Isabella's Heiress (36 page)

An old woman that looked suspiciously like someone Emma had once known.

Father Eamon looked down on Newgate Gaol from a roof directly opposite Debtors Gate. From his vantage point, he could see a thirty foot high scaffold was being erected along the wide expanse of the Old Bailey. The gaol was shrouded in the mist that had fallen as he had walked along Cheapside but the silhouette of the walls could be seen as the strands of fog momentarily drifted apart. The noise of hammers against wood carried over to the guides and the two men watched as the scaffold rose up from the ground whilst dark horsemen could be heard in the surrounding streets hustling and cajoling people towards the gaol. The sound of hooves clashed with the mixed tones of fear and panic as they corralled the realms inhabitants into the centre of the Old Bailey. At the top of the scaffold, the two workmen had just put the finishing touches to their work and were now climbing down some hastily erected steps.

Father Henry looked at Father Eamon. “Gallows. What are they doing? I haven't seen this before.”

“I have. They do it to instil fear across the plane but I haven't seen it done in centuries. They know something is up.” Father Eamon squinted to see through the mist, “They hang people until someone tells them what they want.”

“Bit late to hang anybody, isn't it?”

“They may already be dead but that won't stop them feeling the pain that goes with a slow garrotting.”

The riders were now separating a small cluster of men from the main group and herding them towards the large wooden platform. The horses barged them left then right until finally they found themselves as the foot of the steps that led up to the ropes. There a group of monks grabbed them and forced them forward. The men, cowed and broken, gave the bare minimum of resistance as they were beaten and slapped on the way up. It wasn't until they arrived on the top of the scaffolding that the first one pushed back as he caught sight of the nooses and the two large masked men waiting for them. He tried to force his way down the steps but the executioners ran forward and dragged him back kicking and screaming whilst the monks that had come up with the men formed a barrier behind the other four, stopping them from trying the same action.

The man was dragged to the furthest noose and forced to the floor. His hands and feet were tied and a hessian sack placed over his head. As the executioners raised him to his feet, muffled prayers could be heard coming from inside the sack. He started to tremble uncontrollably as the noose was placed around his neck and nearly buckled when one of the executioners hit him in the stomach before walking away laughing. The process was repeated four more times until all five men were standing, hooded and trembling, in a row.

By now the road was full and the horsemen were riding at the front of the crowd in an effort to herd them into the ever decreasing space. Eventually, when they had filled every possible recess and cavity and couldn't fit any more in, a hush descended on the crowd.

A tall man, dressed in a long dark robe, had appeared
on the scaffold and was walking slowly to the loose chains that ran along the outside. As he dropped his hood, revealing a shock of grey-white hair, he raised his hands and the low murmur descended to a fearful stillness.

“Grainger!” Father Eamon's face darkened as he watched the man take in the crowd below him.

“You know him?”

“Stephen Grainger. He was the Bishop of Winchester. Rumour has it he was partial to getting his hands dirty when it came to extracting confessions. I had heard he was here but didn't want to believe it.”

Both men watched as this man placed his hands on the scaffold and gave the crowd a cold look.

His chipped and broken fingernails extended out in a shallow arc and caused the woodwork of the scaffold balcony to splinter as his knuckles went pale and taut around the handrail.

“You all know why you have been brought here.” His voice was thin and reed-like, his rakish frame belying the authority that everyone around bestowed upon him. “You have been less than helpful in finding the woman we require, so a lesson in acquiescence would appear to be in order.”

The man turned to the five men before looking towards a door that led into the gaol and nodding. Four monks staggered out, struggling under the weight of two large wooden buckets. Each one had a large ladle sticking out of it and a dull black rim sat around the lip. The monks dropped the buckets on the wooden floor in front of the condemned and proceeded to stir the contents. The men, unsure what was going on, started to get restless until a heavy punch in each of their lower backs by the executioners caused them to dip their knees.

One of the monks dragged its bucket over to the man
nearest to the door and proceeded to raise the ladle to his legs. A thick black liquid oozed onto the mans body and he started to twist and turn in a panicked attempt to get away but it was no good, all that happened was that he lost his footing and the noose took hold. His gurgling soon caused the other men to forget their fear of the executioners. They tried to force themselves free of their binds but they were tied fast and weren't going anywhere.

Father Eamon looked down for a second and groaned, “Tar. They are going to burn them while they hang.”

Father Henry closed his eyes, “Just when you think you have seen everything this realm has to offer. Is there anything we can do?”

“Nothing. They will burn regardless of what we do. At least we now know what they do not. She is amongst them.”

Father Henry looked up at these words, “How do you know?”

Father Eamon smiled “Because if she was outside, she would have found a rooftop to watch this from and I would have seen her by now.”

After five minutes the men's legs were completely covered by the tar, the pungent smell drifting across the road and slowly tickling their noses. The tall man turned first to the executioner and then to the monks that had forced the men up the stairs. On cue, they produced wooden torches from under their cloaks and proceeded to dip them in the nearest bucket. The tall man raised his right arm and the torches burst into flame.

The crowd started to baulk and the horsemen had to knock the people at the back forwards into the people ahead of them as a wave of fear swept over everybody there.

The tall man turned to the crowd, “All I ask is for the location of the one they call Elliott. She shall be cleansed
and it is in everybody's interest here that they hand her over!” The man's voice was calm but his hands trembled in front of them. “If we receive news of this woman, then these men will walk free. If, however, the information is not forthcoming they will burn. You have two hours.”

He turned on his heels and was followed off the scaffold by the monks and executioners, leaving the men to stand, trembling, on their own.

Father Eamon looked at Father Henry. The two men stayed silent for a few seconds before Father Eamon drew breath.

“This is a problem, there are more horsemen than I would have hoped for and I haven't seen them out before dark in a long time. If we are careful then we should be able to get to Emma without them seeing us.”

Father Henry shook his head in response. “That is what I was going to tell you. The sewer had collapsed when we got there. The tunnel is blocked off.” His gaze turned to the door that Stephen Grainger had just entered the gaol by. “She will have to come out over there.”

Emma had spent nearly an hour looking at the woman hanging limply from the wall.

She had managed to get herself closer to the woman by flitting from column to column. All the time she stuck to the shadows she was relatively safe but now she was less than twenty feet from the old woman and if she was going to get any closer, she would have to expose herself as she moved over the open ground. Emma looked around, searching for anybody that may be about to come along. When she was confident that she was alone, she
looked up and waited for the bridges to clear. There was movement on the ones further up but it was the two that sat closest to the ground she worried about. From there anybody walking across had an unobstructed view of the tower and everything surrounding it. When she was satisfied they were empty, Emma dashed from her hiding place and raced over to where the woman was.

On closer inspection Emma realised that she had underestimated the woman's appearance. She was ancient, her skin blotched with liver spots and even in the darkness of this place she could see that it was stretched and grey. Her clothes were rags that had holes torn in to them for a head and two arms. The woman's limp grey hair blended with her skin and Emma started to doubt whether this could ever have been her friend.

Emma stifled a desperate cry as she looked at the woman's arms. They were a patchwork of scars and the manacles that fixed her wrists to the chains had worn them through to the bone. She looked for any signs of life but the woman seemed to be dead to the world. Her head hung down and she seemed oblivious to her surroundings but her mouth moved ever so slightly as silent words made their way out. The rags she wore had stuck to her skin where blood had soaked through and Emma felt tears start to well up in her eyes as she saw the striations across her waist where the skin had broken and healed. The woman's breathing was ragged. Her chest rose and fell in an uneven cadence and it seemed like every breath would be her last.

Emma suddenly felt very exposed; she looked around at the surrounding columns and bridges, worrying that she would be seen at any second by passing monks. The low level roar in the background covered the sound of anybody
coming by and Emma found herself spinning round like a startled rabbit at the slightest noise until she was almost a nervous wreck.

She was just about to head over to the safety of the far wall, when the woman raised her head. She opened her mouth in a haggard and toothless smile and Emma had to look away as the release of foul breath hit her.

“Emma. You came.”

The words were low and pained but they were followed by feeble smile.

“Is that really you? After all this time? It's been so long.”

Emma cried despite herself, she covered her mouth as much to hide her feelings from Taryn as to disguise the noise and let out a series of gasping sobs. She raised a trembling hand and touched the cheek of her friend but try as she might, she couldn't accept that this frail, old woman was Taryn.

“They told me you'd never come. That you'd forgotten me but I always knew you'd come.”

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.” There could be no doubting now that this was Taryn but the beautiful, vivacious woman Emma had known had long since disappeared and now it hurt her beyond words to see what had become of her, “I'm going to get you out.”

Taryn smiled but the look on her face was one of resignation. “There is no escaping here, Em. They always put me here on my own as a punishment for trying when I first arrived. This place is like a warren.”

“Oh, baby, what did they do to you?” Angry tears ran down Emma's face. The response was a pained look from Taryn as her eyes flicked back down to the floor.

“Things. I…I don't want to say.”

Taryn's voice faltered and Emma hated herself for asking. She looked up at the chains that held Taryn's arms
to the wall. All the time she had been circling in the shadows; she had been trying to work out how she would get her loose from her shackles. As she hid herself from the second set of monks that had passed an idea had formed in her head and now as she looked around for the next ones to arrive, she told it to Taryn. As she did so, a faint, hopeful smile crossed the old woman's face.

By the time they reached the ground level, the dark horsemen had managed to force even more residents in to the Old Bailey. From here the gallows intimidated and terrorised in equal measure. Father Eamon moved along the cobbles, keeping himself tight to the wall with Father Henry just behind. The horsemen were too concerned with the crowd to notice the two guides slipping away.