Tudor Ghost Story Contest – Runner Up

Tudor Ghost Story Contest 2nd place getter 2015

MY KINSMAN THE HEADSMAN

By Alisha Huffman

Fifteen months. That’s how long I languished in those cramped little rooms overlooking the bloodthirsty field called Tower Green. ‘Tis a wonder the grass there doesn’t grow red instead of green from all the bloodshed that’s taken place. Not too long ago, I even heard a rumor that some unnamed courtier was using the wooden scaffold for target practice when his blade missed its mark and struck the ground instead, making the ground bleed.

I spent many lonely afternoons staring from windows that never opened, thinking of all the rumors and lore surrounding the ancient river-fortress. By nightfall my imagination would be so taxed that I’d lay there and cry myself to sleep, overwhelmed by how far I’d fallen. Never before had the Tower of London frightened me so. Indeed, up until the time my uncle the king accused me of treason and imprisoned me there, I’d found it to be an exciting and wonderful place. Until I started to imagine that Anne Boleyn herself was haunting me; and I convinced myself that the king would choose the same fate for me as he’d chosen for her.

“I am dying, Gertie,” I confessed to my little maid one night, before climbing into bed. “These moldy walls and this freezing room will be the death of me.” My slippers dropped from my feet to the floor and every bone in my body ached. Particularly my ribs, where a most dreadful sort of pressure made it difficult for me to breathe. I was only twenty-two years old, but I felt ancient. “That’s what he wants, you know? The king wants me dead. He is not the patient, loving uncle I remember from my childhood, Gertie. Believe me when I tell you; he’s a gluttonous monster who suspects everyone of plotting against him. Even me! How could wedding the man I love be treason? And why must I gain the king’s consent to marry at all? Is he to be the one who choose for us? He who discards wives like old rags; or simply have them beheaded!” I broke into tears.

“Shhhh,” Gertie soothed and pulled back the coverlet, tucking it in around me. She moved to the sideboard where a single candle combated the darkness. “His Grace the king loves you well, my lady. He is only heartbroken at the thought of his precious niece running off and wedding that ambitious son of the Duke of Norfolk, without His Grace’s knowing it. There now; are you not his favorite niece? For certes you are.”

With one, quick puff, she blew out the flame and the room went black.

I woke in the middle of the night with a wet, sickly sensation creeping up my neck. The room was still dark, but there was enough moonlight coming from the windows that I could just make out the familiar face of my intended husband. He leaned over my bedside and coughed dreadfully in his hand. His usually dark countenance was ethereally pale, and for a moment, I truly thought I was dreaming. I hastened to check the palet on the floor beside my bed, fully expecting to find my sleeping maid, but to my surprise Gertie was gone. She would certainly have some explaining to do.

I turned back to Tom. I could hardly believe he was truly there! The lateness of his calling concerned me, perplexed me even; but I took his shoulders under my hands and lowered him to the bed nonetheless. “Tom Howard!” I proclaimed shaking my head. “How did you get in here? Who let you in? I am overjoyed to see you, but why have you come? ‘Tis such a dangerous thing for you to do! Do you not know what they’ll do to you if they catch you here? What they’ll do to me? Oh, Tom, you look so ill!” I rubbed his clammy palm between my thumb, troubled by how feverish it felt. Despite his marriage proposal having been the cause of my imprisonment, at that moment, I would have gladly done it all over again; but next time, I’d act more scrupulously!

“Oh, Thomas, how I’ve missed you!”

“Lady Margaret.” He reached out and touched my auburn hair. “Worry not about me. You’ll not be here much longer; and that’s all that matters now.”

“And you, Thomas,” I inquired nervously, not certain of his meaning. “What of you?”

“I’ll not lose my head, if that’s what you mean. His Grace has stayed my execution.”

I exhaled and relief washed over me. In July, the Act of Attainder had lawfully condemned Tom to death. It ruled that any subject seeking to marry within the king’s family must first acquire His Grace’s royal permission; otherwise be viewed as a conspirator to the disruption of the Line of Succession. But even so, Tom would live! I said a Glory Be and crossed myself.

“So, the king has forgiven us, then?” I dared ask. “We are free to marry with his permission?”

Tom shook his head; thick strands of brown hair swept over his pale, broad forehead.

“Nay, I doubt we shall ever be allowed to marry, Margaret. You are a Tudor and I am a Howard, and there are many that would see it as too dangerous an alliance; with the king’s only male heir being yet a feeble babe; as you will do well to remember.”

“How could I forget it? Prince Edward is a sickly little scrap, and the king well knows it, for that’s the root of his madness! But don’t you see, Tom? Any marriage I make shall be considered as a threat! Simply for who I am! I’ll never be allowed to take a husband; not so long as Henry Tudor lives.”

“Take care, my lady, and try not to provoke His Grace’s anger. The death of Queen Jane has grieved him mightily, and his temperament is more unpredictable and foul than usual. Be patient and your husband will come. But I warn you: Stay away from my cousin Charles and his sister, Catherine. They will bring you nothing but woe, just as I have.” Tom lifted my hand to his lips and reached to touch my hair once more, before he stood and crossed the room. He drifted over the floorboards in a rectangular shaft of moonlight as the stars flickered in the window behind him. He turned and waved goodbye and slowly faded away. “Farewell, Lady Margaret. Take care.” Gone; as if never there.

Morning came and I climbed out of bed, red-eyed and tear stained. A table had been prepared in the corner with a loaf of bread; bowl of broiled mutton bones; two pewter cups; and a quart of ale. Tom still lingered at the back of my mind. How sickly he had looked, and how strangely he’d floated across the floorboards; his boots never made a sound. And how did he get in my rooms? How did he get out? More so, why would he risk being there at all? Especially having narrowly escaped execution! Surely, it was a very dangerous move. And what nonsense; him warning me about Charles and Catherine Howard. As if I’d ever associate with those two bird-brained peacocks!

“g’Morning, my lady.” Gertie dipped past me, carrying logs for the fire. I eyed her suspiciously and took my seat on the stool then bowed my head for prayer.

“Where were you last night,” I asked when I’d finished, reaching for a knife to cut the bread. “I woke up and you were gone. Where did you go?” I faced her then, obviously catching her by surprise, for she froze near the fireplace with her mouth agape. “Do not lie to me,Gertie,” I warned her. “Tell me the truth. What makes you sneak from my room at night, whilst I sleep? Or should I ask, who is it? Which guard is it?”

An audible gasp confirmed my suspicions. “Ah, it is a guard, then,” I turned back to my meal. “Only a guard with a key could let you in and out. You must not see him again; do you hear me, Gertie? If I find you’re sneaking out to meet him again, I will dismiss you.”

“Yes, my lady,” she sniffled. “I shan’t see him again. Please, let me stay.”

“I will keep my word to you; if you keep your word to me,” I assured her, signaling her off the floor, noticing a stack of letters being slipped under the door. “Fetch me those and keep scare from my sight for the remainder of the morning.” I paused, pondering my next question carefully. “One other thing, Gertie. Did you see anyone loitering about my rooms, last night? In the halls, perchance; an ill-looking young man, approximately twenty-five years old; dark brown hair with a silken nightshirt?”

“Nay, my lady. I did not see any young man of that description.” She shook her head and I felt her to be truthful with me; so did not press it further.

I was about to dismiss her when a heavy knock came at the door. A swarm of Tower guards rushed in; five armed men decked in the king’s colors. I shuffled my letters and tucked them in my skirts and stood to greet them. “Lady Margaret.” The largest one bowed his head and glanced nervously at Gertie; guilty as a dog. Aha! I thought. So this is the guard who sullies my little maid! I took good measure of his face so I’d remember it for later. “The king has ordered you come with us. His Grace has arraigned your removal to Syon Abbey, and we are here to escort you there, my lady. There is a litter waiting outside. If you’ll have your maid gather up your things, we will depart at once.”

I nodded once, stiffening my back, as if I had been expecting them all along. When truly I was stunned speechless; aggravated, even, by their sudden appearance and order to withdraw. “Very well, then,” I told him cooly. “Gertie pack your belongings alongside mine. You will come with me to Syon. The Tower is no place for impressionable young maids as yourself.” I looked straight into the burly guard’s eyes and stared him down, asserting every bit of authority I could muster. “Not with these ruffians about.”

The sunlight was warm, gloriously warm, on my face. Despite it being late October, I stood in the abbey garden with a mixture of emotions weighing in my stomach. It was a bittersweet day; although I had survived my first tryst in the Tower; all I really did was trade my guards for an abbess. But there was more, so much more, than that. I held in my hand a hastily penned letter from my good friend Lady Shelton, whose contents shook me to the core. My beloved Tom was found dead in his cell in Beauchamp Tower that very morning. In her letter, Lady Shelton relayed to me how the coroner had confessed in private that Tom was dead in his cell for at least four days before the smell grew so foul it could no longer be hidden. She said the court was silenced by it; that everyone was too afraid to speak about it openly; but they whispered behind their hands of murder and poison. For the king my uncle had ordered that Thomas Howard be buried with great haste and no pomp, in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. I said a silent prayer for my beloved Tom and crossed myself. I wondered how black the king’s heart must be for him to allow such a cruel thing to happen.

I sat in the grass and stared at the letter; the words blurred before me. I was just about to refold the letter and make it a tiny square so I could pin it to the inside my skirt, when my eyes focused on two words in particular. It was as if a thousand bees started buzzing in my head when I read: Four days. The garden seemed to vibrate around me. Four days. If Tom was dead in his cell for four days…then how did he come to my rooms in Tower just the night before?