She did not see the sword, not even its shadow, and the blade went through her neck with a sigh, easier than scissors through silk. One of her women bound a cloth across her eyes. She had been required to kneel upright, with no support. There was no block, the man from Calais did not use one. He had seen her start to tremble, but only after her final prayer.
Few women are so resolute at the last, and not many men. Even when she said her last words, asking the people to pray for the king, she was looking over the head of the crowd. He remembers her faltering progress to the scaffold: her glance, as the Frenchman says, was directed over her shoulder. When the other witnesses knelt, the duke stayed rigid on his feet he so hated the queen that he would not do her that much courtesy.
‘My lord Suffolk, you may be satisfied she did.’īrandon disgusts him. ‘She didn’t suffer, Cromwell,’ Charles Brandon says. Scores of witnesses, none of them sure of what they have seen they understand that the queen is dead, but it was too quick to comprehend. Now the spectators are moving away, courtiers and aldermen and city officials, knots of men in silk and gold chains, in the livery of the Tudors and in the insignia of the London guilds. The executioner’s blade is incised with Christ’s crown of thorns, and with the words of a prayer. You would not guess it to look at him now, but his father was a blacksmith he has affinity with iron, steel, with everything that is mined from the earth or forged, everything that is made molten, or wrought, or given a cutting edge. He, Cromwell, touches a finger to the metal. ‘We still have to go to the Spaniards to get a blade like this.’ ‘Toledo steel.’ He proffers it for admiration. He does it lovingly, as if the weapon were his friend. The man turns away and begins cleaning his sword. If I have to come back, I shall increase my fee.’ ‘ Alors, perhaps better luck this time,’ the Frenchman says. Even as she mounted the steps she was looking over her shoulder, did you see?’ ‘But perhaps they were, Maître Cremuel.’ (No Frenchman can ever pronounce his name.) ‘Perhaps they were, for I believe the lady herself thought the king would send a messenger to stop it. No coffin, when they had days to prepare? They knew she was going to die. These people are incredible, he says to the Frenchman. One of Constable Kingston’s men proffers linen towels-too late to be of use. Then they step back, their hands held away from them so as not to soil their garments. The hands of the bystanders move in imitation, and his own hand moves but then he checks himself, and draws it into a loose fist. As there is no other space, she fits it by the corpse’s feet. The woman who holds the head genuflects with her soaking parcel. The officers of the Tower have found, in lieu of a coffin, an arrow chest. Trust Francis, he thinks: he is a cousin of the dead queen, but he has remembered he is also a cousin of the queen to come.
HOW MANY TORADORA LIGHT NOVEL VOLUMES ARE THERE FREE
It is Francis Bryan, a nimble courtier, gone to tell Henry he is a free man. From the corner of his eye he sees a presence flit away, a fugitive lean man in a leather jerkin. Each of them sidesteps the cushion on which she knelt, now sodden with her blood.
He hears their indrawn breath as they lift what is left of her, holding her by her clothes they are afraid the cloth will rip and their fingers touch her cooling flesh. They slide in the gore and stoop over the narrow carcass. They will not let any man touch her palms out, they force back those who try to help them. Having been on a battlefield, he knows this from experience too. She held it fast though, and a head is heavier than you expect. He saw how, as she received the bundle, the woman shuddered from the nape of her neck to her feet. The Frenchman-they had sent for the Calais executioner-had picked up the head, swaddled it in linen, then handed it to one of the veiled women who had attended Anne in her last moments. The small body lies on the scaffold where it has fallen: belly down, hands outstretched, it swims in a pool of crimson, the blood seeping between the planks. Having once been a poor man, he knows this from experience. The man has performed his office with style and though the king is paying him well, it is important to reward good service with encouragement, as well as a purse. Under the hats, their faces are stunned.īut then he turns back, to say a word of thanks to the executioner. The witnesses, who have knelt for the passing of the soul, stand up and put on their hats. The morning’s circumstances are new and there are no rules to guide us. A sharp pang of appetite reminds him that it is time for a second breakfast, or perhaps an early dinner. Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away.
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