Daughter of the White Rose by Diane Zahler

Author:Diane Zahler [Zahler, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2021-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The monks came in then, and they told us the whole dreadful tale. There had been a meeting of councilors at the Tower of London, led by Lord Hastings, Ned’s greatest defender. One of the monks described what he had heard about it: “Hastings and the others believed they were there to discuss King Edward’s coronation. Everyone was friendly. Gloucester even brought strawberries—strawberries!”

Another monk, impatient, broke in. “They say that Gloucester went out for a time, and when he came back, he was angry. No one seems to know what happened to anger him. But straightaway he accused the men at the meeting of plotting against him.”

The first monk said, “They say Gloucester was so furious that he pounded on the table as he railed against them!”

We all gasped.

“There was a struggle,” the first monk continued, “and Hastings and the others were arrested on the spot.”

“Someone was killed,” the second monk said. “Or stabbed, at the very least.”

The first monk shook his head. “That is not certain. But Gloucester told Hastings to visit a priest for last rites, and cried out, ‘By St. Paul, I will not go to dinner till I see your head off!’”

The queen clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles whitened. “And then?” she whispered.

“And then,” the second monk said, his voice unsteady, “Hastings was beheaded right then in the courtyard of the Tower.”

The queen stumbled to a chair and sat, her strength entirely gone.

“Lord Hastings is dead, dead!” Cecily moaned. “What will become of our brothers? What will become of us, now that we have lost our only support? Is there no one Richard will not kill?”

I tried to soothe her, but there was no real consolation I could give. I pushed back my own tears, remembering the kind man who’d joked with me years before about my lack of skill at the bow and arrow, his sympathetic touch on my shoulder. And now he was … beheaded. Beheaded! It was too awful to contemplate.

And if Richard of Gloucester was powerful enough to kill even Lord Hastings, who was loved by everyone, it seemed nothing could stop him.

We left the queen surrounded by the few ladies who had stayed with her, all of them as nervous and flighty as birds. A wild scene greeted us outside the abbey walls. Richard had sent messengers to run through the streets crying, “Treason! Treason!” and the call was taken up by those who could be convinced of anything. King Street was filled with bewildered folk wandering aimlessly, tossing about rumors that the king had been murdered, that the Bishop of Ely was dead, that Hastings had been executed. Only the last was true, but no one knew what to believe.

We pushed through the crowds to our house and shut ourselves inside, sore at heart over this latest evidence that Richard indeed plotted to steal the throne for himself.

I had no word from Ned in all this time, but I knew now that he was a prisoner and so would not be permitted to write or contact anyone.

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