P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

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, nee 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 choked 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.