Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

“Traitor?” I repeat.

“I told you last time,” he says impatiently. “You were convicted by a Bill of Attainder. I told you. You are not required to stand trial; you understood that. You confessed your sins. That confession has been entered against your name. Now the time has come for the sentence.”

“I confessed so that I would be forgiven,” I point out.

He looks at me quite exasperated. “But you have not been forgiven,” he says. “All that was left to agree was the sentence.”

“And?” I say a little pertly.

He takes a deep breath as if to dispel his irritation. “His Grace has agreed that you shall be put to death.”

“He will forgive me when I get to the Tower?” I suggest.

To my increasing anxiety he shakes his head. “For God’s sake, girl, don’t be such an idiot! You cannot hope for that. There is no reason to hope for it. When he first heard what you had done, he drew his sword and said he would kill you himself. It is over, Katherine. You must prepare yourself for death.”

“That can’t happen,” I say. “I’m only sixteen. Nobody could put me to death when I’m only sixteen.”

“They can,” he says bleakly. “Believe me, they will.”

“The king will stop them.”

“It is his own wish.”

“You will stop them.”

His eyes are as cold as a fish on a marble slab. “I will not.”

“Well, somebody must stop them!”

He turns his head. “Take her,” he says.

Half a dozen men march into the room, the royal guard who used to parade so handsomely for me.

“I shan’t go,” I say. I am really afraid now. I stand to my tallest height, and I scowl at them. “I shan’t go. You can’t make me.”

They hesitate a little, and look at my uncle. He makes a quick chopping gesture with his hand. “Take her,” he says again.

I turn and run into my privy chamber, swinging the door behind me, but it delays them for only a moment; they catch it before it bangs, they are after me so quickly. I lay hold of one of the posts of the bed, and I latch my fingers around it. “I shan’t go!” I shout. “You can’t make me. You can’t touch me! I am Queen of England! Nobody can touch me!”

One of the men grabs me around the waist. The other reaches forward and unlaces my hands; as soon as my hands are free I slap the first one round the face as hard as I can, and he lets me go. But a third man grabs me again, and the second has my hands this time so though I struggle, he forces them behind my back and I hear one of the sleeves tear. “Let me go!” I scream. “You can’t hold me. I am Katherine, Queen of England. You can’t touch me, my person is sacred. Let me go!”

My uncle stands in the doorway, his face as dark as the devil. He nods to a man standing beside me, who bends down and grabs at my feet. I try to kick him, but he takes me as if I were a little bucking foal, and the three of them shuffle out of the room with me held between them. My ladies are in tears; the Warden of the Household is white with horror.

“Don’t let them take me!” I scream. Mutely, he shakes his head. I see he is clinging to the door to support himself. “Help me!” I scream. “Send for-” I break off then, for there is no one to send for. My uncle, guardian, and mentor is standing by; this is being done under his orders. My grandmother and sisters and stepmother are all under arrest; the rest of the family are frantically insisting that they hardly knew me. There is no one who will defend me, and no one has ever loved me but Francis Dereham and Tom Culpepper, and they are dead.

“I can’t go to the Tower!” I am sobbing now, the breath shaken out of me by their big, bouncy strides with me slung between them like a sack. “Don’t take me to the Tower, I beg you. Take me to the king, let me plead with him. Please. If he is determined, I’ll go to the Tower then, I’ll make a good death then, but I’m not ready yet. I’m only sixteen. I can’t die yet.”

They don’t say anything. They march up the gangplank to the barge, and I give a little wriggle thinking I might throw myself into the water and get away, but they have huge hands and they hold me tightly. They sling me onto the dais at the back of the barge, and they all but sit on me to keep me still. They have hold of my hands and my feet, and I am crying now and begging them to take me to the king, and they look away, out over the river, as if they are deaf.

My uncle and the councillors come on board, looking like men going to their own funerals. “My lord duke, hear me!” I shout, and he shakes his head at me and goes to the front of the barge, where he can’t hear or see me.

I am so afraid now that I can’t stop crying, the tears are pouring down my face and my nose is running and that brute has hold of my hands and I can’t even wipe my face. It is cold where my tears are wet on my cheeks and the disgusting taste of snot is on my lips, and they won’t even let me wipe my nose. “Please,” I say. “Please.” But nobody listens at all.

The barge goes quickly downriver; they have caught the tide just right, and the oarsmen feather their blades so they catch the safest part of the current at London Bridge. I glance up, and I wish I hadn’t; at once I see the two new heads, two fresh severed heads: Tom Culpepper and Francis Dereham, like damp, soft gargoyles, their eyes wide open and their teeth bared, a seagull struggling to find its footing on Dereham’s dark hair. They have set their heads on the spikes beside the horrible rotting shapes of so many others, and the birds will peck out their eyes and tongues, and poke sharp beaks in their ears to winkle out their brains.

“Please,” I whisper. I don’t even know what I am begging for now. I just hope that this will stop. I just want it not to be happening. “Please, good sirs… please.”

We go in by the watergate; it rolls up silently as soon as the guards see us coming, and the oarsmen ship their oars and our boat glides into the dock inside the dark shadow of the wall. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edmund Walsingham, is standing at the steps, waiting to greet me as if I were arriving to stay in the royal apartments, as if I were still queen and a pretty new queen at that. The portcullis splashes down behind us as the chains roll it down, and they lift me out of the barge and take both my arms and heave me up the steps, my feet stumbling.

“Good day, Lady Katherine,” he says, as polite as ever. But I say nothing because I cannot stop sobbing, little gasping sobs that come and go with every breath. I look back, and my uncle is standing on the barge, waiting to see me go. He will be out of the watergate like a wherry shooting the rapids the moment his duty is done. He will be desperate that the shadow of the Tower does not fall on him. He will be rushing back to the king to assure him that the Howard family has given up their bad girl. It is me who is going to pay the price for the Howard ambition, not him.

I scream, “Uncle!” but he just gives a gesture of his hand as if to say, “Take her away,” and they do. They lead me up the stairs, past the White Tower, and across the green. The workmen are building a platform on the lawn, a little wooden stage standing about three feet high, with broad steps going up to it. Others are fencing off the paths. The men on either side of me walk a little faster and look away, and this makes me absolutely certain that this is my scaffold, and the fence is to hold back the crowd who will come to see me die.

“How many people will come?” I ask; the little coughing sobs make it hard for me to breathe.

“A couple of hundred,” the warden says uncomfortably. “It is not open to the public. Just to the court. As a favor to you. The king’s own orders.”

I nod; it is not much of a favor, I think. Ahead the door of the tower opens before us, and I go up the narrow stone stairs with one man slightly ahead of me hauling me up and the other pushing from behind. “I can walk,” I say, and they let go of my arms but stay close beside me. My room is on the first floor; the large glazed window overlooks the green. There is a fire in the grate, there is a stool by the fire and a table with a Bible, and beyond that there is a bed.

The men let me go and stand by the door. The warden and I look at each other. “Shall you be wanting anything?” he asks.

I laugh out loud at this most ridiculous question. “Like what?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Some delicacy, or some spiritual comfort?”

I shake my head. I don’t even know if there is a God anymore, for if Henry is special in the sight of God and he knows God’s will, then I suppose God wants me to die, but in private as a special favor. “I should like to have the block,” I say.

“The block, my lady?”

“Yes, the executioner’s block. Can I have it here in my room?”

“If you wish… but… what do you want it for?”

“To practice,” I say impatiently. I go across to the window, and I look down. The green will be filled with people who were proud to be at my court, people who were desperate to be my friend. Now they will be watching me die. If I am to do it, I had better do it properly.

He gulps. Of course he doesn’t understand what I mean; he is an old man, and he will die in his bed with his friends watching his last breath. But I shall be watched by hundreds of critical eyes. I want to do it gracefully if I have to do it.

“I shall have them bring it at once,” he says. “And will you see your confessor now?”

I nod. Though if God knows everything already, and already has decided that I am so bad that I should die before my seventeenth birthday, it is hard to know what the point of confession might be.

He bows and goes from the room. The soldiers bow and close the door. The key turns in the lock with a great clunk. I go and look out of the window at the workmen and the scaffold below. It looks as if they will be finished by tonight. Perhaps they will be ready tomorrow.

It takes two of them to bring in the block with much huffing and puffing as if it is heavy, and many sideways glances at me as if I am rather peculiar in needing to practice. Really, if they had been Queen of England like me, when I was still a girl, then they would know what a comfort it is to get the ceremonies right. There is nothing worse in the whole world than not knowing what you are supposed to do and looking foolish.

I kneel before the great thing and put my head down on it. I can’t say it’s very comfortable. I try it with my head turned one way and then the other. There’s no vast improvement in either direction, and no change of view anyway as I will be blindfolded, and underneath the blindfold I shall have my eyes tight shut, hoping like a child that it isn’t happening. The wood is smooth, cool under my hot cheek.

I suppose I really do have to do this.

I sit back on my heels and look at the damned thing. Really, if it were not so dreadful, I could laugh. All along I thought I had the Boleyn inheritance of grace and beauty and charm, and it turns out that all I have inherited is this: her block. This is the Boleyn inheritance for me. Voilà: the executioner’s block.

She is to be beheaded today; already the crowd is gathering on the green. Looking from the window I can see so many faces I know. These are friends and rivals who go back years and years with me; we were children together when Henry VII was on the throne, and some of us were ladies at the court of Queen Katherine of Aragon. I wave merrily, and a couple of them see me, and point, and stare.

Here comes the block now! They have had it tucked away somewhere, and two of the workmen heave it up to the scaffold and spread the sawdust around it. That’s to catch her blood. Beneath the scaffold is a basket filled with straw to catch her head. I know all of this, for I have seen it before, more than once. Henry has been a king who has used the headsman very often. I was there at the beheading of Anne Boleyn; I saw her walk up those shallow steps to the scaffold, and stand before the crowd, and confess her sins, and pray for her soul. She looked over our heads to the Tower gate, as if she were waiting for the pardon that she had been promised. It never came, and she had to kneel down and put her head on the block and stretch out her arms as a signal that the sword could come down. I’ve often wondered what it must be like, to fling your arms out as if you were flying, and the next moment hear that swish and feel the hair on the back of your neck lift with the wind of the passing blade and then…

Well, Katherine will know soon enough. The door behind me opens and a priest comes in, very grave-looking in his vestments, with a Bible and a prayer book hugged to his chest.