The Silver Skull

CHAPTER 4

18th February 1587

ll through the bitter winter's night, Robert, earl of Launceston, had ridden, and finally in the thin, grey morning light his destination fell into view on the rain-soaked Midlands terrain. His fingers were frozen on the reins, his breeches sodden and mud-splattered, and his bones ached from the cold and exhaustion.

Launceston was hardly used to such privation, but he could not refuse his orders to be the eyes and ears of Lord Walsingham for the momentous event about to take place. Though thirty-eight, he looked much older. His skin had an unnatural, deathly pallor that many found repulsive and had made him something of an outcast at court, his nose long and pointed, his eyes a steely grey.

When Walsingham called on him, it was usually to have a throat slit in the middle of the night, a Spanish agent agitating for Elizabeth's overthrow or assassination, sometimes a minor aristocrat with unfortunate Catholic sympathies. He had forgotten how many he had killed.

At least this time he would only be watching a death instead of instigating it.

Just beyond Oundle, Fotheringhay Castle rose up out of the flat, bleak Northamptonshire landscape on the north side of the meandering River Nene. On top of the motte was the grand stone keep, surrounded by a moat, with ramparts and a ditch protecting the inner bailey where the great hall lay alongside some domestic buildings. The gatehouse stood on the other side of a lake crossed by a bridge. Lonely. Well defended. Perfect for what lay ahead.

As he drew towards the castle, Launceston feared he had missed the event. Mary's execution had been scheduled for the cold dark of seven a. in. and the hour was already approaching ten, but he could hear music from the courtyard and the distant hubbub of an excited crowd.

Encouraging his horse to find its last reserves, he pressed on through the deserted Fotheringhay village, across the bridge, and the drawbridge, and into the courtyard.

"A ghost!"

"An omen!"

When they saw his ghastly features peering from the depths of his hood, a shiver ran through the crowd of more than a hundred who had come to see history made. He hated them all, common, witless sheep, but to be fair, he disliked his own kind at the court just as much.

As they slowly realised he was only a man, they returned their attention to the grey bulk of the great hall. Some waved placards with Mary drawn as a mermaid, a crude insult suggesting she was a prostitute. She had no friends there on the outside, but the long wait had reduced the baying to a harsh murmur. The air of celebration was emphasised by a band of musicians, playing an air that usually accompanied the execution of witches. It could have been considered another insult, except Launceston knew that Walsingham had personally requested the playing of the dirge.

Dismounting, he strode towards the hall where his way was barred by the captain of the sheriff's guard in breastplate and helmet, halberd raised. "Launceston," he said, "here at the behest of your Lord Walsingham, and our queen, God save her. I am not too late?"

"The traitor has been at her prayers for three hours," the captain replied. "She has read her will aloud to her servants, and prepared for them her final instructions. My men have been instructed to break down the door to her quarters if she delays much longer. "

Launceston pushed his way into the great hall where two hundred of the most respected men in the land waited as witnesses. They had been carefully selected for their trustworthiness, their numbers limited so that whatever happened in that hall, only the official version would reach the wider population.

Though logs blazed in the stone hearth, it provided little cheer. Black was the abiding colour in the room, on the drapes surrounding the three-foot-high platform that would provide a clear view of the proceedings to the audience, on the high-backed chair at the rear of the dais, on the kneeling cushion and the executioner's block. It was there too in the clothes and masks of the executioner and his assistant. Bulle, the London hangman, was ox-like, tall and erect, his hands calmly resting on the haft of his double-headed axe.

Launceston could feel the stew of conflicting emotions, the sense of relief that the traitorous whore's lethal machinations would finally be ended, the anxiety that they were embarking on a dangerous course into uncharted waters. Spain, France, and Rome watched and waited. The killing of one of royal blood was not to be taken lightly, espe cially one so many Catholics believed to be the rightful ruler of England. Her execution was the right course of action; Mary would always be a threat to England as long as she lived.

A murmur ran through the assembled group, and a moment later the sheriff, carrying his white wand of office, led Mary into the hall accompanied by the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent. Six of her retinue trailed behind.

Launceston had never seen her before, but in that instant he understood why she loomed so large over the affairs of several states. She exuded a rapacious sexuality that was most evident in the flash of her unflinching eyes. A glimpse of her red hair beneath her kerchief was made even more potent by the shimmering black velvet of her dress. She would not be hurried, her pace steady as she clutched on to an ivory crucifix. A gold cross hung at her neck, and a rosary at her waist.

Launceston was surprised to find himself captivated like every other man in the room. The blood of two men lay upon her, yet that only served to increase her magnetism; she appeared to be a woman who could do anything, who could control any man. She climbed onto the platform and sat in the chair, levelling her gaze slowly and dispassionately across all present.

Walsingham's brother-in-law, Robert Beale, the clerk to the Privy Council, caught Launceston's eye and nodded before reading the warrant detailing Mary's crime of high treason for her constant conspiracies against Elizabeth, and calling for the death sentence. The earl of Shrewsbury asked her if she understood.

Mary gave a slight smile that Launceston found unaccountably chilling. "I thank my God that He has permitted that in this hour I die for my religion," she intoned slyly.

No one in the room was prepared to listen to a Catholic diatribe, and the dean of Peterborough stood up to silence her. Mary suddenly began to sob and wail and shout in Latin, raising her crucifix over her head.

Launceston had the strangest impression that he was seeing two women occupying the same space; this Mary was devout, believing herself to be a martyr to her religion, not sexually manipulative, not threatening, or cunning The change troubled him for it did not seem natural, and he was reminded of the coded warning Walsingham had given him before his departure: "Do not trust your eyes or your heart. "

After she had pleaded passionately for England to return to the true faith, she changed again, her eyes glinting in the firelight, her lips growing cruel and hard.

As Bulle the executioner knelt before her and made the traditional request that she forgive him her death, she replied loudly, "I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles." It was a stately comment, but Mary twisted it when she added in a whisper that only a few could hear, "But not your own." As she looked around the room, she made it plain that she was speaking about England.

Bulle went to remove Mary's gown, but she stopped him with a flirtatious smile and summoned her ladies-in-waiting to help. "I have never put off my clothes before such a company," she said archly.

A gasp ran through the room as her black gown fell away. A bodice and petticoat of crimson satin flared among the dark shapes. It was a bold, almost brash statement, and in it Launceston once again saw two opposing faces: crimson was the colour of the martyr, but it was also the colour of sex, and Launceston could see the effect it had upon some of the elderly men around. Though forty four, Mary was still a beautiful, alluring woman. She flaunted the swell of her bosoms and displayed her cleavage, as though she was available for more than death.

"Death is not the end," she said. "For me. And there are worse things than death by far, as you will all come to know."

With a flourish of her petticoat, she knelt, pausing briefly at the level of Bulle's groin before placing her head upon the block. Launceston had the briefest sensation that she was looking directly at him. With another disturbing smile, she stretched out her arms in a crucified position and said, "In manus tuas, Domine."

Bulle's mask hid whatever he thought of this display, if anything He swung the heavy woodcutter's axe above his head and brought it down. It thudded into the block so hard Launceston was sure he could feel the vibrations. Mary made no sound, did not move, continued to stare at the assemblage, still smiling. Bracing himself, Bulle wrenched the axe free and brought it down again. The head lolled forwards, hanging by one piece of gristle that Bulle quickly cut.

Stooping to pluck the head by the hair as he had been ordered, Bulle called out, "God save the queen." All apart from Launceston responded, "Amen."

But Mary had played one last trick on her executioner. Her auburn hair was a wig that now flapped impotently in Bulle's hand, the grey-stubbled head still rolling around the platform.

His breath tight in his chest, Launceston kept his gaze upon it, aware a second before the others that the eyes still swivelled in their sockets.

The head came to rest at an angle and Mary surveyed her persecutors. "Two queens now you have plucked in your arrogance," she said, a slight smile still lying on her lips, "and the third that will fall shall be your own. "

The knights and gentlemen cried out in terror, making the sign of the cross as they pressed away from the platform. Even the sheriffs guards lowered their halberds and shied away.

"Against you in the shadows, the powers align," Mary continued. "Death, disease, destruction on a scale undreamed of-all these lie in your days ahead, now that long-buried secrets have come to light. Soon now, the thunderous tread of our marching feet. Soon now, the scythe cutting you down like wheat. The shadows lengthen. Night draws in, on you and all your kind. "

Two hundred men were rooted as their worst fears were confirmed and a mood of absolute dread descended on the great hall. As Mary's eyes continued to swivel, and her teeth clacked, Bulle fell to his knees, his axe clattering noisily on the platform. Launceston thrust his way through the crowd to Beale and shook him roughly from his daze.

"Yes, of course," Beale stuttered, before hailing two men who waited at the back of the crowd. Launceston recognised them as two of Dr. Dee's assistants. Rushing to the platform, they pulled from a leather bag a pair of cold-iron tongs which one of them used to grip the head tightly. Mary snarled and spat like a wildcat until the other assistant used a poker to ram bundles of pungent herbs into her mouth. When the cavity was filled, the snarling diminished, and the eyes rolled slower and finally stopped as the light within them died.

A furore erupted as the terrified crowd shouted for protection from God, or demanded answers, on the brink of fleeing the room in blind panic.

Leaping to the platform, Launceston asked the captain of the guard to lock the doors so none of the assembled knights and gentlemen could escape. Grabbing Bulle's dripping axe, he hammered the haft down hard on the dais, once, twice, three times, until silence fell and all eyes turned towards him.

"What you have seen today will never be repeated, on peril of your life." His dispassionate voice filled every corner of the great hall. "To speak of this abomination will be considered an act of high treason, for diminishing the defences of the realm and putting the queen's life at risk from a frightened populace. One word and Bulle here will be your final friend. Do you heed my words?"

Silence held for a moment, and then a few angry mutterings arose.

"Lest you misunderstand, I speak with the full authority of the queen, and her principal secretary Lord Walsingham," Launceston continued. "Nothing must leave this room that gives succour to our enemies, or which turns determined Englishmen to trembling cowards. I ask again: do you heed my words?"

In his face they saw the truth of what he said, and gradually acceded. When he was satisfied, Launceston handed the axe back to Bulle and said, "Complete your business. "

Still trembling, the earl of Kent stood over Mary's headless corpse and stuttered in a voice so frail few could hear, "May it please God that all the queen's enemies be brought into this condition. This be the end of all who hate the Gospel and Her Majesty's government. "

With tentative fingers, Bulle plopped the head onto a platter and held it up to the window three times so the baying crowd without could be sure the traitorous pretender to the throne was truly dead.

Immediately, the doors were briefly unlocked so Henry Talbot, the earl of Shrewsbury's son, could take the official news of Mary's death to the court in London. As he galloped through the towns and villages, shouting the news, a network of beacons blazed into life across the country and church bells were rung with gusto.

At Fotheringhay, Launceston spoke to each of the knights and gentlemen in turn, studying their eyes and letting them see his. Then he oversaw the removal of Mary's body and head to the chapel, where prayers were said over them as Dee's assistants stuffed the remains with more purifying herbs and painted defensive sigils on the cold flesh. Everything she had worn, and everything her blood had touched, was burned.

Few beyond that great hall knew the truth: that terrible events had been set in motion, like the ocean, like the falling night, and soon disaster would strike, and blood and terror would rain down on every head.