Tudor Pavanne: Execution
At last the day arrived. Belle had gotten almost no sleep the night before, dozing out while sitting propped against the wall, only to jerk awake again, afraid she'd missed – What? My execution? No chance to sleep through that, I'm afraid. She couldn't even laugh internally, though. All her laughter, all her joy, all her life, had been pounded out of her soul.
Wearily, she pulled herself up when the strengthening light at her window signaled the dawn. She washed herself as best she could with the remaining two inches of water in the bucket, and put on her old costume for the first time since her arrival. Carefully buckling the time jumper around her wrist, she resisted the useless impulse to check it again, and then simply sat on her rickety chair, hands folded in her lap, to wait out the last dwindling hours. The guard didn't even bring her usual morning crust of bread; she saw not a single soul until the sun was almost overhead.
She listened hard, but could not hear the sounds outside of any distant crowd – apparently her execution was to be kept as quiet and out-of-sight as her trial had been. Her stomach clenched again in fear, fear that they would refuse her other request, that John would not be there. Well, if he wasn't, she'd jump to the estate anyway, and then try to rescue him somehow using the jumper.
Finally, the thud of boots sounded on the stairs, turned, and came towards her door. Her usual guard glanced in through the window, saw her sitting there, and grimaced. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, saying awkwardly, "It's time, My Lady." He'd actually grown to like his pretty, friendly prisoner, and wished that she hadn't been condemned.
She wasn't sure her knees would support her for a moment, but then she took a deep breath and struggled to her feet, then took a wobbly step towards her destiny. And another, and another, and then she was walking out the door. The guard closed the door behind them and fell in behind her.
No sign of John on the stairs. She wasn't really listening to the guards' chatter, until she heard one of the two in front say, "This strange net keeps catching more victims."
"Her" guard grunted behind her. "It's the little ones I feel sorry for. I heard they were pretty."
Belle stopped abruptly, turning to the man. "What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
He gazed at her mournfully. "Sir Thomas Boleyn's family. His little girls. They were on their way to a nunnery, but then they caught the plague on the road. They're dead."
The world spun around her, and for a moment she almost fainted. She turned abruptly to the narrow window beside her on the stairs, staring out with unseeing eyes. Anne Boleyn was dead.
"My Lady?" his voice was worried, but she couldn't speak, couldn't turn.
Slowly, shaking, her eyes dropped to her waist, turning away from the guards' view, and she reached with one trembling hand to open the jumper on her wrist, opening it and pressing recall.
The backlight was glowing a gorgeous, heavenly, life-giving, rich shade of peach.
Moaning aloud, she leaned against the wall, grabbing the window edge with both hands and hanging on to the cool white stone. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she whispered. She would never forget the fate-laden young girl's face, the smile that lit it up, the glint in her eyes. She would remember.
"My Lady?" the guard asked again, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder. She straightened up again, pushing off the wall, and turned to give him a nod.
"I'm all right. I'm just so sorry for those girls. Like you."
Then she turned and continued down the stairs. Her heart was pounding even harder, now, half delirious with fear and giddy relief. He must be there. He MUST!
And he was. They turned out the front door and walked around to the rear of the Tower, where a small platform had been raised, with an ominous blocky stone in the middle. She barely registered the presence of the royal carriage to one side, its passengers hidden in shadow, and a contingent of armed guards ringing the square. All she could see was John, standing at the foot of the stairs up to the platform, turning to face her, his eyes sunk deeply into his head.
"John!" she cried, and tried to run to him as she had before the trial, but this time, the guards were ready for her, and held her back.
John was suddenly furious. "Oh, give us a moment, if it's to be our last!" he shouted at the guards, the most ungracious speech she'd ever heard from him.
Released from their grasp, she half-stumbled across the grass, stopping just in front of him, while the guards hung back those few paces, giving the couple their last moment together. Never had she seen a more beautiful sight, a more beautiful man. He was disheveled as before, still unshaven, without his coat or hat on this morning, his dirty white shirt open at the neck, his arms unbound. But he was there, alive. And drinking in the sight of her as thirstily as she was him.
"Do you trust me?" she managed to ask.
"Trust you?" He goggled at her, then gave a short, bitter bark of a laugh. "Madame," he sighed, "in all of my life, you are the only one I have ever been able to trust." And he stepped forward himself, reaching out and taking both her hands in his, smiling that beautiful smile. "I trust you."
Suddenly King Henry's voice rang out from the coach, cranky and ill-tempered. "Headsman, get on with it!"
"Oh, fuck off, Henry!" Belle replied automatically, swiveling her head and yelling it loud enough for the entire inner ward to hear. "You're a lousy lover, anyway!" She turned back to John, who was gaping at her, jaw dropping. "You weren't missing anything," she told him, grinning sardonically.
He spluttered, then threw back his head and yelled in delighted, giddy laughter.
"GUARDS!" Henry yelled again, his voice thick with utter fury.
Belle squeezed John's right hand with her left, dropping his other hand, then told him "Hold on tight!" As the guards sprang forward, she popped open the time jumper, and in quick succession stabbed Recall, then at long last, Execute.
And the guards' hands closed on empty air.