Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'Tomorrow,' Cotton thundered, 'you will be taken out to the street and you will look up and see God's bright sky for the very last time, and then the hood will be placed over your eyes and the noose will be looped about your necks and you will hear the great beating of the devil's wings as he hovers in waiting for your soul. Save me, Lord, you will cry, save me!' He fluttered his hands towards the ceiling beams as if signalling to God. 'But it will be too late, too late! Your sins, your wilful sins, your own wickednesses, will have brought you to that dread scaffold where you will fall to the rope's end and there you will choke and you will twitch and you will struggle for breath, and the struggle will avail you nothing and the pain will fill you! And then the darkness will come and your souls will rise from this earthly pain to the great seat of judgement where God awaits you. God!' Cotton raised his plump hands again, this time in supplication as he repeated the word. 'God! God will be waiting for you in all His mercy and majesty, and He will examine you! He will judge you! And He will find you wanting! Tomorrow! Yes, tomorrow!' He pointed at Corday, who still had his head lowered. 'You will see God. The two of you, as clearly as I see you now, will see the dread God, the Father of us all, and He will shake His head in disappointment and he will command that you be taken from his presence, for you have sinned. You have offended Him who has never offended us. You have betrayed your maker who sent His only begotten son to be our salvation, and you will be taken from before His great throne of mercy and you will be cast down into the uttermost depths of hell. Into the flames. Into the fire. Into the everlasting pain!' He drew the sounds out into a quavering moan, and then, when he heard a gasp from a frightened woman in the public gallery, he repeated the phrase. 'Into the everlasting pain!' He shrieked the last word, paused so that the whole chapel could hear the woman sobbing in the gallery, then leant towards the Black Pew and dropped his voice into a hoarse whisper. 'And you will suffer, oh, how you will suffer, and your suffering, your torment, will commence tomorrow.' His eyes widened as his voice rose. 'Think of it! Tomorrow! When we who are left on this earth are having our breakfast you will be in agony. When the rest of us are closing our eyes and clasping our prayerful hands to say a grace of thanks to a benevolent God for providing us with our porridge, with our bacon and eggs, with toast and chops, with braised liver or even,' and here the Reverend Cotton smiled, for he liked to introduce homely touches into his sermons, 'perhaps even a dish of devilled kidneys, at that very moment you will be screaming with the first dreadful pains of eternity! And, through all eternity, those torments will become ever more dreadful, ever more agonising and ever more terrible! There will be no end to your pains, and their beginning is tomorrow.' He was leaning out from the canopied pulpit now, leaning so that his voice fell like a spear into the Black Pew. 'Tomorrow you will meet the devil. You will meet him face to face and I shall weep for you. I shall tremble for you. Yet above all I shall thank my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, that I shall be spared your pain, and that instead I shall be given a crown of righteousness for I have been saved.' He straightened and clutched his hands to his chest. 'I have been saved! Redeemed! I have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and I have been blessed by the grace of Him who alone can take away our pain.'

The Reverend Horace Cotton paused. He was forty-five minutes into the sermon and had as long again to go. He took a sip of water as he stared down at the two prisoners. One was weeping and the other was resisting, so he would try harder.

He took a breath, summoned his powers, and preached on.

===OO=OOO=OO===

No horsemen came down the lane. The sound of their hooves sounded loud on the London road for a while, then they faded and at last vanished in the heat of the day. Somewhere, very far off, church bells began ringing the changes after matins.

'So what are you going to do?' Mackeson asked again, this time with an undisguised note of triumph. He sensed that the wreck of the coach had ruined Sandman's chances and his pleasure in that gave him a kind of revenge for the humiliations that had been heaped on him over the last day and two nights.

'What I'm going to do,' Sandman retorted, 'is none of your damn business, but what you're going to do is stay here with the carriage. Sergeant? Cut the horses out of the traces.'

'I can't stay here!' Mackeson protested.

'Then start bloody walking,' Sandman snarled, then turned on Meg and Sally. 'You two are riding bareback,' he said.

'I can't ride,' Meg protested.

'Then you'll bloody well walk to London!' Sandman said, his temper slipping dangerously. 'And I'll make damn sure you do!' He snatched the whip from Mackeson.

'She'll ride, Captain,' Sally said laconically, and sure enough, when the team was cut from the traces, Meg obediently scrambled up the unfolded carriage steps to sit on a horse's broad back with her legs dangling down one flank and with her hands gripping the fillet strap that ran along the mare's spine. She looked terrified while Sally, even without a saddle, appeared graceful.

'What now?' Berrigan asked.

'Main road,' Sandman said, and he and the Sergeant led all four horses back along the lane. It was a risk using the London road, but the horsemen, if they were indeed looking for the missing carriage, had taken their search southwards. Sandman walked cautiously, but they met no one until they came to a village where a dog chased after the horses and Meg screamed for fear when her mare skittered sideways. A woman came out of a cottage and slapped at the dog with a broom.

A milestone just beyond the village said that London was forty-two miles away. 'A long day ahead,' Berrigan said.

'Day and night,' Sandman said gloomily.

'I ain't staying up here all day and night,' Meg complained.

'You'll do as you're told,' Sandman said, but at the next village Meg began to scream that she had been snatched from her home and a small indignant crowd followed the plodding horses until the village rector, a napkin tucked into his neck because he had been plucked from his dinner table, came to investigate the noise.

'She's mad,' Sandman told the priest.

'Mad?' The rector looked up at Meg and shuddered at the malevolence in her face.

'I've been kidnapped!' she screamed.

'We're taking her to London,' Sandman explained, 'to see the doctors.'

'They're stealing me!' Meg shouted.

'She's got bats in her belfry,' Sally said helpfully.

'I've done nothing!' Meg shouted, then she dropped to the ground and tried to run away, but Sandman ran after her, tripped her, and then knelt beside her. 'I'll break your bloody neck, girl,' he hissed at her.

The rector, a plump man with a shock of white hair, tried to pull Sandman away. 'I'd like to talk with the girl,' he said. 'I insist on talking to her.'

'Read this first,' Sandman said, remembering the Home Secretary's letter and handing it to the rector. Meg, sensing trouble in the letter, tried to snatch it away and the rector, impressed by the Home Office seal, stepped away from her to read the crumpled paper. 'But if she's mad,' he said to Sandman when he had finished reading, 'why is Viscount Sidmouth involved?'

'I'm not mad!' Meg protested.

'In truth,' Sandman spoke to the rector in a low voice, 'she's wanted for a murder, but I don't want to frighten your parishioners. Better for them to think that she's ill, yes?'

'Quite right, quite right.' The priest looked alarmed and thrust the letter back at Sandman as though it were contagious. 'But maybe you should tie her hands?'