Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

‘Follow me,’ said the sheriff.

Mary turned back momentarily and took an ivory crucifix from its hook on the wall over the altar. With the cross pressed to her heavy bosom and the prayer book in her other hand, she walked behind the sheriff, and Alison followed.

Mary was inches taller than the sheriff. Illness and confinement had made her portly and round-shouldered, but Alison saw, with grieving pride, that she made a point of walking upright, her face proud, her steps unfaltering.

In the little antechamber outside the hall they were stopped. ‘The queen goes alone from here,’ said the sheriff.

Mary’s servants protested, but the man was adamant. ‘Orders from Queen Elizabeth,’ he said.

Mary spoke in a high, firm voice. ‘I do not believe you,’ she said. ‘As a maiden queen, Elizabeth would never condemn a fellow woman to die without any ladies to attend her.’

The sheriff ignored her. He opened the door to the hall.

Alison glimpsed a temporary stage about two feet high, draped with a black cloth, and a crowd of noblemen around it.

Mary passed through the doorway then stopped, so that the door could not be closed, and said in a carrying voice that rang in the hall: ‘I beg your lordships, allow my servants to be with me, so that they may report the manner of my dying.’

Someone said: ‘They might dip their handkerchiefs in her blood, to be used as blasphemous relics by superstitious fools.’

Someone was already worried about how to manage public reaction to this execution, Alison realized. No matter what they did, she thought savagely, those who took part in this vile performance would be regarded with hatred and loathing for all eternity.

‘They will not do any such thing,’ said Mary. ‘I give you my word.’

The lords went into a huddle, and Alison heard murmured words, then the voice said: ‘Very well, but only six.’

Mary gave in, pointed one by one at the people she wanted — starting with Alison — then walked forward.

Now Alison could see the entire hall. The stage was in the middle. Sitting on stage, on two stools, were men she recognized as the earls of Kent and Shrewsbury. A third stool, with a cushion, was clearly intended for Mary. In front of it, also draped in black, was the chopping block, and on the floor lay a huge woodcutter’s axe, its blade freshly edged by the grindstone.

In front of the stage were two more seats, one occupied by Paulet and the other by a man Alison did not know. Standing to one side was a burly fellow in the clothes of a working man, the only person in the room dressed so; and after a moment’s puzzlement Alison realized he must be the executioner. A heavy contingent of armed soldiers formed a circle around the stage. Outside the circle stood a large crowd of spectators: an execution had to be witnessed.

Among the crowd Alison spotted Sir Ned Willard. He had done more than anyone else to bring about today’s horror. He had outwitted Elizabeth’s enemies at every turn. He did not even appear triumphant. In fact, he looked aghast at the sight of the stage, the axe and the doomed queen. Alison would have preferred him to gloat: she could have hated him more.

Logs blazed in the massive fireplace, but failed to have much effect, and it seemed to Alison that the hall must be colder than the sunlit courtyard visible through the windows.

Mary approached the stage. As she did so, Paulet stood up and gave her his hand to help her up the steps. ‘Thank you,’ she said. But the cruel irony of his courtesy was not lost on her, for she then added bitterly: ‘This is the last trouble I shall ever give you.’

She climbed the three steps with her head held high.

Then she calmly took her place on the execution stool.

While the commission for her execution was read out she sat motionless, her face without expression; but when a clergyman began to pray, loudly and pompously, asking God to convert her to the Protestant faith at the last minute, she protested. ‘I am settled in the ancient Catholic Roman religion,’ she said with queenly decisiveness, ‘and I mean to spend my blood in defence of it.’

The man took no notice, but carried on.

Mary turned sideways on her stool, so that she had her back to him, and opened her Latin prayer book. She began to read aloud in a quiet voice while he ranted on, and Alison thought proudly that Mary was indisputably the more gracious of the two. After a minute, Mary slid off her stool to her knees, and continued to pray facing the execution block, as if it were an altar.

At last the prayers ended. Now Mary had to remove her outer garments. Alison went onto the stage to help her. Mary seemed to want to undress quickly, as if impatient to get this over with, and Alison removed her overmantle and skirt as rapidly as possible, then her headdress with its veil.

Mary stood there in her blood-red underclothes, the very picture of a Catholic martyr, and Alison realized she had chosen the colour for exactly that effect.

Her servants were weeping and praying loudly, but Mary reproved them, saying in French: ‘Don’t cry for me.’

The executioner picked up the axe.

Another of the women brought a white blindfold and covered the queen’s eyes.

Mary knelt down. Unable to see the block, she felt for it with her hands, then lowered her head into position, exposing her bare white neck. In seconds the axe would cut into that soft flesh. Alison was horrified to her soul.

In a loud voice Mary cried in Latin: ‘Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.’

The executioner lifted the axe high and brought it down hard.

He missed his mark. The blow did not sever Mary’s neck, but bit into the bony back of her head. Alison could not contain herself and let out a loud sob. It was the most awful sight she had seen in a long life.

Mary did not move, and Alison could not tell whether she was still conscious. She made no sound.

The executioner lifted the axe and brought it down again, and this time his aim was better. The steel edge entered her neck at just the right place and went through almost all the way. But one sinew remained, and her head did not fall.

Horribly, the executioner took the head of his axe in both hands and sawed through the sinew.

At last Mary’s head fell from the block onto the mat of straw that had been placed to receive it.

The man picked up the head by the hair, held it up for all to see, and said: ‘God save the queen!’

But Mary had been wearing a wig, and now, to Alison’s horror and revulsion, wig and head separated. Mary’s head fell onto the stage, and the executioner was left holding her curly auburn wig. The head on the floor was revealed to be covered with short, grey hair.

It was the final, terrible indignity, and Alison could do nothing but close her eyes.

Sylvie felt sick when she thought about the Spanish invasion. She imagined another St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. In her mind she saw again the piles of naked corpses showing their hideous wounds on the streets of Paris. She had thought she had escaped from all that. Surely it could not happen again?

Queen Elizabeth’s enemies had changed tactics. Instead of secret conspiracies they now favoured open action. King Felipe of Spain was assembling an armada. Felipe had long mooted this plan, but the beheading of Mary Stuart gave the invasion total legitimacy in the eyes of European leaders. The miserly Pope Sixtus had been so shocked by the execution that he had promised a million gold ducats towards the cost of the war.

Ned had known about the armada early, but by now it was the worst-kept secret in Europe. Sylvie had heard it discussed in the French Protestant church in London. King Felipe could not conceal the gathering of hundreds of ships and thousands of soldiers in and around the jump-off point of Lisbon. Felipe’s navy was buying millions of tons of provisions — food, gunpowder, cannonballs, and the all-important barrels in which to store everything — and Felipe’s purchasing agents were forced to scour Europe for supplies. They had even bought stores in England, Sylvie knew, because a Kingsbridge merchant called Elijah Cordwainer had been hanged for selling to them.