"She wants what?!" Rachel exclaimed. Despite her regal training, she couldn't keep her jaw from dropping open. Nora fidgeted beneath her half-sister's keen, astounded gaze, flushing awkwardly.
"To be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine, Your Grace."
"Is she mad? She can't seriously think I'd go along with that. I can't drown a former Lady of Albion! I'd be a laughing stock in all of Christendom!" Rachel exhaled and pushed herself to her feet, attempting to stride to the window.
Ungainly as she was in pregnancy, however, what she managed was more of a waddle than a stride. The picture she made was somewhat comical, but the situation they found themselves in was so catastrophic that Nora dared not laugh.
For a few moments, Rachel peered out of the window, watching David train with his men in the courtyard below. Then she turned and threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Actually, you know what? Don't answer that question. I have a feeling I know the answer. Well, I'm not going to stand for it. Arabella is not being drowned in a butt of wine and there's an end to it!"
"You gave your word."
Nora was quite surprised to hear herself contradict Rachel, it happened so seldom. But it was the truth, so when Rachel looked at her in astonishment, she pressed on. "You gave your word, My Lady."
Pausing for a moment to marshal her thoughts, she blew out her cheeks, "If it had been a secret offer tendered to Arabella alone, I'd say to the devil with it. Arabella doesn't deserve your mercy. But it wasn't. You promised Lady Arran you'd let Arabella choose her own method of death, and you gave your word in front of the entirety of the Privy Council to boot. You can't afford to go back on that. It's bad enough that the first year of your reign has been marred by civil strife, that you're going to have to order the execution of your own younger sister, and so risk being branded a sororicide. Don't, I beg you, add the epithet of an untrustworthy oath-breaker to the mix."
"Lady Arran wouldn't dare complain. She'd hold her tongue, if only for the sake of my father's memory," Rachel protested. Nora spread her hands.
"Do you know that for certain? Truly? Rachel, we've just come out of a year that proved beyond all doubt that some Scots sympathised with your sister; were loyal to her above you, despite all your parents did to prevent that being the case. Despite your marriage to David. Don't give them even the slightest reason to resent you any more than they already do, particularly not now. You've just sent Scotland's Prince into exile. Going back on your word to Lady Arran about Arabella's fate might just be the spark that lights the smouldering embers."
There was a long silence. At last, Rachel looked at her half-sister in reluctant admiration.
"I had no idea you were such an accomplished stateswoman, Nora."
"With all due respect, sister, you've never asked. You've always been happy for me to be your confidante, your gentle escape from politics. And I was happy to give you that. But that doesn't mean I can't do politics too."
The two young women shared a long glance. Rachel was the one to break it, glancing away towards the window.
"Very well. You've convinced me. Arabella will get the drowning she wants, if that's what she really insists on. But it won't be done in public. I'll not go that far. She'll die behind the Tower walls."
"You'll need someone there to witness it. Someone you trust, but whose word can't be doubted." Nora hastily added the last part to her sentence, in case Rachel thought it a good idea to ask her to view the execution. God forgive her, but her stomach churned at the very thought of having to be present as the younger Stewart-Howard daughter went to her death.
Rachel chewed the inside of her cheek, deep in thought for a moment.
"Would Lady Warwick do, do you think?" She asked, tugging on a strand of her dark hair, as she often did when she was uncertain about what she was saying, "She raised me from an infant. If I can't send you or David, I'd rather she went than anyone. And she's barely been in my household since I came of age, so people could hardly say she was just my sycophant, paid to say whatever I wanted her to say."
"Lady Warwick is an excellent choice," Nora nodded, "And if I might be so bold, perhaps Lady Erskine as well? For Beth's sake, and for the Scots?"
Rachel nodded, "Fetch me a quill and some ink. And my portable writing desk. I'll write and ask them immediately. God knows the sooner we get this over with the better, for everyone's sake."
Nodding in agreement, Nora curtsied and left the room to do Rachel's bidding.
The Warwick barge drew up outside the Tower wharf, and Lady Warwick got out, groaning as her knees protested the change in position after so long in the same position.
"I'm getting too old for this sort of thing," she thought, but, at that instant, a boat emblazoned with the Erskine arms drew up alongside hers and she straightened her spine. God forbid anyone see a Beauchamp of Warwick reluctant to do her duty, least of all a backward Scot who had to be at least a decade her junior.
"Jean," she greeted the younger woman, nodding at her crisply, as Lady Erskine was handed out by her wherryman.
"Margaret," Lady Erskine returned the greeting, her lips thin.
Their greetings hardly satisfied the usual protocol, but neither of them noticed, or indeed, would have cared if they had. These were highly unusual circumstances, after all.
Charles Brandon, whom Rachel had recently confirmed in his positions as Constable and Lieutenant of the Tower, met them as they fell into step beside each other and began to cross the cobbled courtyard.
"Lady Warwick, Lady Erskine," he bowed, his face grim, "The Queen told me you'd be here to see justice done. If you'd be so kind as to follow me, I've ordered that Mistress Stewart-Howard be taken to the chapel for her final prayers. She shouldn't be much longer."
If Charles Brandon regretted his duty that grey May morning, then he gave no sign of it, only ushering his witnesses ahead of him with the greatest of courtesy. He took them into a wide-arched corridor with a single door at the end of it, a large grate set into the wall above it. Half a dozen burly men-at-arms were milling about, pacing the area nervously. Here, Charles stopped and turned to look at his visitors.
"I know you're here to witness the execution, but I've no intention of making two gently-born ladies like yourselves watch such a heinous act. Drowning's an ugly death, I'll make no bones about that. So, what I propose is this. You will wait here and watch Mistress Stewart-Howard be brought into this room. She can say her final words to you both, and then I shall take her inside, accompanied by the men. I shall close the door, but leave the grate open. You ought to be able to hear well enough when the deed is completed through there, although I will of course return to escort you back to the wharf when it is all over. Is that agreeable to you both?"
Lady Warwick and Lady Erskine exchanged a glance, reading in the other's eyes what they were both thinking.
"Agreeable? None of this is agreeable in the slightest!"
Charles waited, watching revulsion flicker over their faces before Lady Warwick steeled herself enough to say faintly, "I should think what would satisfy our duties to the Queen, yes, Lord Charles. Thank you."
"Good," Charles nodded, before swallowing hard, his Adam's apple bobbing visibly in his throat and signing to one of the men-at-arms.
"Piers. Go and fetch the prisoner. Let's get this over with before we all lose our nerve."
Piers bowed, "Yes, Lord Charles!" Saluting, he hurried away, followed by the other men-at-arms.
Lady Erskine and Lady Warwick lined themselves up against the damp walls of the passageway, wrapping their thick cloaks more tightly around themselves to try and ward off the chill that seemed to seep into their very bones. Neither of them dared utter the thought, but it was an unnatural chill. There was a danger in the very air.
They were both mightily relieved when the silence was broken by the thumping of halberds and several pairs of feet. The men-at-arms had returned, closely packed in formation around the Abbess of London and Arabella.
The latter was resplendent, so decked in finery that Lady Warwick and Lady Erskine couldn't help but gasp. Who had allowed this traitoress to dress in royal purple, trimmed with ermine and studded with blood-red rubies and pearls, as though she were a widow going to her martyrdom?!
The sheer audacity of Arabella's clothing robbed the older women of speech, and seeing it, Arabella smirked, locking eyes with each of them in turn. Her gaze was as cold as ice, daring them to protest in these, her final moments.
"So. It has come to this, has it?" she sneered, as she drew level with them and the men, at a sign from their Lieutenant, paused to allow her a final word, "I am to die a traitor for doing no more than claiming what is rightfully mine. I am to die, and my kin-slaying upstart of a sister hasn't even the stomach to do me the courtesy of watching, or of hearing my final words. Instead, she must send her bitches to do her bidding. I think foul scorn of such a weak-willed woman, and pity my beautiful Albion, which suffers under the spoiled minx's rule. Tell me, Lady Erskine, did you beg and crawl to be allowed to do this? Do you see it as a penance for allowing the little Duchess to be taken away under your very nose? Has my sister even begun to forgive you for costing Albion her future Queen?"
Lady Erskine flinched back from the venom in Arabella's voice, and the guard behind the former Princess snarled, slamming a heavy hand into her back so that she was forced to stumble forward.
"That's enough, Mistress Stewart-Howard! In you go!"
Lady Erskine smelled catnip on his breath as he passed her with an apologetic dip of his head, but she was too relieved the moment was over to care much for the fact that he'd only intervened because his empathic sensors had been dulled by the drug. She nodded back, and then pinned her eyes on Arabella's stiff back as she was shunted over the threshold of the chamber she was to die in.
Lord Charles inhaled sharply, crossed himself and followed.
"May God forgive me for what I am about to do, for I surely won't."
The words were softly-spoken, but not softly enough that the two witnesses couldn't hear them as Charles pulled the door to behind him.
Lady Warwick closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall behind her. Lady Erskine copied her example. They stood there in silence, neither of them capable of looking at the other. How had they come to this? Queen Anne and King James must be turning in their graves.
At last, the muffled splashing and choking emanating from the room gave way to silence. A silence that was both blessed and deadly all the same time.
For the first time in half an hour, Lady Warwick and Lady Erskine dared to look at each other. Each of them saw her own sickened horror and revulsion reflected back at her in the other's face.
Without saying a word, they both turned and began to walk away down the passage, even before Charles had opened the door and called out to them. They didn't need to wait for him to tell them. The silence was proof enough. The Lady Arabella – Mistress Stewart-Howard – was dead. Her ambition, her traitorous behaviour, would be a thorn in Queen Rachel's side no longer.
They would be a thorn in Albion's side no longer and no one in their right mind would ask more of Jean and Margaret than they'd already given.