Page 84 of The Queen’s Witch

London

Condemnation of Anne had been widespread in the streets of London. Condemnation remained, but now some voices raised, timidly or brashly, saying they did not believe the charges. Londoners were knowledgeable about the court, and Mark was discussed often. Some commoners said the queen would not stoop to bed a man of such low birth. More refused to believe that Henry Norris, accounted a good man, would so betray his friend the king. As for George Boleyn—no queen was so lost to sense that she would bed her own brother. It was dangerous to say such things aloud, but there was shelter in numbers. Friends whispered to friends, neighbors to like-minded neighbors, and I took hope. Perhaps Henry, always so attuned to his subjects’ moods, would at least modify the terrible punishments allowed by law.

He did so. Early on the morning of May 17, the five men accused of adultery with Anne were executed on Tower Hill, not by hanging and castrating and quartering, but by axe. A mercy in brevity.

The scaffold was built tall on the crest of the Hill, and half of London stood around it. George Boleyn was first. He spoke a long time. I stood a good distance away and did not expend the power to hear him, but I could see clearly his erect body and set shoulders. When he finished speaking and moved toward the block, murmurs flowed back through the throng like waves toward shore: He did not confess.

Then he faces his Maker with a lie upon his lips.

Unless it was not a lie.

Anne’s brother knelt and laid his neck upon the block. The axe swung down. George Boleyn, reckless and handsome, gifted at the lute, flirtatious and merry, the only witness to Anne ever being in Agnes Snayth’s cottage, lived no more.

A long sound, somewhere between a sigh and a moan, reverberated through the crowd.

Francis Weston spoke only a few sentences.

Henry Norris said nothing.

William Brereton spoke briefly.

At each death, the citizens grew more silent. None of the men admitted guilt.

Mark went last. I spelled myself into hearing him. All four men had died bravely, and Mark struggled to do the same. But the others had been trained for war. Mark had not. Fisherman, sailor, musician, climber into a realm where he did not, could not, really belong. Too easily swayed by riches and praise, by Anne’s allure and granite will, he looked as if he could not believe this was happening to him, Mark Smalacombe of Tydd Saint Stephen, singer of sweet songs.

He tried to speak, made only a strangled sound, licked his dry lips, and began again. “Masters, I pray you all to pray for me, for I have deserved the death.”

A confession? Or fear that if he claimed innocence, the monstrous death originally decreed would replace the merciful axe?

He looked down then, and I wanted to call out, No, do not look! Heads and bodies and blood slimed the scaffold, a slaughterhouse of men vigorous and warm only minutes ago. All color left Mark’s face. But he stepped forward, dropped to his knees, and laid his head on the blood-slippery block.

The axe came down.

I stumbled away from Tower Hill, seeking some private place. Not to weep, nor even to grieve. But I must be somewhere alone to burn with anger, lest my burning become visible and understood and I lose whatever chance I might have to, someday, not only free Grandmother but also seek revenge upon the king of England, for monstrous sins he would never pay for any other way.

Anne’s execution, contrary to precedent and law, was not public.

The privy council must have taken note of the London mood. The heads of the five “traitors” were not displayed on pikes, as was customary. Bodies and bloody heads were buried within the Tower. Anne, too, received “mercy”: she would be beheaded, not burned alive. Also, a more merciful sword would replace the axe, wielded by a skilled executioner brought from France. The execution would take place within the Tower on May 18.

On May 18, it was postponed one day.

Did the council hope the populace would tire of waiting? They did not.

Nor did I. This time, I prepared. Barred from the trial, I could not lose my last chance to see Anne, to witness the possible last-moment commutation of her sentence to banishment. And if it was so commuted, to discover where she would be sent.

On the morning of May 19, at first light, the Tower’s postern gate opened its wooden door. The gate, used by important persons wishing to avoid crowds, had been Anne’s entrance to the Tower’s royal apartments before her coronation. This morning the portcullis had not yet been raised when a hare dashed over the small bridge that crossed the moat and through the iron bars of the portcullis. A royal yeoman shouted something, but there was no pursuit. A hare was of little importance on this momentous day.

Nor was I the only beast who inhabited the inner ward. A rabbit froze when it saw me, nose twitching, terrified of my strangeness. A rat slunk away from me along the wall. The beasts always knew.

There was ample cover to hide as I slowly made my way toward Tower Green, where a scaffold had been erected.

Outside the Tower walls, the common people massed. Within, much more slowly, gathered the witnesses to a queen’s death.

When the crowd grew large enough, I sheltered by a turning in the wall and shifted from a hare to a middle-aged woman dressed in a serving maid’s gown, my face spell-altered. A servant at the Tower, perhaps; no one cared. A few thousand people stood or sat around the scaffold, talking quietly. I stayed near the far edge of the throng.

A great murmur rose as Anne appeared, led by the constable of the Tower. She wore a black gown and matching hood and carried a prayer book. Her usually sallow skin was the color of parchment, but she was composed as she mounted the scaffold, where the black-hooded headsman waited. Four women followed her up the steps, among them the faithful Lady Lee. Anne’s voice held firm as she gave her last speech.

“Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause—”