This is just a one off story set the night before Thomas Cromwell's execution. The extracts of Cromwell's scaffold speech used here are from John Schofield's "Life and Death of Thomas Cromwell" (History Press LTD). I own nothing, and no one. This is just my fictionalised version of events. If anyone reads this, I hope that they enjoy it. Reviews and constructive criticism are very welcome. Thank you.
Through the golden fields of barley and rye, he runs. Chasing the girl. A flash of her blonde hair, made golden in the blazing sun. The dart of her lithe body as she twists and turns along the beaten tracks. The sound of her laughter carried back to him on the soft breeze that sweeps the dusty earth, shaking the crops and relieving the heat of the afternoon sun. This is the day Thomas Cromwell revisits in his dreams. He reaches out his eager arms, circling them around her waist and she falls, laughing and laughing, against his body; as they collapse to the ground. Entangled in each other, he breathes her name: "Elizabeth". The sound is lost in the breeze.
Then the dream fades. The endless, golden fields give way to the cold, grey walls of the Tower. The sun of that hazy summer's day, fades to the tepid light of a guttering candle as reality reaches out its' leprous hands to claw him from his broken sleep. He tries to shake the residue of the dream from his conscious mind, but the girls' laughter echoes down the decades and he still feels the warmth of the sun on his skin, it mingles with the elegiac sadness that swells in his belly.
It is as though the imprisonment of his body, has liberated his mind and unleashed this torrent from the past. From the swing of his father's fist before it connects with his jaw, to the light patter of Grace's footsteps that would creep up behind him in the mornings; all of the long buried moments in his life have come back to him. But he knows that none of it is real. It is just a pale reflection of the man he once was. A ghostly masquerade, parading through his tormented mind as he plays out the last few hours of his mortal life.
He stands, and walks to the small, barred window of his cell. With the aid of a chair, he can look down on the labyrinthine streets of London, and watch as the city trembles and stirs back into life beneath the hazy dawn light of a new day. He exhales slowly, deliberately as his traces the streets through which he ran barefoot as a child. For a few precious moments, he is that semi-feral street urchin once again. Clanging sticks off railings, shouting oaths into the dark, echoing streets. Who'd have thought it possible that that ruffian would one day be the Earl of Essex? Would one day bring about the greatest revolution in English government? If no one saw it in him then, he doesn't blame them. He never saw the future coming, either.
Thomas's heart beats against his ribs as his eye alights on the tall, imposing house that was once his home. Austin Friars' now stands, sealed up and confiscated by the Crown. Only now does a stab of pain pierce his soul, cutting through him like a hot knife through butter. That home had seen it all. He and Elizabeth had lived, and loved between those walls. The girls, Grace and Anne, were born there, and they had died there, too. He was not there when Elizabeth herself had died. But that morning, he had left the house and looked back over his shoulder. Elizabeth stood, pale and sad at the window with her hand raised in a gesture of farewell. He smiled in return, just as she retreated from view, and he never knew whether she saw it. The Elizabeth that he had chased through the Farmer's fields was long gone, but he adored her still, and always would.
"Till death us do part," He whispers. His breath fogs the glass before his face and obscures his view of the city, but the pictures in his mind are as clear as a mountain stream.
As the dawn blossoms into a broad morning light, Thomas eases himself down from the window, and stands facing the heavy iron door of his cell. Deep in his mind, there is this unacknowledged understanding that the Lieutenant is already on his way to lead him to his death. But as he waits, he scans his surroundings. The scores of names scratched into the damp walls, some he knows, others he does not. The rickety pallet bed, and the table with the uneven legs. He tries to think of the King. Of the wedding that is supposed to be happening today. It is as if Court life is alien to him, now. But eventually, the outside sound of approaching footsteps jolt him back to the here and the now. A key scrapes in the lock, the hinges screech as the door swings open and the small group of men enter, forming a circle around him.
"Sir Thomas," The Lieutenant's grave voice booms around the cell. "The hour approaches, you must follow me."
With a nod of acquiescence from Thomas, the little formation step forwards in unison, like a multi legged beast. Flanked by halberd bearing yeomen, led through the twisting passages of the Tower, the reality of his death begins to sink in. Until this moment, it had all just felt like a bad dream. But, unlike the visions of the past, this is real. This is happening. As they advance towards the portcullis, Thomas's mind is forcibly wiped clean as though blinkers have dropped over his brain. But, he cannot stop the pounding of his heart, or the cold sweat that beads his face as he prepares for death.
As the chains grind and groan, raising the portcullis; Thomas tries to brace himself for the gauntlet of hatred that he must now face on his final journey to the scaffold. But, as he emerges blinking into the dazzling July sunshine, the stunned silence of the crowd that meets him could have knocked him down. The people simply gape silently at him as he passes. It is a silence more disconcerting than any wall of abuse that is usually meted out to the condemned.
The journey is short one, and soon he is mounting the small scaffold steps. He pauses at the top, his hand gripping the rail as he steadies his breathing and assures himself of his balance, as though he no longer trusts his legs to hold him upright. The block is placed in the centre, and a basket of straw is placed before it. The headsman is in the far corner, standing so that the axe is hidden. Thomas swallows at the bile rising at the back of his throat as he takes it all in.
Finally, with feet of clay, He moves to the lip of the platform, and looks the crowd in the eye.
"Good Christian people," He begins in a tremulous voice. "I have come here to die, and not to purge my soul, as some think peradventure I will. I die in the Catholic faith, not doubting in any article of my faith, nor in any sacrament of the church."
Thomas pauses for a moment as he scans the astonished crowd. They don't need to know that the "Catholic Church" he refers to is the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the reformed faith.
The past shifts heavily in his mind as a tear finally wells in his eye. One shuddering breath later, he continues:
"Many have slandered me, and reported that I have been a bearer of such as has maintained evil opinions; which is untrue: but I confess, that like as God, by his Holy Spirit, doth instruct us in the truth, so the devil is ready to seduce us, and I have been seduced."
Confess to nothing, he thinks to himself as his eye alights upon Bishop Gardiner, and the gloating face of Thomas Howard. Right in the front row, they stand. Preening, puffed up with pride at having toppled their greatest Satan. Cromwell almost laughs as the Duke's gaunt face leers up at him. Its' more important for him to be here, watching this political assassination in all but name, than be at the wedding of the next Howard Queen of England. Cromwell won't disappoint the man by neglecting to mention his lowly birth:
"I was, as you know, from a poor man, raised by the king to the estate of a great gentleman. And I, not contented with that, I presumed to a still higher state. My pride has brought this punishment upon me..."
As the speech continues, he sags as the weight of the burden of life is lifted from him. He had thought that he would be angry, bitter or resentful. But all he felt now was a sense of inevitability. That his whole life had been on a predetermined course to this moment. He feels expunged already. And as he beseeches the crowds to pray for the King, and for him at his moment of reckoning, he finally felt the ethereal peace that had always been denied to him in life. Where once, everything he believed in had been worn away piece by piece, he now felt something eerily calm in the face of death.
Easily, he forgives the headsman for doing his job; and he wrenches a large emerald ring from his finger to pay the man. Then, it is almost all over.
The wooden block is rough beneath his fingertips as he gently touches the corners. As he lowers himself down, he notes the scarlet red blotch of those that have gone before him, stained into the grain of the wood. His throat constricts against the acrid bile that has once again risen in him as he settles his chin into the groove of the lumbar and turns his face to the east.
Finally, as if a spell has been broken, the crowd stirs into life. It starts as the curve of the cold, steel axe blade digs into the scruff of his neck,as the stroke of the axe being aligned. Just a murmur, at first, building in pitch as the people find their collective tongue. But, Thomas closes his eyes, and the sounds of the raised, jeering voices are instantly drowned out as the memory blazes in his mind's eye. Back along the golden fields of barley and rye, he runs. He is chasing the most beautiful girl in the world as a soft breeze sweeps the dusty earth and shakes the chest high crops.
"Elizabeth," He whispers, but the sound is lost among the cat calls of the crowds.
The axe is raised high above the axeman's head, ready to deliver the fatal blow. But, all Cromwell can see is the girl in his mind's eye. On and on, they run. Chasing their destiny. Eternally.