!” she screeched.

  The soldiers grabbed Margaret. One of them yelled something at the crone. They had seen only the spitting. I watched Margaret seize the beads and tiny crucifix and make them into a ball, clutched tight to her body.

  As the men spun her back toward the stake, she looked over her shoulder, saw me as I waved my arm, sobbing.

  “Joanna,” she cried. And was led away.

  The soldiers called for quiet, and the crowd’s jeers died down. The gray-bearded official was reading from a scroll, but I c
ould hear only phrases: “guilty of high treason . . . inciting of rebellion . . . conspiracy to levy war . . . the pleasure of His Majesty.” The minute the man had finished and lowered his scroll, soldiers grabbed hold of Margaret.

  I got to my feet but flinched at the feel of a hand on my shoulder. It was Geoffrey Scovill. He’d found me again.

  We both watched as the soldiers hoisted Margaret on top of the barrel and tied her to the stake, around the top of her chest and her waist. Other men heaped the branches, sticks, and kindling around her feet. She was too far away for me to see her face clearly, but I thought her lips moved in prayer. I hoped she still held the Rosary beads.

  “Ahh!” the crowd roared as if one. A second later, I saw why: a short man trotted forward, a blazing torch in his hand. He bowed to the soldiers standing in a semicircle around the stake and then lit the branches surrounding the barrel.

  “Christ have mercy, Christ have mercy,” I whispered and began the Dominican prayer of salvation, the one I had prepared to say at the moment of her death. At least I could perform that task.

  A new cry rippled through the crowd. “What is he doing?”

  “Where is he going?”

  I turned toward the shouting just in time to see a man run by me, toward Margaret. A tall, fit man in his early fifties, a gentleman, his cheeks ravaged with tears.

  For a few seconds I was stunned; I could not take it in. Then I scrambled to the top railing of the fence.

  “What are you doing?” Geoffrey grabbed my arm to hold me back.

  “Let go of me! Let go!” I tore myself out of his grip. “I must help him.”

  “Help him? What in God’s name for?” Geoffrey demanded.

  “Because,” I said, my cheeks also wet with tears as I hoisted myself over the railing and landed on the other side, “that man is my father.”

  By the time I had made it over the fence, my father had almost reached Margaret. But the soldiers surged after him, and I saw one strike his shoulder with a picket.

  “No, don’t hurt him!” I screamed, and a soldier spun around, shocked at the sight of me.

  “Get back! Get back!” he said, waving his own picket at me as if I were a crazed dog. Behind him I could see a whole swarm of soldiers trying to tackle my father.

  “Father, no! No!” I screamed again, and his head jerked up. Although there were at least three guards on top of him, he was able to get to his feet. “Joanna, get away from here,” he managed to bellow before he was kicked in the chest and fell back again.

  Someone grabbed my arm and I tried to pull away, but it was Geoffrey Scovill. He had leaped over the fence to follow me. “Come back,” he pleaded.

  Three guards charged toward us. I saw a picket raised high before crashing down on Geoffrey’s head. The young constable pitched into the mud, unconscious.

  I heard an angry scream and turned around. My father had broken free again and was running straight toward Margaret. Just as a soldier caught up with him and hit him in the back with a picket, my father pulled something loose from his doublet. Something small.

  As he crashed to his knees before her, I saw him throw a dark bag at the flames crawling up Margaret’s writhing body.

  A few seconds later there was an enormous explosion, like a dozen thunderstorms striking the ground at one spot. Fiery black coils billowed toward me. And it all went black.

  4

  I watched the sun slip down behind the church spires of London. There was no more fine drizzle. By late afternoon, the sun had become a fiery orb, shriveling all the clouds and devouring the clammy mist that clung to feet and wheels and horses’ hooves. As that sun now trembled atop the crowded western horizon, my eyes itched and stung, though whether it was because of the sun’s rays or the black smoke of Smithfield from hours past, I couldn’t tell.

  I sat facing backward in a royal river barge, my wrists shackled. I couldn’t see where I was going, but I felt the sureness of the four oarsmen’s sticks, their deep rowing. These men, wearing the green-and-white livery of the House of Tudor, knew my destination. And the other boats on the Thames River, even the Londoners on the shores, I was sure they knew. Whenever we passed someone, I could feel the curious stares crawling over me, hear the burst of gossip: “Who’s that they’ve got now?” An old woman dumping slop jars into the river watched me for as long as she could, her neck craning while she leaned out so far I expected her to fall in.

  All of the time, I sat straight and still, my shoulders as far back and my chin as high up as I had been schooled from the time I could walk. I didn’t want to show my fear. And I most definitely didn’t want anyone to see the man lying on the bottom of the barge, his bandaged head propped up on my skirts. My calves ached from the pressure of Geoffrey Scovill’s head, but I couldn’t send him back down onto the wet bottom of the barge. His slack face, his closed eyes, the trickle of dried blood on his right cheek filled me with furious guilt. I had so much to think about, to pray over, to try to understand, before arriving at whatever place they were taking me to, but here was an immediate difficulty thrown into my very lap.

  Just as the sun disappeared, and a sickly dusk bathed the river in orange-violet light, Geoffrey woke with a groan.

  His wrists were unshackled, and he reached out, feeling the bandage around his head with confusion. Slowly, shakily, he sat up and turned to face me, heaved himself up to find a seat. Uncertain eyes met mine. I dreaded the coming confrontation.

  “Do you know where you are?” I asked.

  Recognition filled his face. “I appear to be in a king’s barge,” he said, his voice raspy. “Why?”

  I looked forward at one pair of oarsmen at the bow and peered behind at the other. The barge was so long they shouldn’t be able to hear us.

  “I’ve been arrested with my father, and I believe you have been as well,” I said softly.

  He took it much better than I expected. His face stayed calm. “What are the charges?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I told them my name, and my father’s name, and then they went away for a long time and left me under guard. They put us both in a wagon, and we went to a building; but then they seemed to change their minds and brought us to the river. We sat in the wagon for two hours before they put us into this boat. I never saw my father again. I know he was injured, much worse than you. But no one would tell me anything.”

  I took a breath, fought for calm.

  “How was he injured?” Geoffrey asked.

  I shook my head, frustrated. “I don’t know. There was a great deal of smoke after the thunder. When it cleared, I saw him lying on the ground, but from a distance. They moved him soon after, and I didn’t see him again.”

  “The ‘thunder’?”

  “My father threw something into the fire, at Margaret. A bag. That is what he must have been running toward her to do. It caused a loud noise like thunder and a great deal of smoke.”

  Geoffrey nodded. “Of course.”

  “Do you know what it was?”

  “Gunpowder,” he said with certainty, and I remembered he was a constable, and so must be familiar with such things. “When a criminal is sentenced to burn and the king wishes to show some mercy, he permits the wearing of a bag of gunpowder, tied around the neck. The bag catches fire and explodes. It hastens death, cuts short suffering. But the amount of gunpowder must be precisely measured and mixed. It seems your father used too much.”

  I swallowed.

  Geoffrey peered at me more closely. “You called her ‘Margaret.’ So you knew the prisoner?”

  There no longer seemed any point to concealing things.

  “Lady Margaret Bulmer was my cousin,” I said. “I came to pray for her. I didn’t know my father would be at Smithfield as well.”

  “You’re not from the North?” he demanded, his voiced grown strong. “You took no part in the rebellion against the king?”

  “No, of course not. Margaret went to live in the North about four years ago, and marrie
d Sir John. I haven’t seen her since then; it’s too far to travel. Only letters, and just one since last year. I know nothing of the rebellion. I don’t understand why Margaret involved herself.”

  Geoffrey frowned. “Then why would you and your father risk attending the burning and behaving this way, why risk so much? It doesn’t make sense.”

  I didn’t answer. There was the sound of the oars slapping into the river. And the faint tinkle of women’s laughter as our boat glided past a manor built close to shore. On the other side of the manor walls, as impossible as it seemed, people were making merry.

  Geoffrey’s next words flew out of his mouth as sharp as a slap.

  “If I am to be taken to the Tower of London because I intervened on your behalf, mistress, then I am entitled to know all.”

  “The Tower?” I whispered.

  “Yes, of course—where else?” he asked impatiently. “That is why they delayed so long before setting out on the Thames. They have to wait until the tide is just right to shoot the bridge to River Gate. But now we are almost there, if I remember the bend of the river. So tell me.”

  Somewhere deep inside, I had known, too, that that was where the barge was taking me. I wasn’t surprised, truly. But hearing the name of the ancient castle still sent a cold rush through me. I remembered a game that my boy cousins played, with toy swords. “To the Tower, the Tower,” they’d shout at the loser of the swordplay. “Chop off his head!”

  Dusk had deepened. It was that uncertain time after the sun vanishes but the stars haven’t yet found their places in the sky. In the middle of the Thames River, away from the freshly lit torches on the shore, the air was thick and dark. I could not see Geoffrey’s face clearly, and that made it easier to try to explain.

  “She was more than a cousin, she was my only friend when I was a child,” I said. “I couldn’t let her face this horrible death alone. Not after everything she has done for me. There was something in particular I wanted to do for her, after her death, but I never had the chance. As to my father’s reasons, I don’t know them. We haven’t spoken in some months. But I can assure you he is not a man of politics. He hates and fears all matters political.”