A Murder at Rosamund's Gate

13

Lucy moved quickly through the market stalls and the sellers, not wanting to be intercepted by an acquaintance. She was headed to Newgate for the first time, instead of staying to shop for cheese and lamb for supper. A market basket slung casually over one arm, Lucy darted effortlessly between the peddlers and fishwives, glad for once that her small size allowed her to move so nimbly. Two weeks had passed since Will was arrested, and Lucy hoped he was faring well enough in jail. Everyone said Newgate was a fearful, terrible place.

Lucy stopped when Newgate loomed darkly before her, casting a monstrous shadow. Nervously, she walked toward the entrance, where two bored guards stood stiffly. The sight of soldiers always made her a bit nervous, reminding her of that terrible day so long ago when Cromwell’s armies had waged war against the king’s men on her father’s fields.

She remembered how she and William had huddled in the hay for hours, until the air grew silent and cold. Finally, they had ventured forth to find their parents. Lucy remembered little enough of her father, who died a few years later, but she would never forget the sight of him kneeling on the ground, crying as only a broken man could and crumbling fistfuls of dirt as his fields smoked all around him. He had lost everything, but she did not truly understand until she was much older. Her mother, she still remembered, was holding the hand of a young red-coated soldier with a great scarlet wound across his chest. The boy was dead, but still her mother had held his hand. “So young,” she had repeated over and over. “His poor mother shall never know his death.” It was Will who had protected her, that day and through those next anguished weeks, as their family numbly retrieved their farm from the rotting corpses.

Now Lucy lifted her chin, mustering her courage. Just as Will had not failed her so long ago, she could not fail him now. Booksellers milled about the dusty courtyard, their pockets and sacks bulging with chapbooks and penny pieces, spreading the news of recent executions. As she drew closer, a horrible stench assailed her nose.

One of the guards took notice of her. He had a shock of red hair and freckles that stood out against his pale skin. “Whatcher want, little girl?” he asked, leering down at her. Lucy was glad that she had worn her oldest, loosest smock, so that she would seem too young for their lechery. The other glanced at her but then turned his attention back to the courtyard, not caring for such small sport.

Lucy straightened her shoulders but tried to sound like a young witless girl. At least it was easy enough to sound afraid. “If you please, sir, I should like to see one of your prisoners.” She decided she would not give Will’s name unless absolutely necessary, since he was there on capital charges and they might not let her in to see him.

“Oh, yeah? Whatcha have there?” The guard pawed at the basket.

Instinctively, she clutched the basket closer, remaining childishly silent.

“Who you coming to see?” The guard tried again.

Reluctantly, she told them, and this time they both guffawed. “Oh, yeah? Nothing’s going to save that gent, for sure. He’ll be swinging within the month!”

A chill seeped under Lucy’s skin, as if she had been out walking in a freezing rain.

“You may as well just go home, little girl.”

Lucy shook her head defiantly, trying to hold fast to her nerve. She would not go home without seeing Will. A thought struck her. “Perhaps you fine sirs could do with a spot of wine?” she wheedled.

For the first time, the men looked interested. The one who had done all the talking held out his hand. She quickly handed him the flask. “Now let me in,” Lucy demanded.

He took a long swallow and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, tossed the flask over her head to the other man. The second guard wordlessly unlocked the gate and then muttered something to a guard standing inside. More kindly now, with a few swigs of spirits inside him, the red-haired man pointed into the dark passageway. Lucy shivered but moved forward.

“All right, lass, you’ve paid the toll,” he said, smirking. “Just follow Matthews here, and give him a shout when you’re ready to come out. And miss—” Lucy turned to face him—“mind you take care in there. We won’t come in to look for you.”

The guards’ laughter followed her as she stepped into the cold, dark passageway. Lucy stopped, adjusting to the darkness. Pitiful cries and moans echoed about her, and a distant dull clanging of metal made her toes curl. A great stench assaulted her nose, and she stopped for a moment with her hand to her mouth, completely overcome.

Prisoners, chained and shackled, rotted away on dirty straw pallets, their hair matted and tangled and their beards long and wild. In varying states of undress, they sat in pools of their own vomit, excrement, and blood. Some lay beside their wooden trenchers, as if they had given up the very will to eat, not even bothering to swat the flies that buzzed about their faces or to shoo away the rats that defiantly claimed morsels of moldy food. A few prayed in corners, beseeching God to deliver them from their terrible suffering.

As the prisoners saw Lucy, they reached their hands out piteously to her, some begging her for food, others merely mouthing their pain, not even realizing that their lips no longer made sounds. When one of them grabbed her arm as she passed, Matthews raised his baton and swiftly brought it down on the prisoner’s head. Lucy winced as the prisoner fell back to the floor, blood gushing from his brow.

Even as Lucy turned her head from the horror of human misery, another sight caused bile to rise in her throat. She vomited right there in the corridor. Two corpses, beheaded and dismembered, lay strewn about the floor of a small room that led from the corridor. The stench of human flesh and something else violated her nose. She dimly wondered what the sickly, spicy smell could be, and she began to sway.

Dimly, she recollected John telling her once how the hangman would boil the heads of men who had been drawn and quartered in a mixture of bay-salt and cumin seed, to keep them from putrefying before their relatives could claim their bodies for burial. Why had he told her that? she wondered dully. Why had she wanted to know? Gagging, she stumbled down the corridor. She held her posy to her nose and breathed deeply, hoping to ward off the evil humors.

“In here.” Matthews gestured gruffly. “Don’t be too long now.”

As she stepped fearfully into a small, dank room, two men exclaimed her name, one astonished, the other angry. “Lucy!”

“I’ll let yer out in half an hour,” the guard grunted. “Best be ready, or I’ll lock ye up, too!”

Not sure if he meant it, Lucy nodded, trying to hide a gulp, her attention fixed on Will. He sat on a dirty straw pallet, his back against the stone wall. His bloodshot eyes contrasted weirdly with his pale face, and frankly, he was filthy. Lucy was relieved to see, though, that otherwise he looked well enough. Adam, his hair and clothes immaculate, sat on a low stool beside him.

In two steps, Lucy crossed the cell and knelt by Will. “Brother, how do you fare?”

For a second, Will just clasped her hand and tilted his head back, eyes closed. No one spoke. Then he opened his eyes and stared at her. “Lucy, what possessed you to come? How did you get in here?”

Adam stood stiffly in the corner, his arms crossed, his face a mask.

Lucy tossed her head. “I needed to see you! Oh, Will, I don’t understand! How could they have—?” Seeing his ashen face, she realized that weeping would not help. Instead, she held out her basket. “I brought you some victuals. I had to give the guards the flask of wine, for I feared they would not let me in if I did nothing to smooth the way.”

Lucy regarded her brother. He reminded her of a lame horse she had once seen at a neighboring farm, broken in spirit and health, knowing he was defeated, before being felled by a farmer’s merciful knife. Sighing, she turned her attention to Adam. “What are you doing here?”

“He thinks he can help me, help me plead my case,” Will said, taking an indifferent bite. “I think it’s a bit of a lost cause myself.”

“No! Will! You mustn’t say that!” Lucy cried, aghast.

“I agree, Will,” Adam said. “These charges do not make a whit of sense, and I’m determined to get to the root of it.”

Without thinking, Lucy laid her hand on Adam’s sleeve. “You must! Will must be proved innocent!”

Looking down at her, Adam shifted uncomfortably. Lucy pulled her hand back hastily.

“I don’t think there’s much anyone can do,” Will said. “I shall commend myself to God. He knows my spirit. He knows my conscience and my innocence. That is all that matters.” Dispirited, he sank back down on his pallet, returning his gaze to the ceiling.

Lucy felt uneasy. “No, Will! You must defend yourself at a trial, else you will be hanged for sure!”

“He’s not going to be executed!” Adam glared at Lucy. “I will be back tomorrow. Come, Lucy. It’s time for you to go.”

After quickly embracing her brother, Lucy allowed herself to be led out of Will’s cell, Adam gripping her arm firmly. Her head down, he hurried her past the sickness and atrocities and out of the jail without a word. Once they were outside Newgate and in the bright sunshine, Lucy shook off his hand. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

Adam frowned. “What possessed you to come to Newgate? ’Tis no place for a woman, especially one as young as you, and unaccompanied to boot! You’re lucky you got out alive.”

Lucy scowled back. “I think that it is my right to visit my own brother! Anyway, ’tis no matter to you!” Resentfully, she recalled herself. “Sir.”

For a while, neither spoke as they crossed the field back to the path that would take them to Lincoln Fields. The first few flowers of spring were starting to poke up in the grass. Any other day, Lucy would have enjoyed the soft freshness all about her, the sunlit promise in the air. Today, though, her heart was tight and cold, and there was little she saw but the well-trod ground beneath her. Try as she might, she could not shut out the terrible images that had just assaulted her senses, nor what Will was facing now. Thinking about what Adam had said to her brother, she asked, “Do you really think you can help my poor Will?”

Without responding, Adam appeared to be judging the large patch of mud and dung heaps that covered the trek. A number of carriages must have passed by recently, their wheels spinning the mud, creating deep harrows, and leaving swill from the horses. With a quick measured leap, he crossed to a bit of dried grass. Lucy jerked her skirts up and followed him.

“Right. Well.” Adam ran a hand through his hair. “Here’s the thing, Lucy. The testimony against your brother is rather compelling.”

“What do you mean? How can that be true?” Lucy demanded.

Adam brushed a few leaves off a mossy tree trunk that lay close to the trek. “Here, let us sit a moment,” he said. “Let me see if I can explain it to you. Indeed, it will help me make sense of these facts, as they were, to see what truth we can find.”

He didn’t speak right away. Lucy, anxiously tapping her foot on the ground, had to will herself not to speak.

“Here’s what I understand,” he began, slowly working out what he knew of Will’s movements. “Will had been visiting with Bessie earlier that day—”

“He was?” Lucy exclaimed. “I never saw him!”

Adam regarded her steadily, with the slightest lift to his eyebrows. She flushed, realizing what he meant. “Oh.” Then curiosity got the best of her. “Where were they?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, in a secluded field by the house. It seems a neighbor may have seen them there. Will was not altogether clear on this point, but as near as I can make out—” He hesitated.

“It was where she was killed, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so.” He sighed. “But, as I was saying, he was with Bessie from about noon to two. They seem to have had a bit of a row, though, from what Will has told me. Afterward.”

“A row? What were they arguing about?”

Adam shrugged. “I’m not sure. At that point, I believe, he went to the Muddy Duck for a spot of ale, which is where Lucas and I found him.”

“He didn’t tell you what they had argued about?”

“Not in so many details, though I think I got the gist. Bessie seems to have been with another man. Del Gado. The painter.”

Images of the pictures Lucy had glimpsed in Del Gado’s satchel rose in her mind. It was too bad Will had learned what Bessie had done, Lucy thought. Will, for all his teasing roguish ways, was not a man to be second to another. He talked of girls like Cecily who kept their virtue, but she knew he would lie with a pretty girl if he could. He was no doubt very angry with Bessie for being with another man. Lucy exhaled. She turned her attention back to Adam’s account.

“Unfortunately, as I learned later, some witnesses—a tinker and a potter’s wife—saw them yelling and Bessie rushing back to the house sobbing.” He paused. “At any rate, we had barely ordered pints when I saw an acquaintance. I went over for a bit of a chat.” He hesitated again.

“Well?” Lucy demanded. “Then what?”

He continued. “In the meantime, Will and Lucas had a bit of a chat, too. For about three-quarters of an hour, I would imagine. My acquaintance and I finished our conversation, and I returned to the table. At that point, we were joined, unbidden, by another. A bit of a lout. You may remember him—Richard, that oafish stableboy that we, ahem, met on Easter night.”

“Richard!” Lucy croaked. Recollecting the livery man who had pawed at her in the stable turned her mouth dry as hay. “What did he want?”

“Richard and his men had a few drinks in them. Indeed, they were itching for a fight. ’Twas William, I believe, who took the first swing, though Lucas, too, soon entered the fray.”

“Lucas? Why?”

“Richard had claimed to have seen Del Gado’s pictures of Bessie, describing them in great detail. Lucas holds both you girls in high regard, and Richard’s words did taunt him to strike a blow.”

His answer puzzled her. “What do you mean? What do I have to do with this? I had never even met Master Del Gado before he visited the house. The night Bessie disappeared. I certainly never posed for him.”

Adam looked away, grimacing as if he had tasted a bit of wormroot. “Well, Richard implied that you were both lasses of easy virtue, and that since you were serving in my house, I had found a way to, that is to say, we had—” He stopped.

“We had what?” Then she took in his discomfort. Realization flooded over her, and she flushed. “Oh! But you would never—!”

“I would never?” Adam asked. She thought he smiled.

Lucy flushed even more. “I mean, I would never—!” She stamped her foot. “Oh, you know what I mean! But why did he say that? About you and”—she swallowed—“me?”

“I think you know that, while I share the scruples of my father, other men like Richard do not, and would not think twice of having relations with, er, a comely young lass living in their household,” Adam said, anger rising in his voice, “her virtue be damned. They assume that all men are like themselves, coarsely fulfilling their needs as they choose, no matter the cost to those who would suffer for those needs.”

“I know that, Adam. You are a good man. As is your father. I thank you for that,” Lucy’s voice was small.

He frowned. “Lucy, I hope you are not thanking me for not dishonoring you and destroying your virtue. Such is the world we live in, to be sure, but I hope you cannot believe I would view you or any other servant as chattel for my needs.” He swatted a fly buzzing by his face. “Let us move off this distasteful subject. Suffice it to say, Lucas grew angry and punched Richard. I saw no need to keep restraining Will. We all three quickly got into it. After a bit, I recalled myself, and”—he snorted—“my position as a magistrate’s son.”

Lucy rubbed her jaw, trying to take in everything he was saying.

He continued. “I then convinced Will and Lucas that it was time to leave. Here, we parted company. Lucas and I went home, Lucas, I fear, the worse for wear. Will left, too, and that was the last we saw of him that day. He told me, at the time, he was going to the theater to visit a lady love of his. Hoping, I’m afraid, to forget poor Bessie.”

The orange seller! Lucy thought in a flash.

“However, this was not true. He has since told me that he was, indeed, still furious with Bessie. He felt he was cuckolded by her, and he was truly enraged that she had let her virtue be compromised in such a way. He was looking to finish the fight with Richard, blaming me for having ended the fight too soon.”

“No!” Lucy said.

“I’m afraid so,” he said grimly. “As it turns out, they did exchange a few more wallops at the pub. Not right away, though. Later. For Richard had come after me, having known my intention to interrupt the cock and dog baiting in Southwark.”

“That was after supper, then, that you went down to the ring,” Lucy recalled. “So Richard left the pub and sought you out? What, to continue the fight with you?”

“Something like that,” Adam said. “Someone at the Muddy Duck must have overheard the conversation I had with my acquaintance, so Richard knew where to find me. I admit that I was quite surprised when he appeared in the baiting ring just as I was trying to stop that sorry spectacle.”

He grinned without mirth. “I stood with several Quakers, but I quickly found myself sadly outmatched. He and his men focused their attack on me, which is how I got those stripes from Richard. He was glad to strike me down, I can tell you that. Thankfully, other Friends came about. They disavowed my fists, for they are a peaceful folk who refuse to raise a hand against their fellow man. One, Jacob, plied me with spirits to soften the pain and sheltered me in his own abode. In the morning, he helped me home, bringing me in his cart, as I could scarcely stand. The rest you know.” He paused. “I shan’t be in a hurry to enter a ring like that again, I tell you. Now you know the extent of my wretched heroism.”

Lucy shivered. She remembered seeing Adam’s bloody torso after he had stumbled out of that cart. Privately, she thought he was rather brave to have tried to stop the despicable cruelty. She squirmed now to think of the low opinion she’d been holding of him recently. How wrong she’d been! For a moment, she wanted to cry.

Unaware of her internal turmoil, Adam went on. “Will says now he went back to the Muddy Duck and got bloody hammered on ale while waiting for Richard to return. The problem is, he cannot remember most of the details because of the drink. He remembers exchanging a few wallops with Richard, and then he went off, finally sleeping off his drinks in a ditch.”

“Well, then!” Lucy pronounced in triumph. “There’s surely folks at the pub who can say they saw Will then? The tavern keeper? Barmaids would no doubt remember him; he’s a fine fellow. What? Why are you shaking your head? Where are you going?”

Adam had stood up and was walking along the path again. “No, Lucy. I’m afraid there are no witnesses who can help. There are plenty, to be sure, who saw him take drinks and brawl with Richard, but the field where Bessie was killed was close, not one mile off. Richard claims—with great malicious speech—that William rushed off ‘with a murderous look in his eye,’” Adam spat. “The lying blackheart even says that William swore to have Bessie’s blood ere the night was over! Later, his mob of curs alleged they saw him running away from Rosamund’s Gate with blood all over his hands.”

“No!” Lucy stopped, feeling faint. She peered up at Adam. “That’s not possible!”

“Yes,” Adam replied grimly, “which is why it will be so hard for William to refute these claims. If I had my way, such words of hearsay would not be permitted as evidence, but indeed they may damn his portrait of innocence.”

“That’s a monstrous lie!” Lucy cried. “Bloody bastard! I would wring Richard’s disgusting neck, but that would mean I’d have to be near him! Can you not talk to your father and ask him to speak to the justice who will preside over Will’s—”

“No! Lucy! He cannot! We cannot subvert the justice system—”

“You said it yourself!” Lucy said, sobbing. “It’s all hearsay and lies! How can you let this happen? What goes on in all those books of law anyway, that there are no means to help my brother in this most dreadful hour?”

His face was anguished. “Lucy, I—”

She turned away. “I’ve got to find a way to help my brother. Since you cannot, I will find someone else who can.”