The King's Grace

by Anne Easter Smith

  “Soft, Grace,” John chided her. “You must forget what you once felt for me. I had hoped you had heeded me that night at the abbey. Know that I cherish you as a brother might his dearest little sister, but now you must look to Tom for the love of a man. Promise me you will, Grace?” He held her eyes with his until he saw her nod, a tear escaping down her cheek. “But promise that you will not forget me, for there are precious few who will mourn the loss of King Richard’s bastard, in truth.” Grace went into his arms then, and she dared not look up and see the anguish in his face. “There, there, little wren,” he consoled her, holding her awkwardly.

  They heard Cecily’s voice outside the door and John released her. Cecily hurried in with a cloth and a bowl of water. “Is there anything we can do for you, cousin?” she asked, watching Grace wring out the wet cloth and gently wipe his face.

  “I wish I could see my mother one last time, ’tis all,” he mumbled from beneath the cloth. “But I doubt she knows I am here, or what is to happen to me. I wish I could see her beautiful golden eyes and hear her sing once more…”

  The guard had entered and cleared his throat noisily. “It be time to leave, my lady. Sir Hugh—”

  Cecily turned and gave him a withering look that sent him slinking back into the passage. But not knowing what more they could achieve, and with no hope of a reprieve, she thought it best to leave. “If I knew where to find your mother for you, I would. But I don’t think there is time.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, saying, “I am sorry, John, truly I am.”

  “Tell her I loved her all my life. Tell her that. You will find her at Tendring Hall, caring for Lady Howard, I think.” He made the most of rinsing the cloth so they could not see his tears. “Tell her I was strong, I beg of you. And pray for me to be strong tomorrow and to remember I am a king’s son. Ah, Jesu…”

  Grace moved as if to go to him, but Cecily took her arm and propelled her towards the door. “May God bless you, John,” she said with finality.

  “And may he have mercy on your soul,” Grace choked out. “Look for me tomorrow, dear John, I shall—” but Cecily did not allow her to finish.

  “Do not promise something you cannot fulfill,” she hissed in Grace’s ear. “Come, let us go from this place, or I fear I, too, will lose control.”

  She led the distraught Grace back down the stairs, past the other pitiful prisoners and out onto the street, where they gratefully clambered back into the waiting litter. Just as the curtains were being drawn, Grace noticed a middle-aged woman with anxious amber-colored eyes wearing a widow’s barbe and carrying a basket hurry up the steps to knock upon the prison door. Poor lady, she thought briefly; she is probably the mother of one of the inmates and is taking him food. Dear God, what a hideous place. She shuddered.

  Cecily’s hand found hers under the warm blanket and, without a word, the two women let their grief flow freely, comforting each other on the road home.

  CECILY LIED FOR Grace the next day and told her husband the two of them would visit Bess and baby Henry at Westminster that morning.

  “Do not go anywhere near Smithfield, madam,” Welles said. “You know what happens there today.”

  “Aye, my lord,” Cecily replied dully. “You do not need to remind us. We thought we might be of comfort to the queen. She loved John, too. We shall go and light candles for him at Saint Margaret’s.”

  “Very well, my dear,” the viscount assented. “Henry wants to hunt today, so we go to the forest at Shene. If it helps, he is grieving over this particular execution, and I hope our expedition in the country will take his mind off it. He looks on John as kin, as well, in truth.”

  Cecily shut her mouth for once; her customary “Pah!” died on the tip of her tongue.

  Later, Welles, Tom and a small meinie trotted out of the gate of Pasmer’s Place while Cecily and Grace watched from the upstairs window.

  Tom had taken her aside before he left. “I wish I could stay with you today of all days, Grace, but I cannot gainsay my lord. I shall think of you every minute, and pray for John’s soul. I am sure you will spend most of your day on your knees, and I pray it will comfort you. Courage, sweetheart,” he had said, and he held her close before hurrying off to join the group.

  When they were gone, Cecily took Grace to her garderobe and shut the door. Grace donned her plain gray gown and Cecily covered her with a drab cloak borrowed from a servant, finishing off the inconspicuous garb with a simple kerchief over her curls. Cecily nodded. “You will pass as a citizen, and with Edgar to protect you, you should be safe. I do not like you going, Grace, for I fear you will be marked for life by it. I have witnessed an execution such as this, and I had nightmares for weeks—and I did not even know the victims. Are you certain you must go?”

  “Aye, Cis,” Grace said, nodding vigorously. “I cannot let John die alone. I would never forgive myself. I may turn my back at the moment his life is taken, but I will be there.”

  Cecily embraced her and wished her God speed. Grace hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen courtyard and sidled out, looking for Edgar as arranged. He was there, as solid and reliable as always.

  “This way, my lady,” he said, ushering her through a door in the garden wall and out onto a lane behind the house. “There be nary a one who will see us this way.”

  It took them half an hour to walk to the marketplace, as they joined more and more Londoners anxious not to miss the spectacle at the scaffold.

  “Edgar, you are to tell no one that we came,” she commanded as they drew near. “Swear you will not.”

  “I swear, my lady mistress. But why are we here? An execution like this be no place for a lady,” Edgar remarked, using his elbow to make a path for Grace through a group of noisy boys, playing a game of hot cockles. The blindfolded youth in the middle was attempting to guess who had slapped his outstretched hand, and Edgar could not resist joining in and slapping it for good measure. He grinned when the boys roared their approval.

  Grace frowned at her servant. “We are not here to play games, Edgar,” she snapped. “Have you no respect for those about to go to their Maker in such a hideous fashion? Although ’tis not your place to ask, I will tell you I am here to give comfort to my cousin John, one of the condemned. Now make us a path, sirrah.”

  Edgar hung his head, stung by her harsh tone. “I be sorry for you, my lady. I did not know,” he mumbled, looking at her with a mixture of sympathy and admiration. But for once Grace did not feel pity for this simple man; she was too intent on preserving her own hard outer shell, even though inside every nerve in her body was frayed like an old rope. Furthermore, after a night spent on her knees begging God and John’s own saint to end her love’s misery quickly, she had lost her breakfast soon after eating it and was now feeling weak.

  Upon entering the square they passed a building with a low abutment upon which several people were standing to get a better view. Among them, Grace recognized the woman she had seen at the prison the day before. This time, however, a young man with chestnut hair accompanied her, his eyes the same color as hers. Her son, Grace guessed, as she began to squeeze her way behind Edgar through the hundreds of people crowded in front of the high scaffold. Grace’s stomach turned over when she saw the gibbet, its three nooses swinging loosely as they awaited their victims. She eventually came as close to the front of the crowd as she dared, and told Edgar to stop. Their neighbors reluctantly stepped aside to accommodate his bulk, and Grace stood in front of him, with a clear view of the stage, at the base of which stood a large brazier that sent clouds of smoke up into the cold blue sky. Several guards were warming their hands over it, but the tools of their grisly trade, leaning harmlessly against the scaffold’s supports, revealed the real reason for the fire. An ax, several butchers’ knives and large hooks would soon take their toll on a half-hanged prisoner, whose belly would be slit open, his entrails pulled out with the hooks and burned in front of the man as he still lived. With luck, he would expire before he was beheaded
and his body was hacked into four quarters. His head would then be set upon London Bridge’s gate, the other parts displayed in strategic places in the city.

  Grace had decided that she would stay until John was cut down from the gibbet. She knew she would not be able to withstand the rest of his agony. She hoped that by arriving late she would not be there long, and it seemed she was right. Off in the distance, the slow beat of a tabor alerted the throng to the imminent appearance of the main attraction. Vendors bawled out their wares one last time, hoping for a customer for their pies, ale and roasted thrushes, and the crowd instinctively moved forward as one to get a better view of the somber procession. Grace clutched her drab cloak around her neck and braced herself for her first sight of John. He was the third of the three prisoners tied to wooden hurdles, surrounded by half a dozen guards and dragged along the street.

  “Death to the traitors!” shouted one man near Grace. “Death to the traitorous bastards!” Jeers and catcalls followed, and John averted his gaze from the people as the guards untied him from the frame. Grace could see that he was now clean-shaven and wearing a shirt that hung just above his knees, but no breeches or hose. She had been warned by Cecily that he would be bare-legged. “’Tis easier for the butchers to cut off—” She had stopped there, as Grace had gone as white as chalk.

  “Th-they c-c-cut off his…member?” she’d whispered, bile rising in her throat. “Christ have mercy. Mankind is surely the cruelest of God’s creatures.” Cecily had comforted her then. Grace now saw her sister had been right, and her terror of what she would see almost sent her running from the place.

  Then, suddenly, a man shouted: “Why, ’tis Richard’s bastard! ’Tis John of Gloucester! Why were we not told?” And he poked the guard who was forcing the crowd back from the prisoners. “A king’s son should have a private execution. ’Tis customary,” Grace heard him say.

  Edgar could contain himself no longer. He called angrily to the captain, who was pushing John. “What treason has John committed?”

  “Who saw the trial?” Edgar’s neighbor agreed. But the captain ignored them and the crowd went quiet. Grace’s heart leapt with hope. Perhaps the mob would rescue John, she thought desperately; they would demand a trial, and he would live to see another day. Thank you, dear God, you heard my prayer, she rejoiced. But just as quickly as the information had created indignation in them, the Londoners again turned complacent.

  “Too close to Richard for comfort,” a woman at the back of the crowd yelled, and Grace was dismayed to hear the callous laughter that erupted.

  Edgar attempted to keep up his heckling, but he soon gave up. The people wanted a spectacle and, thirsting for blood, their fickle thoughts turned to morbid fascination and John’s unfair treatment was forgotten. Mocking cries and shouted insults rent the air as the first of the three condemned men stood in front of his noose and received the last rites from a priest, who was more intent on yawning than on what he was saying. Grace realized, with another rush of bile, that they were saving John for last.

  The hanging of the first man was over in a trice, the mob sending up a rousing cheer. Grace stared, horrified yet riveted. The hangman swiftly used his knife to cut down the still-wriggling body, and two guards caught it as it dropped like a stone to the ground. Then the disembowler began his grisly work, and Grace almost fainted from the disgusting sight and the primeval screams the half-dead victim was able to let forth. The shriveled genitals were tossed into the fire, and then the man’s stomach was slit from chest to pelvis and yards of bloody white entrails were hauled from the gaping wound and added to the flames. It was too much for Grace, and she sank to the ground in a dead faint. Edgar, mesmerized by the sight, did not notice until his neighbor nudged him, and with a cry of concern the groom picked up his mistress and cradled her in his massive arms. The crowd was pressing so close, he could not have made his way out of it, so he stood there and drew his cloak around her to protect her. She was revived by the sickly smell of burning flesh, but she hid her face in Edgar’s chest as the rest of the sentence was carried out. She blocked her ears and hid her face through the second man’s agony, and then Edgar whispered: “Your cousin, my lady. He be last.”

  “Hold me up higher, Edgar,” Grace said as bravely as she could. “John must see I am here.”

  John stood tall on the platform and stared at the unfriendly crowd as the priest intoned the prayers of the dead. Grace willed him to look at her, but his eyes stared over the mob’s head and he suddenly reached out his hand and called, “Mother!”

  “He cries for this mother, the baby!” someone shouted, and many turned their heads to see who he was looking at.

  “There she be,” the neighbor said, nodding at a woman on the abutment. “See, the one with the white hair, next to the youth.” Grace knew without looking that it was the same woman she had seen the day before at Newgate, and here earlier. It was Katherine Haute, Richard of Gloucester’s leman and John’s beloved mother. Tears poured down her cheeks. Poor lady, Grace thought; how can she bear to witness her son’s awful death?

  “Must be the whore who birthed him,” the neighbor’s wife agreed, cackling. “Seems she do not have the stomach for it. Look it, she be leaving.” The unpleasant woman called loudly: “The craven whore be leaving. Good riddance! Death to traitors, death to traitorous bastards!” And the crowd took up her cry.

  Grace stiffened in Edgar’s tight hold and forced herself to look back up at the scaffold. The captain was conferring with the hangman, who nodded, and Grace saw silver flash between them. She assumed the man was being paid for his services, but she put it from her mind as she focused on John, again willing him to look her way. Then, as he was rudely pulled backwards to have the noose fitted around his neck, he saw her. A grim smile curved his mouth, and he locked his gaze on her, his eyes full of compassion. She gasped at that moment, remembering her dream of him, a noose around his neck, being led towards her by Tom. She trembled and, wriggling from Edgar’s hold, railed silently at the heavens. Dear God, I foresaw this and I did nothing to stop it. Never losing his gaze, she forced him to look at nothing else but her.

  “John!” she screamed, holding out her arms to him. “My dearest John!” He was still looking at her when the floor fell away and his body disappeared. The people around Grace moved away respectfully, murmuring and crossing themselves, and many did not notice until it was too late that the hangman had done his work too well this time, for the victim the guards cut down was already dead. There was a moment of quiet before fury erupted from the throats of the people who felt cheated out of the prize execution of the day.

  The usual haze that fogged Edgar’s mind dissipated for one crystal-clear instant, and he knew what he must do without being told. He swept Grace up in his arms and hefted his way to the front of the angry, booing crowd. Using the open space between the restraining guards and the scaffold, he ran under the platform, past John’s inert body, and out onto the other side of the Smithfield marketplace, Grace’s sobs breaking his big, simple heart.

  GRACE WAS INCONSOLABLE for two days, and even Cecily became impatient with her.

  “You dishonor Tom with your tears, sister,” she reprimanded Grace late on the second day, entering the small solar Grace had been assigned once Welles returned from Westminster. “My lord Welles is ready to send you back to Hellowe. Indeed, I am ready to agree with him, for a change. You have not left your room for two days, nor have you allowed Tom to see you. ’Tis unkind, and disrespectful to your husband.”

  Grace turned her blotched face from the pillow to fix Cecily with an obstinate glare. “By all that is holy, Cis, you are not one to preach about disrespect. You treat the viscount abominably.”

  Cecily grinned sheepishly. “Touché,” she acknowledged, but she was pleased she had succeeded in rousing Grace from her weeping. “I pray you, let Tom come to you. He is distraught, the poor man. You do not deserve to have such love. What say you, Grace?”

  Tom’s pleasant face
floated into Grace’s mind, and she was immediately contrite. His only fault was that he loved the wrong woman. She pulled herself together and slipped her legs out of bed to feel for her soft velvet slippers. Her shift was crumpled beyond help and her hair was a tangle of knots and curls that stuck out at all angles from her head.

  “Certes, I think I shall tell Tom to wait until Matty has tidied you up. Perhaps a warm bath might help.” She turned to Grace’s maid, who had not left her mistress’s side but to fetch food and drink, and gave some instructions before turning back to Grace. “There is one thing you need to know about this dreadful business that might bring you comfort,” she said, coming to sit next to her sister on the brightly colored coverlet. She followed the pineapple outline with her finger as she spoke, afraid that she, too, might be overcome with emotion. Bess had been surprised that her two sisters had visited Newgate prison, but she and Cecily had wept together on the day of John’s execution, and then they had lit candles for his immortal soul.

  Cecily spoke steadily, as if she were addressing a child. “It seems the captain of the guard gave orders to leave John’s body intact—except for his head. You knew the noose had killed him instantly, did you not?” Grace shook her head, but her spirits lifted. “Aye, it did,” Cecily continued. “Edgar tells me he saw money given to the hangman just before John’s turn—”

  “I saw it, too,” Grace cried. “But I thought it was the hangman’s fee.”

  “Someone bribed the captain to pay off the hangman. It wasn’t you, Grace, was it?”

  Cecily was taken aback by Grace’s harsh bark of laughter. “What money do I have to bribe anyone, pray? I must rely on others’ generosity—your mother’s, yours—to exist. Certes, if I had it, and if I had known it was possible to help John in this way, by God I would have spent it gladly.” Then she modulated her tone. “Nay, Cecily, ’twas not I.”