The Crown A Novel

3


I wanted to die, I prayed to die, there was nothing else for me, when I felt a thud, a crash, and the sharp pain of a knee against my thigh, and then nothing. He was no longer atop me. I opened my eyes and saw a tangle of bodies and heard curses.

I struggled to all fours, my limbs shaking, crawled between two people, and rose to my feet. A hand grabbed my arm and started dragging me.

“No! No, stop!” I screamed.

“I must get you away,” said a voice, and I looked up. This was not my attacker; he was young and tall, broad-shouldered, with close-cropped light-brown hair.

“Where are your people?” he demanded. “Are you lost?”

“I won’t be questioned. Leave me alone.”

“Leave you alone?” He burst out laughing. The sound of it took me aback. This was not the laugh of a young brute but of a cynical old man. “I saved you. Didn’t you see? I pulled that beast from you and thrashed him.”

“I saw nothing.”

“Then you’ll have to take it on faith, mistress. I am here to help you.” He took a flask of water from one pocket, a white kerchief from another and dampened it. “You may want to clean your face.”

I took the kerchief and pressed it against my cheek. The coolness was like a tonic. I wiped it across my cheeks and forehead, scrubbed off the spit and dirt and sweat and the specks of blood of the dead bird.

“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 could 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.