Candles lit the stone dining hall of Throckenholt Priory to a warm glow. I mustered every manner I’d ever been taught as I sat straight backed in my chair and tried not to look at Elizabeth, whose mischievous smile had danced across her lips all through dinner. She had cinched my whalebone corset tighter than normal, thus making this entire dinner affair even more uncomfortable.
I tried not to look at the two courtiers who filled the seats on either side of me, dressed in their fancy velvet doublets, but they looked at me. I caught their glassy eyes roving over the blue velvet that clung to my curves. The fabric hung dreadfully low, lower than I thought necessary, but Lady Denny had been insistent that we reveal just a bit more. Both men drummed the French lace tablecloth, and their gold-encased jewels squeezed their fat fingers like sausages.
Elizabeth however had no qualms with dressing to impress. Her smooth black damask gown didn’t leave much to the courtiers’ imaginations, as evident in their lusty gazes at her voluminous chest.
All evening, through heaping platters of black pudding and marzipan, I laughed when I was expected to laugh, sipped the royal wine the courtiers brought when I was expected to sip, and nibbled bits of roasted beaver tail and boiled potatoes when I was expected to nibble as Lady Denny lorded over us silently from the far end of the immaculate table.
I tried to pay attention to my plate and draw none unto myself. After the spice cake was reduced to crumbs and the last of the wine was drunk, the courtiers pushed back from the table in unison. Elizabeth and I stood, followed by Lady Denny, whose face was severe, but somewhat less pinched than it was during dinner.
The two men shared a look before the pudgier one with the white plume in his hat spoke. “I believe we shall retire till morning.”
The other, with a voice much higher pitched than the first, interrupted him. “At which time both young ladies, Lady Elizabeth and Lady Bridget, shall accompany us back to Court.” He stuck his thumbs in the waist of his matching velvet chauses that stretched tight across his bulging waistline. “Both have satisfactorily met the minimal requirements issued by His Majesty including grace, dignity, and feminine beauty. And, of course, a royal bloodline.” They shared a quiet cackle.
Elizabeth dipped into a deep curtsy as my jaw fell open. Remembering myself, I followed my cousin’s lead and dipped down in a bow.
“Thank you, sirs,” I muttered through trembling lips. Something knotted in my stomach and fell like cold stones in a pot of three-day old soup. It wasn’t the beaver tail or the artichoke stew that brought the green hue to the world before me. It was fear.
Tower Green Scaffold
February 13, 1542
I
stood beside Elizabeth. The new emerald green shoes I’d been given by my attending maids crunched in the thin layer of frost that covered the ground. Earlier in my dressing suite, one of the servants whispered that the color matched that of my eyes. I wasn’t sure I believed her.
The newly risen sun did little to brighten the overcast sky that cloaked the scaffold on the Tower Green.
“Never before have I seen so many people in one place,” Elizabeth mused. “And here we are, in the front row to the Queen of England’s execution.”
The fancy breakfast of quail’s eggs and French toast soured in my stomach as Elizabeth chattered on, almost giddy. “Surely this woman is the most hated of all His Majesty’s queens.”
Knots pushed burning bile into my throat. Still, Elizabeth continued. “It has been widely whispered that even her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, now despises her. He calls her, among many other things, a common prostitute.”
Thankfully several people pushed between us, bound for the scaffold, and saved me from having to respond to my cousin. Like a leaf fighting the current of a rushing river, I struggled not to be picked up and carried along with them. The lace-trimmed handkerchief I’d been given was lost in the process.
“Drat!” I yanked off my gloves and dropped to my knees. Feverishly, I patted the trampled ground to no avail. Frozen twigs and grass poked my hands mercilessly as I peered through the exquisitely shod feet of those who were also privy to the royal execution. However, none stooped to lend a hand in my futile search.
A husky voice, slightly French, met my ears. “M’lady.”
I glanced upward. A leather-clad man stared back at me, my handkerchief dangling helplessly in his grasp. His eyes bore down on me with an almost tangible weight.
I accepted the lacy fabric with trembling hands. Our skin brushed, and fire trailed from his fingertips and sizzled where our skin met.
Something stormy in his eyes, cold and steely blue, took my breath and tightened my chest. “T-thank you, m’lord.”
Black locks curled across his forehead, and the hint of stubble shadowed his angular features giving him a mystical look. He stared at me hard, so hard that it took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to crawl between the fancy feet of those around me just to escape it.
After what seemed an eternity, he spoke again. “Miss, I am no one’s lord.”
I winced at the harshness spat forth with his words.
The mysterious man in brown turned on his booted heel and disappeared so quickly I wondered if I actually conversed with him at all. Elizabeth knelt at my side and grasped my elbow. With her help, I found my way back onto my feet.
Her eyes widened as we squeezed back into our place on the front row. “Cousin! What ever were you doing, groveling in the dirt?”
“Someone bumped me, and I lost my handkerchief,” I sputtered. The man in brown reappeared, squelching my words.
It was real.
His slick black head broke the surface of the audience as he trotted easily up the scaffold steps. His brown leather riding boots scraped together in an odd tune. My heart quickened to a racing pace as I watched him.
He knelt, his back to me, before a fat man in purple stepped to the forefront of the scaffold stage and readied the block. In doing so, he effectively blocked my view. My palms felt cold and wet inside my gloves.
Probably from patting the ice, I told myself. Still, I sensed a change.
“Bridget?” Elizabeth’s voice was insistent in my ear. “Bridget!”
Like an ocean wave, silence crashed down upon the monstrous crowd as it parted on some unspoken cue, making way for a solitary man. Behind him trailed two women. The first, cloaked in a dark velvet cape that trailed the icy ground behind her. The second, clad in only a simple white robe, which billowed a bit as she walked. The woman in white hugged her arms across her chest and glanced about, like a mad dog, through empty eyes.
Slowly, the unlikely trio made their way effortlessly through the silent crowd and ascended the tumbledown stairs.
“They are executing Lady Rochford first,” I breathed as the figure in white, the doomed Jane Boleyn, stepped toward the chopping block. Forgetting the odd emotions that moments before had overtaken my body, I dropped my voice low so only my cousin could hear. “Do you believe what they say, that Lady Jane gave information to Master Cromwell, which in turn led to her husband George’s beheading?”
“Surely she did,” Elizabeth whispered back. “I know her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, was a light young woman, but I don’t believe she was involved in an incestuous relationship with her own brother.” She glanced at me and pulled her cloak tighter against the chill. “Do you?”
I opened my mouth, but so did Lady Jane. I closed mine to listen.
“Good Christian people, I come hither to die. But I do so with complete and utter faith and trust in God, whom I have committed many sins against from my youth upwards.” With a jump, she paused and glanced back as though someone had tapped her shoulder. However, nobody had.
