The 48

by Donna Hosie

A black bag was quickly placed over my head, and as one thick pair of arms held mine behind my back, a heavy, blunt object was smacked into my stomach four times. It was then brought down twice on the back of my neck.

  The assignment and my existence went dark.

  * * *

  —

  The bag was wrenched off and the cold water was such a rude awakening that my back teeth bit into my tongue. Another drenching. I took a mouthful and gagged. It was vile and smelled like the water of the Thames. I was tied to a rack.

  I was in the Tower of London. In the same room where I had managed the torture of Mark Smeaton. My feeling of poetic justice and redemption lasted a second before the terror set in.

  “Don’t do this,” I begged.

  “The king has ordered your arrest,” said Cromwell, his face haggard and swollen. Edward Seymour stood behind him, smiling with thin lips that almost disappeared into his red gums. “You are charged with high treason against His Majesty and with fornication with Queen Anne.”

  “You know I didn’t!” I cried, pulling my bound wrists down. The rope simply tightened.

  “This isn’t my doing,” said Cromwell. “I did not show him the list. I implore you, Charles. Confess.”

  “I didn’t do anything. You know I didn’t.”

  Cromwell nodded to a hooded man who was waiting patiently by the door. The king’s chief minister did not stay to watch.

  The hooded man took the wheel, and my screams matched those of Mark Smeaton.

  Day became night became day. If it were not for the countdown in my wrist, I would have had no idea whether a day or a year had passed. My existence had become a blanket of pain.

  * * *

  —

  14 00:00:00

  Assignment—critical.

  My existence—critical.

  Fate of Alex and Alice—unknown.

  Whereabouts of Grinch and Piermont—unknown.

  Screaming in the Tower of London—incessant.

  * * *

  —

  13 23:59:59

  Food was brought into my cell by a yeoman. So far I had been given hard bread, broth that looked like puke, and some fatty slabs of meat. I hadn’t touched any of it. The hunger pains in my stomach were a constant companion that joined the rest of the hurt done to my body.

  “Where’s Cromwell?” I asked every yeoman.

  They never replied.

  * * *

  —

  12 23:59:59

  I wasn’t chained, but I could barely lift my arms. One had gotten close to dislocation, and I feared that any sudden movement would pop the ball joint out of the socket. My wrists and ankles were grazed and bloody from where the ropes had worn away layer after layer of skin. My ribs and stomach pulsed with pain—courtesy of the beating I’d taken in Cromwell’s lodgings.

  But it was my sense of self that had taken the biggest punishment. Who the hell was I? I just didn’t know anymore.

  * * *

  —

  11 23:59:59

  I started eating the broth. The hunger pains had won. I found two live maggots floating in the greasy brown liquid. I picked them out, flicked them onto the ground, and watched them writhe. I was so delirious they multiplied before my eyes until the floor of my cell became a white, squirming mass.

  * * *

  —

  The hooded man came back. He was alone. I couldn’t fight him as he picked me up and tied my arms and legs to the rack again. I screamed until I started choking on my own vomit. My left shoulder dislocated with a rush of pain that felt like fire.

  “Where is your brother?”

  Snot and tears combined down my face. I didn’t have the will to breathe anymore, but I would not admit to treason or give them my brother.

  The masked man left. I could hear him laughing.

  * * *

  —

  10 09:02:14

  I had stopped watching the countdown at the precise moment the days changed. The numbers were starting to fade away, just like my life.

  Where were Alex and Alice? Had they gotten to safety in time? They had a couple of allies in the palace in Marlon and Thomas. It was the hope that they hadn’t been taken by the king’s guards that kept me from going completely insane.

  Even when the hooded man returned and beat the soles of my bare feet with a stick.

  “Where is your brother?” he repeated.

  They definitely didn’t have Alex.

  He was safe.

  Nothing else—not even my own life—mattered more.

  * * *

  —

  9 22:42:03

  I continued to add to the symphony of screams in the Tower of London until I was dragged out of the cell and placed in a bath of tepid water. Two elderly women in black smocks scrubbed me with a wire brush until my skin was raw.

  I was taken to a different cell, more like a sparsely furnished room. It had a bed with blankets, a writing table and chair, and a scenic view over a courtyard.

  A scaffold was being built. I was too weak to stand and watch, but the banging of nails into wood became a repetitive death drum.

  * * *

  —

  Dinner was on a plate—that was a first. Potatoes, pink meat that tasted like ham, a yellow lump of something that had the bitter taste of undercooked root vegetables, and bread that was warm.

  I ate it all so quickly that I threw up. Yet the effect a couple of almost-nutritious meals had on me was remarkable. My head started to feel less fuzzy; my arms still ached, but I could lift one now almost to my head, although full rotation of my shoulders was out of the question; and the cramps only came in bursts. So when a yeoman unlocked the door to my cell, I actually had thoughts of attempting to overpower him.

  “Charles, it is I, Marlon,” whispered the guard who had been our friend since day one. He placed a tray of food on the writing desk and put his finger to his lips. “I don’t have long, but you have friends, and we are working to free you.”

  “Oh Marlon, thank you, thank you,” I cried, stumbling across the cell on bloody, blistered feet. “How is my brother? And Alice?” Have you seen them?”

  “Alexander and Alice are in hiding outside the palace walls. They are both safe and with someone I would trust with my life.”

  “Tell them…tell them I am not afraid,” I said. “Tell them I will get to them.”

  Gripping my shoulder, Marlon grimaced and shook me gently to show his support. The damaged tendons in my shoulder throbbed with heat-filled pain.

  “I will return after sundown, and will try to bring more food.”

  Once Marlon had turned the key and locked me in my cage, I ate my meal slowly, staring out of the narrow window at the scaffold below. It was almost finished. One person, dressed in a black cloak, was staring up at it. He took off his feathered hat and scratched his graying hair.

  It was the Lord Steward, the Duke of Norfolk. He was the queen’s uncle. Probably here to pay his niece a visit. The Duke of Norfolk put his feathered hat back on his head and hurried away. The workmen were almost finished. Two men half dragged, half carried a bale of straw across the grass and dropped it next to the short steps that led to the main platform.

  It was straw for soaking up blood.

  * * *

  —

  The duke was followed minutes later by a woman. She crossed the grass quickly, as if she didn’t want to be seen. A ghostly shadow in black. Then she stopped and looked directly up toward my cell window.

  It was Lady Margaret. Even at a distance, I could see fear etched across her face, once plump and pink, now pinched and pale.

  I removed myself from her line of sight and pressed my forehead against the cold stone of the cell. The sun was starting to dip beyond the battlements, splaying orange fire across the city beyon
d. It was the year 1536. In just over one hundred years’ time, this city would burn to the ground in the Great Fire of London.

  * * *

  —

  I should never have made a friend of Jane Seymour. Friendships were discouraged in the Tenets of The 48. If I had ignored her and just concentrated on the king, which was exactly the plan Alex and I had decided upon that first day in the court, then I wouldn’t have had any problems in letting her go.

  Mark Smeaton

  Henry Norrys

  Francys Weston

  Wyllyam Brereton

  Thomas Wyatt

  Rychard Page

  George Boleyn

  Charles Cleves

  There was one more name to add to Cromwell’s list.

  Anne Boleyn

  I could hear Alex’s sick sense of humor invading my head.

  They’re gonna need more straw.

  I started to laugh. I continued to howl long after the sun had set and the sky had turned from orange to indigo to black.

  * * *

  —

  3 18:03:19

  Hope. What did that word even mean anymore? I couldn’t remember. Those four little letters seemed so important, and the exhausted frustration I felt at not being able to recall the definition was the straw that broke my back.

  My defeat was aided by the hooded man who had reappeared with a flaming torch after sundown. The torch wasn’t to light the gloomy room. It was prodded and poked at me until I was cowering naked in a corner, having removed my rags for fear they would catch on fire and I would burn alive.

  This wasn’t just torture, this was a sick game.

  “Where is your brother?”

  Same question. Same cadence. Did they really think I would hand over my brother?

  “I don’t know, you freak!” I screamed. “So just kill me. Go on—do it. Just do it!”

  I was shaking, mouth frothing. My anger had drained what little strength I had.

  The hooded man just laughed. It was cold and heartless. He had none of the crushing guilt I had felt after torturing Mark Smeaton. Which meant he enjoyed it.

  “Thought you might like to know, the queen refused to confess,” said the man. “She was found guilty anyway. She’ll die. And once she’s gone, I’ll go after the other one. The one you’ve been trying to save.”

  It was the most he had said to me in several visits.

  And in that moment I knew him.

  * * *

  —

  I stumbled back, landing in a heap on the ground.

  “Finally worked it out, haven’t you,” said Piermont, pulling off his mask. He leered at it, as if it were his most prized possession. “I do love the Tudor court, even if it doesn’t love me. But it’s amazing what you can get away with when you’re masked.”

  “You said…you said she’s been found guilty…”

  “The queen, idiot,” replied Piermont. “That timeline is already written. Pity the other one isn’t as pretty, I could have had some fun before—”

  “You stay away from Jane.”

  Piermont sniggered. “You’re in no position to dictate anything. Anne Boleyn will be executed, and then you’re going to die as well, along with the other traitors. By the blade of an executioner on the block out there, or by my hand, it makes no difference to me.”

  “Grinch said—”

  “What Grinch said is of no consequence. She’s a high-and-mighty, sorry excuse for an Asset with no imagination and no sense of a grander picture. She looks like a toad but she has the brain of a sheep. Blindly following The 48’s orders, and they blindly follow the TOD initiative. Not me. Religion isn’t going anywhere, and I intend to profit from that fact where I can. So you and your weak-minded brother had to fail. I wanted to kill you right away—but Aramis thought you could be persuaded to join us. Now he’s dead and I’m calling the shots. You will fail in this assignment, the other Assets will fail in theirs, and I’ll be free to move ahead with my own agenda.”

  Rather than explain just what his agenda was, Piermont lunged forward, grabbed my hair, and shoved a rag into my mouth. I could only move one arm, and I was no match for his size and strength as he dragged me out of the cell, down two flights of cold stone steps, and into another room that had manacles bolted into the stone wall.

  My arms were wrenched upward and my hands strapped in. I stayed conscious just long enough to feel the agony of my shoulder dislocating again.

  * * *

  —

  When I regained consciousness, I was on the floor and naked, save for a pair of stained baggy briefs. There was little relief in my shoulder, the ball of which I had to push back into the socket by myself.

  But the most pain now came from my wrist, which was bandaged crudely with a blood-soaked piece of cloth.

  I untied it, wincing as dried blood pulled away from the raw skin, instantly setting off the bleeding again.

  * * *

  —

  Piermont had cut out my countdown, for no other reason than to terrorize me with the thought of having no idea when the end was here.

  He will send for me.”

  No, he will not, I thought, but I kept my counsel. The walls in the Tower had keener ears than the court.

  “His Grace will send for me and pardon me. Once I have knelt at his feet and begged his forgiveness.”

  You are a dead queen walking, I thought.

  And despite my best efforts, I was once again a person of no consequence who might or might not keep her head, depending on the whim of a madman who sat upon a golden throne with a replacement, my compliant friend, waiting in the wings.

  * * *

  —

  “He will send for me,” insisted Queen Anne a third time, turning her head away from the open window, which had a perfect view of the block that was waiting patiently for her slim, pale neck to rest upon it.

  The crowds were already starting to gather for those who would die today. I could hear the excitement in their voices. Bloodlust was the Tudor way, and the court embraced it with relief that it was not their blood being spilled.

  “What will become of us?” whispered Lady Cecily. She was on her knees, praying. Every waking moment was spent begging His mercy.

  The king had none. We all knew that.

  Except for the queen, who was keeping her composure even now. In complete denial that she had been cast aside for another, in the same way the loyal and beloved wife before her had been removed with the ruthless efficiency that only the Tudors could provide.

  “When I am forgiven, I will take you all with me to the country. My daughter and I will still require attendants. Elizabeth is of royal blood. The rightful heir. We will have a court to rival—”

  “There will be no court. There will be no forgiveness,” said a voice. Dull and without accent. As if the life had been sucked out of it.

  The voice was mine. I could keep my own counsel no more.

  “How dare you—”

  “We are all going to die in here, and you will be the first,” I said. “The king will not forgive a wife he believed cast a spell on him and bedded half his court.”

  The goblet of wine missed my head by a short distance. The red wine left a trail across the floor like…

  …like blood. What else.

  “Get out…get out…get out!” screamed the queen. “You treacherous snake. I will see your head roll before mine.”

  * * *

  —

  I was not with Her Grace when the heads did start to roll. I still had some freedom of movement granted to me as a lady of the court who was not yet under suspicion or arrest. But if I was to leave this world for His Kingdom, then I had to cleanse my soul of the evil that had seeped into it.

  One final chance at redemption for my ill deeds.


  * * *

  —

  It was Thomas Ladman, of all people, who aided my request for absolution. He had been moved to guard those in the Tower in readiness for the horror of what was to come. Whom or what he was guarding was of no consequence to me. I simply needed him to bring me what I needed.

  I stole out of the Tower on the eve of the sixteenth day. The air was tempered with the threat of rain. I pulled my hood over my headdress as the first spits of precipitation fell onto my face.

  “I have brought them to you,” whispered Thomas. “As a sign of my unwavering loyalty.”

  “I do not need your loyalty,” I replied. “And these will be the last requests I ever make of thee.”

  “Margaret…”

  “Take me to them.”

  Thomas sighed. He was resigned to letting go. A wooden door to the left opened with a creak. I was outside the Tower walls and had unbarred myself to every danger known to a highborn woman in this time. Yet I had to finish this.

  I entered into darkness. A single candle was illuminated.

  “What do you want?” asked the chambermaid from Cleves. “And know this before you speak: I don’t trust you. Betray us, and I will not think twice about slitting your throat.”

  “I wish to help you to free your brother and return to your homeland—wherever that may truly be.”

  “Why?” asked Alexander of Cleves. His face was illuminated by the candle, and it showed all too well how badly he had been treated in the court of the king. His eyes were sunken and his skin looked mottled.

  “I have done you both ill. And I am truly sorry. I merely wish for the chance to put it right.”

  “Why did you do what you did?” asked Alexander. “Why did you betray my brother?”