I ween it was on that morrow, of the eve of Saint Katherine, that mine eyes first began to ope to what the Queen was in very deed. Wherefore was she present at that deed of blood? Dame Tiffany reckoned she deemed it her duty: and truly, to behold what man can deem his duty, is of the queerest things in this queer world. I never knew a cow that reckoned it duty to set her calf in peril, and herself tarry thereout; nor a dog that forsook his master's company by reason of his losing of worldly gear; nor an horse that told falsehoods to his own profit. I have wist men that would do all these things, and more; because, forsooth, it was their duty! Now, after what manner it could be duty to Dame Isabel the Queen to preside in her own person at the execution of Sir Hugh, that cannot I Cicely tell. Nay, the saints love us! what need was there of an execution at all? Sir Hugh was dying fast. Since he was taken would he never open his lips, neither to speak nor yet to eat; and that eve of Saint Katherine had seen his end, had they left him die in peace. Veriliest, I wis not what he had done so much worser than other men, that so awesome an ensample should be made of him. I do trust the rumour was not true that ran of his heresy; for if so, then must not man pity him. And yet-- _Virgo sanctissima_! what is heresy? The good Lord wot. My Lord of Lincoln was he, as I heard, which brought tidings to the Queen that Sir Thomas Wager had done him to wit Sir Hugh would die that day. Would die--whether man would or no. Holy Mary, the pity of it! Had I been Sir Thomas, never word would I have spoken till the breath was clean gone out of him, and then, if man coveted vengeance, let him take it on the silent dust. But no sooner was it known to the Queen--to her, a woman and a mother!--than she gave command to have the scaffold run up with all speed, and that dying man drawn of an hurdle through the city that all men might behold, with trumpets going afore, and at last hanged of the gallows till he were dead. Oh, the pity of it! the pity of it! The command was obeyed--so far as man could obey. But ere the agony were full over, God Almighty stepped in, and bare him away from what she would have had him suffer. When they put him on the hurdle, he lay as though he wist not; when they twined a crown of nettles and pressed it on his brow, he was as though he felt not; when, the torture over, they made ready to drag him to the gallows, they saw that he was dead. God cried to them, "Let be!" God assoil that dead man! Ay, maybe he shall take less assoiling than hath done that dead woman.