by David Walton
"I want them every day, more than life," Maasha Kaatra said. "It is like breathing with lungs full of glass. Every living moment is pain. If I knew where they were, and how to get there, I would go through seven hells to be with them again."
Catherine remembered how her father had been when her brother Peter had died, like a man drowning, but with no will to save himself. Mother had kept the family going in those days, while her father had buried himself in an obsession to heal what he had failed to heal in Peter. Her father probably thought she was dead now. Was he as devastated by her loss as he had been by Peter's? And what about Matthew? If she died, would he be undone, or would he move on and find someone else?
"I'm sorry," she said. "You were hoping to find them in the void, weren't you?"
"It wasn't until you came that I even realized I was still in the world," Maasha Kaatra said. "I thought I was in the afterworld. I thought to find my girls among the lights."
"Who do you suppose they all are?" Catherine said. "They seem to be spirits, but where did they come from? Are they of the living or the dead?"
"If they are dead, they are only the newly dead. They come from all places in the world, but they have memories of recent times," Maasha Kaatra said.
"I know what they are," a voice said.
Catherine jumped and looked around. The voice was soft, young, and female. She saw no one.
"Or should I say, what we are," the voice said.
Only then did Catherine notice the tiny light hovering nearby. When they emerged from the Gorge, the spirits had scattered in every direction, but this one had apparently stayed, or else she had found them again.
"I've been talking with the new ones," she said. "They remember being in their homes only yesterday. They remember when the first nova appeared, and some people went mad. They started babbling nonsense, and many of them were killed, at least in Spain. I think we are those mad ones. Our spirits left our bodies behind and came here. Now that these new ones have come, I think it must have happened again."
Maasha Kaatra covered his face with his hands and let out a cry. "I have done this," he said. "I have killed these people, separated daughters from fathers."
" Our loved ones may even be hearing what we are really saying, only it doesn't make any sense to them, so they call it babbling," the spirit voice said. "Especially at the beginning, when anything we said would have been panicked, full of screams and crying."
"Who are you?" Catherine asked.
The light bobbed. "My name is Antonia."
CHAPTER 21
AS her confessor, Ramos was permitted to see Elizabeth in the Tower before her execution. She had shaved her head and wore a simple dress of brilliant white. Kat Ashley, her former governess and now chief gentlewoman, had been imprisoned in Fleet Street, but Blanche Parry, Dee's cousin, was here with her. Blanche was in her forties, dressed stiffly in a black gown with a high neck, the white ruffles almost covering her chin. She stood behind the princess, stroking her scalp and crying.
"It doesn't have to happen like this," Ramos said. "We could make a break for it right now. We'd have a good chance."
"A good chance," Elizabeth echoed, with a quirk of one eyebrow.
"Well, a better chance than we'll have once you put your head down on that swordsman's block."
Elizabeth stood and put a hand on his shoulder. "This is the right path. The people need to see me facing my death bravely, not sneaking off like an escaped convict. Now, are you ready with everything we need?"
Ramos nodded. He pulled a bottle from inside his robes and handed it to her. "It has to cover every inch of your body. Every inch." Then he flushed, realizing what he had just said to a princess.
Elizabeth handed the bottle to Blanche, apparently unconcerned. "I understand. And afterward?"
Ramos spread his arms helplessly. "It is as ready as it could be. But the risks are high, Your Grace."
She brushed his words away. "The risks are always high. My mother died out on that block, you know." Of course, he knew. All the world knew of the death of Anne Boleyn.
Elizabeth stood and approached her cell's small window, which looked down onto the Tower Green. The headsman's block was in clear view, as was the headsman himself, sharpening and polishing his axe. This was by design, of course, to give Elizabeth a chance to think on her sins.
"She had the king my father dancing like a marionette on a string, helpless to resist her," Elizabeth continued. "Until the day it all turned upside-down, and the very feminine allure that had given her so much power seemed to the king like it must have been black magic, a power of the devil used to enthrall him." Elizabeth turned back from the window to face Ramos. "In short, she made the king feel foolish, and that you must never do."
"Never?" Ramos said, thinking of what they were about to do.
That elicited a tiny laugh. "Well, only when you can't help it," she said.
The sounds of voices rose through her window. Ramos glanced out to see that a boat had arrived with the queen's Chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, as well as Cardinal Pole, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a host of their attendants.
Ramos bowed. "I should leave you to finish your preparations," he said. "I will stand at the door. If any come, I will say you are within, praying for your eternal soul. When you are ready, knock, and I will let them pass."
Elizabeth held out her hand for Ramos to kiss. He knelt and touched his lips briefly to her fingers. He found that he was shaking. "You have been a loyal subject and friend," she said. "Go in peace, and whatever happens, be strong. A clear and innocent conscience need fear nothing."
He bowed again and left her.
THERE had been no reason to hurry. Hours passed while crowds gathered outside. Finally, four Tower guards, resplendent in their red livery, came for Elizabeth, and Ramos rapped lightly to let her know it was time. As she stepped out of her room, one of the guards tried to take her arm, but she gave him such a glare that he pulled his hand back as if burned.
Blanche Parry was gone. She had not been a prisoner herself, and had been free to leave. Ramos hoped Elizabeth had told her to get as far away from London as she could. After today, she would not fare well if she were caught by Mary's agents.
At the bottom of the stairs, they emerged into bright sunlight. Two ranks of Tower guards, halberds held high, kept back the crowd and made a straight path toward the headsman's block. Elizabeth stumbled as she saw it, but she quickly regained her balance and made her way forward with poised and regal bearing. She looked every inch a queen, despite her simple dress and shaved head.
A huge crowd had come to see the spectacle, but most of them were outside the Tower's outer walls, unable to view the event itself. The crowd permitted inside were mostly aristocracy and loyal supporters of the king and queen, though even that was enough to fill the inner ward from Constable Tower all the way around to Wakefield Tower and right up to the edge of the green itself. Elizabeth would have preferred to be executed on Tower Hill, where everyone could have seen her, but of course Philip had designed it this way. He wanted her death to be public, and thus incontrovertible, but not so public that her final words or actions could influence the people.
It wouldn't matter, Ramos thought. If everything went as planned, today's events would spread through the masses like a city fire, whether they saw it with their own eyes or not.
The block was on a raised platform, covered with straw to soak up the worst of the blood. Elizabeth mounted the platform without a pause, and Ramos, as the representative of the church, followed behind her. Wind whipped his robes. The Tower's ravens croaked from their perches on the battlements, anticipating that another head would soon be mounted on the wall for them to peck at.
The executioner knelt before Elizabeth. "I beg your pardon, my lady."
It was customary for a headman to ask those convicted to pardon him for his act. Since the swiftness of death was in his hands—a botched execution might take four or five strokes to finally sev
er the head—prisoners were often quick to do so, and even to pay him for his services. Elizabeth, however, looked down at him with steel in her eyes. "God forgive you," she said in a ringing voice, "but I never can."
Startled, he rose to his feet and lifted his axe. Elizabeth ignored him and faced the crowd. King Philip and Queen Mary sat on a raised platform of their own outside the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, surrounded by all their attendants. There were also Nicholas Heath, the Archbishop of York; Lord Russell and William Paget, Keepers of the Privy Seal; as well as the Chief Justices and Secretaries and Lord Treasurers, the Chief Barons, and the Masters of the Rolls. Beyond them, and in a circle to every side, were all the lords and nobles and their families, with many of their servants, every one of them here to watch Elizabeth die.
"My people," Elizabeth said. "Loyal subjects and traitors both." This was treason, but it could hardly matter at this point. "I stand here accused because I will not recant my Protestant faith. Much blood has been lost over this issue, but that we cannot change. The past cannot be cured. Only the future lies within our power, and for that, I beg you, consider carefully whom you will follow. The powerful are not always the good, and those who appear the most sanctified are sometimes the worst of men.
"As for me, I ask only that God will judge me justly for my deeds. If my crimes are as great as my sister, Mary, deems them to be, let my blood flow across these grounds for all to see and wonder at. If, however, I have not sinned, may my life today be spared, as witness to all of you that my cause is just."
King Philip smirked. Even now, he didn't see what was coming. The deception bothered Ramos, but only a little. It was, after all, exactly the sort of trickery Philip himself had employed at the burning of Charles Shiveley, using quintessence to give the impression of divine intervention. The justice of it pleased him.
Elizabeth drew back her hood and knelt in front of the block. She stretched her beautiful, vulnerable neck across the dark wood. Without her hair, she seemed tiny, like a child, and it was all Ramos could do to play his part.
"Elizabeth, I call on you to renounce your heresy and cling to Christ for mercy," he said in a loud voice. "Acknowledge the Holy Father as God's authority on Earth and your sister Mary as the rightful queen, and even now, you shall be pardoned your crimes."
He looked down at her and saw that she was shaking. She placed her arms behind her back and said, "Never."
Ramos nodded at the headsman and took a step back. The man flexed his fingers and grasped the pole of the axe with a sure grip. Muscles rippled as he took his stance and lifted the axe over his head. When Elizabeth's mother had been executed on this spot, King Henry VIII had sent to France for an expert swordsman to insure that her death was quick and clean. For Elizabeth, however, no such expense had been made.
With a grunt, the headsman swung the axe down, throwing his weight into the blow. The blade flew through her delicate neck and embedded itself in the wood beneath. The head did not fall. There was no blood. The executioner himself was the first to notice that something was wrong. It had been too easy; there had been no resistance as bone and flesh were severed. The rest of the crowd didn't realize what had happened until Elizabeth lifted her head.
Gasps spread throughout the crowd, turning into shouts as Elizabeth stood up, unharmed. The headsman crossed himself and backed away. A few people screamed. Elizabeth raised her hands and spun slowly, letting them see her unmarked neck and her white dress free of blood, for all the world like an angel come to Earth.
Philip was on his feet, shouting. Soldiers ran toward them, weapons drawn. Ramos took Elizabeth's hand. "Time to go," he said. They jumped down from the platform and ran back the way they had come. Soldiers presented their halberds and tried to prevent their escape, but Ramos and Elizabeth ran right through them, to shouts of fear and consternation.
King Philip had been demanding a supply of this liquid, but Ramos had put him off, saying that he had used all of his supply on his demonstration, and it would take weeks to gather more from the bird. In fact, it worked even greatly diluted, and Ramos could easily have supplied some to the king and still had enough left for himself and Elizabeth. However, he had wanted to make sure that there would be no chance of them meeting a squadron of soldiers whose swords could pierce their otherwise insubstantial bodies.
Ramos hadn't bothered to bring a weapon. He didn't want to kill anyone; he just wanted to escape, and there was no one who could stop them. They raced through the stones of the inner wall to the outer ward. On the other side of the outer wall was the moat, and their quintessence magic wouldn't allow them to fly over that. Instead, they ran around the outer ward to Byward Tower, and through that to the bridge. The portcullis crashed down, but they passed through it without pausing and across the drawbridge, ignoring the hail of arrows raining down on them from above.
On the other side, a Protestant friend of Barrosa's was waiting for them with two horses. They each vaulted into a saddle—treated with wax so they wouldn't fall through—while the man who had brought the horses melted back into the crowd gathered outside the Tower. By this time, Elizabeth had been recognized. A huge roar went up, mostly cheers, and she waved to them from atop her horse. She trotted in a quick circle, demonstrating that she was unharmed, and then rode into the crowd.
The people parted for her, like the waters of the Red Sea. Men threw cloaks down in the mud for her horse to trample. Women called out blessings and shouted her name. Some cursed her as well, calling her heretic or traitor or whore, but most seemed inclined to love her. Even without her hair, she was beautiful, but not like a peasant girl was beautiful. Elizabeth was regal, supernatural, untouchable. She looked like nothing so mundane as an execution could have any hold on her. As if she would be young forever. When the queen's soldiers came racing after them, the gap in the crowd closed, blocking their path.
We made it, Ramos thought. We really escaped. Then an arrow flew over the crowd and embedded itself into his horse's flank. The animal screamed and reared. Ramos tumbled off and hit the ground hard. The panicked horse, its hooves flailing, came down on top of him.
FOR a time, everything was blood and chaos. The pursuing soldiers attacked the crowd with swords and arrows, and the people rioted, surging in every direction, sometimes around Ramos and sometimes—since the invisible bird's saliva was still working—right through him. He struggled to his feet. His horse was screaming and twisting on the ground in a pool of bright red blood.
Suddenly, Elizabeth was there, wheeling her horse around him to make a space in the mob. He clambered up behind her, and she galloped away at high speed, leaving him no choice but to put his arms around her to stay on.
By this time, their pursuers had found horses of their own. Ramos knew this escape could be disastrous to Mary's hold on power. Soon there would be dozens, if not hundreds, of men following them. The small advantage that the invisible bird's saliva had given them would soon wear off. If they could not lose their pursuers, they would eventually be found and captured. Barrosa and Ramos would certainly be killed, probably after torture. After a betrayal of this magnitude, Philip would want to make them suffer. Elizabeth might be kept alive until a second execution could be prepared, but it would be swift, and without help, she would not escape a second time.
The most critical part of their escape would be making it to London Bridge before they were cut off. Their destination was a home on Tooley Street in Southwark where a small band of Protestants loyal to Elizabeth were waiting to bring them to Gravesend, where a ship could take them across the channel to the Netherlands. The Netherlands was Protestant now, and would harbor Elizabeth while she gathered support to reclaim her throne. Ramos had already secretly relocated Antonia to Tooley Street, a risky move that might have doomed the whole plan if Philip had discovered it.
London Bridge, however, was the only bridge across the Thames. If the queen's soldiers blocked it, they would have no easy way across. As a backup plan, they would ride throug
h the city to the horse ferry at Westminster, where Barrosa knew a man willing to take them across to Lambeth. This route took them right by Whitehall Palace, however, and required riding several miles through muddy, winding streets crammed with horsecarts and foot traffic without being caught.
London Bridge was their best chance. Their horse thundered through the streets, throwing up mud, heedless of pedestrians. The soldiers behind them shouted for them to stop. Elizabeth rode hard, avoiding obstacles with prodigious skill, but every time Ramos stole a look back, the soldiers seemed to be closer. The raw sewage smell of the Thames was strong; they must be close. Suddenly, they rounded a corner, and there was the bridge, so crowded with shops and buildings that one feared it might tip over from the weight.
He could tell there was something wrong as soon as they reached it. Normally it was choked with traffic, not just those trying to reach the other side, but those visiting the shops along its length. But the bridge was empty.
"Where are all the people?" Ramos said.
Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at him. "They all came to watch me die."
"There's something wrong."
"It's too late now," Elizabeth said. The pursuing soldiers had almost reached them. There was no time to change their plans. She spurred the horse forward with a cry, and it thundered across the stones onto the bridge.
The buildings flanked the road, several stories high on each side, giving the impression that they were riding on a city street instead of a bridge. Most of the time, they couldn't even see the water. Some buildings even connected over the road, forcing them to ride through dark tunnels.
