by Jason Vail
Stephen looked around for Walter Henle, the castle constable and sheriff’s senior representative in this part of the county. He spotted Henle still at table.
Stephen made his way through the crowd to the table. The buzz of conversation that had filled the hall dropped off and heads swiveled at his progress. Henle laughed as he drew up, a short sharp bark that sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
“Good God, man,” Henle said. “What happened to you?”
Stephen ignored the question and said, “I’m sorry, my lord, but I’ve got to spoil your hanging.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s been . . . a development.”
“A development? What are you talking about?”
“Another man has just confessed to the crime for which Peter Bromptone has been convicted.”
“What did you do, beat it out of him?”
“No.”
Henle’s mouth worked. “This is most unusual. I can’t stop his hanging without an order from Justice de Valence.”
“I’m afraid you must. I’ve taken it on my authority as deputy coroner to order a stay of execution.” Stephen handed Henle the writ.
Henle unrolled the parchment and read it. He looked up. “I’ve never heard of such a thing being done. This is out of order.”
“The crown can issue stays as well as it can pardons. I represent the crown in this matter.”
“You’re taking on rather more than your responsibility, young man. De Valence isn’t going to like this.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t accept the hanging of a man for a crime another has confessed to.”
Henle coughed and said slowly with what a cynic might have taken for sarcasm, “Yes, Valence is a man of justice.” He slapped the table. “Well, we’ve three others to dangle today, so the mob won’t be disappointed. I don’t suppose it matters if we hold back one. We can always hang him later.”
“I’d like him released to me.”
“No, he’ll stay in hold until the justice has had a chance to inquire. The final decision is his.”
“Bromptone has a right to bail.”
“And I’ll not grant it.”
“Sir!”
Henle grew angry. He thundered, “That’s my decision!”
Gilbert tugged at his sleeve. “You’ve got what you wanted. Don’t make things worse by arguing with him like this in public.”
Stephen bowed to Henle. “I’m sorry, my lord. By your leave.”
Both Stephen and Gilbert backed away, then turned and marched out of the hall.
In the sunshine of the inner bailey, Gilbert began chuckling.
“What are you laughing at?” Stephen said irritably.
“You and Henle. I thought he was going to burst when you asked for bail.”
“Well, I can do that, can’t I?”
“I suppose you can. You know, that’s going to be the biggest black eye I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen more than a few.”
“That’s hard to imagine for a man who’s led such a peaceful life.”
“Oh, not that peaceful, at least when I was a boy. Come on, let’s go tell Peter he’s a free man.”
“Not so free yet.”
“He will be, eventually. I’ve no doubt Valence will release him. He won’t love you for it, though.”
They crossed through the gate into the outer bailey.
The castle gaol used to be in one of the corner towers of the inner bailey, but some years ago it had been relocated to a wooden structure hugging the east wall. As they cut through the crowd, which was now substantial, Gilbert said, “You know, you’ve made enemies of two of the most powerful men in this part of the county, three if you count Fitzsimmons. Not bad for only a month on the job.”
“Do you think Sir Geoff will be angry?”
“I daresay. He likes things calm. But don’t worry about being discharged. It’ll blow over, and he’d rather have someone else do his work. Sir Geoff likes his meat pies more than work, especially our sort.”
The gaol had one door bearing a large iron latch and padlock and barred windows. The guard occupied a stool by the door. His job was to keep the curious away from the prisoners rather than to keep the prisoners in. He stood as they reached the door. He hesitated, uncertain whether to order them away, but Stephen was so obviously a knight, although a badly battered one, that he wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Can I help you, sirs?”
Gilbert said, “There’s been a change of plan. Bromptone isn’t to hang today. We’ve come here to tell him.”
“I’m not supposed to let anyone talk to the prisoners,” the guard said.
Gilbert drew himself up. It was like watching a bantam rooster reading for a fight. “This man is Stephen Attebrook, the deputy coroner. I don’t think you are in a position to refuse him.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“No offense taken, my good man. You may resume your seat.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Gilbert called through the little barred square in the door, “Peter! Peter Bromptone! Can you hear me?”
After a time, a muffled voice called back. “I hear you!” The voice broke, as if in a sob.
“This is Stephen Attebrook and Gilbert Wistwode. We’ve good news,” Gilbert called through the grill. “We’ve found Baynard’s killer! You’ll not be hanged today!”
“Oh, dear God!” Peter sobbed. “You must hurry! Amicia! She means to kill herself rather than live past this day! Find her! Hurry! Please hurry!”
“She said what?” Gilbert and Stephen shouted simultaneously.
“She was just here!” Peter called out from the dim recesses of the gaol. “The guard wouldn’t let her talk to me, but I heard her call out through the door. She said that we’d be together in Heaven this afternoon. I’m sure she means to kill herself!”
Stephen whirled about, his one good eye scanning the crowd. That one eye and a thundering headache that pounded with every beat of his heart made it impossible to see clearly. “You go to the right, I’ll take the left. We must find her!”
Gilbert nodded grimly and hurried away.
Stephen cast about as he strode quickly among the crowd, looking from one woman to another. The thought of Amicia’s beautiful face, still and pale in death, was chilling. More and more people were streaming though the gate to the town and the bailey was rapidly filling with people. It seemed as though the entire town had turned out for the hanging, which it probably had. Even apprentices had been given time off for the spectacle. But he did not see her.
He turned a full circle, frantic with worry.
Then a movement above on the wall caught his eye. A figure had just disappeared at the door to a tower that sat at the junction of the walls to the inner and outer baileys. It had not been a soldier’s figure, but a woman, fleetingly seen.
Stephen wasn’t sure. But he ran for the wooden steps leading up to the wall walk just the same.
Awkward and slow with his bad foot and weighted with mail, it seemed forever before he was at the foot of the stairs. He lumbered up them two at a time and rushed for the tower.
He nearly knocked down a soldier inside the tower.
“Was there a woman?” Stephen gasped. “Did you see her?”
The soldier gaped and pointed to the door to the right, which opened onto the wall of the inner bailey.
Stephen ran through the door. Just ahead, at the door to the old keep, a flurry of skirts were disappearing. Stephen ran into the keep.
No one was there on the floor he entered, but he heard the scraping of footsteps in the stairwell above. He struggled after them.
They led up and up. It seemed so far and he moved in slow motion.
At last, he emerged onto the roof. It was deserted, except for the woman. Even before she turned, he knew it was Amicia. Her rich brown hair carefully woven into a single braid that fell to her thighs, that proud but demure carriage, and that long neck were unmistakable.
“Amicia!�
�� he called out. “Wait.”
She half turned and hesitated as he started toward her. Then she jumped quickly to the parapet between two teeth of the crenelations.
“Don’t come any closer,” Amicia said. “I shall jump if you take another step.”
“Suicide is a sin, Amicia,” Stephen said. He edged half a step closer.
“God is forgiving,” she said. “He told me so last night.”
Stephen noticed that she had a small white cross, carved from bone, in her hands. “There is no need! I’ve found who killed Baynard! Peter won’t be hanged!”
She spat, “So you say. I’ve seen the way you look at me. You’d let him die, thinking you could have me when he’s gone.”
“Come see him now. You’ll know I’m not lying.”
Just then there was a roar from the crowd. A sheriff’s bailiff had unlocked the door to the gaol. Four prisoners rather than three emerged. Guards led them toward the scaffold. The thief struggled and had to be carried. The robbers capered, despite the fact their hands were bound behind them, accepting the screams of the crowd as if they were applause. Peter, who came last, stumbled as if in a daze.
Amicia regarded the spectacle with dull eyes. “So I see, Stephen. Yet there he is.”
Stephen pressed against the parapet. He shouted that there had been a mistake, that Peter was not supposed to hang. But the clamor from the crowd was so great that he could not be heard.
Indecision griped him. Events were moving so quickly that if he ran to save Peter, there was a good chance he would be too late. If he tried and failed, Amicia surely would throw herself off the tower. He could lose both of them. He couldn’t make up his mind what to do. The agony was overwhelming.
The four prisoners reached the scaffold. Stools had been placed for each of them beneath the nooses and they were lifted upon them. The nooses were put around their necks and tightened. Henle was there, his big square figure unmistakable. He spoke to the crowd, but though his lips moved the uproar was so constant that it was doubtful anyone could hear what he said.
A commotion roiled the crowd. Gilbert had seen the mistake and was forcing his way through, but the press was thick and no one wanted to yield his place. A bagpipe began to wail. Amicia drew closer to the edge. Her eyes were on Peter down below. Stephen crept closer to her, gathering himself for a lunge.
Henle gestured to one of his bailiffs, who kicked the stool from beneath the thief. The man dropped to the end of his rope and began to swing. His legs jerked and thrashed as he struggled against the noose. Henle gestured again, and the bailiff kicked the stool from beneath one of the robbers. He dropped and swung, thrashing in death like the thief. His brother watched his brother dying with a sneer on his face. He spat onto the face of the bailiff, who kicked the stool from beneath his feet without waiting for an order from Henle.
The bailiff moved to Peter.
Amicia gathered herself to leap.
Stephen was still three paces from her — an impossible distance. He took a step. She didn’t see him. Her eyes were on Peter. She was going to time her leap to the moment the bailiff kicked the stool.
Henle raised his hand.
Gilbert broke through the edge of the crowd. He caught Henle’s hand. He shouted into Henle’s ear. Henle shook him off and raised his hand again.
The bailiff kicked the stool, and Peter dropped to the end of his rope.
Amicia stepped into space.
Stephen dove and grasped her about the legs.
Her momentum nearly carried him with her. He halted their descent only by hooking his thighs against the edge of the wall. They both hung head down. Stephen’s head pounded so that he thought he might pass out.
For a moment, Amicia was still. Then she began to thrash and kick. He could not believe how heavy and strong such a slight girl could be. Stephen’s grip began to loosen. She slipped down, first an inch, then two, then another. He was going to lose her, and it must be fifty feet to the grass of the inner castle ditch. She could not survive such a fall.
A child at the rear of the crowd must have heard Amicia’s cries. The little girl tugged her mother’s sleeve, and pointed. The mother sounded the alarm, and people turned away from the hanging to watch the nearer spectacle, which was more odd and interesting. It wasn’t every day people got to see a girl hang upside down from a castle tower with her shirt falling about her head and her legs on full display.
Amicia got a leg loose and put the foot on Stephen’s shoulder. She pressed with all her might. Stephen caught the ankle as her other leg came free, then caught that ankle too.
He should have been able to haul up her now, but Stephen was so spent that he could not do it.
She was going to fall.
He had failed.
Then four men at the rear of the crowd ran forward with a blanket on which their family had been having a picnic. They held out the blanket beneath Amicia.
They shouted to Stephen to let her go.
It was a long way and they might miss.
He couldn’t hold on any longer. His fingers were numb.
He released her.
Amicia hung in space for a moment, as if suspended by an invisible wire. Then she plunged, slowly at first, gradually gathering speed. Her skirt flapped back about her legs, and the sound of the skirt snapping in the wind seemed to Stephen to be the only noise in the entire bailey, for the whole crowd had gone silent.
She struck the clot of men holding the blanket with an audible thump and they all collapsed in a heap.
Stephen pulled himself up and leaned on his arms against the wall. Amicia’s face was a blot as white as clean linen, then a wave of heads bending over her to provide aid obscured his view.
He looked to see what had become of Peter. To his relief, no body dangled at Peter’s place. Someone had cut him down. Gilbert was bulling his way through the throng toward the wall beneath Stephen, followed closely by the slender Peter, the noose still round his neck.
When Peter reached Amicia, the crowd drew back. He knelt by her.
“Amicia,” Peter croaked, “what have you done? Don’t die, for God’s sake, don’t die!”
“Ah,” she said. Stephen heard that much clearly. She touched Peter’s face. And smiled wanly.
Stephen failed to see or hear anything more, for his knees gave way and he sat down hard, nearly bumping his chin on the wall on the way down.
After a few moments, he got unsteadily to his feet and went down to the bailey.
Gilbert was waiting for him at the base of the wall. By the time Stephen reached him, a litter had been found for Amicia, and there were more than enough volunteers willing to carry her back to the Broken Shield. In the hubbub, Henle had forgotten to re-cage his prisoner, for Peter clutched her hand through the gate. What happened beyond that Stephen couldn’t see.
A few people remaining in the bailey clapped Stephen on the back and offered congratulations at his deed. They called him a hero, but he didn’t feel like one. There was no sense of triumph, no elation of victory that heroes must feel. There was only immense fatigue and relief that he had not failed after all, mingled with a twinge of dread over where he must stand now with Henle and Valence.
“I’ve put out the story that she slipped while watching the hanging,” Gilbert said. “It’s best left that way.”
Stephen nodded.
Gilbert took him by the arm and led him toward the gate to the inner bailey, where they’d left their horses. “Come along, my boy,” Gilbert said, “let’s get a plaster on you. You could frighten children with that face.”
“She’ll live, you think?”
“I expect so. Broke the arm of one of the men who caught her, but she’s broken nothing herself. She’s just badly shaken.”
“That’s good. I’m glad.”
“I wonder how Fitzsimmons is doing with that arm of his. I’m not sure it wasn’t broken after all.”
“Whiling his afternoon away till nightfall, I expect. He’ll b
e gone not long after it’s dark, I’m sure.”
Gilbert looked hard at Stephen. “You want him to run.”
Stephen shrugged.
Gilbert’s eyes narrowed even more. “No, it’s not Fitzsimmons, is it. But that boy, Edgar — why?”
Stephen looked uncomfortable. After a long pause, when it became clear that Gilbert would wait until sundown for an answer, he said, “I would have done the same thing in his place. It was feud. He had no choice.”
“That’s a devil of a way for an officer of the crown to behave!”
“A man who buries dead men in his latrine has no room for complaint.”
Gilbert shushed him. “Not so loud, for God’s sake!”
They reached their horses, which were still tethered to a post outside the hall’s front door. They mounted and rode into the outer bailey.
As they emerged onto High Street, Stephen said, “I think I’ll go for a bath. It’s been a whole week. Care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”