“And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best.”
—Anne Boleyn
Spring, 1536
The swordsman of Calais swings his sword twice in the air for momentum and then strikes the young queen’s head from her body. A weeping young woman moves forward, lifts the head from the straw, and wraps it in clean white linen. Some men attempt to assist the other three women in removing the headless body from the scaffold, but they are rebuked.
“Do not touch her,” the woman holding the head cries in a sob-choked voice, “for no man is to touch her.”
They push the cart forward and carry their ghastly packages to the nearby chapel where the queen is to be buried without plaque or stone. They have much work to do to prepare their lady’s body for burial and then too there are other plans to be made.
The women set about the process of carrying out Anne’s burial as she requested. Rain lashes the grey stone walls, but inside it is quiet and dry. The women light their candles and begin their mournful work. First, there is the queen’s heart which she requested be buried at St. Mary’s Church, Erwarton, in Suffolk. The heart is carefully carved from the body with a white-handled knife and then enclosed in a silver coffer lined with black velvet. One of the women grabs her cloak and leaves with the horseman entrusted to deliver Anne’s heart to its final resting place.
Although the queen’s body is not to be displayed for mourners as it should, the ladies begin tenderly washing the body with rosewater and lavender. Then they wrap the body in cloth and seal the seams with beeswax. With a final struggle of devotion, they lift Anne’s body into a wood coffin lined with dry sweet herbs. The women form a circle around the coffin and speak a final incantation for their lady.
After the late-night rain, blossoming trees greet the women as they arrive the next morning at their secret meeting place. The women sit in the garden joined by six tower ravens who perch in a nearby tree. The mysterious young women of the scaffold are known only as Bess, Margaret, Jane, and Katherine. Perhaps they were ladies from the queen’s dismantled household, although their true identities may never be known.
They sit in a circle. Young Bess places blood-soaked biscuits on the ground, a special treat for the ravens. Then the women set about to plan their dark unfoldings.
In whispers they discuss the swift downfall of their lady.
“It is said they racked sweet Mark in order he might confess against our lady” says Margaret.
“The swordsman of Calais is said to have been summoned two full weeks before the trial” relates young Jane.
“Master Cromwell brags throughout the court that it is he who orchestrated our lady’s downfall” adds Bess.
“Our lady’s only crime was to not bear a son,” said Margaret.
Margaret is raven mistress of the tower. The magnificent large birds heed only her. They each fly down to her when called by name. To her they present their gathered gifts, hair from the heads of Cromwell and Henry the king himself. With a quill and parchment strips each lady sets a wish upon paper and then folds it as many times as possible. They are then gathered in a square of black damask from their lady’s dress and placed in a box. They add laurel leaves, the tooth of a wolf, and the feather of a raven dipped in the queen’s blood.
“So shall we use these wishes at will
So shall these mens’ fates be sealed.”
Summer, 1540
Cromwell’s hand trembles, his fingertips blackened with ink. The tower is cold, and he has but a table, a few books, paper, quill, and ink. He thinks how his son Gregory will be alone without him. He closes his letter with one last desperate plea to the king, “Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy.” His cries are unheard. It is said it took three blows of the axe to sever his head by the “ragged and butcherly” executioner. It is said a circle of ravens flew high above the scaffold.
Fall, 1546
King Henry is greatly troubled and cannot sleep. His leg ulcer is seeping and throbs with pain. He will not call for his physicians they will want to lance the ulcer with their red-hot pokers to drain it. He cannot endure it. The seeping ulcer causes him relentless pain, sepsis, and bouts of fever. He is certain it will plague him until death.
Winter, 1603
Gloriana, Elizabeth I sits high upon her throne and thinks back over the long years of her reign. She looks down at her hand that still bears the mother of pearl ring set with gold and rubies. It has never left her finger. She gently opens the ring’s locket; the inside bears a likeness of her mother’s face and her own.
The ravens still preside over the tower today. They have never left their fortress.
Elizabeth Mercurio (she/her) is the author of the chapbooks Doll and Words in a Night Jar. She earned an MFA from The Solstice Low-Residency Program. Her work has appeared in Ample Remains, The Wild Word, Thimble Magazine, Vox Populi, and elsewhere. She was recently named a finalist in the Cordella Press Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize and the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Poetry Prize. You can find her at: https://www.elizabethmercurio.com/