Free The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle

band of officials filed up the five central platform steps. Margery displayed her skill by identifying them all: “The royal surgeon. Then, the sergeant surgeon—he’ll be doing the deed. Next, the yeo-man of the wood yard, with his man bringing up the block. Then the King’s master cook with his cleaver. Then the farrier with his searing iron . . .”
    She and Honor exchanged queasy glances at the thought of this instrument being used to cauterize a man’s bloody wrist stump.
    “I won’t watch this,” Honor declared. “No silly fool should have to suffer so.” She hoisted her bundle off the railing. “And all for a tennis ball. It’s barbaric.” She started to go.
    “Wait! They’re bringing him in!”
    Margery had caught Honor’s elbow and was pulling her back, and Honor, submitting to a jolt of curiosity, leaned over the railing as the prisoner came out directly beneath them.
    They looked down on the man’s head, whose close-cropped, lazy auburn curls absorbed the pale sun and shot back gleams of amber. The head turned from side to side with a languid ease, as if the man were passing through a crowd of well-wishers, and, indeed, the people parted for him with a hush of fascination. His stride was long and loose and self-assured, despite a distinct pigeon-toed inclination of his right foot—or perhaps because of it, as if vanity were not at stake. It was the legacy of a broken bone mended awry, Honor supposed. But though it gave his walk an unmistakable peculiarity he seemed oblivious to the defect, as if it were a trifle that had no bearing on a man’s power, just as a seasoned soldier ignores a battle scar.
    He reached the base of the scaffold and stood for a moment with his back to the crowd. He wore a long-sleeved tunic of fine wool, of a green so dark it was nearer black, trimmed at the collar with marten but otherwise plain. Its skirt skimmed his knees where it met the tops of lived-in riding boots. A scratched leather belt as wide as a girl’s wrist drew in the tunic just above his lean hips. A second belt sloped diagonally to an empty scabbard—he had been disarmed for his ordeal—and his left hand rested on the scabbard with a controlled tension as if to give warning that, though impotent of sword, this hand could yet do battle.
    He started up the steps where the officials faced him in a line. When he reached the top, his broad shoulders eclipsed the shallow-chested old surgeon. He came to a halt, a head taller than every other man on the platform.
    He turned slowly, deliberately, like a noble about to receive tribute. He scanned the faces before him, beginning with those at his feet, so that the bone ridge of his eyebrows obscured his eyes from the gallery. Between the red-brown hair and dark clothing, his clean-shaven face was bronzed as if by years of sun and wind, and the effect, in contrast to the gaiety of colour all around, was of a gilded antique carving in weathered wood. But when he tilted up his face, cobalt blue eyes snapped the carving into instant, vivid life.
    He looked up to the gallery where Honor and Margery stood alone. His gaze traveled slowly over both of them, pausing for a moment on Honor. She felt warm blood stain her face and prick the roots of her hair. Then he looked away.
    Margery, smitten, let out a puff of breath. “If I had a man like that about I’d want both his hands left on him,” she purred. “Two hands, ready and able.”
    Honor studied the man warily. There was a mockery in those defiant blue eyes that shook loose from her heart all the pity she had wrought, in her fancy, for a contrite young hothead. This man was not contrite. And, apparently about thirty, he was not so young either.
    The drum rumbled again. The officials shuffled to the sides of the scaffold. The sergeant put a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder. “Richard Thornleigh,” he intoned, “do you stand prepared?”
    Thornleigh hesitated for a moment. He blinked at the sergeant like someone