The Crimson Lady (28 page)

Will scowled, and Braedan heard the mumblings among the outlaws increase as they exchanged looks with one another. Irritation filled him.
Damn the wretch for trying to stir the pot like this.
He’d wanted to avoid addressing Draven directly again, but it seemed he’d have no choice, unless he wanted an open rebellion of outlaws on his hands.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he called over the hum of dissent his uncle’s claim had provoked. Giving Fiona’s hand a squeeze, he stepped away from her and walked to where Will and Rufus held Draven, pausing when he stood right in front of his uncle. The room fell mostly silent again, everyone waiting to hear what the man who’d led them in plotting the attack would say.

“I can assure you that my messenger is not in prison. He never has been, nor is he likely ever to be. In fact, the authorities will be more likely to come at
his
call than they would at yours, Draven, considering some of the trouble you’ve caused around the city with your bribes and corruption.” Braedan stared at his uncle, meeting his icy gaze with the stoniness of his own. “You see the man I sent to London comes from a long line of king’s justices, well respected for their honor and integrity. No alderman, sheriff, or mayor in England would think to
turn him away unheard—because he is a de Cantor. I sent my brother Richard. So let me hear no more of your idle threats, Draven. It is clear that you try only to save your own skin, and such behavior is unbecoming in a man of your position.”

Draven kept silent, though his mouth looked as tight and his face was sharp with resentment, as if he had tasted something bitter. But some of the outlaws who’d been disgruntled at Draven’s original warnings remained unconvinced by Braedan’s explanation, and the rumblings of discontent increased.

“Why in hell are we waitin’ for the law to show here anyway?” someone bellowed from the crowd. “Truth be known, we’ve no assurance they won’t try to take us in along with Draven, when all’s said and done!”

“Aye!” another called. “They’ve no reason to show restraint with us.”

“I say we get on with it and hold a trial of our own, lads,” Eustace Coterel shouted above the rest, and at the sound of his commanding, raspy voice, the room quieted again. Braedan felt Fiona slip into place beside him, tucking herself against him, as the Coterels’ leader stepped into a more open area near the front, where he could be seen better. “The law ain’t to be trusted, I say. The likes o’ him,” he added, jerking his thumb in Draven’s direction, “will make sure that any panel set up to judge him will be thick with boughten men. ’Tis high time we had a turn ourselves! I say we form a jury of our own, with either de Cantor or else Folville—who was a peer o’ the realm before he were an outlaw—servin’ as chief justice to pass judgment on the mighty Lord Draven here and now!”

A resounding swell of cheers echoed through the hall.
Draven paled, but Braedan waited until the men had quieted a bit, his heart torn between a desire to see Draven pay for his crimes and his knowing that staging a mock trial would bode ill for them all.

Finally, he spoke, commanding their attention with his voice. “By now you all know well that I cherish no affection for the man we hold here today. That he deserves to be tried and prosecuted for his crimes is unquestionable, and yet I also know that taking the law into our own hands would be unwise, unless we want our actions viewed as little more than the wild deeds of men who hold no respect for true and timely justice. I cannot support such a trial for that reason.”

“The rest o’ the world thinks nothin’ of takin’ the law into its own hands when it comes to our kind, de Cantor,” Coterel spat, glowering. “Any citizen apprehendin’ an outlaw can execute him without trial and receive no punishment for it under the
law
, by God! I say to hell with it. Let’s do it our way.”

“Wait, Eustace,” Will called through the rising clamor for justice. “I’ve no love for the bastard either, but Braedan’s right—we planned all along to hold Draven for the ransom of a fair hearin’ and trial in the king’s court for his crimes, nothin’ less. The sheriff will be here soon, and—”

“The sheriff’s comin’ is all the more reason to get on wi’ it now,” Coterel growled. “Since de Cantor’s taken himself out, I put forth the name of Clinton Folville for chief justice of this trial—and ask among you men, who will serve on the jury to be hearin’ it?”

From the cheers, shouting and scuffling that broke out at that, it was clear that there would be no preventing this, Braedan realized grimly. He held Fiona against him,
protecting her from the shoving and jostling of the crowd as someone reached out and grabbed Draven from Will’s grip, hauling him, gape-mouthed, to stand behind a table at the makeshift court that was being hastily constructed underneath one of the hall’s great stone arches. Twelve men were soon lined up to the side of him, with Clinton stepping forward to direct the proceedings.

“This is a travesty,” Draven said incredulously, looking around him. “None of you have the authority to—”

“Is the jury prepared to hear the list of crimes leveled against this man?” Clinton intoned loudly, cutting off Draven’s complaint.

“Aye,” the motley group answered, more or less in unison.

“Very well,” Clinton continued, pacing in front of Draven’s table, his hands behind his back, to stand opposite the jury of outlaws. “For the crime of persecution of those in his shire, leading to seizure of lands and fortune, along with branding as fugitives to the crown, are there any present who wish to speak of Kendrick de Lacy, Lord Draven’s guilt?”

“Aye!” a man in a tattered coat cried out from the back of the crowd. “’Twas Draven ’imself took possession of half me livestock and so much of me grain that I couldn’t feed what was left. When I couldn’t pay me taxes because of it, he took the rest, then had me named an outlaw!”

“He did the same to me, as well,” said an older man, holding a crumpled toque in his hands and looking a bit anxious.

“And me!” came another shout, followed by a half dozen others who called out similar tales of Draven’s corruption and greed.

When the furor had ebbed, Clinton rocked back on his heels, his expression solemn. “I, myself, have cause against Lord Draven as well,” he said loudly. “It was at his bidding that I lost my family’s lands and estate, taken by the crown when Draven falsified a report he gave during an inquest into a deadly brawl with which I was involved.” Looking around the chamber when he was done speaking, Clinton said, “Now, then, are there any others here wishing to speak in Lord Draven’s defense?”

The room nearly echoed with silence.

“Very well. Men of the jury, how say you to these charges?”

The outlaw jury clustered together for a moment, the rumbling of their voices evident until they finally stepped away from each other to line up again. The man at the end nearest Draven called out, “Guilty!”

Clinton nodded. “On to the next charge. For the excessive and brutal punishments of those sentenced under his jurisdiction, including the maiming and death of children, does anyone wish to speak?”

“Aye, I’ll speak,” called old Grady, stepping from the cluster of men around Will. “I know ’twas at Draven’s orders that me adopted lad, Nate, were shot in the leg with a crossbow bolt for poachin’ some three week past. He woulda died, too, were it not fer this fair lady here,” he said gruffly, nodding toward Fiona.

“Nate only took a bit o’ venison every now and again to help stave off the Reaper. He be no more’n twelve years, but he knows the ways of Draven’s cruelty. When he saw Draven’s foresters after him, he ran. ’Twas either that or risk havin’ his hand cut off, like he knew Draven did to Thomas Flinder last month, fer no more than takin’ a bit o’ bread from Digby’s bakeshop.”

Several others from the crowd added their stories to Grady’s, many of the outlaws showing the jury their own scars and mutilations, some given by Draven’s own hand.

When they were all finished, and no one spoke in Draven’s defense for the charge, Clinton stepped up and spoke again. “Men of the jury, what say you to this charge against Lord Draven?”

The consultation took even less time before they reached a conclusion. “Guilty!” they echoed again.

“For the next charge, then,” Clinton intoned, walking slowly in front of the “courtroom” with his hands clasped at the small of his back, “the abuse of rank and station in the capture, forced seduction, and sale of innocent women into the brothels of the Southwark
stewes
…” Clinton’s gaze flicked to Fiona. “…and for the continued use of said women in repeated and unwilling acts of carnal sin, are there any to speak out to these charges?”

“I’ll speak to it,” one of the Folville men called out hoarsely. “Draven stole my daughter away and ruined her, makin’ her think she’d have a future with him. She died in the
stewes
of Southwark near five year ago, now.”

“Aye, my sister was seduced into shame by him last year,” said another.

“My sister died o’ the pox after he lured her to work in one of his brothels eight years ago,” a red-nosed man—one of Clinton’s men—added, his haunted gaze fixed on Draven. “Then he had me branded an outlaw when I tried to bring ’im up on charges for it. He’s got the juries in these parts all bought out in ’is favor, he does.”

Braedan called out, his voice hard and implacable, “I will add that Lord Draven is responsible for the forced seduction and death of my foster sister, Elizabeth Haversom. She died bearing a child whose conception was forced on her through the shameful existence into which she was sold.”

After a moment’s silence, Clinton looked to Fiona. “And you, lady?” he asked. “Have you anything further to add to the charges against Lord Draven?”

Fiona paused, and Braedan could feel her trembling; he gave her hand an encouraging squeeze, which she returned before stepping forward to address the chamber, “Only that the charges stated against him in regards to his use of women are true in my experience. I was just fifteen when Draven purchased me and made me into the Crimson Lady. By my accounts, at least fourscore women were bought by him during the years I spent under his control, with at least a score of them perishing, including Mary Gilbert, Janet de Barkin, and Margaret Wylughby, as a direct result of the childbearing or disease brought upon them through the work they were forced by Draven to undertake in the
stewes
.”

A sober quiet settled over the chamber; even Draven had remained uncharacteristically silent through the entire proceedings, though his expression was black and his demeanor haughtily dismissive of the entire process against him. When no one else stepped forward to speak for or against Draven, Clinton looked to the jury again, asking, “All right then, men, what say you to these charges?”

“Guilty!” came the answer a third time, after almost no deliberation.

“Christ Almighty, man, ’tis enough to condemn the
bastard a dozen times over already!” Eustace Coterel called from the edge of the crowd of outlaws observing the court. “There’s no need to call out any more of ’is crimes. Let’s just hang ’im from ’is own battlements and be done with it!”

A clamor of support arose at that, louder than any of the rest that had come before, and the crowd surged forward, nearly knocking over Braedan, Fiona, Will, and the others from the Singleton gang who’d hung back with them.

“What do we do now?” Fiona called to Braedan over the noise, still clinging to him as the mass of outlaws shoved and shifted forward in their quest to hang Draven.

“There’s not much we can do. They seem bent on having their justice,” he yelled back, holding her tightly as he balanced them against the push of the crowd, trying at the same time to see what was happening at the front of the mob where Draven had been. The tide of men had surrounded him and swept him up, it seemed, carrying him bodily toward the spiral stone staircase Braedan knew led to the crenellated walls above the keep.

Looking back to Will and his men, he shouted, “We may not be able to stop them, but let’s see if we can at least try to slow them down.”

Will nodded, and they pushed into the throng, Braedan leading the way, holding tightly to Fiona, and followed by Rufus, Grady, and the others a little behind. Soon they burst into the cooler air of the outdoors, the battlements lit with the fiery hues of the setting sun. The crowd of men surged and parted as Eustace and several of his gang dragged Draven toward the nearest wall,
jumping up onto the small ledge just below the top edge of the wall, hauling a struggling Draven up onto it as well, before forcing him farther up onto the narrow space between the jutting, squared crenellations.

Braedan saw him sway a little as he caught a glimpse of the dizzying distance between himself and the ground, his eyes widening, until one of the Coterels yanked him back to a more stable footing.

“You can’t do this!” Draven yelled, beginning to struggle again as another man emerged from the keep’s stairwell with a thick rope in his grip, brandishing it like a flag as he stalked toward the self-appointed executioners. “The king will have your heads on stakes for this!” Draven continued to shriek, his voice cracking with fear as he nearly tipped again, trying to elude the noose they looped over his head before tying the other end firmly over one of the foot-high chunks of stonework that projected up from the top edge of the wall.

“Braedan, we have to do something!” Fiona cried softly, gripping his hand, her gaze fixed with horror on the dark proceedings taking place in front of them. “If we let them hang him like this, any chance you may have for gaining the king’s official pardon—for getting your life back—will be lost!”

“Aye,” he admitted, the grim truth of it resounding through him more loudly than the shouting mob. “You’re likely right. Yet other than trying to take on all of these outlaws together myself, I do not know what I can do to stop them. They will not hear reason.”

Fiona was quiet for a long moment before she said resolutely, “Then perhaps they will hear me.”

Before he knew what she was about, Fiona pulled away from him, ignoring his shouted caution against it,
delving into the crowd and pushing her way to the front. He lurched into motion behind her, her smaller form slipping with greater ease through the throng, so that he reached her only as she burst into the empty semicircle just in front of the impromptu place of execution. She turned to stand almost directly below Draven’s boots and the men who held him in preparation to throw him from the walls to hang.