9.

On a bitterly cold November morning, Kate and I huddled together in our furs and stood amongst a great crowd on a busy London street to watch Jane and Guildford walk to the Guildhall in London, where they were to stand trial. We tried not to be afraid. Everyone said it was just a formality. Proper form must be observed, and since Jane had technically committed treason, albeit most unwillingly and under duress, she must still be condemned, but everyone knew the Queen intended to a.s.sert her royal prerogative and issue a pardon.

Though the people stood and stared, and did naught to shatter the peace of that bitingly cold morning, a number of halberdiers in uniforms as bright as blood splashed on the snow surrounded the prisoners, each man walking with the gleaming head of his new-polished ax turned out to show that the accused had not yet been condemned. We tried to catch Jane's eye, but she kept her head bent over the black velvet prayer book she held open before her, her lips moving silently over the words I hoped would give her enough comfort to see her through the coming ordeal. She wore stark, unadorned, black velvet, with an equally plain hood with a black silk veil fluttering in back. Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Tylney, also clad in austere black, followed a few steps behind. Mrs. Ellen held a black velvet cloak lined and collared with fur over her arm, and when she saw Jane shiver, she unfolded it and started to step forward.

But Guildford, walking beside Jane, a vision in black velvet slashed with white satin and festooned with pearls, with a gay bouquet of pinks, violets, and his favorite yellow gillyflowers cut from silk to brighten the winter gloom pinned festively to his feathered hat, fell back a step and took it from her. He moved behind Jane and most tenderly draped it around her thin, trembling shoulders. But Jane never even looked up, much less glanced back, and I sincerely doubt she uttered even one word of thanks. Guildford, with a sorrowful expression, let his hands fall from where they had lingered on her shoulders and fell back in step beside her.

Kate and I clung together and waited, our eyes never once leaving the doors of the Guildhall. I don't think even a half hour pa.s.sed before they opened again and the procession emerged to make the return journey to the Tower. Although we knew what to expect, it was still like a hard slap that left us reeling. This time the ax heads were turned to point toward Jane and Guildford, and the silent ma.s.ses fell back with pitying and horrified gasps, some even daring to softly mutter "G.o.d save you!" to the condemned. Kate clutched my hand hard. "It's just for form's sake, it's just for form's sake," she kept repeating, as though by sheer repet.i.tion she could convince herself, and me.

Why should it not be true? After all, we had no reason to doubt our royal cousin. Though, in truth, I would have felt much better if, during the times we had spent with her, Jane had responded with a loving sweetness and sincere grat.i.tude instead of rudeness and hostility. Every time I looked back and remembered Jane's behavior at Beaulieu that Christmas I felt sick to my very soul. I could still hear Jane taking Mary's lady-in-waiting to task for curtsying to the Host, quipping about the baker making Christ, and noisily breaking wind while Cousin Mary regaled us with stories of the saints' lives. Deep down a part of me feared, though Cousin Mary would deny it and try to bury it beneath layers of politeness, that Jane had indeed turned our kinswoman into a secret enemy. If it came down to a choice between a sulky girl who turned her back on priests and farted when told how the pious and worthy virgin Saint Lucy had plucked out her own eyes when her pagan betrothed admired them and cried, "Here, take them! Now leave me to G.o.d!" and a golden Spanish prince, handsome, l.u.s.ty, and devout, we all knew who our royal cousin would choose. I had seen the way her eyes devoured his portrait; it was the same way Father looked at plates of marzipan and Guildford Dudley, and our lady-mother regarded Adrian Stokes, the same hungry intensity, subtle and slow-burning, biding its time, trying to be patient while waiting to burst into pa.s.sionate flame.

Our royal cousin was fortunate, as only a queen can be, that she could always justify her choice by claiming Jane was a liability, a life that had to be sacrificed for the greater good, and that her marriage to Philip was an act of duty, not of pa.s.sion, to ensure the succession. But no one would be deceived. They would only see a l.u.s.t-mad old maid hankering to lift her petticoats for a golden-haired lad eleven years her junior, and they would all laugh and gossip and whisper and mock, but none of them would rush to be Jane's champion either; the n.o.bles at court cared only for themselves, and Jane's so-called friends, all the bookish scholars safely away in Protestant-friendly Switzerland and the Low Countries, were not knights in shining armor ready to ride out and rescue the lady-fair. And Jane was, in the end, worth more to them as a martyr-a young and beautiful martyr.

But Jane seemed oblivious to it all and displayed no concern; not even the faintest flicker of emotion flitted across her pale face. She never once lifted her head from her prayer book, and Guildford, walking beside her, stared blindly straight ahead, moving like one in a trance. Then, all of a sudden it seemed to strike him, like a blow coming out of the dark, and he staggered and stood still a moment, then fell back to walk several steps behind Jane and hung his head to try to hide the tears now pouring down his face. I remember the teardrop pearls tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his beautiful, black velvet hat fell forward, and it looked like even his hat was weeping too for beautiful, doomed Guildford Dudley, and the white plume that crowned it quaking, like a shaking fist, out of sheer fury at the unfairness of it all.

A lady in a rabbit fur cloak standing near us shook her head and sighed at the woebegone sight pa.s.sing mute and dazed before us- "How can they be so unkind to someone so beautiful?"-speaking words that Guildford himself might have uttered when the verdict was read. Both my sister and her unwanted husband had been condemned "to be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure."

Kate knelt down, despite the snow that soaked through her skirts and chilled her knees, and hugged me so tight I thought she would squeeze all the breath out of me. We clung together, two sad little girls, fourteen and nine, swathed in rabbit fur, but ice-cold inside, and wept, feeling the hot tears turn to ice upon our wind-chapped cheeks.

In the days and weeks that followed, Jane could not rest; lit from within by the fire of fever, tormented by long, slow-dragging days and so many sleepless nights, she would nervously walk the floor, pacing back and forth, wall to wall, constantly reciting, as if to instill herself with courage: "Be constant, be constant: fear not any pain, Christ hath redeemed thee, and Heaven is thy gain." She had begun to fear that G.o.d was testing her with this imprisonment and was terrified that she would fail. No longer could she find forgetfulness and solace in her beloved books; she was too consumed with worry about what would become of her.

While we danced and reveled through the Twelve Days of Christmas and the New Year, Jane sat by the fire and stared at Mr. Partridge's Yule log, wondering if "to be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure" would be her fate in the new year of 1554.

When she walked out into the biting winter air, Jane stubbornly refused to look up at the wall walk of the Beauchamp Tower, where Guildford was allowed to take his daily exercise. He would stand there and watch the river traffic, no doubt remembering the days when he had glided in grand style along the Thames reclining on the velvet cushions of his family's barge. He would stand and stare at London Bridge, where the heads of traitors were impaled on metal spikes and picked down to pearly bone by the ravenous ravens before their bare skulls were hurled into the river to make room for more. No doubt he wondered if his and Jane's heads would soon join them. Sometimes he watched Jane, gazing down at her, as though willing her to look up and wave at him. But she never did.

I always wished she had. One smile, one wave would have meant so much. Though they were kept in separate quarters, they were together, as prisoners condemned to die, yet they were alone because Jane willed it.

The New Year brought disaster instead of the peace I knew Queen Mary craved. The country was as unquiet, fearful, and restless as Jane's own feverish, fear-racked mind. People feared the coming of Philip. They were afraid he would bring the Spanish Inquisition with him as a bridal gift and that we would all lose ourselves under the red cloak of Spain. The Queen was so besotted with the prince of her dreams, giddy as a girl, she would sing and hum s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs throughout the day and sit for hours gazing lovingly at his portrait. Time and again she would declare, "I shall love him perfectly and never give him cause to be jealous!" never knowing how cruelly others mocked her for it, laughing behind her back, and how so many guffaws quickly became coughs as she pa.s.sed. The idea that our aging, spinster queen could ever give a man as handsome as Prince Philip, and eleven years younger than herself, cause to be jealous, was utterly absurd. To Prince Philip, this was a marriage of state, yet in her heart our royal cousin had transformed it into one of smoldering pa.s.sion. And when she heard rumors-as those cruel-minded mockers made certain she did-of his exotic and alluring mistresses and baseborn children, she made herself sick weeping, and only the Spanish amba.s.sador's a.s.surances that this was naught but false and malicious gossip could make her dry her eyes and smile again.

Senor Renard was urgently endeavoring to persuade her that Jane must die. He was also fanning the flames of Mary's fear and suspicion of her own half sister, Elizabeth. "Elizabeth is greatly to be feared," he cautioned, "for she has a power of enchantment; she has inherited her mother Anne Boleyn's sorcery"-knowing full well that just the mention of Anne Boleyn's name was enough to rekindle all our royal cousin's most deeply embedded grievances, reminding her that she had been the loved and adored princess until the woman she always called "The Great Wh.o.r.e" came along and ousted both Mary and her venerable mother, the pious and devout Catherine of Aragon, from Henry VIII's fickle affections.

Trouble was brewing, and you could sense it, even smell it, in the air. Thus it came as no surprise that in the county of Kent, a fine-figured, auburn-bearded man called Thomas Wyatt the Younger, the son of the poet who had at one time rivaled Henry VIII for the love of Anne Boleyn, began to raise an army, inciting others to join him. He intended that they should march on London, hoping with this show of might and force to dissuade Queen Mary from marrying Prince Philip. Wyatt would always afterward insist his sole aim had been to show Her Majesty that her people loved her but feared the threat of foreign domination that came hand in glove with the marriage. But some whispered that there was more to it-a secret scheme to wrest Mary from the throne and replace her with Princess Elizabeth, or Jane.

Then misfortune came to darken our doorstep once again. Our lady-mother was in London with the Queen, basking and reveling in her favor, flaunting her new jewels and gaudy velvets, gambling and making merry, and riding out with the royal hunt or alone with Master Stokes for a brisk, vigorous canter every chance she got, thus she failed to be properly vigilant where Father was concerned. If ever a man needed an alert and watchful wife it was Father. Left to his own devices in the country with his horses and hounds and recipe books filled with sweet things he was always pestering the cook to make, he was in a most vulnerable state when the charismatic Wyatt came calling. Father fell under the man's wicked spell and foolishly, nay idiotically, agreed to join him provided that, if Queen Mary failed to see reason, Jane would be restored to the throne as England's queen.

But the people loved Queen Mary more than they hated Spanish Philip. She made a rousing speech at the Guildhall that made the Londoners fall in love with her all over again. And when Wyatt came, the people closed their doors and hid from him. He was, in the end-though there were a few tense moments when we feared all would be lost-soundly defeated and taken in chains to the Tower.

After it was all over, rotting corpses hung from gibbets on every street corner, and dangled from the trees and London Bridge, which had more heads displayed on it than anyone could ever remember seeing before. London was an ugly, stinking place we longed to run away from, but we could not forsake our sister. Sometimes it seemed as though ugly, leering corpses had risen from their graves to take over the city and frighten the wits out of the living. Whenever we went out, traveling between whichever royal palace the court was in residence at and Suffolk House, where our lady-mother presided grandly over bountiful banquets and the gambling tables, Kate and I clutched pomander b.a.l.l.s stuffed with oranges and cloves to our noses, but it did little good; there was just no escaping the stench of death.

Father never even made it to London. Five miles outside of Coventry, his men deserted him. He fled alone, in hasty panic, lamenting that our lady-mother was not there to do his thinking for him. He made his way to Astley Park, one of his Suffolk estates. There, hunted like prey himself, pursued by packs of barking hounds, he panicked, and, as he ran across the Great Park, through the sticky, slurping mud that sucked off his boots and dense curtains of relentlessly pounding rain, cast off all his clothes and, running in a zigzag motion, flung them far and wide. He hurled himself to the ground and rolled in the mud, thoroughly coating himself, "like a roast in spicy batter" he would say after, hoping to erase his scent and fool the dogs. Then he ran, clutching his beloved comfit box against his pounding heart, pausing only to try to paste some fallen leaves around his loins with mud for modesty's sake. As his pursuers gained on him, he sought a hiding place and endeavored to cram his great, dough-soft body inside a hollow tree, in which he became hopelessly, and most uncomfortably, and indecently, stuck. "It seemed like such a good idea at the time," he would afterward say when attempting to justify his outlandish behavior. As the hounds brayed, held back by their keeper, and the soldiers stood about laughing, woodsmen were summoned with saws and axes to carefully extricate our cold and miserable father from the tree's embrace. He emerged pale as a ghost, a broken and defeated man who realized he had been a fool to try to make a deal with the Devil, like the greedy man in that old story his tutor used to tell him as a lad who had sold his soul for a sack of gold only to discover upon opening it that it contained only chestnuts. Father was doomed. His mud-caked body covered once again with his cast-off clothes, he was led in chains back to London.

Jane, who had heard the confusion and panic in the city, the distant din and chaos of Wyatt's rebellion, but not known the cause of it as neither Master Partridge nor Sir John Bridges had the heart to tell her, sat at her window and watched Father's sad arrival. She turned to Master Partridge and demanded to know the reason for his arrest. At his honestly given answer, she sank down on her knees, hugging herself and weeping silently, all hope gone, knowing that our royal cousin would not dare let her live now. Mary could no longer afford to be merciful. The only freedom Jane would ever have would come when the headsman's ax set her soul free.

That same day, our royal cousin signed the death warrants for Jane, Guildford, and Father. Afterward she closeted herself alone, weeping, in her private chapel, with a miniature of Jane in one hand and one of Prince Philip in the other. She emerged hours later, puffy-faced and swollen-eyed, with a plan to send her own chaplain, the kindly Dr. f.e.c.kenham, to try to convert Jane. What a feather that would be for the cap of Catholicism-to convert one of their most fervent and fanatical opponents! And, with Mary soon to be married, and, G.o.d willing, a mother, and Jane no longer a heretic, but a good Catholic, it would soon be safe to release her into a life of quiet seclusion. Dr. f.e.c.kenham was well chosen; he was not a sour-faced, grim, and pedantic priest, but a smiling, jovial man, the very soul of kindness, and, having been imprisoned for his faith during King Edward's reign, he could sympathize and well understand Jane's predicament.

But Jane was ever wont to turn her back and stick up her nose at Cousin Mary's kindness.

"I am ready to receive death patiently and in whatever manner pleaseth the Queen," she icily informed Dr. f.e.c.kenham.

Yet the scholar in her could not resist his challenge, one last opportunity to show off her much touted brilliance, and dispute with him on various theological points upon which their faiths diverged. To the tune of the hammers wielded by the workmen building her scaffold on Tower Green, they debated the number and nature of the sacraments and the miracle of the Ma.s.s, the mystical moment when the bread and wine became the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But Jane would not be moved, not even to save her life; to her, her soul was more important, and she would rather die for what she saw as the truth than live a lie.

"Well, my lady, I see we shall never agree," f.e.c.kenham most dolefully concluded.

"Not unless G.o.d turn your heart," Jane woefully answered, for in f.e.c.kenham she had seen that not all Catholic priests were the devils she imagined them. Here was a man, a kind, fatherly man, whose faith was as sincere, devout, and strong as her own, and even though he had failed to sway and change her, he would not abandon her, but would, as a friend, if she would allow it, stand by her to the very end. And for this great kindness, with tears in her eyes, Jane thanked him.

When f.e.c.kenham bade her farewell, leaving her to prepare to face death upon the morrow, she laid her hand upon his sleeve and spoke, regretfully, of Guildford. "He is innocent and only obeyed his father in all things as all children are brought up to do."

Then she turned her back on him and went and knelt beside her bed to pray.

Jane would never know the sacrifice Kate made to try to save her. Afterward, we would both try to forget, to pretend it never happened. When the Earl of Pembroke, her former father-in-law, cut off Wyatt's advance, Queen Mary rewarded him with a diamond ring from her own finger. He knelt at her feet and, with tears shimmering on his proud, patrician face, slipped it onto his smallest finger, the only one it would fit, and vowed he would wear and cherish it until the day he died.

Afterward, I saw the Spanish amba.s.sador draw him aside. Little and unnoticed, I heard their urgently exchanged words-the Spaniard's evil serpent's tongue urging Pembroke to persuade Queen Mary, who was wont to let kinship and sentimentality sway her, that Jane must die, she could not be allowed to live, it was too dangerous.

I made the mistake of telling Kate. That night, when the clocks struck midnight, Kate, her hair rippling down her back like a curtain of flame and clad in her sheerest lawn shift edged with Spanish blackwork embroidery, silently covered herself in a cloak of black velvet, drew up the hood to hide her face in shadows, and went to him. I begged her not to go, but without a word, she gently but firmly pushed me away. She gave herself, she surrendered her virginity, that most precious gift a woman can give but once, to a man who had already hurt and wronged her, to try to save our sister's life. He was the most powerful and influential man at court, the richest earl in England; only his word stood a chance of outweighing the Spanish amba.s.sador's, and if he spoke up for Jane his words might be enough to tip the balance in her favor, to our royal cousin's natural tendency toward clemency. Pembroke promised, but he exacted a price-Kate must give herself to him; only then would he speak for Jane.

But Pembroke lied, as I knew he would, and showed himself once again to be a cruel and evil man. He never spoke one word espousing mercy for Jane. Instead, he joined the others, his voice amongst the loudest, calling for her death. He used and soiled my sister, then parroted the Spanish amba.s.sador-Jane was a traitor and must die as traitors do. The head that presumed to wear a stolen crown must be taken, Pembroke said, and called it justice.

When Kate came back to me at c.o.c.k's crow, sorely used and tearstained, her shift torn and b.l.o.o.d.y, moving as though each step hurt her, I wordlessly opened my arms and let my shoulder soak up the tears that followed.

"When he held, kissed, and caressed me, and when he . . . loved me," her voice wavered uncertainly, and she nibbled her lower lip as she looked up at me with her tear-bright eyes, "though I know 'loved' is not the right word for it, he excited and repulsed me as no other man ever has. I detested and desired, loved and hated him, all at the same time. The feelings were all a jumbled red-hot ma.s.s in my mind, and whenever I tried to sort them out and make sense of it all I got burned, so I stopped trying, like a drowning person who stops fighting and just lies back and starts floating, drifting along wherever the current carries them. I wanted to stay, yet I wanted to go, to draw him close and hold him near, yet to bite and kick, scratch like a h.e.l.lcat and fight my way free of him, and of me, because I didn't like myself when I lay with him. But at the same time I was me, and I knew I couldn't escape myself; I am what I am, and there's no good fighting it. All I could do was kiss, caress, and cling. I was wholly in his power, because I wanted to be even though I didn't; I was myself, yet not myself. Oh, Mary, for the first time, I think I understand what it was like for Jane with Guildford! And he hurt me, Pembroke hurt me, I knew he would, I didn't want him to, and yet I did, and I knew it must the first time, it is like that for every maid, yet I welcomed it, I invited it, and he hurt me. Oh, Mary, it was both agony and bliss!" Her voice broke in anguish, and she fell to weeping in my arms again, clinging to me as though only I could save her.

What did you expect? You played with fire and got burned, a little voice inside my head said. But my mouth never moved except to kiss the bright curls as I held Kate close and willed the pain to leave her, to soak into me, along with her tears. I could bear it. There were many things I could have said to my sister, but I hadn't the heart to actually say them; all I could do was hold her, and hold her again when she realized Pembroke's treachery and duplicity. Jane was doomed, and he had helped decree it, just as he had helped thrust an unwanted crown upon her. People are always apt to forget that which they do not wish to remember. They always see themselves in the light that flatters and favors them most and try to ensure that others do also. That is why I have never trusted memoirs, not even those writ by saints.

10.

Though we loathed to go abroad that chilly morning of February 12, we had to, it was a mission of mercy our hearts could never say no to. Though we had begged, pleaded, wept, and humbled ourselves as we never had before, our royal cousin refused to allow us one last hour with Jane; even when we fell sobbing on our knees before her and pleaded for time enough for just one kiss, one embrace, to say good-bye, the answer remained the same-no! Cousin Mary turned her crimson velvet back on our tears and said when we were older we would understand, that she did this for our own sake, to spare us even greater pain. When Kate persisted, she held up her hand and said, "I will hear no more. Leave me now," and dismissed us. But she later sent a message saying that we might, if we wished, go and give what comfort we could to Guildford. He was in a state of terrible agitation because Jane had refused to see him when Cousin Mary offered to let husband and wife spend their last night on earth together. So Kate and I put on our furs and set out for the Tower.

Guildford spent his final morning in a flood of tears, bewailing his misfortune, and that Jane would not be with him on his last walk. "We should have taken it together," he sobbed into Kate's lap, while I knelt and stroked his back, as we both tried our best to comfort him in the absence of our-I must say it!-selfish sister.

Jane had sent word through Sir John Bridges that "if our meeting could have been a means of consolation to our souls I would have been happy to see Guildford, but as our meeting would only increase our misery and pain, it is better to put it off for the time being, as we will meet shortly elsewhere, and live bound by indissoluble ties."

We tried in vain to make him see the message of hope hidden in Jane's words, but Guildford only shook his head and wept all the more, wretched and inconsolable, in our arms, afraid to die alone, with no one to hold his hand and take that final walk with him.

"I don't want to die!" he sobbed. Desperately, he implored us to find a blond beggar to die in his stead and then go away with him to Italy where he could do what he had always wanted to do-sing!

But it was just a frantic fantasy, one last grasp at a dream that all of us knew could never be.

Though not bound to us by blood, Guildford was the only brother we ever had-all the sons our lady-mother ever bore died before they had scarcely drawn breath-so we did what we could for him. We calmed and bathed him with chamomile and lavender, and then we dressed him. Though some might have objected to two maidens handling a young man so intimately, Guildford was like a little frightened child beneath our hands, and it was all entirely innocent; his nakedness stirred nothing save sorrow that one so young and fair was about to die at only seventeen.

Kate chose for him an elegant, black velvet doublet slashed with cinnamon satin and black silk hose and gently made sure the lace-trimmed collar of his white lawn shirt was laid open wide, to leave his pale neck bare and vulnerable for the ax. As he sat, docile as a child in his chair, sipping his chamomile tea, Kate, her nimble fingers always so clever with coiffures, arranged the gilded curls of Guildford Dudley for the very last time, and as I watched, I plucked at the dyed russet plume on his black velvet cap to give it a jaunty curl before I gave it to him.

"Thank you, Mary." Trying so hard to be brave, Guildford smiled at me. "It is very cold outside and my head is very beautiful; it would be frightful if I caught cold in it," he said, and set it on his head at a rakish tilt, and I caught the self-mocking twinkle in his gooseberry green eyes for one last time.

When it was time for us to go and Sir John Bridges was at the door, Guildford suddenly cried, "Wait!" He gathered up Fluff from where he lay curled and sleeping on the bed, held him close to his heart for a long moment, and kissed and caressed the sleek, silky white head, then came and laid him gently in Kate's arms. "Please take care of him for me. He likes a bowl of cream every morning for his breakfast," he added, his voice breaking, just like our hearts.

With tears in her eyes, Kate promised that Fluff would be spoiled, "like a king among cats," and we embraced Guildford one last time, and then we parted before the tears could drown us all.

We wept all the way back to Greenwich Palace, where we must hasten into our russet and black liveries to attend the Queen, and when we climbed out of the hired barge, we left the cushions sodden with our tears.

In our room, Kate gave Fluff a saucer of milk, kneeling down on the floor beside him, stroking, petting, kissing, and making much of him while he regally lapped it up. We helped each other change into our liveries, then we walked the floor, back and forth, tensely waiting, watching the clock, knowing that, all too soon, our sister's soul would depart this earth. A maidservant came, sent as an act of kindness from the Queen, and brought us a late breakfast since she knew we had not had any and did not want to see us faint and light-headed when we came to her. But neither of us wanted it, though we hadn't the heart to refuse and send it back to the kitchen lest our royal cousin think us ungrateful and disdainful of the gesture.

The kitchen wench was just departing when Kate suddenly ran across the room and jerked her back inside. "I want your clothes!" she said. I watched in astonishment as my sister, who had always had a maid or me to help her, wrenched off her gown, not caring what she tore, until she was down to her shift and stays. She left her petticoats pooled on the floor and ordered the trembling and astonished girl, "Strip!" Fearing that Kate had lost her mind and might do her some injury, the girl nervously complied.

As she struggled into the girl's plain buff-hued homespun gown, Kate kicked her torn and discarded livery at her and ordered her to put it on, as she could not walk the palace corridors without decent cover, and fetch something for me to wear. "Anything! A sack will do, if that's all you can find. Hurry!" she cried when the girl dithered and wept about my size and said she did not know what to do. "Run, d.a.m.n you!" Kate stamped her foot to speed her on her way, then turned and quickly shucked off my gown. As it rose over my head, I heard tearing and popping and knew our liveries would require much labor before we could wear them again, if we even could.

Kate was gathering up the wild riot of her flaming curls with such haste it was as though they burned her hands and thrusting them inside the maid's linen cap when the girl returned clutching a rough-woven sack that, by the dusting it left on the floor and my skin, must have contained flour. Kate ran to her sewing basket and quickly cut a hole in the bottom for my head and two on the sides for me to stick my arms through, then thrust it over my head and helped me wiggle into it. Then, seizing up the maid's ap.r.o.n and knotting it around her waist and stumbling into her oversized wooden clogs, she grabbed my hand and rushed me out the door, even as I one-handedly struggled to remove the jewel-tipped pins from my hair and unloose the ropes of pearls plaited into it. These I left lying on the floor like a child's discarded toys.

We flew down the water stairs, heedless of the slickness that put our necks and bones in peril, and, for the second time that morning, spilled into a barge. Kate flung a handful of coins at the bargeman and bade him row to the Tower as though his very life depended on it.

"Kate, what are you thinking?" I cried. "This is madness! We are due to attend the Queen; she will surely punish us!"

"I don't care!" Kate said defiantly, and turned and shouted for the bargeman to row faster. "We must be there for Jane, Mary. We cannot let her die alone!"

Hearing Kate say it gave me all the courage I needed.

"For Jane." I nodded and reached out to hold Kate's hand.

We almost didn't make it. We were too late for Guildford; he had already been dead almost an hour. His head and body, wrapped in a bloodstained sheet, had already been carted back from Tower Hill. We would hear later that Guildford had, at the last moment, found his courage, and as he knelt before the block, he declared that he would die "doing what I love best, and, this time, no one shall stop me! Lord." He turned his gooseberry green eyes heavenward. "Here is my voice; I shall send it soaring high to heaven to meet Your angels as they come to carry my soul home to You!" He flung wide his arms, closed his eyes, and threw back his head, and unleashed a loud and joyful voice that pathetically endeavored to climb all the way to heaven. Wincing, as the crowd cried, "Lord, have mercy on our ears!" the startled executioner s.n.a.t.c.hed up his ax and lopped Guildford's glorious golden head off in a single stroke.

We would later learn that Jane had stood by her window and watched his lonely last walk to Tower Hill. Guildford stared straight ahead and never paused or even once looked up as he pa.s.sed beneath her window. She was still there afterward to witness the return of his bloodied corpse in the cart, catching a glimpse of golden curls peeking from the folds of the winding sheet. Then the tears Guildford had once predicted came, and Jane sobbed out again and again "Guildford! Guildford!" and fell weeping into Mrs. Ellen's arms, m.u.f.fling her sobs against that good lady's black velvet shoulder. "The ante-repast is not so bitter that you have tasted, and that I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble," she said in a tearful rush and then, raising her head, swallowing back her tears, continued. "But that is nothing, Guildford, to the feast you and I shall this day partake of together in Paradise." Then she went and knelt down beside her bed and prayed that G.o.d help her find the courage to bravely endure her final hour. "Lord, Thou G.o.d and Father of my life, hear this poor and desolate woman, and arm me, I beseech Thee, with Thy armor that I may stand fast, gird me with verity and the breastplate of righteousness."

"Hurry, Mary, hurry! Jane needs us! We have to be there for her! We cannot let her die alone! We cannot!" With a strength I feared would wrench my arm from its socket, Kate pulled and dragged me through the crowd, heedless of the legs I banged into and the toes I trampled. She determinedly shoved and elbowed her way through, as the drums beat and the Tower chapel's bells tolled, taking me with her, all the way up to the very front, close enough to reach out and touch the scaffold.

Wearing the same black velvet gown and hood she had worn to her trial, with her head bent over her precious prayer book, our sister was already mounting the thirteen steps of the black-draped scaffold.

As she stepped onto the straw-covered planks, Jane hesitated a moment, taking a step back, toward the rea.s.suring black-robed presence of Dr. f.e.c.kenham, while Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Tylney, nigh blinded by their tears, hovered anxiously behind, waiting to divest her of her cloak and headdress and make sure the pins holding up her hair were secure so it would not fall down and impede the ax and thus prolong Jane's agony.

Jane handed her prayer book to Sir John Bridges, to whom she had promised it as a remembrance, and in a timid, tremulous little voice courageously, and correctly, a.s.serted, "If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least and my imprudence were worthy of excuse. G.o.d and posterity will show me more favor."

Then she let her ladies do what they must, shying fearfully away from the tall, muscular-armed, black-hooded executioner as he knelt and gently asked her forgiveness. Forcing herself to be brave, Jane gave it and laid the traditional coin in his palm. As he motioned her toward the block, Jane, like a teary-eyed little girl craving rea.s.surance, asked, "You will not take it off until I lay me down?" He answered most kindly, "No, my lady."

Her eyes rising to watch the ravens circling overhead, her voice faltering, cracking, and halting, rising high then dropping low, Jane addressed her last words to the crowd.

"Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact, indeed, against the Queen's Highness was unlawful and the consenting thereto by me, but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocence, before G.o.d and the face of you, good Christian people, this day." She paused and wrung her hands as though she were indeed washing them. "I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other means, but only by the mercy of G.o.d, in the merits of the blood of His only son, Jesus Christ. I confess when I did know the word of G.o.d, I neglected the same, loved myself and the world, and therefore this plague or punishment is happily and worthily happened unto me for my sins. Yet I thank G.o.d of His goodness that He hath given me a time and respite to repent. And now, good Christian people, while I am alive, I pray you to a.s.sist me with your prayers."

When I looked around me, as many bowed their heads and dropped to their knees on the snow-crusted earth, I saw there was nary a dry eye in sight.

Upon the scaffold, Jane turned and looked uncertainly to Dr. f.e.c.kenham. "Should I say the Miserere psalm?" she asked. At his nod, she knelt, still facing the crowd, and after a moment he did too, and their two voices, hers softly speaking English, and his sonorous Latin, blended together in the recitation of the "Miserere mei, Deus" as his hand reached out to hold hers.

Have mercy upon me, O G.o.d, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the mult.i.tude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O G.o.d; and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O G.o.d, thou G.o.d of my salvation; and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of G.o.d are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O G.o.d, thou wilt not despise.

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and with whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Then she stood and, in a rare display of kindness, turned back to help the old man rise. Impulsively, she bent and kissed his cheek and whispered, "I pray to G.o.d that He abundantly reward you for your kindness to me."

Turning hurriedly away, as though she feared she must move fast lest her courage falter and cowardice well up to take its fragile place, she faced the block and fell to her knees in the straw. She motioned urgently for Mrs. Ellen to quickly bring forth the blindfold and bind her eyes to blot out the world she was about to leave. Just before her eyes were covered, she gazed once more, fearfully, at the headsman and implored, "I pray you dispatch me quickly!" To which he nodded. "Aye, my lady."

But Jane had misjudged the distance between herself and the block, and when, blindfolded, she moved to lay her head down, she found only empty air. This nigh chased her courage away. Her hands rose, frantically groping before her. "Where is it? Where is it?" she sobbed plaintively.