by Sean Gabb
Chapter Six
That got the crowd from its stillness. Main attention shifting from the coiner, people stepped sideways and back. The surgeons left off their preparatory bowing to the helpers. Knife in hand, the hangman himself reached down from the bar. The body landed with an untidy thud, and the constables hurried forward to surround it.
Sir John was looking again at his letter. Silence gave way to deep and continuing murmurs of confusion.
If it was to come at all, the loud and bacchanalic cheering that should always follow the deaths had been delayed.
The crowd surged forward, closing about Sarah. Though she remained in the act of stepping forward, she realised she’d done well to miss her chance. Like the pain when you prick yourself with a darning needle, it was a realisation that began with a passive act of noticing, before growing to overtake all other sensations.
The etiquette of planted confessions was that they should be found by accident. She’d known this wasn’t to be a normal planting. But she hadn’t supposed it was to be so immediately discovered. Without the wretched clergyman and his eagerness to grope at the dead flesh, she’d still have been taken in the act.
The shock of realisation passed away, to leave her mind reasonably clear. She was still free, but not out of danger. Through a brief gap in the crowd, she caught sight of Sir John. He’d finished directing his search, and was looking at his letter again. In a moment, he’d be looking round for the helpers. He’d call out his order.
Whether or not he added a reward, Sarah would be pushed straight forward into the arms of the waiting constables.
She noticed that Polly was beside her. Sarah pulled her close.
“We’re getting out of here,” she hissed. “Keep hold of me, and don’t look back.”
Easier said than done.
At last, the crowd was pressing forward for its customary rights. Already, two women were pushing deformed babies against Ned Heeler’s chest. A young man was rubbing the sores on his face against the pissy breeches. The coiner still wasn’t dead. His mother shoved aside, someone dressed in apothecary clothes had ripped the shirt open, and was scraping off the death sweat for deposit in a flask.
There was much laughter, and a growing babble of cries from the sellers of food and broadsheets. Though not big, the crowd was dense where it mattered. A riot would have been welcome. It would have introduced fresh mobility and room for escape. It would have grabbed the whole attention of the authorities.
But the whole assembled trash of London wouldn’t have rioted with Sir John to glare it into submission.
Sarah knocked hard against a curate, and pushed through the crowd of boys he’d been lecturing in a nasal whine. She got Polly in front and used her as a battering ram against some servants in livery. That earned them both a volley of spittle and much coarse language. At once, though, the crowd was thinner. She had a clear view, to her right, of the field from which she’d looked south towards Westminster. The path of least resistance would be across the fields.
She resisted the urge. Going that way would mean half a mile in the open before they could dodge between the outermost walled gardens of Westminster. She shoved Polly steadily forward. It would normally be an hour before the crowd broke up and began streaming back into London. Even Sir John couldn’t cancel the bidding for the clothes, or the sermons the dissenting ministers had come along to preach.
Until then, the Oxford Road was the easiest way back to where she could feel safe.
There was a sharp voice not far behind her. “Woman!” it cried. Was it an Irish voice?
The surrounding noise made it too hard to say, but she could be sure it wasn’t the constables. Her throat tightened so she could barely breath. Taken in charge, she’d only be shoved before Sir John. That would be bad but manageable. What about the Irishman? She could be sure he’d not take his packet back, and the guinea, and call it quits.
She heard the voice again. It was muffled, but seemed closer.
Sarah’s nerve went. “Run!” she gasped at Polly, “Just keep running!”
Clutching at the girl with one hand, at her skirt with the other, she pushed through the last few bodies that stood between them and the far edge of the crowd.
She no longer cared what stinging dust she threw up. She barely noticed the effect against her corns of the boots she’d put on to make her taller. Slowed only by the need to keep Polly going in the right direction, she rushed past scavenging paupers and idling boys. She avoided tripping over the little hillocks in the road and the deep ruts left by carts and coaches.
She thought she heard the voice calling out again.