by Joanne Dahme
It seemed that hours had passed by the growl of our stomachs, when we heard the squeal of the solid dungeon door as it opened slowly into our jail.The air of the room was thick, and it seemed to weigh heavily on movement and sound, as if even the air never escaped.
Henry jumped up.“Get behind me, Nell,” he instructed.
But the thought of a visitor dampened all reason. Perhaps it was Sir Andrew with some news, I thought hopefully.
But it was the king’s imposing form that ducked through the truncated opening.
Henry and George immediately dropped to their knees.
“My lord,” they whispered in unison.
I gasped before dropping to my own knees. I did not trust myself to manage a curtsy.
I drew in a breath when I looked at the king. His thick red hair and beard were streaked with the white of age, and his once-full, strong face appeared sunken.Yet he stood tall, and the red mantle emblazoned with the Plantagenets’ yellow lions still draped fully from his powerful shoulders.
“Get up, Nell. I need to look into your face,” he said.
I stumbled to my feet and self-consciously tried to wipe the dirt from my cheeks and smooth my tangled hair.
“Don’t,” he ordered. “Say nothing,” he added, threat and pain intertwined in his voice. “I only need to look into your face.”
It felt like hours, although we must have stared for only minutes at the shadows that devastation had worked into our faces—the king’s at the loss of the princess, and my own at our impending deaths based on the prince’s false claims. I wondered if he saw the princess in my form, despite my pauper’s dress. Did he feel her death more keenly because of my survival, I wondered. How would I have felt, looking into the eyes of a woman who stared back at me with my mother’s face?
His eyes hardened as he clenched his fists. I knew my face showed only shame and the misery that he would take to be born from deception, but he would not allow me to tell him otherwise.
“Enough,” he finally yelled as he grabbed at the end of his cloak, whipping it around his body as he exited through the door. The yellow lions on the back of his cloak seemed to mock us with their one-eyed stares just before the dungeon door slammed behind the king.
George and Henry immediately scrambled to their feet. George grabbed my arm.“Nell, what did the king want?” he asked, his clear blue eyes telling me that he already knew. “Do you think he saw your heart?” he whispered.
I turned away from George, as the dread on his face was crushing. I had failed.The king, I was sure, saw nothing in my countenance but shame.
“What do you think he saw, Henry?” I asked.
Henry stiffened, as if hurt by the ill-shot accusation in my voice. He tried to take my hand but I pulled it away.
“It’s not your fault, Nell,” he insisted. “The king has been poisoned by the false words of the prince. Perhaps he is in too much pain to recognize a pure heart.”
I seized the sob in my throat before it could tell George that all was lost.
We sat silently for a while. Each of us had claimed a spot along the wall opposite of where the arrow loops allowed slants of sun to touch the floor. How could I get word to the king that I needed to speak to him again—to beg him for one more chance to explain our entrance through Traitor’s Gate? The anguish in his eyes had numbed my tongue. I could not cobble together even a feeble protest as he looked upon me as one who would cut a heart like a rope that binds too tightly. But I had George’s life to plead for—and Henry’s, too. Neither of them were seasoned enough for death.
It was just as the sun was setting and the dungeon began to glow with the last of the dying light, that its door was flung open with a jarring urgency.
This time it was Sir Andrew, with a torch in his hand and an elderly servant behind him, bearing a tray with three bowls.
“I’ve brought you some refreshment,” he announced hopefully. He sniffed distastefully as he entered the room, his watery blue eyes squinting at the contrast between the blaze of his torch and the duskiness of our confines.
The three of us practically tackled Sir Andrew at once, causing him to stumble on the hem of his dark blue cloak. The servant, an old woman in a worn tunic and gray hair plaited above her ears, quickly placed the tray on the floor and fled. The tiny tendrils of steam rising from the three bowls filled the space she occupied seconds ago.
“Sir Andrew, what can you tell us?” I asked, giving him a perfunctory curtsy. When death looms, manners seem suddenly less important.
“The king was here,” George chimed in, giving Sir Andrew his gap-toothed smile.
Henry rested his hands on George’s shoulders. He looked so frail beneath Henry’s strong grasp. “We don’t think this was a friendly visit, sir,” Henry added as he stared into Sir Andrew’s ruddy face.
“It was not,” Sir Andrew agreed, immediately combing a hand through his unruly white hair. “I want you all to sit down and eat your stew, while I share with you our latest challenge.”
“I’m not hungry,” George replied, but as I sat, I yanked him down beside me.
“You’ll need your strength,” I scolded.
Sir Andrew nodded as we each propped a bowl from the tray on our laps.
“There will be no trial, Nell.” He addressed me as if I was the leader of our notorious band.
“No trial?” I repeated.
“Why?” Henry interrupted. “What has happened?”
“The Black Prince has happened, soldier,” Sir Andrew replied, walking toward the arrow loops in the wall and listening for a moment, as if the prince’s ears were everywhere. He placed the torch into one of the brackets and pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders and shivered. Surely a chill born from horror, as the air in our dungeon chamber was probably warmer than the night.
“There’s not even a cord of wood in here!” Sir Andrew protested. “How is one expected to spend their final days in dignity without the slightest of furniture?” he asked, the trembling blaze of the torch lending a fire-touched tinge to his frizzy white hair. “When the Duke of Salisbury was here a few months ago, he had enough chairs to entertain a small party.”
“Perhaps the duke later burned the chairs,” George offered, pointing to a blackened portion of the floor in one corner. “Just to keep warm.”
Sir Andrew nodded. A sad smile played beneath his watery blue eyes. “Perhaps, my boy.”
“Sir,” Henry interrupted, placing his bowl on the floor beside him before he stood to join Sir Andrew beneath the torchlight. “Are you trying to tell us that we are doomed?”
Henry’s lingering question sent a chill down my spine as we held our breath, waiting for Sir Andrew’s reply.
“Finish your stew, and I will continue,” he promised. He crossed his arms and watched as the three of us raised our bowls to our lips and gulped the remaining broth.
He nodded approvingly as George wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Weeks ago, before Portsmouth, I would have rebuked him, but if George could live forever with such “common” manners, as the prince once snidely called them, I would ask for nothing more. Sir Andrew seemed to read my mind.
“I won’t allow it to happen, Nell, despite the lies that the Black Prince has whispered into the king’s ears. His vicious tales have roiled the king’s turbulent soul,” he whispered his reply past Henry’s shoulder.
“What has happened, sir?” I asked, my heart now threatening to burst from my chest.
Sir Andrew took Henry by the shoulder and pulled him close to George and me, until the three of us huddled beneath his pained gaze.
“The prince has convinced the king that a trial is unnecessary, as the Black Prince himself was witness to your treason.” Sir Andrew spit out the last word with contempt. “Besides,” he added, “the prince also pointed out that since there would be so few witnesses to the trial, due to the savagery of the pestilence, it would be but a waste of the king’s time to host a trial that will end on Tower Hill.The princ
e would rather see you lose your heads on the green than hang on a deserted hill.” Sir Andrew paused and looked deeply into my face. “Tomorrow morning is his preferred time.”
“Tomorrow?” I repeated in horror. George’s eyes were mooned as he clutched my hand. “Are you sure, sir?” I cried, grabbing both George’s and Henry’s arms to steady myself. “The king said nothing to us today,” I insisted, praying that Sir Andrew might be confused.
“His eyes looked haunted today, Nell,” Henry said, glancing at Sir Andrew as if to confirm his reading of the king. “He seemed to be searching your face as if he expected to hear the princess speak through you. He appeared incapable of addressing you, Nell.”
Sir Andrew nodded. “The king is a shattered man, Nell. He has lost his daughter and half his kingdom. The prince knows how to prey on the weaknesses of good souls.” Sir Andrew peered again at the arrow loops. “His creatures are everywhere,” he added nervously, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
“Do you mean his rats, sir?” Henry asked, striding over to one of the wall openings to thrust his hand through. He snorted in disgust. “Surely we must tell the king about this evil,” Henry insisted. “This goes well beyond the prince’s scheme to be rid of the three of us.”
“What are we to do, Sir Andrew?” George piped in. “Do you have a plan?”The trust in George’s open features forestalled my own skepticism.
“I do, my son,” Sir Andrew replied, resting his veined hand on George’s head. “It is refreshing to be judged a capable man.”
Capable would not protect Sir Andrew’s own life, I realized, if the king or the Black Prince saw Sir Andrew entering the dungeon. I did not want one more life on my soul.
“Sir Andrew, I trust you came here unobserved? The servant won’t give you away, will she?” I asked nervously. “You have already risked your life for us many times over.” Again I felt overwhelmed by the persistent goodness of people despite the wanton evil practiced by the Black Prince. I did not know how to protect anyone, except to protest their innocence along with my own.
“I am safe, Nell,” he replied, cupping my chin in his freckled hand to give me a smile. “But, my children,” he continued, gathering us around him once again as if truly we were a part of his brood, “you will have to trust that I am working on a solution, and in the meantime, by dawn, make your amends with God in case I am defeated.”
When we were first left alone, the three of us searched every crack and crevice in the stone walls for a weakness. Of course none were found. George even tried probing the dirt floor of the prison for a trapdoor, reasoning that some prisoners languished in the Tower for so long that they might have had time to dig a tunnel. Henry and I watched him, not wanting to discourage his blessed distraction.
Exhausted by fear, I finally relented and gathered some of the rotting hay to make a bed not far from the dungeon door. Its dust tickled my nose and its stalks scratched my skin as I pushed a small pile against the wall. I did not plan to sleep but the thought of just sitting for a while seemed overwhelmingly pleasant. As soon as I settled, with my back against the wall and my knees pulled beneath my chin, just as I used to sit as a small girl, Henry plopped beside me.Together we watched George and his erratic shadow as he worked beneath the timid light of our sole torch, looking for clues in the prisoners’ carvings.
The thought that this might be our last night in the world jolted me from my respite.Why were George and I born to a life that could promise us nothing? We had lost our parents, our house, really everything that could provide love and protect us. And even when the king allowed us to join his household, there was never really any guarantee that we could stay there. All we had to do was disgrace ourselves or commit some slight, and we would have been on the London streets again. But the princess did love us, though that one thought was not enough to temper my pain and anger.
“What are you thinking, Nell?” Henry asked, squeezing my knee to get my attention. “I wish that I could offer you some solace, but I fear that, for the moment, our salvation rests in Sir Andrew’s hands.”
But Henry couldn’t provide me with comfort. My emotions were bound with the prince.
“Why is he doing this to us, Henry? How could he hate us so much?” I asked, my voice threatening to crack.
“We broke from him, Nell. We dashed his dreams of commanding Castile through your marriage, remember? I don’t believe any prince would have taken kindly to that.”
Henry almost made me smile. “You know what I mean.” I tried to sound peevish. “But what we did was for the good of all. The prince should see that,” I argued.
Henry shook his head. His brown eyes softened as he looked into my own. “I no longer believe that being a prince or king makes you a good man. That seems to come from within.”
“Perhaps,” I agreed, watching George as he now stood directly below the torchlight, using his metal spoon to carve something into the wall. I still had a nagging question for Henry.
I asked keeping my gaze on George. “Why are you willing to die with us, Henry? Would you have joined us in the beginning, when we ran from the prince with Gracias, if you knew that this would be our end?” I held my breath, in case he could not answer.
Then I felt his strong hand clasp my own.
“That’s hard to say, Nell, truthfully, although I think I would have gone with you and George no matter what I believed then. Who of us has the power to bargain for anything in this life, Nell? We live by the whim of the crown.With you—”
“Do you truly believe that?” I demanded. Suddenly it was so important that he spoke from his heart.
“Yes!” he exclaimed, placing his other hand gently under my chin to force me to look into his face. It was dirty and scratched yet still filled with his rough beauty.
“With you,” he went on, his voice revving with emotion, “I had the chance to choose my own destiny, to live or to die with a beautiful girl whose spirit and heart matched none that I ever knew in their courage and goodness.”
He paused. His eyes were full and his features softened, as if touched by the confidence born of love. I pulled him to me in a fierce embrace and felt his protective arms around me. Why would fate tease me in such a way? To give me a taste of love only to snatch it away the next morning?
“Look, Nell. Look, Henry,” George encouraged shyly, bringing me back to the moment. He gestured to the wall behind him.
He had carved:
Forever loyal servants to Princess Joan
Adding the first letter of each of our names as our signature.
“That is beautiful, George,” I said and I truly meant it. It did not ease my fear of the morrow, but it did make me feel worthy of the king’s trust.We loved the princess, and I should not be ashamed to assert this to the king, especially if the chopping block were the sole obstacle between us.
treason
WE WERE SUMMONED AT DAWN. The two sol diers who had met us at the gate now led us by our chains up the narrow spiral stairway from the dungeon to the Tower Green. It was a cold, gray, November day, the sky the color of worn river rock. “Bloodless,” my mother used to say, because days like these had drained the color from our cheeks. The memory was mocked by our destination.
The grass between the servants’ chapel and the cobblestone square was lush from the fall rains, as was the field of grass between the square and the castle’s crenellated inner walls.The damp blackness beneath their arches chilled my heart. The moat prowled beneath these walls. I could smell the tang of its refuse in the air as it mingled with the aroma of wet grass. Our last breaths were to be filled with portents of death.
As we walked from the Tower to the square, I stumbled once as if I had suddenly walked straight into a wall. Yet nothing was in my path. Instead it was as if the world were hurling every noise and smell, every sight and taste that it had ever offered me, all in one blast that buffeted me like a thunderclap. The smell of the grass and moat pinched my nose and the odors of my companions and the sold
iers who prodded us with their swords seemed to wrap around my face like a long-stored veil released from its trunk.
I was aware of the squish of the ground and the scrape of my feet against the stone. My heart seemed to quiver, as if the mingling sounds of distant church bells and lonely gulls were a tune unknown to my ears. But it was the crystal hues of the world that the damp dawn seemed to offer my vision—the raw blades of grass, the grainy brown of the castle’s stones, George’s startling blue eyes—that caused my own to tear and blur. The world never seemed so alive as this morning.
I looked to George and Henry to see if they were similarly assaulted, and indeed their faces appeared to greet the scenes around us the way a starving man might eye a steaming plate.This morning was to be our last and our spirits seemed hungry to sniff and lap at whatever touched our senses.
Would it hurt, I wondered, as my gaze locked onto the object in the square? Surely George’s tiny neck would offer no resistance to the ax, but the thought revolted me. Please, God, I begged. Please, Mother and Father. Can you see us? I wanted to scream. Can you make something happen that will stop this madness? I suddenly felt such shame as I remembered my mother in her final sickness, grabbing my hand and promising me that God would watch over us. Perhaps this was fate. Perhaps God was tired of keeping his eye on George and me and decided that it would be better for us to be reunited with our parents. Maybe I should whisper this notion to George. He would sense its truth better than I.
We had arrived. The tall, bony soldier shoved Henry to the front, causing him to stumble over the chains that hung from his wrists. Henry gave him a look full of poison. The squat older soldier with the pockmarked face snorted a laugh, causing me to wonder anew how people could live without a soul. He pulled at George to yank him between Henry and me. George gave a little yelp as he tried to kick the soldier.
