Chapter 14
Place of Execution
Grey had always thought the roar of a mob to be one of the worst sounds possible. Worse than the howl of a hurricane or the clap of thunder that follows in the wake of nearby lightning. And the mob itself every bit as random and as lethal as other forces of nature. The only difference, Grey thought, was that you would not call a mob an act of God.
He spread his feet a little, to keep his footing against the waves of people who were lapping up the slopes of Tyburn Hill, and kept one hand on his sword hilt, the other on his dagger. He’d considered for some time whether to wear his uniform or not, but at last had decided that he must. Soldiers were not universally popular, by any means, and it was not unknown for a maddened crowd to turn on them. But if the point of his presence was to give some reassurance to Michael Bates, then he must be recognizable. To which end, he’d worn uniform, chosen a spot as near to the gallows as he could get, and held it grimly against all comers.
He hoped the brandy had arrived in time, but there was no way to tell. He’d gone direct to Tyburn, rather than follow the cart from Newgate as many spectators did. By the time it rumbled into view, the three prisoners in it were so plastered with mud and filth that they might have been bears, bound for a baiting.
And a baiting it was.
The noise rose, hungry, at sight of the prisoners, and a hail of rocks and debris arched out of the crowd—most of it falling back onto said crowd, distance preventing the missiles from reaching their targets. Cries of pain or protest were swallowed by the immense thrum, menacing as the sound of a hornet’s nest.
He felt it in his bones, and along with it, an echo of the terror that must afflict those who were its focus.
The minister who walked behind the condemned cart was heavily splashed with mud himself, though his grim face was still visible through the smears. A final bombardment of rocks drove him back, clutching his Bible to his chest as though it might be a literal as well as spiritual shield.
“Crush the mon-sters! Crush the mon-sters!” The chant was coming from a group of gaily clad prostitutes, who had linked arms against the surge of the crowd and were throwing their bodies to and fro in unison, in rhythm to their chant. A rival group was brandishing ill-spelt placards denouncing Efemnit CUNTS! He recognized Madame Mags, resplendent in black taffeta and gold brocade, and a number of her girls. Luckily, they were all much too busy enjoying themselves to notice him.
Other chants, of much more offensive content, poked rudely through the noise of the mob. Most of the rocks, he saw, were being flung by women—not prostitutes: housewives, barmaids, servant girls, with faces made ugly by hate under their respectable caps.
The prisoners were being helped down from the cart, a few of the sheriff’s men pushing back the crowd with sticks and halberds. The men scuttled for the steps, as though the gallows was a place of sanctuary. Doubtless it was.
Now he could make out Bates, a stocky figure in the center, shoulders back, head up. The colors of the Horse Guards uniform were just visible beneath the coating of filth.
The slender youth on the right also wore uniform; that must be Otway, and the small, hunched man in ordinary clothes no doubt Jeffords. A rock struck Bates in the chest and he staggered back a step, but then caught himself and stepped firmly forward, teeth bared at the crowd in what might have been a grin or a snarl. The response was a fresh shower of dung and shouted vitriol. Some criminals came to their end at Tyburn in glory, accompanied by fiddlers and flowers; not sodomites.
Grey shoved between two ’prentices who tried to squeeze in front of him, and elbowed one of them in the side hard enough that the youth squealed and pulled away, cursing. He could see Bates’s gaze roaming over the crowd, and against his better judgment, waved his arms, shouting, “Bates!”
By a miracle, the man heard him. He saw the sharp eyes fix on him, and something like a smile beneath the mud and scratches.
He felt a stealthy hand at his pocket and grabbed at it, but it was a small hand, and the would-be pickpocket—a child of seven or eight—wriggled free of his grasp and dived into the crowd. He was barely in time to keep the child’s accomplice from making away with his dagger while he was thus distracted, and by the time he was able to place his attention on the gallows once again, the executioner was moving the men into place beneath the dangling nooses.
Otway screamed, a high, thin sound barely audible over the crowd. Nonetheless, the crowd caught it and took it up, wailing melodramatically and catcalling, as Otway struggled and kicked in terror, wild-eyed as a spooked pony.
Grey found his fists clenched hard on the hilts of sword and dagger. For God’s sake! he thought, in agonized impatience, can you not die like a man, at least?
Thin white bags were placed over the prisoners’ heads, the nooses adjusted; the minister walked slowly behind the men, reading aloud from his Bible, his words inaudible. Everything seemed to move with the horrid slowness of nightmare, and Grey suffered from the sudden illusion of having forgotten how to breathe.
Then the traps were sprung and the bodies fell, ending with a hideous jerk. Cheers and screams rose from the crowd. Otway hung limp, his neck broken clean. The other two were dancing, knees churning the air for purchase.
Grey looked wildly for the neck-breakers, the men who would—for a price—seize the legs of a half-hanged man and pull to hasten his death. He had paid for someone to perform this office for Bates, should it be necessary. But no one ran forward, and he saw the Newgate guards watching contemptuously, spitting, as Bates twirled and jerked upon his rope.
He didn’t think. He battered his way through the people before him. The guards, surprised, saw his uniform and let him pass.
One of Bates’s flailing feet struck him in the ear, the other in the chest. He jumped, clasped the frenzied, muscular thighs with his arms, and clung like death, his weight pulling him down toward the earth. The parting of Bates’s neckbones vibrated through him like the twang of a stretched rope, and he tumbled into the mud below the gallows.