I leaned forward, kissing Mary on the forehead, then Jamie. Now I was finally free to cry. I hid my face in the blanket to muffle my sobs.
We used to say our prayers every night when we were younger, and now I heard myself saying them once more. “God bless the people I will leave behind: Polly, George, Clara…” As I spoke, I thought of all the dead bodies piled in the courtyard. “Please, God, let Eoghan see his sons again. Let Polly live. Let her mother and father find safety. Please watch over the general, and all the soldiers. And dear God, keep us together in Heaven with our mother and father. And thank you for the life I have had. Amen.”
33
THEY BLINDFOLDED US AT DAWN. I NEVER SAW THE FACES OF THE soldiers who came to take us; I only heard their voices. They were not mean or rough, just efficient as they prepared us for our death.
One of the men, with a low voice and hands that smelled of cigarette smoke, told us to stand with our hands behind our backs. When he tied my wrists together his skin felt like sandpaper.
There was the rattle of keys, the cell door opening. “Mary, Elizabeth, James,” the man said, lining us up in birth order. They marched us through the hallway and down the spiral staircase. The guard gripped my wrist so tightly I began to lose feeling in my fingers.
“Careful, Jamie,” I whispered. I was about to remind him to hold the banister when I remembered his hands were tied.
Unable to see, I took small steps. I had a vivid memory of a time when Bella, still a puppy, had chased a stick onto a frozen pond. I tiptoed out onto the ice to get her. The way I was walking now, as though I was afraid the floor would break beneath me, reminded me of how I’d stepped across the frozen ice.
I heard Mary ahead of me. Even now, she moved with a queen’s elegant, even footsteps. Of all of us, she’d had the clearest vision of her future and the life she was now being forced to give up. I thought of how often she used to say, “When I’m married,” or “When I’m queen,” or “When I have children…” She used to keep a list of her favorite names, one for boys and another for girls. Today, she would not scream or break her composure. She would stay strong. Dying with grace wasn’t exactly something we had been taught in our royal etiquette lessons, but Mary had lived like a queen for eighteen years, and I was certain she would die like one.
I wondered what they would say about us someday when children reached our chapter in their history textbooks. Were we really the last of the true British monarchy?
At the bottom of the staircase the air smelled like stone and cold rain. The doors opened and I felt the cool relief of fresh air on my face. I felt a drop of rain on my cheek, then another drop on my forehead.
My stomach clenched in sudden fear. This was the last time I would be able to take in the smells and sensations of early morning or feel the rain on my face. After everything that had happened, everything I had suffered and fought for, I couldn’t believe it had come down to this final, sightless walk. What had been the purpose of my too-short life? I had been a daughter, a sister, a friend. Was that enough? My mother always said the most important thing in life was to love and be loved. I had done both.
“Come along.” I felt the guard nudge me forward.
“Wait.” I steadied myself enough to slip my feet out of my shoes, stepping onto the dewy grass, which felt soft and prickly at the same time. I needed to feel the grass beneath my feet one last time.
“I want to run,” Jamie said, his voice rising hopefully. “Please.”
“No running,” the guard responded sternly.
“Please let him,” Mary pleaded. “He’s been ill his whole life, until now.”
I heard the second guard shuffle his feet and whisper something to the first. I wished I could see their faces. “All right,” the first guard reluctantly agreed. “Three minutes. We’ll take off your blindfold so you don’t trip,” he added gruffly.
I couldn’t see Jamie, but I heard the patter of his feet, the joy in his voice as he cried out in happiness. Moved, the soldiers let him play for much longer than three minutes. And for once in his life, Jamie got to run outside like a normal boy, as the rain fell harder and the Tower chimed the hour of our execution.
“Remove their blindfolds.” I immediately recognized the voice of Cornelius Hollister.
As my blindfold was pulled off I looked around at Tower Green, full to bursting with Hollister’s army. I saw some familiar faces: Portia and Tub, dressed up for the occasion. Sergeant Fax, his chest swelling with greedy satisfaction. And standing in uniform among the front line of the soldiers, Wesley. I let my eyes rest on him. I was sure he would turn away in shame, but he met my gaze without blinking. I thought of the careful way he helped treat my wounds in the cottage, the feel of his arms around me. And in that moment I knew that our time together had been true. I did not regret it. He was born into his family just as I had been born into mine, and in the end, he deserved my forgiveness.
Guards led us to our places on the gallows. Three thick nooses hung before us, swaying lightly in the breeze. A man wearing a mask and cape stood on the side of the scaffold, next to a lever. The wooden floor beneath my feet felt hollow. I looked down to see that it was a trapdoor. A horse and old wooden cart were tethered to the scaffold. In a few minutes it would carry our lifeless bodies to the graveyard.
Hollister turned to the crowd, raising his hands for silence as he listed the accusations against us. Apparently we had been guilty of treason, the destruction of liberty… As he addressed his army, I tuned out his words and studied him more closely. He was dressed up in a dark commander’s uniform, adorned with medals he had awarded himself. He smiled that white, pointed smile that hadn’t changed since the day he delivered the deadly fruit to my mother. His face had grown older, deepened with lines, and his hair had grayed slightly at the temple, but his smile was the same, and his blue eyes blazed in satisfaction.
“Bow your heads and say your final prayers,” he ordered. As much as I wanted to whisper good-bye, I didn’t think I could bear to look at my brother and sister right now. I kept my eyes studiously forward, ignoring the jeering crowds.
A flock of ravens circled the gallows. There was a legend that if the ravens left the Tower, the crown would fall and Britain with it. But they were not flying away: They circled the crowds, perching on the rooftops and railings like spectators with the best views.
As the executioner looped the nooses over our necks, Mary refused to bow her head or pray. She stared ahead, her chin level, her eyes steady. Not a single tear fell from her eyes. From far away she must have looked strong, but I could feel her trembling beside me.
Jamie bowed his head. “Mummy, Daddy, I can’t wait to see you in Heaven. In Heaven where we’ll be happy and safe and healthy…” Tears rolled down his cheeks, mixing with the rain falling all around us.
The executioner placed his black-gloved hand on the lever. The ropes tightened, pulling up on our necks. I rose onto my tiptoes, hoping it would ease the sudden fiery pain that shot along my nerve endings. Any second now, the trapdoor would open and everything would go dark.
I saw a flash of red, and I thought I was already dying. But my feet were still on the trapdoor. I heard a man roar out in agony and opened my eyes. The executioner lay face-down in the mud, a dozen arrows protruding from his back as though he were a human pincushion.
And then Wesley was on the scaffold, lifting me to loosen the rope as he pulled the noose away from my neck. I stumbled forward, my vision dancing with black spots. He started to untie my wrists but I shoved him away, nodding mutely at Mary and Jamie. He needed to save them first.
At that exact moment Hollister grabbed the lever, holding my siblings’ fate in his hands once more.
34
WESLEY DOVE FOR THE LEVER. I HESITATED BETWEEN MARY AND Jamie, uncertain which way to go first. My hesitation lasted less than a second, but it felt like an eternity. Jamie looked at me, his eyes wide with terror, when Mary snapped to attention.
“Save Jamie
!” she cried, breaking my trance. I ran to my brother, lifting him in my arms to loosen the noose around his neck. My fingers fumbled, trembling, as I struggled to pull the rope through the knot. I wished for a blade so I could just cut through it. I glanced down to where Hollister and Wesley were fighting for control of the lever. Wesley strained against his father, using all his strength to keep it from being lowered.
I freed the noose from Jamie’s neck, then hurried over to Mary. The lever went slightly up and down, and the noose pulled on Mary’s neck. Her face turned a deep red as she gasped for breath. I tried to run to her side, but someone held me back, knocking me to the ground and pressing his boot down on my stomach. It was Sergeant Fax, his lips turned down in an angry scowl.
“Kill her!” Hollister shouted at Fax, gasping for breath as he continued to fight Wesley.
“Gladly.” Fax grinned, reaching for his sevil. I tried to scramble away, but his boot was pushing me down with all of his body weight and I couldn’t escape. Just as he raised the sevil, a raven swooped down, fluttering in his face. “What the—” He stumbled backward, off the side of the platform, pulling me with him.
I rolled away as we fell and heard the army erupt into a sudden roar. I sat up and looked around me.
The Resistance forces had arrived.
General Wallace had crashed through the front gates and was marching the cavalry into Tower Green while the foot soldiers scaled the outer wall using ropes and picks.
I turned to climb the stairs to the gallows, struggling to see in the now-pouring rain, but Fax was close behind me. Wesley and Hollister were still fighting on the other side of the platform. The executioner’s body had been shoved to the side. I raced over, searching the dead man for a sevil. All I found was a short knife. It would have to do.
I spun around just in time to block Fax’s wild, swinging attack. I risked a glance up at Mary. An arrow protruded from her side, blood spilling out to darken her red dress. Jamie struggled to help her, but he could not lift her limp body enough to release the noose. She’s dead, I thought. Mary’s dead.
I kept fighting with Fax, my muscles straining to hold the knife against the much stronger sevil. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark-haired soldier on horseback break away from the Resistance forces to charge across Tower Green. As he rode closer I realized it was Eoghan. He leapt from his horse onto the scaffold and severed the rope in a single stroke. At that moment, I gathered all my strength to shove Fax backward and turned to race up the stairs to the platform.
Mary lay crumpled on the ground. She was so still, her face white as a sheet. Jamie sat beside me and took Mary’s cold hand in his.
“Is she breathing?” I cried.
Eoghan gathered her in his arms. He felt her throat with his fingers, checking for a pulse. The rain fell heavily around us, beating down like a shower of bullets. There was blood coming from Mary’s side where the arrow still stuck out at a strange angle. I could see now that she was breathing, but shallowly.
Eoghan carefully pulled out the arrow, then tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and held it tightly to her wound. I looked at the cloth helplessly; it was already stained pink with blood.
“I’ll take her to Clara.” Eoghan swung back onto his horse, then reached out to take her in his arms. Her head snapped back, then down again on her chest, like a ragdoll’s. Eoghan wrapped his arm tight around her chest as he took the reins in his other hand, charging across the rain-drenched battlefield to the gates.
Jamie and I ran down the scaffold and hid beneath the cart that should have already been wheeled away with our dead bodies. All I had was the knife, and while I trusted myself with it, I wasn’t ready to risk Jamie’s life. It would be safer to hide.
The ground had turned to mud and the drumming of the rain washed out the sounds of the battle. As Hollister’s army fought the Resistance in the Tower Green, Wesley fought his father on the scaffold.
“You know the penalty for treason,” Hollister snarled, pointing his sword at his son’s throat.
“I’m no traitor,” Wesley spat back. “It’s you who has betrayed England. You’re a murderer, and now the people aren’t afraid of you anymore. You can kill me, but it’s too late. The people will keep fighting and will eventually defeat you.”
“That’s the guard who gave me the antidote,” Jamie whispered, pointing to Wesley. “I remember his voice.”
Hollister’s hand shook with rage as he swung his sword in full force at his son. Wesley stepped back, blocking the stroke with his sevil. His father lunged forward again, slashing Wesley’s hand. His sevil tumbled to the ground.
I squeezed Jamie’s hand, but he pulled away, running from our hiding place out in front of the scaffold.
“Jamie, no!” I screamed, but he had already darted out to where Wesley’s sevil had fallen in the mud. He picked it up and ran around to the other side of the platform. I sprinted after him.
“I never thought I would have to kill my own son,” Hollister said, but he didn’t sound sad.
At that exact moment, Jamie sneaked up behind Hollister and tossed Wesley his sevil. In a single fluid motion, Wesley caught the blade, whipping it through the air to knock Hollister’s sword from his hands. Suddenly the sevil was pressed against Hollister’s throat, pinning him to the scaffold wall.
“Go ahead,” growled Hollister. “Or do you not even have the courage to finish what you started?”
Wesley stepped back but kept the sevil trained on Hollister’s throat. “This is Eliza’s choice,” he said, surprisingly calm. “She is the one who deserves to avenge her parents’ deaths.”
I swallowed my fears, picking up the sword from the ground and attempting to steady my trembling hands. I pushed the tip of the sword, Hollister’s own sword, toward his heart. I had fantasized about revenge for so long, the anger boiling in me so intensely I thought I would burst with it. But now that the moment was finally here, I felt strangely cheated. Killing him would not bring my parents back. Enough people had died in this war.
I lowered the sword.
“Tie him up,” I commanded, and four of the general’s soldiers appeared to cuff his hands and feet. I never took my eyes from Hollister’s. “You can spend the rest of your life at the top of the Tower, thinking about the people you have killed.”
The general led Hollister away, toward the Steel Tower, just as the last of Hollister’s army escaped through the gate. I glimpsed Portia slipping away, her hair billowing behind her, followed by a bloodied Sergeant Fax.
The rain continued to fall on the deserted Tower Green. Two nooses hung from the gallows, swaying back and forth in the wind. I watched as the ravens settled in the rooftop gables, snug in their nests of twigs and straw. I couldn’t believe it. It was over. After all those months, all the blood and death and heartache, it was over.
Wesley took my hands in his.
“I’m so sorry,” he began slowly. “When I woke up that morning and you were missing, I knew exactly where you’d gone. I went back to camp for a horse, and Portia followed me. I think she suspected what was going on.” He paused, looking down sadly. “And then I saw you on the roof… I never meant for that to happen.”
“I know.” I shivered, whether from cold or relief or something else entirely, I wasn’t sure. “I know that now.”
Wesley wrapped his arms around me, and when I didn’t pull back, he tentatively leaned in to touch his lips to mine. I felt something flickering, a curl of fire inside me, keeping me warm in the ice-cold downpour.
There was a tug on my sleeve. A soaked Jamie stood shyly beside us.
“Eliza, can we get out of the rain?” he asked, shielding his eyes from the drops.
Wesley dropped his hands to my waist as I reached for Jamie, hugging him close. I looked up at the sky, the rain falling in my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered to whoever was listening.
We were alive.
Epilogue
IT WAS A PERFECT SUMMER DAY. WISPS OF CLOUD CROSSE
D THE pale blue sky, while a slight breeze blew through the grasses in the warm sunlight. An outdoor festival was being held in the village square to celebrate Mary’s coronation and to thank the townspeople of Balmoral for their support.
There was a maypole for the children, along with an apple dunk and a juggling clown, and Scottish bagpipers and fiddlers and dancing. Horses and donkeys, their manes brushed and braided with gold ribbons, stood in a ring for the village children to ride. I smiled at the sight of Caligula, a full head taller than the other horses, carrying three children on her back and tolerating several others as they combed her tail. The church had been repainted since Hollister’s army had tried to burn it down, and it gleamed white in the sun.
Tents had been set up in the square in case of rain, but there was no chance of that today. Rows of long tables spilled over, piled high with homemade pies and scones, fresh-baked breads and cheeses, cold cider and even some long-forgotten delicacies. People had traveled for miles for this celebration.
In her first act as queen, Mary had donated the royal lands to the British farmers. All over England, fresh crops had been planted to feed the nation. The masses were no longer starving. Most important, Cornelius Hollister was securely locked away in the Steel Tower, his army disbanded.
Mary greeted her people with open arms. The arrow wound still caused her pain, and though she tried to hide it, I sometimes saw her wince before catching herself and covering it with a gracious smile. Eoghan was constantly at her side, dark-haired and tall in his navy summer suit. His two young sons played at the maypole while he and Mary looked on.