‘No. When it comes to making a recalcitrant man spill the truth, there is no better means than the torture.’
I WAS MARCHED DOWN the stairs again, past the hall where the soldiers talked and laughed and light spilled into the dark stairway, down again to the darkness and damp; through the barred door again and back into the hands of the young turnkey. The fat turnkey was there too. He smiled and shook his head.
‘Down to the chamber tomorrow, is it? I see it in your face. My advice is to spill all you know as soon as you get in. Your pal Radwinter didn’t, and he’s in a sorry state.’
‘See his mouth, Ted?’ the young man said cheerily.
‘Ay. They must have used the vice on his teeth. He won’t be doing any chewing for a while.’ The fat turnkey shook his head again. ‘Come on, matey, back in the cell you go.’ He grasped my arm.
‘Has – has there been any word for me?’ I asked. ‘From my friend?’
‘No, nothing.’ He began leading me away. ‘There’s no point hoping,’ he said as we approached the cell. ‘Best just resolve to make a clean breast before they get properly started tomorrow.’ He turned the key in the lock. ‘Take my word for it, I’ve seen – oh fuck!’ He yelled suddenly, letting go my arm.
I stared past him into the cell. At first I could make no sense of what I saw, it seemed that a gigantic pendulum had been brought to the cell and set swinging under the window. Then I saw it was Radwinter. He had taken the two beds and set them one on top of the other. He had removed his shirt and, like Broderick, had twisted it into a noose, tied one end to the window and the other round his neck. Then he had jumped from the bed. He had broken his neck, his head was bent at an unnatural angle. His face was hideous, his mouth open and smeared with blood, half his teeth gone. I fell back against the doorjamb, my legs gave way and I slid to the floor.
The fat turnkey had run across to the window. Now he ran back to the door. ‘Billy!’ he yelled. ‘Billy!’ Running feet, and a moment later the other turnkey joined him in the doorway.
‘Oh, Hell!’ he cried. ‘We’ll be in the shit for this.’ He went over and looked at Radwinter, then turned back to the fat man. ‘You know the beds should be fixed to the floor where there’s a high window!’
‘I’ve been trying to get the workmen in for months! How the fuck did he get the beds across with his hands in that state?’ I saw Radwinter’s hands, dangling at his side, were torn and bloody, his fingernails gone. I shuddered and looked away.
‘They should have given him the rack,’ young Billy said, ‘instead of pissing about with his teeth. He couldn’t have done it then. Fuck! He’s still swinging, he can only just have jumped!’ He grabbed one of Radwinter’s legs, bringing the body to a halt.
‘Why did he do it?’ the fat man said in a tone of outrage.
‘They were taking him back for another go tomorrow.’
‘He did it for shame,’ I said quietly. ‘For him this would have been the ultimate shame. So much for torture bringing the truth.’
THE DEPUTY WARDEN CAME, watched Radwinter cut down and his body taken away. ‘And we got nothing out of him,’ he muttered angrily. But then he had had nothing to give, I thought. He had not killed Broderick. Broderick, Jennet Marlin, Oldroyd, now Radwinter. What a harvest of lives that box of documents had reaped. And how many would Catherine Howard’s dalliance cost?
I sat alone in the cell, through another day, another night. Outside the rain slashed down, hissing, dripping. When it grew dark I found myself looking nervously into corners, as though Radwinter’s tormented spirit might appear there. But there was nothing, no sense of him. As the hours passed my hopes ebbed and flowed with the tide on the river outside, I thought, Barak will come, or there will be some message to give me hope. Surely he could have got to Hampton Court and back by now, on the river? If he did not come, what would they do to me tomorrow? My head swam as I thought of all the abominable things I had heard they used in the Tower: the rack, the vice, hot irons. I had been a fool to think for a moment I could lie to Sir Jacob. I thought of Radwinter’s bloodied mouth. In a bleak moment at the darkest hour of the night I wondered wildly whether Barak and Tamasin might have fled to avoid questioning about the Queen. I cursed myself for such stupidity, Barak would not let me down. Then the dawn came again, light at the window from which a piece of Radwinter’s shirt still hung.
THE TURKEYS CAME for me early in the afternoon. They watched me carefully lest I might struggle, but I knew there was no point and let them lead me away without resistance. I felt light-headed, as though my spirit might fly from my body.
They took me down a flight of stairs, then along a dark passage. They halted before a wide, solid door. The fat turnkey knocked. I looked at the dark old wood. My heart was thumping hard now, making me feel more faint than ever. The door was opened and they led me inside. The turnkeys released my arms and quickly stepped outside again.
It was a big, windowless room with smoke-blackened walls. A large brazier in an alcove put me momentarily in mind of a blacksmith’s forge, as did the big bull of a man in a leather apron standing looking at me, hands on hips. A heavyset boy in his late teens was tending the brazier’s coals. Then I saw the rack with its straps and wooden wheels in the corner, the row of instruments – pincers, pokers, knives – hanging on hooks, and I felt my head spin. Beside me was a big metal bin and on top, among the ashes of old coals, small white objects gleaming. I realized these were Radwin-ter’s teeth, and my legs gave way.
The big man grabbed me as I fell, and sat me in a wooden chair. He sighed, as I might at the sight of a badly copied document. ‘Take deep breaths,’ he said. ‘Just sit there and breathe slowly.’
I did as commanded, staring at him dumbly. His expression was frowning. I saw his apron was smeared with old blood. ‘Got the thin knife heated, Tom?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘Yes, Father. Coming along nicely.’ Over the big man’s shoulder the boy gave me a nasty smile.
‘Got your breath back?’ the big man asked.
‘Yes. Listen, please, I-’
‘Over here then, Tom.’ And before I could react the big man pulled me up and held me while the boy tore off the new doublet Tamasin had brought and then my white shirt. The big man stepped away and studied me. There was no mockery at my shape, only a cold professional interest.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Chains.’ And again before I had time to react they grabbed the irons holding my wrists together and hauled my arms up, looping the chain through a hook in the low ceiling. I was left dangling, my toes only just touching the floor. The gyves bit into my wrists, the one that had already rubbed my right wrist raw causing excruciating pain. I shouted out.
The big man stood looking at me. He had an impatient expression on his heavy features now. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to piss about, we want answers quickly. What do you know of relations between Francis Dereham and the Queen?’
‘Nothing,’ I shouted out. I thought, I could stop this if I mentioned Culpeper’s name, tell what I knew of him and the Queen. Or could I? Might that just goad them on?’
‘Come on,’ the big man growled. ‘You know better than that!’
‘Torture is illegal in England!’ I cried out. It made the torturer’s face crack into a grin.
‘Hear that, Tom?’ he said. ‘The soft-skinned fool thinks this is the torture! Oh no, that’s just the hanging up to put you in position. Show him, Tom.’
The boy came forward. In one hand he held a thin knife, the point red-hot. In the other a tiny vice with a screw to turn it. He held them up for me to see. ‘We’ll have some teeth out with the vice,’ his father said. ‘Break them, mind, not pull ’em out by the roots. That’s worse. Then we’ll have that knife under your fingernails.’