Uncertain how to act, Sadler had had Rowland Kitchyn brought to Tutbury and was keeping him prisoner there while he submitted him to questioning.
If Sadler could prove Mary to be the center of a plot against Elizabeth, he would then go to London, see the Queen and implore her to send a younger and more healthy man to take charge of Mary. He was hoping that he would be able to prove this.
Rowland Kitchyn was each day brought from his dungeon in Tutbury Castle into the presence of Sadler and Somers and there questioned, but in spite of these examinations nothing could be drawn from him but the fact that he had served Mass; he refused to utter a word against his master and denied that he had been involved in a plot to free Mary and place her on the throne.
Since he admitted to being a Catholic, both Sadler and Somers thought it their duty to insist on his attending the chapel in order to hear prayers. As a Catholic, Rowland Kitchyn refused to attend the chapel; so before the service two guards were sent to his cell to bring him there; and often Mary would hear his cries of protest as he was dragged across the courtyard.
Bessie had discovered what was happening, for Jacques had told her.
Jacques was worried—not only because of the proposed match with Lord Percy, but because Sir Ralph Sadler was persecuting Rowland Kitchyn, whose only crime seemed to be that he was a Catholic.
“Bessie,” Jacques had said, “you and I are Catholics. If he decides to persecute one, he might persecute others.”
Bessie clung to him and said: “Jacques . . . what is happening all about us? Once I felt so safe. Now I feel safe no longer.”
Jacques did not answer that. He might have told her that they had been living in a dangerous world for as long as he could remember. The only difference was that Bessie was growing up and was becoming more and more aware of this.
“SETON,” said Mary, “what are they doing to that poor man?”
“They have brought him in for questioning, and they insist on his going to the chapel every day.”
“What does it mean, Seton?”
Seton shrugged her shoulders.
“Will they soon begin to persecute us, do you think?” asked Mary. “Do they drag him across the courtyard beneath my window every day, to remind me that I worship in a manner different from theirs?”
“Who can say?” sighed Seton.
“Oh, Seton, I am going to write to my aunt Renée. You are going to her. You must.”
Seton obstinately shook her head.
“Sometimes I despair of ever leaving my prison,” said Mary. “Sometimes I think I shall be carried from my prison to the tomb.”
“These are doleful thoughts, Your Majesty.”
“These are doleful times, Seton.”
There was silence for a while then Mary said: “They are bringing him back now. What does it mean, Seton? What are they planning now?”
SIR RALPH LOOKED into the face of the man who had been brought to him for questioning.
“I have told you all I know,” said Rowland Kitchyn.
“How can we be sure of that?”
“I have nothing else to say.”
“We have means of extracting the truth,” said Sir Ralph.
He saw that the man had turned pale, and he noticed that he was a frail man, a man more accustomed to wielding a pen than a sword.
“You mean you would torture me?”
“We would consider the means were unimportant if through them we arrived at the truth.”
“Do men speak truth under torture? You know they do not always do so, my lord. They cry out what is demanded of them . . . anything to stop the torture.”
Sir Ralph looked into that pale face and saw the sweat at the temples; the fear in the eyes. It was not the fear of pain, so much as the fear that he would not be able to withstand it. There was a difference, and Sir Ralph was wise enough to see it. He wondered whether it would only be necessary to talk of torture. He hoped so, for he was not a violent man.
“Think about this,” he said. “Tomorrow you will be brought before me again. I am eager to know the truth.”
Rowland Kitchyn was taken back to his cell; he was sick with fear. He did not know how he would stand up to torture. He had never suffered it. He was a man of great imagination, and he was afraid . . . terribly afraid that his body would take possession of his mind and insist on his saying that which was false, in order to save it from pain.
ROWLAND KITCHYN awoke in the night. He felt the cold of the stone floor through his pallet, yet he was sweating. He had dreamed that he was in a dungeon of this evil Tutbury and there they had tortured him; and that as the pain possessed him he lost all sense of decency, all sense of honor; thinking only to save his wretched limbs from pain, he had cried out lies against his master.
“I must not, I must not,” he moaned. “I will not.”
But how could he be sure? He knew full well that under torture men lost all sense of reason, all sense of justice.
They wished him to betray his master.
“I will never do it. I never will,” he whispered.
But in his dream he had done so; and how could he be sure when awake he would be more brave?
A terrible belief had come to him. The dream was a warning. He would betray his master under torture.
“I never will. I never will,” he moaned.
But how could he be sure?
There was a way. It was the only way. He lay in the dark, thinking of it.
SIR RALPH SADLER said to Somers: “I am sure that fellow Briggs was a vengeful rogue, and I am certain that both Langford and his secretary Kitchyn are guiltless of intrigue against the Queen. Catholics they are, alas. But there are many Catholics in England.”
“What do you suggest we should do? Release Kitchyn?”
Sir Ralph nodded. “Come with me to his cell. We will tell him that he is a free man.”
Together the pair made their way to the prisoner. Sir Ralph unlocked the door and, peering into the gloom, saw Kitchyn lying on his pallet; he was very still.
The two men approached, and Sadler murmured: “Kitchyn, wake up. We are come to speak to you.”
There was no answer and, bending over the figure of the man on the pallet, Sadler gave a sudden exclamation, which brought Somers to his side.
Both men stood staring down at the lifeless body of the prisoner, who had strangled himself.
HER WOMEN HAD NOT yet come into her bedchamber to help her rise, but Mary was awake. Something had awakened her early on this morning, some evil foreboding which prevented her from sleeping.
She had felt uneasy ever since she had seen that poor man being dragged across the courtyard to the chapel. The persecution of others never failed to move her deeply, perhaps because she had suffered so much herself.
She lay for a moment, wondering whether it was some unusual sound of activity which had awakened her; there was no sound now in the courtyard below.
As it was impossible to sleep, she rose and put her wrap about her; she went to the window and looked out.
For a moment as she stared at the horror which confronted her, she thought that she was living in some nightmare.
“No . . . ” she whispered, but it was so. That man who was hanging from the turret opposite her window was the prisoner whom they had been holding in the castle for the last three weeks.
For some seconds she stood staring at the lifeless form hanging there. Why had they hung him opposite her window? There could be only one answer. They were saying to her: This man offended us because he was a Catholic. You are a Catholic also.
On whose orders had that man been hung there?
Turning shuddering away, Mary went back to her bed and lay there.
It was thus that Seton found her.
“Seton!” she cried. “We have never been in such danger as we are now. I have felt it in my bones. And now I have proof.”