by Lyn South
“The king knows his own desires. Once something is put into his mind, it’s difficult to sway him from his course,” Cromwell says. He pauses a moment. “Do you think he will bring Queen Katherine back to court?”
“The king is incensed, his spirit crushed. I don’t know what he will do next.”
Cromwell asks, “Do you believe she is with child and that Wyatt is the father?”
What? She’s not supposed to be pregnant until January.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. After the trial last night, the only thing that matters is that the king believes it. Lady Anne wouldn’t soon be a head shorter if he thought the child she says she carries is his.”
Moving to the edge of the crowd, I hail Fagin. “Got eyes on Trevor yet?”
“Negative,” she replies. “Nico, any movement on the Benefactor ship?”
“Not yet,” he says. “I’ll let you know when there’s something to know.”
“Nico,” I say, my mouth feeling dry and thick, as though my body has forgotten how to make saliva. “When does Anne Boleyn know she’s pregnant?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Just look it up,” my reply is as anxious as his guarded answer. “Could she be pregnant now?”
There’s a pause. “Elizabeth is born on the seventh of September. It’s possible Lady Anne is already pregnant.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
The Constable of the Tower appears, leading the processional of the condemned as they approach the scaffold. Cheers erupt from the burgeoning crowd as a chestnut-colored horse trots through the gap between the front line of spectators and the execution platform dragging a muddy and blood-spattered Sir Thomas Wyatt behind it.
Gasps and murmurs ripple through the crowd as the assembled spectators recognize him. Some in the crowd jeer him and others genuflect and offer vocal prayers for a swift and painless death.
From the looks of things, the answer to their prayers will be: No.
Lady Anne follows, dressed in a simple black gown, her hair covered with a linen cap. Her face is ashen and her chest heaves in short, fast bursts as she walks. She passes within a few feet of me. She stops, glances back over her shoulder. When her gaze fixes on me, it is so piteous, a wave of regret washes over me like a bucket of ice water.
“I’m sorry.” The apology is out before I even know I’m talking.
Missions usually feel like a game; a larcenous romp at breakneck speeds that end with a priceless treasure in my pocket and another nudge toward freedom. This is anything but a romp. This is a nightmare.
Anne tilts her head, puzzled. “Pray for my soul, mademoiselle. I am innocent.”
I open my mouth to speak again, but nothing comes out.
Holy Jesus, what have I done?
There are shouts when the crowd recognizes Anne. Some are cries of shock and horror; others are jubilant cheers. Her personal chaplain embraces her with a steadying arm around her shoulder. Anne covers his large hand with her small one and nods. After a few deep breaths, she casts her eyes to the heavens.
Rotted vegetables and fruit litter the steps around the execution platform. Only the priest on the scaffold stops the gathered assembly from launching more consumable missiles at the condemned man as he mounts the platform.
The executioner, a black leather mask concealing his identity, binds Wyatt’s hands behind him and places the rope around his neck before placing him on a small stool. A quick beheading is reserved for those of noble birth and is a manner of death considered too good for commoners. Having endured being drawn by the horse, Sir Thomas is about to be hanged and quartered, then beheaded.
Brandon said the king was incensed by the turn of events he never expected. Approving this gruesome death for Wyatt is proof positive of the depth of his fury. Who knows what manner of death he has chosen for the woman he believed was the love of his life? The prospects make me shudder.
“Guys,” Nico says, breaking in over the CommLink. “I just picked up a transporter energy surge from the other Observer ship. Looks like you’re gonna have company.”
“Roger,” I say.
Back on the scaffold, the chaplain stands beside Wyatt and asks if Wyatt has committed his soul to God. When the poet nods in response, the priest offers a prayer for his soul, then makes the sign of the cross in the air. As a last act, the condemned man is given leave to speak his last words.
Overcome with emotion, it takes several minutes for him to find the words. When he does, they’re not what anyone expects.
I find no peace, and all my war is done. I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind; yet can I not arise;
Bewildered whispers spread through the crowd. One woman asks, her mouth agape, “He recites his own poetry as he dies?”
Wyatt ignores the murmurs and continues.
And naught I have, and all the world I season.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not—yet can I scape no wise—
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.
I love another, and thus I hate myself.
He chokes back a sob. His eyes are swollen, face bruised. Torture must have extracted his confession, whether it’s fact or fiction.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.
He stops again and looks out over the crowd. Somehow, he locks eyes with me. He gives me a small, weary smile and shakes his head.
“I had thought to live among you for much longer than these short, cruel years,” he says, gazing at me as if I’m the only one on Tower Green. As if I’m the only one who can save him. I can’t stand the weight of his pleading eyes.
“I beseech you all, for the love of God and his saints, to pray for my soul,” he continues, his voice raspy and broken. “And pray for His Majesty the king because...though I confess that I am a sinner before God and man, I am innocent of the charges laid against me.”
His eyes are still on me. I look away. My own tears begin to flow.
“Thus, I take my leave of you.” He gives a short, curt nod indicating that he’s done. The burly executioner wastes no time—there’s a sharp kick against the stool and Wyatt is dangling at the end of the rope.
His body convulses as the rope pulls taut. His toes scrape across the platform’s surface trying to gain purchase; he’s a quarter-inch from being able to fully support his weight. It might as well be a mile.
His eyes bulge, legs thrash, and his face turns a mottled, purple hue.
The crowd erupts in a wall of noise, and some hot-tempered Neanderthal taunts him as he strains to breathe, but is interrupted by cooler heads. Just as Wyatt reaches the edge of unconsciousness, the executioner cuts the rope. The wretch falls to the floor. He coughs, chest heaving as life floods his lungs.
The executioner drags Wyatt—sputtering from lack of oxygen—to the trestle table positioned toward the front of the scaffold.
The executioner picks up a blade and slices through the lower abdomen; it wrings a shriek from Wyatt that I’ve never heard before. The sound is much higher-pitched that I expected; if Banshees were real, this wild and terrified keening wail is what I imagine they sound like.
I realize the sound isn’t coming from Wyatt—it’s Lady Anne giving voice to the horror playing out on stage.
“Dodger,” Nico’s voice is sober, measured. Like he’s trying to talk me off a ledge. In a way, he’s doing just that. “Don’t watch. Do you hear me?”
I set this in motion. This is my punishment: bearing witness to the carnage I helped create.
The volume of blood is overwhelming. It spurts upward onto Wyatt’s chest in several violent waves until it sl
ows to gurgling crimson trickles. Wyatt’s screams fade as the dissection continues. By the time they take his testicles, his voice is long-gone and his eyes are glazed over.
“Dodger. Get out of there.” Nico says, the cadence of his voice shifting to urgency. “Whatever has gone bad in this timeline, we can’t fix it. We’ve got to get back to base before things get worse.”
“I can’t,” I reply. “Not yet.”
Wyatt’s organs are tossed into the bonfire; the putrid smell fills the air, causing those closest to the flames to retreat or attempt, in vain, to block the odor with silk handkerchiefs or embroidered velvet sleeves. Several spectators with more delicate constitutions stumble out of the crowd to vomit.
The executioner delivers the death blow, one swift strike to the neck.
The remaining blood in his body streams from the neck cavity, then cascades in a thin, uneven waterfall over the sides of the plank. The head hits the scaffold floor, then bounces down the wooden staircase with sickening thuds. It comes to rest at the feet of Sir Henry Norris, the Duke of Norfolk, who snatches the head up by the hair, and holds the bloody mass up to the crowd.
Some onlookers weep. A handful offer lukewarm cheers. Others stand silent as stone. Off to my left, a trio of ladies sob into each other’s shoulders.
Fagin’s voice breaks in; her voice is breathless “I found Trevor. She’s running toward the stables. I’m in pursuit.”
“Negative, get back to the ship,” Nico says in an unyielding tone that brooks no argument. “I have two more huge, distinct energy signature readings popping up on the display panels. It’s either more Benefactor ships arriving to back up Trevor or, they’re government agents sent here to bring us back to base for questioning about timeline tampering.” Nico shoots the next comment at me. “Last time I’m gonna say it, Dodger, get your ass back here or I’m coming to get you.”
“I need more time,” I have to shout over the growing din of the crowd. “They’re moving Lady Anne to the scaffold.”
Nico says something else, but his words are lost in the cacophony of shouts and screams around me as Anne mounts the execution platform.
The chaplain goes through the same motions with Anne that he did with Thomas Wyatt.
When given leave to speak, Anne takes a deep breath and looks around, shaking her head in disbelief, as though she still can’t quite grasp the turn of events that have landed her at the end of her short life just as it’s supposed to begin.
She takes a breath, then speaks in a halting voice. “Good Christian people, I am come here to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die for the sins of which I am accused. Yet, I say to you that I am innocent, having never betrayed my sovereign lord, the king. I have ever been a true, faithful, and loyal servant of his majesty.”
She pauses, scans the crowd like she’s looking for something—or someone. The king, perhaps? Or her father or her brother, George? For a moment, her expression is hopeful, like she expects a savior to appear. For a crazy moment, I consider fighting my way through the crowd and rescuing her myself.
Anne squares her shoulders and continues her farewell speech. “I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you. He is a gentle and merciful prince, and I would have borne for my sovereign lord many sons.” She places her hands on her still flat belly, and I wince.
The executioner steps closer to Anne, and she casts an anxious glance over her shoulder at him. Her voice shakes. “And if...if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.”
She kneels on the floor and gives one curt nod to the executioner. Where Wyatt’s hands were bound, hers are unrestrained. In stark contrast to the brutal death of the poet, Lady Anne—because of her rank and station—is given the easier death by beheading.
It feels like the entire assembly is holding their collective breaths.
There’s a warm, moist breath on my right ear, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Thinking it’s just some louse trying to cop a feel, I spin to my right and come face-to-face with Commander Jackson Carter.
“At least you’re not stuck in the toilet this time” Carter says with a smirk as he grabs my ,arm.
Merde!
The crowd presses forward toward the platform, jostling us back and forth enough to allow me to yank my arm from his grasp. Several larger men elbow their way forward, and I use them as leverage, pushing them backward so that they crash into Carter, sending them all tumbling to the ground.
There’s a narrow gap between two groups of ladies and I dart through it, shouldering my way through people still moving forward toward Anne.
I glimpse Carter, who has disentangled himself from the sprawled bodies struggling to right themselves after the fall. His eyes sweep through the crowd, searching for me. I pull my hood up over my head and melt into the crowd.
At the corner of the scaffold, I stop. I have a direct line of sight to Lady Anne as she waits for her end. She turns her head and glimpses me. I get one more look at those dark, seductive eyes—now fearful and incredulous—before they fix a blindfold over them.
Holy God.
“I’ve lost Trevor.” Fagin’s voice is breathless. Frustrated. “She nabbed a horse and is headed East. Nico, monitor the MicroCams aimed at the Benefactor ship. I think she’s headed in that direction.”
It’s astounding how a minute can drag on forever. Everything feels dreamlike as the executioner raises the ax.
“Nico!” Fagin says. “Do you copy?”
The sword swings upward into the air, then cuts a smooth, downward arc.
Mercy. Have mercy.
Then...
She’s gone.
There are wails. Whimpers. Cheers.
And so much blood.
Someone bumps me. I barely register the hit until a pair of hands seize my shoulders. I feel myself pivot and, once again, stare up into Carter’s face.
He peers at me and curiosity flickers in his eyes, but it’s quickly replaced with skepticism. Carter says something, but the words don’t register over the shouts of the crowd. He moves closer, his face mere inches from mine.
My hands instinctively raise and land on his chest, but before I can push him away, there’s a burst of motion and Carter is jerked backward off of his feet.
It’s Nico.
Surprise is his best leverage against Carter, who has a good four inches and thirty pounds on Nico’s taut, trim frame.
There’s a sideways scuffle, and then a flurry of fists until Nico lands a punch to the solar plexus followed by an uppercut that connects with Carter’s jaw, sending the larger man tumbling to the ground.
Nico grabs my hand and we push our way through the mob. Once free of the constraints of the crowd, we hit a full sprint toward the gardens.
“If you had listened to me for one damn minute.” Nico says, trying to breathe and talk while running at full speed. “Fagin, I’ve got her. Get to the ship.”
“Be there as soon as I can. I’ve been...detained,” comes the cool reply.
Shooting a glance over my shoulder as we race into the garden, I spot the commander—red faced and snorting like a raging bull—as he rounds the corner of a hedge. Nico glances back, too.
“Shit,” he says in a huff.
Nico veers to the right, pulling me with him as he barrels toward a grove of trees. Once inside the grove, he drops my hand and skids around a large oak tree.
“This way,” he calls out. “We have to get to the other side of the trees so can’t see us transport.”
Hitching my gown up to my knees, I pump my legs as hard as I can to keep up. The underbrush catches the hem on the back side of my dress and I hear the faint rip as the fabric tears.
On the other side of the trees, Nico reclaims my hand and pulls me closer as he slows, then stumbles to a stop. We can h
ear Carter’s footfalls as he crashes through the brush.
“He’s getting closer,” I gasp.
“Betty,” Nico says into the CommLink, equally breathless. “Two to transport. NOW!”
My body tingles as the transporter energy surges through me. There’s a glimpse of Carter as he emerges from the trees a few hundred feet away, and his frustrated grimace when he realizes he won’t catch up. The next moment, Nico and I collapse on the transporter pad on our ship.
“Arseneau!” Carter’s voice booms over the ship’s loudspeakers.
“How the hell...” I gulp air into my lungs. “...did he access our communication system?”
“Someone gave him the access codes.” Nico scrambles off the pad, and heads toward the cockpit, shouting over his shoulder at me as he goes. “Three guesses who might have done that.”
Trevor.
Once at the command console, Nico’s fingers fly over the controls. “She could have given him access to every system on the ship.” He squints at the display screen. “I don’t see any evidence of recent system changes, so it doesn’t look like there’s been any tampering.”
“No tampering, yet, Commander Garcia. I hope you’ll both cooperate so I won’t have to take control of your ship,” Carter says. “I have access to your communication feeds and transporter system. I can also block you from taking off to parts unknown. After that sucker punch, maybe I should just take command of your ship right now.”
“Carter, I thought you’d be retired by now. What the hell are you doing here?” I ask.
“Trying to fix what you’ve broken,” he says in a dry tone.
Nico swivels in his seat and raises a questioning eyebrow. I look away.
“You should have taken me up on the offer to be your advisor, Arseneau. I could’ve kept you from getting stuck in this mess.”