The Lady of Misrule

by Suzannah Dunn

  And she did know it, I could see, because there she stood, unflinching but resigned. She’d asked it of me and whatever I should now decide, yes or no, she’d take it; she was ready to take whatever I said, even as she held no hope at all of it being in her favour. She’d known what she was asking of me but had gone ahead anyway and asked. And that, for me, was what did it. If she could ask that of me, then the least I could do was honour it. So, I did: I said no, I made myself say it, which in the end was surprisingly simple. I said that Lady Jane felt unable, in the circumstances—

  I didn’t quite know what I’d said but I knew that it had been understood and that it was done.

  Outside, it occurred to me – too late – that Jane should have stayed in bed. Well, got into it, for a start, and then stayed there, refused to get out. Because what could anyone have done? Any of these men, out here, what could they have done? I should have dressed as Jane because then she could have stayed indoors doing her praying and I would have done this pointless standing around. Because, with the exception of Mr Partridge, how many of these men would have known who I was? Or who I wasn’t. None of these men would have known the difference between us two girls.

  The daylight in the bailey – on the grass, the stones – was like something coughed up, but at least there was sky, even if the fog made it hard to see: sky, arcing over us and stretching away, full of itself, and somewhere under it, at the turn of an hour or so, were our future selves. Something would happen: someone would come, someone was coming or was even here already but biding time, but I knew I couldn’t look because you have to be looking the other way for a reprieve to come. You have to be at its mercy. That’s how it works.

  Would they really have paraded Guildford all the way up to Tower Hill, just for him to have to come all the way back down again? How absurd that anyone should even have considered an axe for Guildford: a hammer to crack a nut, when all he’d ever needed was taking down a peg or two. Would he come back here to the Tower again? Or would they just let him go, then and there up on the hill?

  All these men, and we two girls. Every one of the men looked worried. They too, then, were wondering how much longer before they could call it off.

  They were taking her with them and I was following, keeping up in case they closed around her and left me behind. Mr Partridge was talking to her and she was answering, attentive and grave. Me, though, I was a mess, breathless and shivery, and perhaps I should’ve eaten some of Goose’s bloody breakfast, should’ve forced some down. And now there was the priest too, he and Jane greeting each other like old friends: she taking his arm and he gazing into her eyes as if they were lamenting someone else’s misfortune.

  Where was Guildford? We needed him here, carrying on, kicking up a ridiculous fuss in defence of his wife. What I would’ve given, then – anything, everything – to see that, just that, as if we were back at the beginning.

  Ahead of us was a scaffold, which seemed a bit much although I supposed the charade had to be convincing, and beyond the scaffold were people, dozens of them, on benches, and were they there because they believed it was going to happen or because they knew it wouldn’t?

  Jane climbed the steps up on to the platform, taking it too fast, rushing it, This is what I want, and I was supposed to be accompanying her but that didn’t seem to be happening even though I felt as if I were running full pelt to catch her up.

  Had anyone gone to look for the messenger or was I the only one with my wits about me?

  She was already up on that platform and being received by a man who I could see – despite his hood – wasn’t the fake from the trial, the barge, but nor did he have that impostor’s axe. The wheezy little man from the barge would’ve been a better choice, despite the offputting axe, because this one was too serious, asking forgiveness of Jane, and it was cruel to have him up there like that because then how was he going to look when it was called off?

  Jane was addressing the people on the benches but I couldn’t hear what she was saying because my blood was hissing in my ears, and then she’d finished and was turning back to me. She had an encouraging smile for me, and her gloves and a book, she was bending down to give me the gloves and the book but I didn’t seem able to grasp them so she took the lot – my hands, the gloves, the prayer book – into her own hands and held them together and it wasn’t a smile, of course, in her eyes, but kindness.

  Then she was up and across the straw-strewn platform and her hands were at the back of her head although it was hard for her to tie a knot because there was already so much there – her bundled hair, the coif’s convoluted ribbons – and then, kneeling, with her gown rising around her as if it had been made for the purpose, she reached blindly forward. A man – some man – stepped towards the platform and helpfully, deferentially, took one of her flailing hands – his gloved hand and hers ungloved inside it – to guide it, settle it somewhere before stepping back again, bowing out, apologetic for the intrusion.

  Leaning forward, she seemed wary of hurting herself, and why was this still happening? Why hadn’t it stopped? It was time now for this to stop before it was too late. Someone had to stop it. Should I say something? Shouldn’t I say something? I should say something but suddenly there was a flash and the axeman stepping back and he did have an axe, he had had an axe, he must’ve had it all along, and what had he done? What had he just done? He wasn’t supposed to have done that. What have you done? You weren’t supposed to do that! I felt I was screaming it but there was nothing besides a burning in my throat and I was down on the ground, there was grass beneath my hands and someone had hold of me and oh Jesus he’d come for me, the axeman had got me and I was next, me next and then he was going to go on and on—

  But my name was being said and it was Goose who was saying it, Goose who had hold of me and where had she come from? Goose, red-eyed but not returning my gaze because her frown was for my mouth, which she was wiping with a handkerchief. I was full of ‘Did you see, did you see, did you see’ and she was intoning, ‘I know, I know,’ but regretful, as if she’d known all along it would happen. But if she’d known, she’d have stopped it, she’d have stepped up there and stopped it: this was Goose, she’d have got up there and put a stop to it.

  I was soaked, drenched, I’d taken the full hit of blood in my hair and on my face and in my mouth but when Goose shook me so hard that I grabbed the grass there was none on my hands, and when I rocked back on my heels there was none in my lap. Not blood, then, but sweat and sick. Jane, I remembered, Jane. I needed to get to her, she’d gone up there alone; I looked up and she was still there, just as she had been, exactly as she had been but with blood like a beast beside her, rising in the straw and still moving, and there was so much of it, and what on earth had he done to her to cause that much blood? I had to get over there, but Goose was saying no, she was saying my name and she had hold of me. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, firm, forbidding, ‘I’ll do it,’ and ‘See?’, releasing me so she could show me what she had, and it was the coverlet from our bedroom.

  See?

  I said, ‘You can’t use that.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I can.’

  On the far side of the scaffold, people were rising from the benches, shuffling along, going on their way. A moment ago, they’d paid respectful attention to Jane when she’d asked them to pray for her but now they weren’t even waiting to see who, if anyone, would clear her up. Goose stood; she had work to do. ‘Go,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘You need to go.’

  I couldn’t have moved even if I had wanted to, I hadn’t the strength even to stay kneeling, but instead folded over, doubled up, forehead to the ground. And there, drawn in on myself, I thought of Guildford. Guildford; earlier. If a reprieve had been on its way – if – but too late for Jane, could it have reached him? Guildford, earlier: would it have gone, first, to him? Was there any possibility that it had reached him in time?

  I picked myself up limb by limb, and then it was as if I’d never before in my l
ife taken a step. I didn’t know where I was going. The house? Back to the house? The house, yes, because there he was, I could see him there by the door: William. William, raw-eyed, I saw as I drew closer, and in a flash I felt for him and him alone – William, in tears – before the feeling was all for myself because clearly the news was the worst. There was no need for me to hear it but he was already speaking, coming towards me, tremulous and choked but sounding a note of surprised relief. ‘He was—’ Words failed him. ‘Shook everyone’s hand …’

  Calm and dignified, Guildford had been, and suddenly I did want to hear it: Guildford going around shaking everyone’s hand. The more I heard of it, the longer I’d be able to keep him there in my mind’s eye, doing the rounds up on that hill, graciously saying his goodbyes.

  But William stopped, fearful, to check: ‘Lady Jane?’

  I managed a nod, Much the same.

  ‘He said you’re to go abroad.’

  Abroad, where he’d have gone. Well, maybe one day I would.

  ‘Don’t even go back up to your room.’

  What?

  His gaze was stark in mine: Listen. ‘You know the Tiger? just through the—’ gatehouse. ‘Ask for Mr Harney,’ and he was taking one of my feeble, shaky hands, closing it around something small. ‘Show him that. Then show it to everyone—’ along the way.

  I opened my hand and there on my palm was a ring with a seal: Dudley, it would whisper to Dudley-friends. Safe passage, it would request. But how could I? How could I do it, when even putting one foot in front of the other was too much? Breathing, even. Not crying, though, it seemed.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ William said, ‘you really should.’

  A perfect circle in my hand, as clean as only gold can be. I looked back up at him. ‘You?’

  He grimaced. ‘My wife—’ is Catholic? Refuses to go? ‘You, though,’ you really should. And then he turned, he was going, leaving me with that ring on my palm, wide open and expectant. I put it on my finger.

  Jane Grey is believed to have been held in the Tower with two or three ladies or girls, but it’s unclear who they were and whether they were constantly in attendance or working to a rota. It has been suggested that Elizabeth Tilney was one of the attendants, and for the purposes of this novel I have chosen to depict her as Jane’s sole companion and a constant presence.

  Jane did live in the house of the Tower’s Gentleman-gaoler, Nathaniel Partridge, and did sometimes dine downstairs with him and his guests. The consensus among historians is that at times she was permitted to meet her husband outside.

  I have conflated Father Feckenham’s several visits to Jane during her final days into just the one occasion. The letter Jane wrote to Dr Thomas Harding survives only as a printed copy, but the prayer book that she carried to her execution is in the British Library.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks first and foremost to David and Vincent, for their considerable forbearance while I was very slowly writing this book. Heartfelt thanks, too, to my agent, Antony Topping, and my editor, Clare Smith, for their patience and wisdom, and to Susan de Soissons for her tireless, ever-cheerful efforts on my behalf. Thanks also to Poppy Stimpson, Steve Dumughn, Charlie King, Sian Wilson, Marie Hrynczak, Linda Silverman, Zoe Gullen, Vicki Harris, Richard Beswick and David Shelley, all of whom make working with Little, Brown such a pleasure. And, last but not least, to Carol Painter and Jo Adams, once again, for the frequent lend of lovely Birdcombe Cottage.

  ALSO BY SUZANNAH DUNN

  The May Bride

  THE LADY OF MISRULE

  Pegasus Books LLC

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  Copyright © 2015 by Suzannah Dunn

  First Pegasus Books hardcover edition January 2016

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  ISBN: 978-1-60598-942-6

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