The early spring air was chilly, but beads of sweat dotted Rose’s upper lip. No one stirring in the house had the stomach for breakfast. The servants had set the table anyway, and bowls of porridge steamed, their vapors dispersing into the air above them. Rose could not look at them.
No one had slept; this was plain on their pinched, tear-stained faces. But a noise from the back bedroom caught her ear. Dame Alice, back from her travels, was snoring loudly. She must have drunk much wine and exhausted herself from packing. Rose did not expect the woman to be there when she returned today.
Sir Thomas had been held at Lambeth palace. Rose heard much news of him through the messengers that ran continually up and down the river below the gardens. All of London was picking and piecing together the story of their favoured scholar being treated as a criminal. Some told it differently. The fiend of London, who scourged the innocent and broke the weak, was at last suffering too.
Rose closed her mind to their interpretations; what did they know of him? Indeed, what did she know of him? His secrets clung too closely about him, and she had never been able to draw near. But she knew some facts of these recent weeks: Henry had given him space and reason to reconsider his rejection of Henry’s supremacy over the church. Sir Thomas did not have to reject the church or reject Henry as monarch; he could have both, if only he would admit that Henry had the right to reign unfettered in the realm. The law of the land would begin and end in the king, not priests.
Rose could not understand the refusal. Sir Thomas could still have his church, so why deny the king his realm? More believed the Scriptures were the only ultimate law, yet he forbade people to read them. He believed harmony was the essential element of utopia, yet he rejected offers to reconcile. He educated his daughters and showed mercy to the orphan, yet drew his own blood every night and tortured those who sought a new world. Rose was sick in her stomach. More had made everyone, and everything, to conform to his own image, but he had never seen himself clearly.
She had seen a glimpse of the man and he had stirred her heart. His passion and appetite was tempered severely by his mind and will. If only he had allowed himself to love, Rose thought, a new man would have emerged. But appetite and passion were lawlessness to him, so he struggled to scourge them from his heart.
He loved law above all else. Henry wanted law and order kept too, and kept under one rule. Why did it matter who administered the Scripture? Would it not be the same? Why did More predict such death if the Book that gives life was given to the people? Rose shook her head to clear herself of the questions without answers. The only answer was that this story of free salvation had condemned More to his imprisonment and death.
Last night a boy had run up the steps from the dock, shouting that he had news of good report. He made sure he was paid before he gave them the news, eyeing the half-angel, glancing back to see if there would be more. Rose still knew how to frighten a greedy urchin, and she drew herself up, pushing her face into his with a glare. He dispensed the news and fled.
“In recognition of his good service, Sir Thomas will be beheaded. What great mercy from the king! He is spared the death of lesser men! It will happen tomorrow; he will be brought to the Tower by barge. His family is not allowed to attend.”
And so this morning had come, with the children sitting in the parlour looking like ghosts, and Dame Alice stinking drunk and snoring.
Margaret did not speak to Rose but dressed quietly. When Rose went down the steps to the dock, Margaret was behind her. There was nothing Rose could say. She had learned her letters, and even learned to form words from them, but there were none in her learning that could comfort. What word had she missed? What should she have been taught, or what lesson did she miss? It was wrong to sit in the barge in this freezing silence. There must be words for this. But none came.
It was raining, an annoying drizzle that pelted her cheeks despite the covering over the barge. The drops found their way in, swatted by the winds, landing on her face and hands, soaking through her cloak little by little. She drew her legs in and tucked her hands under her arms. The sky was a brilliant grey that made the winter limbs of the trees, budding in green, glow against its palette. Birds circled over the river, pecking among the floating debris for their breakfast. She tried not to imagine it, but she knew by lunch his blood would be washed away into this same river. Guards would be washing their boots of him, stones would be covered with fresh straw, and Sir Thomas—the man who had lived for a vision of the future—would fade into London’s past.
Now the Tower was ahead, its white stones looking like the weathered bones of a giant stacked neatly one upon the other. It looked immense to her as she sat perched in a tiny barge, and her stomach began to flip. She couldn’t keep her balance easily as she stepped off onto the slippery dock. The world seemed to be turning too fast under her, her legs unable to hold onto firm ground. Margaret was behind her and accepted Rose’s hand with a hard grip as she stepped onto shore.
Rose held it for a moment longer than she needed to. She held onto Margaret’s hand, wanting to hold her here, before the day made her coarse. Margaret would not return to these steps as she was. She would return as an orphan, fury being her constant companion. The bile of bitterness would constantly rise in her throat, giving her a frozen, mean look. Rose knew. She had seen these women. She had been one when More found her.
They pushed their way from the Old Swan Stairs to a platform above which they could watch for More to be brought here. A crowd was already gathered, mainly boys who shifted from odd jobs and found themselves with leisure when they cared for it. Today would be too juicy to miss. How many of them had been clapped into irons by More when they stole bread or robbed an old mother? He lectured in the courts about the need for law and justice, and today he would get a good taste of its blade.
More’s barge came into view, and the boys went wild, catcalling and hurling insults. Other people came, hearing the noise, waiting for a sign that More had at last come to the Tower. Sir Thomas held his head high, looking them all in the eye, one by one, until his gaze fell onto Margaret and Rose. Rose saw his chin tremble and he looked away.
The constable of the Tower led More off the barge. Rose saw More had not faired well in his captivity. His frame was much thinner, and he walked with great effort. His shift was thin and a cheap-looking wool, not thick enough for the cold nights he had spent sleeping on soiled straw.
The constable led him through Old Swan Lane to Thames Street, the crowd growing with every step. One man brandished an unlit torch, his face contorted in hatred. She drew in a sharp breath. The man’s other arm hung limp at his side. He was surely one of the heretics who had walked this path himself, scorned and carrying the torch More threatened to light under his feet someday.
The entrance to the Tower was upon them. Margaret broke through guards and knelt at her father’s feet. The crowd was pushing and screaming, and Rose fought to get near to hear his words. He placed his hand on Margaret’s head as if to pronounce a blessing over her. She rose and kissed him on the cheek.
“Be off! No family is permitted to watch!” the constable ordered.
“This woman,” More said, “this woman is not family. Pray allow her to attend me in my final moments.” He was pointing to Rose. The constable looked between More and Rose, chewing his lip. He grunted and nodded an agreement.
More motioned for Rose to draw near. Trembling, she started to kneel before him as well, but he grasped her, hard, and drew her face to his—he stank of rot and sour decay—and put his mouth over her ear.
“My Rose.” His voice was breaking.
Rose threw her arms around him, supporting him as he leaned further in, his thin frame rattled by a wet, bubbling cough. There was still something of the old man there, the man always at the edge of revealing himself, the one whose hunger for life was not restrained by order. It was this man she held.
He took another breath and spoke in her ear again. “Hutchins is dead, Rose. You paid for his betrayal and burning. It was my last wish, for I could not leave this world to meet God if this man were still alive. Everyone knows it was you, Rose. You will never be safe among the heretics. I saved you from yourself.”
She tried to push him off her, her mouth open for a scream, but his bony hands dug into her skin, forcing her to hear every last word, forcing them to resonate in her ear.
The constable, seeing More falling onto Rose, and Rose unable to bear the weight, pulled More up and off her, and began the final procession to the scaffold.
“Pray for me in this world, good men,” More called out, his words taking what life he had left. “I will pray for you in the next. I die the king’s good servant, and God’s first.”
He knelt at the stained block and began murmuring in Latin. If he was repeating Scripture, he alone knew what it meant.
The executioner was receiving final instruction from the constable, and More stood on his feet, rising fast. The crowd screamed, thinking he would run. The constable lurched and grabbed him, but More spoke something that calmed him, and he released More, who kissed the executioner on his cheek.
The executioner was wearing a red robe, spattered and stained. He was a local man, rumoured to be a barber in his other hours, who did not waste his fees on washing. Henry despised More in this, that he would give a common man the task of taking off his head.
“Be not afraid to do thine office,” More said to the man.
He knelt again, laying his head on the block, looking at Rose. She froze, her heart stopping its rhythm, everything in her perched to watch the end of his days.
With one swing, More’s head was off and in a basket.
A wind swept over the crowd, like the beating of the wings of a great bird, and a wave of peace rippled over them all, who did not know its taste. All were dumbfounded at that moment.
The executioner above them looked confused but grabbed the head to finish his job and get home. “Here be a traitor!” he pronounced.
This shook free the crowd from their pause. Their bloody appetites awakened, they forgot the sudden, fleeting taste of grace.