The Bastard's Tale (34 page)

And he didn’t, not because of the guard’s order but because there would be no use to it. Not with his hands still chained, in a walled yard full of armed men and no help for him anywhere. He willed his body to be still and held up his arms for the guards to fasten the leather strap that would hold him to the hurdle over his chest. A wide, thick, leather strap with a heavy buckle and a padlock to hold it closed against any fumbling a desperate man might try. Maybe because he did not struggle, the guards did not pull it tight enough over his ribs to hurt. For what small use there was to that, Arteys thought, when in an hour’s time or so he, Sir Roger, Sir Richard, Tom, and Master Needham would all be hung, gutted alive and, when finally dead, their bodies cut into pieces and piked up for people to stare at.

Hung, drawn, quartered.

Terror heaved up from Arteys’ stomach, clamped on his heart, rose into his throat, as it had every time the thought of it came into his mind since Suffolk, seated in judgment after that farce of a trial, had stared above their heads, refusing even to look them in the face as he sentenced them to die as traitors.

And again, as he had every time so far, Arteys fought the terror down, knowing that if ever he gave way to it, he would go to his death screaming and sobbing. For his own sake and for what pride of blood he owed his father and to refuse that extra sport to everyone who came to watch him die, he meant to go on fighting it, not to give way until he had to, not begin to scream until the knife was in his belly and the pain more than he could hold against.

He supposed that by then he’d be past caring what sport he was for anyone.

The guards were pulling his feet to either side now, to the straps waiting for them at the hurdle’s lower corners. He closed his eyes again. Yesterday he had said farewell to his last sunset, such of its gold and rose as he could see through the high slit of window in his cell. Had made farewell to his last night and to his last dawn before the guards had come, roused—not wakened, they had none of them slept—the five of them to go to a room where they had been allowed to wash themselves—not shave; not given anything that could be a weapon—and dress in the clothing they had worn to their trial. Clean hosen and shirts and good doublets that Sir Roger’s wife had brought them. Arteys’ was dark blue. That was a small, pointless thing to be pleased with but he had been. He had found himself these past days trying very hard to be pleased with small things. There were, after all, no great things left in his life. Except death.

That they were to go clean and clothed to their deaths, rather than dirty, bare-legged and in prison shirts, might have been seen as a favor, but Sir Roger had said while they dressed themselves, “Suffolk doesn’t want anyone’s pity on us. He wants everyone to remember it’s Gloucester’s ‘treason’ we’re dying for. That’s why he’s letting us go grand to our dying.”

Close to his ear someone said, “Master Arteys.”

He flinched his eyes open and turned his head to find a priest kneeling beside the hurdle. For a moment that was all he saw, then said uncertainly, “Master Orle?”

‘Master Orle,“ the priest agreed. ”Bishop Pecock sends his regret at not being here himself.“

‘I heard he was in trouble,“ Arteys said, surprised at how his voice croaked.

‘He is indeed.“ Master Orle fumbled under his scapular and brought out a leather bottle. ”Otherwise he’d be here. But we found a way for me to be assigned with the other priests to this.“ He held the bottle to Arteys’ mouth. ”Wine,“ he said.

‘Drugged?“ Arteys asked, half-hopefully. He wouldn’t mind not being altogether here for any of what was to come.

‘I fear not.“

Arteys drank gratefully anyway when Master Orle held the bottle to his mouth, the slant of the hurdle enough that swallowing was only difficult, not impossible. He had not known how thirsty he was. Breakfast had been only a little ale and a piece of dry bread, with something said about a full stomach making matters harder for the hangman.

‘Thank you,“ he said as Master Orle took the bottle away.

‘You all made confession last night, I understand. Everything else was seen to this morning?“

‘Yes.“ Arteys shut his eyes against the memory of how terrible it had been to have the last rites said over him when he was neither ill nor wounded and yet assured he would be dead before the morning was done.

There was the scrape of the first hurdle beginning to move across the courtyard paving and Arteys opened his eyes, seeking for Master Orle’s face, for something good in the midst of nightmare. Master Orle, putting the bottle quickly away, brought out a gold cross, perhaps a hand’s length long and plainly made but beautiful. “Bishop Pecock sent you this. It’s his own.”

Arteys reached out and took it between his manacled hands, grateful for it.

The priest touched his shoulder. “I’ll walk beside you if you want. It’s allowed.”

‘Yes,“ Arteys said. ”Yes.“ Then, ”Oh, God,“ as his own hurdle lurched forward, jarring him against the straps. Laid out as he was, he could not brace himself, only endure the jouncing across the cobbles and through the first of the gateways from the Tower of London onto the causeway into the city itself. They were to be killed at Tyburn, far out London’s other side, meaning they were to be dragged the length of the city, first by way of Tower Street, then up to Cheapside, broad enough for the crowds to gather at their thickest and on west past St. Paul’s Cathedral to go out at Newgate onto the Holburn road. Coming and going with Gloucester, Arteys had ridden that way often enough to know it. Had more than once ridden past Tyburn and seen the bodies hanging and never thought…

The hurdle bumped over a rougher patch of pavement, jarring his thoughts along with his body. They were into London now, the street narrow here, the crowds of lookers-on close on both sides of him and people leaning out of the overhanging houses’ windows, staring, talking, pointing. Arteys stared straight up, past the faces, refusing to see them, trying to sink into his mind. If he could just not see, not think, not hear even Master Orle walking near the hurdle’s end, praying aloud. If he could just know nothing from here to the end…

How could the sky be so piercingly, purely blue when he was going to die?

Ahead, one of the other men cried out to God, his voice so shrill with fear that Arteys did not know who it was. Not Sir Roger or Sir Richard, surely. Master Needham? Tom?

It was his fault that Tom was here at all. That last day in Bury, when Suffolk had seen him and he had run, he should have gone on running but he hadn’t. He’d left the abbey, lost himself in the crowds, wandered while trying to know what to do, unable to make up his mind. He’d happened on Tom, been so grateful to see him that he had gone with him into a tavern to get warm, to gather his wits, to be with someone he knew instead of alone. Suffolk’s men had found him there, and because Tom had been with him, Tom was here and going to die.

Arteys would have vowed to Suffolk or anyone who asked that Tom was no part of anything that Arteys knew or had done but no one ever asked him. He had not even seen Suffolk from that day in Bury until faced by him as their judge two days ago and by then he had known there was no point in avowing or disavowing anything. Suffolk was going to have him and the others dead and nothing would change it.

The hurdle scraped onto more even pavement and the street widened, the houses farther away to either side. “Cheapside,” Master Orle said. Arteys heard himself groan, hurting from the jouncing, from being strapped down and helplessly sprawled out. But that was the point of all this miserable dragging through the heart of London. He was supposed to be hurt and humiliated before the agony of rope and knife and, far too late, death.

‘Do you hear them?“ Master Orle asked. ”Are you listening to them?“

Arteys shook his head the little that he could. He’d kept the crowd noise around him to a half-heard, meaningless surf sound, not wanting to hear people cheerful for his death.

‘They’re angry,“ Master Orle said. ”Listen.“

Arteys listened. Master Orle was right. The crowd was angry, but not at him or the others. It wasn’t the cheerful jeers that usually kept traitors company on their way to die but a growling displeasure and voices calling out, “God bless you! God keep you!” and once and again and another time, “Down with Suffolk!”

For the first time Arteys swallowed a sob. They knew. They knew it was Suffolk who was a traitor, not him and the others. And suddenly rage scalded up in him— rage at the stupidity of having to die because Suffolk was a fool—and he lifted up his hands, lifted up the cross, and cried out, “We’re guiltless! Pray for us! We’re guiltless!”

Ahead of him Sir Roger and the others took up the cry. “We’re guiltless! Pray for us!”

The crowd’s cries rose in answer to them, with women’s sobs mixed loudly in. A half-hope of rescue stirred in Arteys. If they all rushed the line of guards…

But there was no rush, though the crowd at Newgate had to be cleared before the horses and hurdles could pass through, and once outside the city, Master Orle said, “They’re coming with us. They’re following.”

Arteys pulled his head up long enough to see people were pushing through Newgate to join the throng already along the road here, bringing their anger with them. Arteys let his head drop back. The road was worse here, jarring his breath away, and it wasn’t the crowd that mattered anymore but how much farther there was to go and how much longer.

The sun was well up the sky now. He turned his head aside from it. To both sides the crowd was calling out to him and the others and cursing Suffolk. Master Orle tried to give him more wine but the guards wouldn’t stop the horse and more spilled down his chin than reached his throat. And there at last came the jeers—shouts and hissing and cries of “Traitors!”—and Master Orle said angrily, “We’re passing Suffolk’s place. Those are his people, no one else.”

From the crowd, people jeered back and stones flew. A rush from the guards stopped that but there was no more jeering.

‘St. Giles’s church,“ Master Orle said quietly.

Meaning not far to Tyburn. Arteys shut his eyes, there was nothing more he wanted to see, and finally the hurdle bumped off the road, thudded across hummocky ground, and came to a stop in welcome shade under trees. Elm trees, Arteys saw when he opened his eyes. Tyburn’s tall elms.

Bruised and aching, Arteys was almost grateful.

All went quickly after that. Master Orle had just time to give him a last gulp of the wine and take the cross from him before being put aside by the guards, who knew their business and wasted no time at it. Two guards to a man, they unstrapped the prisoners and hauled them upright, unmanacled their wrists, and stripped off their doublets to leave them in their shirts and hosen. Their arms were pulled behind them and tied at wrists and elbows with rough rope. More guards were around them, keeping the crowd back and a way clear to the scaffold, Arteys saw as he was jerked around and shoved forward with the others. It was new-made of raw wood and high enough for everyone to have good view not only of the noosed ropes hanging ready from the crossbeam above one side of it but the boards where the slaughter would be done, slanted up on trestles to give the crowd better sight of the killing.

At the foot of the scaffold’s ladder there was delay. Unable to help themselves up the ladder with their bound hands, the five of them had to climb with their feet while the guards braced their backs until the men waiting above could grab them and haul them the rest of the way.

Arteys was last, with chance to see the others clearly one last time as they went ahead of him. Master Need-ham stiff-backed and blank-faced. Tom tight-mouthed and wide-eyed, holding in dry, heaving gasps of terror. Sir Roger and Sir Richard staring into the distance, grimly showing nothing.

His own turn came to be shoved up the ladder, grabbed, and set roughly on the platform. He had time to see there were five hangmen waiting, each with a helper standing behind him, and an array of knives on stools beside each of the five boards waiting for the butchering. Unlike the scaffold, the butchering boards were of old wood, used before, dark-smeared with other men’s dried blood. But at least it seemed he and the others were to die all at once, rather than one at a time with the last one having to watch and hear all the others die before him. Something to be grateful for, he vaguely thought before he was grabbed again and pushed toward the last waiting noose. The hangmen’s helpers, well-practiced, moved with him, one to each man, quick-tying rope around their ankles to keep their legs from thrashing when the time came. Arteys, without time for being ready, gasped at the sudden pain as the rope was jerked tight, but the hangman was already there, putting the noose around his neck. They weren’t even going to be allowed last words, Arteys realized, and then the noose tightened on him, closed off his air as behind him someone hauled up on the rope. He had told himself he would not struggle but he did, his body demanding against his brain’s knowing it would make no difference if his toes touched the scaffold a broken second longer. He struggled but was swinging and there was red darkness in his eyes, red roaring in his ears…
pain…

He didn’t feel himself fall but found himself lying with his face against wood planking and someone taking the noose from around his neck, stripping the rope from his elbows, wrists, ankles. He was still gasping for air as someone turned him over but relief went from him with the return of the terrible knowing that it wasn’t ended. That worse was coming…