Scene: London, October 11th 1553

The Morning After the Spanish Envoy’s Doom

The fog rolled thick over the Thames that dawn, dulling the clang of ship bells and the cries of gulls. The air reeked of smoke, rain, and something coppery that made the breath catch in one’s throat. The people of London — fishmongers, beggars, dockmen, wives carrying baskets of turnips — gathered slowly along the Tower Wharf, drawn by rumor.

By sunrise, the truth stood plain before them.

Across the outer gate of the Tower of London, hung by silvered chains blackened with soot, were five corpses in the crimson-and-gold livery of Spain. They swayed gently in the cold breeze, eyes blackened by crows, hands stiff, their boots dripping rainwater into small red puddles below.

Above them, upon the main gate, impaled upon an iron pike, was a head — its face pale, blood streaking the cheeks like war paint, the hair matted dark, around the neck still hung a torn piece of parchment bearing a broken royal seal.

The sign below it read in stern black letters:

“HERE HANG THE ENVOYS OF SPAIN — TRAITORS AND BLASPHEMERS AGAINST THE CROWN.”By Order of His Majesty, Edward Tudor, King of England and Avalon.

The people stared in silence. Mothers whispered prayers. A group of apprentices crossed themselves. A drunk at the back muttered, “By Christ’s bones, the King’s not playin’ at mercy anymore.”

The Guards’ Word to the People

The Tower guards, grim and disciplined, kept the crowd back with halberds crossed. Their captain, a grizzled man with a scar across his cheek, barked to those who asked too many questions.

“You’ll not get close, and you’ll not touch them. These men came as envoys of peace and spoke treason in the King’s hall. They brought words not of mercy but of Spanish conquest — orders, not parley. They drew steel where words should have served. His Majesty gave them the justice of the Crown.”

A woman called out, “But the head — what did he do, sir?”

The guard captain spat into the mud.

“He drew blade against the King in his own court. Struck first and fell for it. That’s his head there, Don Esteban de Segovia — a name you’d best forget.”

Another man — a tanner from Southwark — pressed, “Why hang them here? Why not burn or bury?”

The guard’s voice dropped to a growl.

“Because the King wants the world to see what becomes of those who’d threaten England. Spain sent its dogs, and London answered.”

The murmurs rippled through the crowd like wind through graveyard grass.

The Common Tongue of Rumor

By noon, the tale had twisted a dozen ways.

Some said the Spaniards tried to assassinate the King with hidden pistols. Others swore one had been found with a Papal dagger, its hilt carved with a serpent’s cross. A washerwoman claimed the envoy had shouted curses in Latin that made the torches go dark before the guards struck them down.

A fisherman whispered to his mate that the King himself had cut the head clean off, “with a blade that gleamed like moonlight.”

Whatever the truth, the city was gripped by both awe and dread.

Church bells tolled that afternoon, not in mourning — but in warning.

And from every tavern hearth to every market stall, the same words were muttered under breath:

“Let no crown nor cross command the Wolf of Avalon.”

For the people of England understood one thing clearly that day —The King of Avalon bowed to no foreign throne, and those who came against him left their bones at the Tower gate.