Their eyes swivelled to where Mrs Atkinson stood and took in the fact that although her clothes were dirty, there were no bloodstains.
‘She is a woman, gentlemen. God made woman to serve man and accordingly he made her weaker, more timorous and less apt to violence. Is it believable she could have cut her own husband’s throat, a dreadful crime and against all nature, and then gone downstairs immediately, spoken with her daughter, set a tray with breakfast, and gone up again? Of course not. Even if she could have done it, why should she? She is not mad nor melancholy. Even if she was such a wicked Jezebel as to turn against her rightful lord, why should she do it in such a way that she was bound to be suspected?’
Apart from Thomas Lowther, whom Cicero himself could not possibly have convinced, the other gentlemen were looking encouragingly puzzled.
‘Well, gentlemen, although I cannot claim to be a learned lawyer, I did finally bring myself to ask the lawyer’s question, cui bono? Who benefits? Who could possibly benefit from James Atkinson’s death? And in particular, who could benefit from the manner of it? The very bloody manner of it which guaranteed that Mrs Atkinson would be accused of the crime of petty treason and would most likely burn.’
He paused impressively to let them think about it and a tiny thought darted through his mind like a silver fish that here was a surprise, the world could be focused down to an intoxicating point of intensity outside a card game or a battlefield. For a second he was intrigued and happy and then he turned his attention back to the jury.
‘Cui bono?’ he said again. ‘Well, gentlemen, it’s important you know that in a case of proven murder, the murderer’s property goes to the victim’s family.’
Lancelot Carleton was frowning at him. ‘Yes, gentlemen. Mr Atkinson’s death would normally mean that Mrs Atkinson inherited his goods and property, including the house where they lived. However, if she was arraigned and burned as his murderer, neither she nor her children could enjoy the gain. Instead, all the property would pass to Mr Atkinson’s family. In this case, to Mrs Matilda Leigh, née Atkinson, his half-sister, and of course, her husband Mr John Leigh, draper, and their next-door-neighbour.’
It was terribly satisfying to listen to all the gasps around him. Carey swept his glance around the packed marketplace, took in Scrope who had his fingers interlaced and a surprised expression on his face, and Edward Aglionby whose expression was very intent and then went back to the jury who were staring at him with their mouths open.
‘Your honour,’ he said to the Coroner. ‘May I call first Mr Leigh, then Julia Coldale, maidservant to Mrs Atkinson, and then return to Mr Leigh?’
Aglionby wanted to hear the story too. He nodded immediately.
John Leigh reluctantly took the oath.
‘Mr Leigh,’ said Carey, pointedly putting his hat back on his head. ‘Is it true that you have a long-running lawsuit in Chancery over the ownership of Mr James Atkinson’s town house?’
Leigh looked from side to side and nodded.
‘Speak up, please.’
‘Ay,’ he said with an effort. ‘It’s true.’
‘Is it true that the case was costing you a great deal of money you could ill-afford, but you wanted the house in order to expand your business and your family into it?’
‘Ay,’ muttered Leigh.
‘Your wife was estranged from her half-brother; the lawsuit made things worse, especially when the young lawyer the Atkinsons had retained then married the daughter of the judge in the case and might have gained from that a great deal of influence.’
Leigh nodded again, caught himself and said, ‘Ay. I cannot deny it, sir.’
‘Thank you, that’s all for the moment. Mr Bell, will you call Julia Coldale?’
The girl came slowly forwards, leaning on Philadelphia’s solicitous arm, and despite the obvious pain in her throat, enjoying herself. So was Philadelphia, Carey saw, despite her serious expression.
Carey had Julia stand close to the jury so they could hear her, and also see the marks on her throat.
Julia said she was a cousin of Kate Atkinson’s and she was serving her to learn houswifery. The sun was high overhead by now and the heat causing sweat to trickle down Carey’s spine.
‘What happened early on Monday morning, Miss Coldale?’ he asked the girl.
Julia coughed, took a deep breath. ‘A man stopped me in the street when I was going to Mrs Atkinson’s house—I live with my sister in Carlisle, sir—and he asked would I do him a favour for five shillings and I said I wasnae that kind of woman, and he said no, it was only to open a window shutter in the Atkinsons’ bedroom, so he could throw a message in.’
She spoke slowly and huskily and leaned a little forward to Carey.
‘Who was the man?’
As he asked the question there was a sound behind Carey, tantalisingly familiar and yet out of place, not quite the whip of a bow, more a…
The small crossbow bolt sprouted like an evil weed, a little above and to the side of Julia Coldale’s left breast. She jerked, looked down and stared, put her hand up uncertainly to touch the black rod, then slid softly to the cobblestones.
The marketplace erupted. Over the shouting and screaming and the open-mouthed astonishment of the jury, half of whom instinctively had their swords out, Carey caught Aglionby’s eye. The man was astonished, swelling with outrage, but he wasn’t panicking.
‘Mr Mayor, shut the gates,’ Carey said to him, quite conversationally under the din, knowing the different pitch would get through to him when a shout would be lost.
Aglionby nodded once, was on his feet and up the steps to the market cross.
There was a thunk! beside him and Carey turned to see a crossbow bolt stuck into the table wood quite close by. Is he shooting at me or the Mayor, he wondered coldly, moving back. Scrope was also on his feet, sword out, looking about him for the sniper as aggressively as a man with no chin could. The trouble with crossbows was that they made very little sound, didn’t smoke and didn’t flash.
The towncrier’s bell jangled from the market cross.
‘Trained bands o’ Carell city,’ boomed the Mayor’s voice and some of the noise paused to hear him speak. ‘Denham’s troop to Caldergate, Beverley’s troop to Scotchgate, Blennerhasset’s troop to Botchergate, close the gates; we’ll shut the City. At the double now, lads, run!’
One of the jurors had already run up the steps and was ringing the townbell. Moments later the Cathedral bell answered it. Three bodies of the men-at-arms around the marketplace peeled off and ran in three different directions.
Another bolt twanged off the stone cross beside Aglionby and he gasped and flinched, but stayed where he was.
‘Sir Robert,’ he called. ‘D’ye ken the name o’ the man makin’ this outrage?’
‘Jock Burn,’ said Carey instantly.
‘Ay, a Scot. I might have known,’ said Aglionby with hereditary distaste. ‘Hue and cry for Jock Burn,’ he bellowed. ‘Mr Leigh’s servant.’ And he turned and glared at his erstwhile fellow guildsman.
Dodd had come up behind Carey who was still trying to calculate where the bolts were coming from. Most of the jurors had taken cover in the hall. The men-at-arms were commendably still surrounding the group of prisoners, though looking nervous.
‘Shut the Castle?’ he asked.
‘Send up to Solomon Musgrave,’ Carey began, ‘but he’s to let him in and…’
The tail of the bolt stuck in the table pointed directly back at the house covered in scaffolding. With a prickle in his neck Carey finally worked it out as a renewed shrieking broke from that direction, people streaming away from it in fear.
The woman with the withered arm—Maggie Mulcaster—came staggering through the crowd, bleeding and crying.
Behind her was a man on horseback, coming cautiously out of a yard-wynd, a crossbow aimed at her back. In front of him on the horse’s withers sat Mary Atkinson, crying busily. Jock Burn cuffed her left-handed over the ear and snarled, and she ch
oked back the tears.
‘He’s taken her,’ gasped Maggie. ‘He’s got Mary. He says he willna kill her if ye let him through the gate.’
Jock had even found the time to raid Mrs Atkinson’s platechest, judging by the clanking lumpy bag slung at the back of his saddle, no doubt while he was lying low in the locked house.
In the distance they heard the booms as the Scotchgate and Botchergate were shut and barred. Carey could see the whiteness of Jock Burn’s teeth.
‘If ye think Ah willna kill the little maid, Ah will,’ shouted Jock. ‘Ye cannae hang me mair than once.’
The boom was softer from Caldergate because it was furthest away. The lift of Jock’s shoulder showed he had heard it.
Carey stepped forwards, his hands held away from his sides, away from his swordhilt.
Jock turned a little, so the bolt was aimed at Carey’s chest now. He didn’t need to explain what would happen if anyone tried to rush him. At the back of his mind Carey wondered why his stomach muscles were contracted so hard when they couldn’t stop a bolt.
‘Come nae closer, Deputy,’ Jock warned.
Carey stopped. He has one shot, he thought, he can’t wind up a crossbow on horseback, but he can break the little girl’s neck with one blow. She was staring at Carey with enormous eyes. Somebody was shouting, screaming from the bunch of men-at-arms and suspects behind him, a woman’s voice. He wasn’t sure what she said; he thought it might be Kate Atkinson’s voice.
Then another voice reached him, sharp with London vowels and lost consonants.
‘I got a cuttle for the co; you get the kinchin.’
Some part of him which had picked up a smattering of thieves’ cant from Barnabus got ready to move, the tension tightening in his chest and back. Jock kicked his horse, one of the jurors’ no doubt, and moved sideways away from them, the horse prancing and shifting nervously, as its rider put pressure on ready to gallop to the Scotchgate.
Carey watched, praying Barnabus wouldn’t leave it too late, waiting, changing his mind about what to do.
The horse pecked and at once there was a cry of ‘Gip!’ from Barnabus and a soft sound in the air.
No time to see where the knife went.
Carey launched himself across the cobbles, heard the metallic twang of the crossbow, no time even to know if he’d been hit because he was at Jock’s stirrup, catching Mary’s kirtle with his left hand, the stirrup and boot with his right, jerking down with one hand, up with all his strength with the other, Jock going over the horse’s back one way, little Mary falling squealing towards him, catching her by his fingertips tangled in her kirtle and hair, putting her behind him, shouting, ‘Run to your mam!’
Still squealing, she ran. Jock had hit the ground on the other side of the horse, which swayed back and forwards, panicking, in Carey’s way and finally reared and galloped off away from the crowds, nearly kicking him in the face as it did so. Then he saw that Jock was up again, sprinting for the Scotchgate, long knife in one hand, eating knife in the other, a bright splash of blood on his arm, not serious—not like Barnabus to miss, but it had been a fiendishly difficult shot.
Carey was already after him. Jock’s short legs were a blur; he had a good nippy speed on him, but Carey had height and was using his greater length of stride now he had got moving. Dodd was on the chase as well, guttural shouts of ‘Tynedale!’ behind him, and the men at the gate running down towards them yelling ‘Carell’ in return.
Suppressing the urge to call ‘T’il est haut!’ as if he was on the hunting field, Carey dodged after Jock down a narrow alley between houses…
And almost charged straight onto Jock’s knife, lying in wait. He dodged at the last second, felt cloth part along his ribs, cannoned into a wattle and daub wall which gave alarmingly and then used its spring to launch himself back at Jock who was distracted by Dodd thundering in his wake.
He caught the little man by the shoulder and punched him hard enough in the face to send pain lancing all the way up his own arm. Jock staggered, shook his head and came back at him. Dodd swung with his sword, tearing a long gash down Jock’s arm. Jock was snarling, the alley crowded behind them with enthusiastic helpers, especially now Jock was wounded, and a sudden voice said inside Carey, ‘No, this one’s mine.’
Later he claimed he would have preferred to hang the man but had thought that a living prisoner was always a danger to others who could be made hostage by his family. He might be bought out. He might escape. He might be torn apart by the crowd.
In fact, Carey had a cold white rage in his heart for a man who could shoot a redhead like Julia Coldale and use a little girl as his shield. That coldness carried him past the stabbing knife in Jock’s hand, knocking it unconcernedly aside, catching him by the front of his jerkin and pulling hard as he stabbed up leftwards into the man’s chest under his breastbone with the poignard he wasn’t even aware of drawing.
The blood came from Jock’s mouth, not the slender wound caused by the poignard. Carey found himself supporting the man’s weight one-handed and let him crumble to the muddy ground, twisting and pulling his blade out with that distinctive sticky sound.
Then the blood came, but mostly on the ground, not him. Carey stood there, hands bloody, lace cuffs bloody, knife bloody, chest heaving, and Dodd came over and watched dispassionately while Jock’s heels drummed and his eyes turned to frogspawn.
‘Ay,’ said Dodd with satisfaction, wiping his sword on a clean bit of Jock’s jerkin. Carey bent and did the same, feeling remote from his own hands and very tired, the way a killing rage always left him. He had never before knifed a man in an alley, though.
The Carlislers who had come to help cheered and slapped his back approvingly as he pushed his way out into Scotch street again. He smiled back, wishing they wouldn’t get in his way, picked up his hat which had fallen from his head as he ran and as he did so felt the cold draught and sting on his ribs which told him where Jock’s knife had passed and ruined his brand new (unpaid for) black velvet suit.
That brought him back to earth a little.
Thursday 6th July 1592, afternoon
Aglionby had adjourned the inquest for two hours and when the jury reconvened it was in the Mayor’s own bedroom, to which Julia Coldale had been moved. The surgeon came, saw, shook his head and went himself to fetch a priest.
The jurors gathered around her along with the Coroner himself, Scrope and Carey, while Philadelphia sat by the bed and looked curiously like a small sphinx in her gravity. It turned out she was the one who had given Barnabus her knife in the confusion when Jock rode out with Mary Atkinson. Now she was holding Julia’s hand. Julia’s back was arched, her breath bubbled and her red curls were dark with sweat: the surgeon had said he could not get the bolt out without cutting and as it was so close to her heart, he didn’t think she had a chance of living if he did.
Even in such extremis, even with his eyes stinging for pity at the pretty girl turned to dust so soon, Carey couldn’t help noticing how Julia’s eyes looked around at them, pleased they were there.
‘Do you want to give your testimony?’ asked Philadelphia. ‘Are you sure?’
The girl nodded, winced and began to speak breathily.
‘Jock Burn gave me five shillings for opening of Mr Atkinson’s shutters…’ whispered Julia. ‘An’ I did it. I didn’t know why he wanted to; I thought he might want to thieve the plate chest because he’s a Scot…’ She spoke arrhythmically, in long bursts of words interspersed with slow gasps as she caught up breath for the next effort. ‘…When the mistress came down wi’ all the sheets bloody I was afraid as I understood it then…but then I thought perhaps I could get my dowry by it, so I asked Jock if I could talk to…Mr Leigh and when I went to see him this morning, he tried to kill me rather than pay me…and now he’s done it, the stingy bastard.’
The next set of gasps for breath pained his ears to listen to them. Carey wondered remotely if there were any sort of death that didn’t hurt and then put the th
ought from him deliberately as undoubtedly leading to madness and melancholy. It occurred to him for the first time that she was a brave lass, for all her foolishness in trying to blackmail John Leigh.
‘Ay well,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll get a dove on me grave…’
A dove was the sign of a girl who died still virgin, and it seemed some girls found the thought romantic. Philadelphia had tears in her eyes. Sniffles sounded from a couple of the jurors.
Aglionby faced the jury.
‘I doubt she’ll say any more, gentlemen,’ he rumbled.
They took the hint and left her.
The inquest was reconvened at the market cross again, after Fenwick had come with his litter to collect Jock Burn’s body. Julia Coldale had not died yet, but was sure to do so that night or the next day, depending on how strong she was.
The jury filed soberly into their benches. Aglionby declared that the inquest was reopened; Carey faced the jury feeling unutterably weary, and called Mr John Leigh.
He said nothing and would not take the oath. Carey reminded him that the penalty for failing to plead at his trial was pressing to death and then, at the Coroner’s nod, began to speak.
‘John Leigh wanted the house next door to his own to expand into. Unfortunately, not only had his brother-in-law Jemmy Atkinson inherited it wrongfully, as he thought, he also refused to sell it. The Chancery case, as Chancery cases will, was taking years and costing a fortune. John Leigh was having money problems in other ways and he came up with an idea which was probably inspired by seeing the thatchers working on the scaffolding round his roof.
‘Mr Leigh decided to kill Jemmy Atkinson in such a way that Kate Atkinson was sure to be accused and convicted and so he and his wife would get her property. After she burned at the stake. For in fact, this is an attempt at a double murder, with his honour the Coroner and you yourselves, gentlemen, used as the weapon in the second, judicial murder.’
Carey paused and cleared his throat. As he had said to Elizabeth, he could orate if he had to: thank the Lord there was hardly any law involved here.
2 A Season of Knives Page 27