The Maidservant and the Murderer (6 page)

Nor had the godly's efforts to transform the city stopped with churches, for they also sought to reform the churchgoers and to drive both sin and sinners from the city. In this matter, I found myself of two minds. I could not deny that a magistrate who suppressed vice did God's work; who but the devil would defend adultery and Sabbath-breaking? And if a sermon could save one of York's maidens from falling into bastardy, it was well preached. But from the beginning it seemed to me that some among the godly would take their reformation further and faster than seemed prudent. I had no quarrel with those who would punish fornicators or brawlers, but their interference in harmless pastimes such as playing at bowls, which I quite enjoyed, seemed to do more harm than good. God would not damn me for my bowling or my silk skirts—as some of the wilder clergy claimed—any more than He would damn the goldsmiths for loaning money to the city.

When Martha and I entered my home, Hannah met us at the door. Hannah had been with me for more than twenty years, since I was a girl in Hereford. She had seen me married and widowed twice, and attended me upon the birth and burial of both my children. I could not wish for a more constant and faithful servant. But Hannah was growing old, so Martha's arrival had come as a relief, as she shared Hannah's household duties and assisted me in my midwifery. By now, she and Martha had become close. As I listened to the two of them chatting in the kitchen while they prepared supper, my mind drifted to the day Martha had appeared at my door just over a year before.

She had slipped into York even as Parliament's armies laid siege to the city, and claimed that she had been a servant for my cousin in Hereford. When she produced a letter testifying to her honesty and diligence, I took her in. I should have been more suspicious of her, of course. How many young women could evade two different armies and sneak into a walled city? Not long after she arrived, the truth about Martha's past began to come out. While Martha
had
come from Hereford, she'd never served my cousin. Rather, she had fled a lecherous and abusive master only to fall in with her brother, a notorious housebreaker and highwayman. She came to York in order to escape the criminal life into which he'd lured her, but she brought with her the skills of a burglar and cutpurse.

These were not abilities she needed often, but they proved useful the previous year when my friend Esther Cooper was wrongly accused of petty treason for the crime of murdering her husband. The Lord Mayor demanded her conviction to show the fate that awaited all those who “rebelled against their natural lords” (as he put it), and the city council, including my brother-in-law, Edward, obliged, sentencing my friend to burn. I was horrified at such an injustice, so Martha and I took upon us the task of finding the real murderer. Our search led us from the city's most dangerous and disreputable brothel to the parlor of its most powerful man, and might have killed the both of us, had it not been for Martha's “special skills.” In the end, Ellen went free and Martha became my deputy.

I don't know if Martha ever regretted her decision to pursue a more respectable life, but she had proven herself a capable apprentice, and I knew that in time she would be a fine midwife. What struck me most when I considered the past year was that despite the difference in our ranks, which could hardly have been greater, we'd become fast friends. I would have thought such a transformation impossible, but the dangers we'd faced together as we hunted for a vicious murderer and the hours we'd spent together talking about childbirth had acted as a philosopher's stone, turning a maidservant and her mistress into comrades.

My reverie was broken by someone rapping urgently at my door.

“Hannah!” a voice called out. “Martha, Aunt Bridget, open the door!”

I recognized the voice of my nephew Will, and rushed to see what was the matter. I opened the door and he tumbled in, slamming the door behind him. Without a word, and barely slowed by the cane he used to walk, Will rushed past me into the parlor and peered between the curtains onto the street.

“Will!” I cried. “What in heaven are you doing?” He didn't answer but continued staring intently out the window. “Will!”

“It's all right, Aunt Bridget,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder and I saw that he had been fighting again. His left eye would soon be swollen shut, and a trickle of blood oozed from a cut on his forehead.

“For God's sake, Will, what is going on? Who is after you?”

Will laughed derisively and I could smell the liquor on his breath. “Who isn't? The sons of bitches who hit me from behind, the churchwardens seeking Sabbath-breakers, the beadle trying to find whoever brawled in the alehouse … it could be any of them. It looks like they lost the trail, so there's nothing for you to worry about.” He turned away from the window and walked past me. “Do you have any wine? I'm not drunk enough yet.”

Also by Sam Thomas

The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery

The Harlot's Tale: A Midwife Mystery

About the Author

SAM THOMAS teaches history at University School near Cleveland, Ohio. He has received research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newberry Library, and the British Academy. He has published academic articles on topics ranging from early modern Britain to colonial Africa. Thomas lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his wife and two children.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE MAIDSERVANT AND THE MURDERER.
Copyright © 2013 by Samuel Thomas. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

Cover photograph © John Foley / Arcangel Images

e-ISBN 9781466850439

First Edition: December 2013