The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [213]
But Thomas had gone.
He couldn’t help it. He had walked along the street and followed the passing crowd which, he guessed, must be going towards the place of execution. For how, being in the city still, could he lose the opportunity to see the father he loved so much, and worshipped, one last time?
He could not get close when he came to the place because there was such a crowd; and besides, even if he could have got to the front, to the very foot of the scaffold, he did not dare, for he knew that by his father’s orders he should not be there.
But he found a cart to stand on, along with a dozen apprentices and other urchins, and from there he had a perfect view.
There was a platform in the middle of the place. They had already set a block upon it. Half a dozen soldiers guarded it.
He had waited a quarter of an hour before the parties arrived. They came on horseback, followed by a cart with a guard of foot soldiers carrying muskets and pikes. In the cart, in a clean white shirt, his long brown hair tied back, stood his father.
The sheriff mounted the platform first, then two other men, then the executioner wearing a black mask, carrying an axe that glinted silver. They escorted his father up next.
They did not waste undue time. The sheriff in a loud voice read out the death warrant for the crime of treason. His father moved forward with the executioner towards the block. He said a word to the sheriff, who nodded; and the executioner stood back while his father produced a piece of paper at which he glanced. Then, looking calmly over the crowd, Colonel Penruddock spoke.
‘Gentlemen,’ his voice rang out. ‘It has ever been the custom of all persons whatsoever, when they come to die, to give some satisfaction to the world, whether they be guilty of the fact of which they stand charged. The crime for which I am now to die is loyalty, in this age called high treason. I cannot deny …’
The speech was clear, but long. The crowd was fairly quiet, but Thomas could neither hear nor follow all of it. He understood the sense, however. His father had some points to make about how he had been treated, also it was important that he clear others, especially those close to the Sealed Knot, of any complicity. All this he did simply and well. Only when it was done did he express the hope that England would one day be restored under its rightful king. Then he commended his soul to God.
One of the sheriff’s men stepped forward and scooped up his father’s hair under a cap he slipped over his head. He glanced at the executioner who nodded.
They were going to the block, now. His father knelt down and kissed the block, then, still kneeling, turned to the executioner. He said something. The executioner presented the head of the axe to him and he kissed it. The crowd was utterly silent. Colonel Penruddock said something else, Thomas could not hear what, then turned back to the block again. Silence. He was going to lay his head over the block.
It was the last moment. Thomas wanted to cry out. Why had he waited so long, until they were all so silent? He wished he had cried out, no matter that he had disobeyed, to let his father know that he was with him, even at the last. A cry of love. Was it too late? Could he not? He felt the terrible shock of parting, the surge of love. ‘Father!’ He wanted to shout. ‘Father!’ Couldn’t he? He took a breath.
His father’s head went down on to the block. Thomas opened his mouth. Nothing. The axe fell.
‘Father!’
He saw a sudden spurt of redness, then his father’s head, falling, with a small bump, to the ground.
1664
For Alice Lisle the years that followed Penruddock’s Rising did