As she picked up the tray, I saw a tear trickle down her cheek.
I fell onto the narrow straw bed and turned to face the wall. I did not close my eyes or move a muscle. I stared at the stone wall and watched the light grow dimmer against it. Night closed in. The Tower yeomen warders shouted to one another, conveying orders on the castle allure and in the passageway. I heard the word bonfires.
After a time, the men fired cannon to salute the king in his time of joy: once, twice, three times, more. It was very loud. A faint acrid smell drifted in through the window, perhaps from the celebratory bonfires, perhaps from the cannon. But through it all the walls of my prison cell never trembled. The walls of the Tower are the thickest in the land, and they never, ever tremble.
9
That first night in Beauchamp Tower, I couldn’t know it was to be the first of many. I was rigid with terror all night, until the blackness shifted to dawn. The next day, I lapsed in and out of wakefulness, but rarely rose from bed. I ignored the periodic openings of the cell door, the trays of food shoved inside by a yeoman warder, then reclaimed, untouched. I kept thinking of those Carthusian monks and how they would die by slow starvation at Newgate for their beliefs. How could I take food while they suffered? And why would I even wish to live? I was to be questioned, taunted, and disbelieved—over and over—by the Duke of Norfolk and other hateful men, until they’d gathered facts deemed sufficient to destroy me, my father, and every other member of the Stafford family.
But on the second morning, when the door swung open, and a woman lowered a wooden tray of food, I staggered toward it. The woman was not Bess. She was older and taller, with a long face and black hair nearly covered by a white hood. I fell on the food, the hard chunk of cheese, like an animal. I felt shame over my weakness. But I couldn’t deny this wish to live, even if the rest of my existence was to be frightening—and short. After eating I fell back onto the bed and slept for hours, untroubled by dreams.
I awoke later that day physically strengthened but consumed with dread. Would this be a day of more questioning? The day that they determined to “break” me? I prayed and waited, listening for an approach on the passageway. But no one appeared besides the yeomen guards and servants.
This continued, one day after the next. In the morning came the serving woman in her white cap, who I later learned was named Susanna. And in the late afternoon came one of two yeomen warders who worked in Beauchamp, Henry or Ambrose, with dinner. The food bordered on rancid; the ale tasted sour. I ate and drank very little.
After one week, the yeoman warder named Ambrose explained my situation. “If you want decent food, or some furniture, or wood for your fireplace, anything at all, you must pay,” he said. “Those are the rules.”
After a moment, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you see any coins or jewels here, sir?” I asked.
“Your family,” he said patiently. “I will help with conveying the letters back and forth and making the arrangements. It’s the families that pay.”
I shook my head violently. “I will not contact anyone. It would not be fitting.”
He blinked in surprise. “I thought you were of a noble house,” he said.
“No more,” I muttered. “No more.” I turned away from the yeoman warder. I heard him walk down the passageway and, a moment later, tell another of my refusal to better my situation. I could hear snatches of talk outside my cell, but after that day it never pertained to myself—or to my father. One morning, the prisoner down the passageway who wept was taken away. His tears had been a terrible trial for me, but I discovered there was something worse than listening to a man weep, and that was no longer listening to it. Where else could he have gone but to his death?
I lay half asleep, listless, on my bed, early one afternoon when the door swung open and there was Lady Kingston, dressed in her finery. On this occasion, she wore a gabled headdress beaded with tiny jewels.
“Are you well, Mistress Stafford?” she asked.
I shrugged. The question seemed more than slightly ridiculous.