Mistress to the Crown (37 page)

Buckingham, however, was a different animal. Maybe if Hastings had understood how much hate had fermented in that young man, he might not have been so blithe as we lay between the sheets that night.

He was still in cheerful mood next morning and ate a hearty breakfast. At nine, his retinue arrived at the garden postern. He had a meeting at ten in the White Tower with Gloucester, Buckingham and the King’s council.

‘It is Friday the thirteenth so ride carefully,’ I admonished, as we strolled arm-in arm along the path. ‘Especially maids emptying chamber pots.’

‘I promise to doff my hat to every upstairs wench ‘twixt here and Billingsgate.’ His eyes smiled down into mine before he kissed me.

‘May your meeting go well.’ I straightened his chain of office, glad he was also wearing his precious crucifix.

After he had ridden off, I shook myself to business. Because the times were so hurly-burly and I was not on the Lord Protector’s good lordship list, I decided to bury my sapphire collar and the rings I had left, so I put on my broad-brimmed hat, smuggled my small coffer outside and stowed it in my trug beneath my gardening gloves. There was a tubful of lavender from King Street which begged planting and could serve as marker for my treasure. Hercules, a gelded black mouser, who had been left behind by my tenant, kept me company and batted my soles as I knelt at my task. I hummed as I dibbed, replanting some pinks and hyssop next to the lavender.

It was not a summer’s day of silvery haziness but rich and intense. The early breeze had cleansed the air of the city’s cooking smoke and the sky shone as blue as Our Lady’s mantle. Hoverflies dallied above the camomile, a humblebee was harvesting the nectar from the marigolds, and several ladybirds were trundling up and down the stems of the rose briar hunting out the juicy aphids clustering the buds. Their scarlet and sable liveries reminded me of Buckingham’s retainers but, beguiled by this little kingdom of insects and flowers, I was in too serene a mood for distress as I eased out the wisps of grass that were vying with the beans.

Thirteen men at Christ’s table and one of them a traitor. At half past nine I was still in the garden pulling up milkweed and thinking about the Friday of Our Lord’s last supper when my house echoed with a fierce assault on the doorknocker. I started to my feet. I was not expecting visitors and there was no one to answer the door because Isabel and Young had gone to a cousin’s funeral. I raced to the garden gate, crept up the lane and peered around the corner. Half a dozen pikemen in black brigandines were hammering the front door.

‘Open in the name of the sheriff!’

With a gasp I ducked back, grabbed up my skirts and ran away. Perhaps a neighbour saw me or the soldiers were ordered to break in at the back for they came charging round. Three hurtled after me. I dashed round the next corner and up the steps to the nearest alley. I needed to double back south to St Martin-Le-Grand and plead for sanctuary. I tore through Goldsmith’s Hall, dodging clerks and liverymen, then round the back of Foster Lane, and helter-skelter round the drays and barrows until some pesty apprentice grabbed and tethered me by my hair. I struggled and smashed my sole into his shin, but I did not have a fraction of his strength. The soldiers took over.

‘Where’s your mistress, you filth?’ bawled one, twisting my arm up behind my back so cruelly that I yelped. ‘Answer, damn you!’

‘Gone to a burial,’ I squealed. ‘Now-let-me-go! I’m just a servant, see!’ I brandished fingernails clogged with earth.

The other pikemen arrived. By then we were surrounded by passers-by, the men leering and the housewives hostile because of my hair loosened like a whore’s.

‘She says Shore’s wife has gone to a funeral.’

The sergeant gave the man a cuff on the ear. ‘This
is
Shore’s wife, you dolt.’ Wide-eyed, my captor let me go. I pulled my kirtle straight and tossed my hair back over my shoulders, but what came next shook me to the core.

‘Shore’s wife, we are arresting you for treason and witchcraft.’

VI

Witchcraft!
Indignation, bewilderment, terror, panic – all these emotions surged through me as the marching cage of soldiers forced me south to the nearest wharf. I moved like a mechanism, my mind in shock. They flung me into a boat, and with a soldier jammed against each of my shoulders and the sergeant glaring from the middle plank, I had no chance of drowning myself. I could only watch helplessly as the two oarsmen swung the boat eastwards. As we neared London Bridge, the truth hit me like a pail of icy water. They were taking me to the Tower!

No, wait! I momentarily calmed. Hastings would be there. He’d intervene. Then my blood froze. God ha’ mercy, maybe arresting me was some attempt to destroy him. I stared in panic at the severed heads above the drawbridge, and then I remembered how once, crossing London Bridge, I’d seen a woman sitting dazed in shock. Passers-by had told me her son had thrown himself into the river and she had just heard the news of his death. Perhaps I could pretend shock, too?

The prow was turning towards the Tower.

‘Jesu! Is
that
where you are taking me?’

‘Well, we ain’t taking you to Calais, darlin’.’

I keeled forward in a faux swoon and when they hauled me up, I sat like a frozen corpse, staring ahead. At the Tower Watergate, no amount of yelling and prodding made me shift a muscle. When they yanked me to my feet, I kept my eyes vacant.

‘If this is a prisoner, her name must be recorded in the Tower register,’ said someone in authority.

‘Not this time,’ argued the sergeant holding my arm. ‘It’s just a woman.’

The Bell Tower was pealing noon as they marched me into the lane between the wards. I was hauled up the stairs of the Garden Tower and thrust into a chamber, bare as I remember, though I durst not look about. I just stood there in the middle of the floor with my back towards the door. They left me alone but I sensed them watching through the grille. At least I could move my eyes now. I do not know how long I stood there. Someone unlocked the door eventually. I heard the clank of scabbard against greaves followed by the creak of leather and shuffling footfalls.

‘So this is the famous Mistress Shore?’ A common fellow stuck his face in mine. The gaoler? I nearly gagged; his breath was like a privy. ‘So, wot do we require first, sir? Splinters ‘ammered under them nails?’ He waggled his knuckles beneath my nose. ‘Wot’s the matter with ‘er?’ he asked, peeved at my lack of response. ‘Most of ’em are shakin’ like St Vitus by now.’

The officer observed me for several heartbeats and then they both left. I heard his voice low and authoritative outside the door.

Did people in a daze move about? How much longer could I stand like this? O Christ, help me! Was I now Gloucester’s hostage for Hastings’ compliance? ‘Stand by as I depose my nephew or we’ll shove your whore head first into a barrel’? Or would I be tortured to give evidence against the Queen?

The Bell Tower gave tongue again. Not an hour chime but a frantic alarm. The guard outside the door clattered down the
stairs. I could hear shouts. Armed feet. Had Hastings ordered the dukes’ arrest in the King’s name? This would be the day. Yes, in the White Tower, where he knew the garrison. Yes, yes! God make it so. Ned! Ned, can you hear me? Guard your son and stand by your friend!

The city churches took up the alarm. Ah, soon, this madness would be over. Hastings would come for me. I heard horses galloping. More shouts.

No one rescued me. All Hallows on Tower Hill struck one before the telltale noise of feet on the stair forced me to resume my dazed stance.

‘Mistress Shore.’ The hint of Northamptonshire was familiar. So was the musk he wore – Catesby. ‘Mistress Shore, you can stop this mummery now. We don’t need your testimony. The traitor William Hastings was beheaded half an hour ago for treason against the Lord Protector.’

Indeed? Oh yes, and Christ and his angels have been sighted off Gravesend. I did not flinch.

‘The old man’s dead, Elizabeth. See!’ Catesby flourished Hastings’ precious crucifix before my eyes.

Hastings dead?

Dead?

I broke my trance. I began to scream.

And scream. And scream. And scream.

Within the hour I was dragged to another wall tower and down a dank staircase to a chamber, lit by cressets. At one end stood a brazier of burning coals with branding irons sticking forth, and from the beams there dangled leather harnesses and chains. Hooks along the walls carried all manner of pincers and manacles. The foul stench of past horror clung to the smoky air.

A bare-chested, muscular oaf in a half-mask with a leather apron over his hose was waiting beside a bed-size wooden frame that had mysterious wheels and cords at either end. Seeing an exhausted woman with tear-stained face, he rubbed his hands.

‘Here’s a pretty chicken. These lads been making you cry, have they?’

My guards grinned and retreated to the door.

Christ protect me! I stared at the apron, noting the hideous spatters. Was this the fiend who had beheaded my good and kindly Hastings an hour since?

‘Don’t hang back, sweetheart.’ He drew me across to a huge aumery, shaped like a coffin. Nail-heads studded the door, and he unlocked it to reveal their shafts sticking out, row upon row, like hefty bodkins. ‘Feel inside, mistress. Go on! I won’t do nuffin’. Feel inside!’

I reached in, feigning an indifferent expression. Merciful Heaven! The entire back of the cupboard was crisscrossed with nails. Were people shut into this monster? It was an effort not to retch.

‘Or maybe you’d like to grow a head taller, mistress.’ He tugged me over to the other apparatus. ‘Meet the Duke of Exeter’s daughter.’

I promise you there shall be no more torture
. Ned, why didn’t you destroy this device of the Devil? Or did you lie to me?

Feigning disdain, I stroked a fastidious finger along the inner frame. It came away dusty, and my heart lurched with relief.

‘Dear me, sirrah, this looks like it hasn’t been used since King Henry’s time. In fact, I know it hasn’t. King Edward thought it barbaric. He told me so himself.’ I stooped and looked underneath. ‘Hmm, I’d check it for woodworm if I were you.’

My host’s jaw slackened at my audacity but then he resumed his obnoxious litany, ignoring the sniggering guards. ‘Over here
we ‘ave branding irons, knotted cords to squeeze your skull and pincers to remove your nipples. And, of course, your nails. Well, we can pull ’em out, one by one. Saves you the problem of cleaning ’em.’

‘Would you like me to spew on your floor now or later?’ I asked sweetly. ‘What, are there no mops and buckets here?’

The hangman looked nettled that his tour had not distressed me. ‘Take her away,’ he yelled, holding up crossed fingers. ‘This one’s a witch. She has the evil eye.’

Oh God, the word ‘witch’ shook me to the core. The guards scoffed, but when they had me outside the door, they would no longer look me in the face. I was marched to a tiny cell along the passageway. Not ‘Little Ease’ where a man can neither sit, lie or stand but, nevertheless, damp and cheerless as Hell. A drain served as privy and I could hear the rats scurrying along the sewer.

The soldiers took my belt, stockings and garters although there was no nail or beam from which I could hang myself. They did leave me a candle, and one guard was posted to watch me through the grille. Lest I commune with the Devil? Fine chance! Even God had his hands over his ears.

My back to the door, I threw up over the drain as quietly as I could.

Former prisoners had gouged their names. I started to add mine with a fragment of stone. I had reached the ‘t’ of Elizabeth when my eye strayed to two names I recognised. Dick Steres, the skinner who was executed for treason at Smithfield, but the other scratch-marks made my blood run even colder: Margery Jourdemayne, the Witch of Eye, burned at the stake for sorcery against King Henry. There was the year: 1441. What a fool I’d been to play haughty with the gaoler.

In utter despair, I slumped down against the chill wall. I had no appetite, my throat was raw, my head ached as though the knotted cord was already biting into my flesh and I was chill to my very soul. Was this how Holy Job had felt, tormented by God?

Christ and his saints have pity! Ned’s wife was out of reach but his mistress was the perfect whipping child. A woman, a whore, already a prisoner. Who better to drag to the stake for witchcraft?

I turned the stone within my fingers. Could it cut through to my veins?

I did not care to live but neither did I wish to burn.

Survival is a cruel instinct. Before I could play the Almighty with my own body, I was led out, not back to the torturer, but to a partitioned upper room where a notary sat with a writing board on his knee. On the other side of the travers, two hefty women stood waiting. Wives of the gaolers, I suppose, each wearing a sprig of St John’s Wort for protection against my sorcery. They made me strip naked and each of my garments was taken for examination. Then they made me stand near the windowlight while they searched my skin for the Devil’s marks. Thanks be, I had no warts, but what if they called a mole a teat? As they finished with each of my parts, they reported loudly to the notary. Oh, the humiliation!

When that was over, while one of them distracted me in conversation, the other jabbed a bodkin into the flesh of my behind. I squealed and nearly slapped the hag.

‘That’s a good honest pain,’ she said. ‘Be glad of it.’

She gave me a thin shift to wear and a stool to sit upon. My clothes were not brought back. I was shivering, expecting to be dragged down to the torture chamber, but they informed me the proctor from the Bishop of London had arrived to question me.

He looked to be afflicted with worms, more a cadaver than a man. Ascetic, taut, tonsured, with the usual pendulous earlobes that accompanied age. If I had guessed his agendum first away, it might have gone harder with me, but sometimes Our Lady protects dimwits. He summoned the notary to join us and after confirming my identity and making me swear on the Holy Book, he began his questions.