Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

The redbreast carefully lowered the flint of the pistol, then slid the weapon into its saddle holster. 'Lost your coach, sir?'

'Broke a wheel thirty miles back,' Sandman said. 'Now, are you going to read this letter or would you rather take us to your magistrate?'

'I'm sure everything's in order, sir.' The patrolling redbreast did not want to admit that he could not read and certainly did not want to disturb his supervising magistrate who would, by now, have sat down to a lavish supper, and so he just moved his horse aside to let Sandman and his three companions pass. Sandman supposed he could have insisted on being taken to the magistrate and used his letter from the Home Office to arrange another carriage or, at the very least, four fresh saddle horses, but that would all have taken time, a lot of time, and it would have disturbed Meg's fragile equanimity, and so they walked on until, well after midnight, they trailed across London Bridge and so to the Wheatsheaf where Sally took Meg to her own room and Sandman let Berrigan use his room while he collapsed in the back parlour, not in one of the big chairs, but on the wooden floor so that he would wake frequently, and it was when the bells of Saint Giles were ringing six in the morning that he dragged himself upstairs, woke Berrigan and told him to stir the girls from their beds. Then he shaved, found his cleanest shirt, brushed his coat and washed the dirt from his disintegrating boots before, at half past six, with Berrigan, Sally and a very reluctant Meg in tow, he set out for Great George Street and the end, he hoped, of his investigation.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Lord Alexander Pleydell and his friend, Lord Christopher Carne, almost gagged when they entered the Press Yard for the smell was terrible, worse than the reek of the sewer outflows where the Fleet Ditch joined the Thames. The turnkey who was escorting them chuckled. 'I don't notice the smell no more, my lords,' he said, 'but I do suppose it's mortal bad in its way, mortal bad. Mind the steps here, my lords, do mind 'em.'

Lord Alexander gingerly took the handkerchief away from his nose. 'Why is it called the Press Yard?'

'In days gone by, my lord, this is where the prisoners was pressed. They was squashed, my lord. Weighted down by stones, my lord, to persuade them to tell the truth. We don't do it any longer, more's the pity, and as a consequence they lies like India rugs.'

'You squeezed them to death?' Lord Alexander asked, shocked.

'Oh no, my lord, not to death. Not to death, not unless they made a mistake and piled too many rocks on!' He chuckled, finding the notion amusing. 'No, my lord, they just got squashed till they told the truth. It's a fair persuader to a man or woman to tell the truth, my lord, if they're carrying half a ton of rocks on their chests!' The turnkey chuckled again. He was a fat man with leather breeches, a stained coat, and a stout billy club. 'Hard to breathe,' he said, still amused, 'very hard to breathe.'

Lord Christopher Carne shuddered at the terrible stench. 'Are there no drains?' he enquired testily.

'The prison is very up to date, my lord,' the turnkey hastened to assure him, 'very up to date, it is, with the proper drains and proper close stools. Truth is, my lord, we spoils them, we does, we spoils them, but they is filthy animals. They fouls their own nest what we give them clean and tidy.' He put down his billy club as he closed and bolted the barred gate by which they had entered the yard that was long, high and narrow. The stones of the yard seemed damp, even on this dry day, as though the misery and fear of centuries had soaked into the granite and could not be wrung out.

'If you no longer press the prisoners,' Lord Alexander enquired, 'what is the yard used for instead?'

'The condemned have the freedom of the Press Yard, sir, during the daylight hours,' the turnkey said, 'which is an example, my lords, of how kindly disposed towards 'em we are. We spoils them, we do. There was a time when a prison was a prison, not a glorified tavern.'

'Liquor is sold here?' Lord Alexander enquired acidly.

'Not any longer, my lord. Mister Brown, that's the Keeper, my lord, closed down the grog shop on account that the scum was getting lushed and disorderly, my lord, but not that it makes any difference 'cos now they just have their liquor sent in from the Lamb or the Magpie and Stump.' He cocked an ear to the sound of a church bell tolling the quarter hour. 'Bless me! Saint Sepulchre's telling us it's a quarter to seven already! If you turn to your left, my lords, you can join Mister Brown and the other gentlemen in the Association Room.'

'The Association Room?' Lord Alexander enquired.

'Where the condemned associate, my lord, during the daylight hours,' the turnkey explained, 'except on high days and holidays like today, and those windows to your left, my lord, those are the salt boxes.'

Lord Alexander, despite his opposition to the hanging of criminals, found himself curiously fascinated by everything he saw and now gazed at the fifteen barred windows. 'That name,' he said, 'salt boxes. You know its derivation?'

'Nor its inclination, my lord,' the turnkey laughed, 'only I suspects that they're called salt boxes on account of being stacked up like boxes.'

'The salt b-boxes are what?' Lord Christopher, who was very pallid this morning, asked.

'Really, Kit,' Lord Alexander said with uncalled-for asperity, 'everyone knows they're where the condemned spend their last days.'

'The devil's waiting rooms, my lord,' the turnkey said, then pulled open the Association Room door and ostentatiously held out his hand, palm upward.

Lord Alexander, who took pride in his notions of equality, was about to force himself to shake the turnkey's hand, then realised the significance of the palm. 'Ah,' he said, taken aback, but hurriedly fished in his pocket and brought out the first coin he found. 'Thank you, my good man,' he said.

'Thank you, your lordship, thank you,' the turnkey said and then, to his astonishment, saw he had been tipped a whole sovereign and hastily pulled off his hat and tugged his forelock. 'God bless you, my lord, God bless.'

William Brown, the Keeper, hurried to meet his two new guests. He had met neither man before, but recognised Lord Alexander by his clubbed foot and so took off his hat and bowed respectfully. 'Your lordship is most welcome.'

'Brown, is it?' Lord Alexander asked.

'William Brown, my lord, yes. Keeper of Newgate, my lord.'

'Lord Christopher Carne,' Lord Alexander introduced his friend with a rather vague wave of the hand. 'His stepmother's murderer is being hanged today.'

The Keeper bowed again, this time to Lord Christopher. 'I do trust your lordship finds the experience both a revenge and a comfort, and will you now permit me to name the Ordinary of Newgate?' He led them to where a stout man in an old-fashioned wig, a cassock, surplice and Geneva Bands was waiting with a smile on his plump face. 'The Reverend Doctor Horace Cotton,' the Keeper said.

'Your lordship is most welcome,' Cotton bowed to Lord Alexander. 'I believe your lordship is, like me, in holy orders?'

'I am,' Lord Alexander said, 'and this is my particular friend, Lord Christopher Carne, who also hopes to take orders one day.'

'Ah!' Cotton clasped his hands prayerfully and momentarily raised his eyes to the rafters. 'I deem it a blessing,' he said, 'when our nobility, the true leaders of our society, are seen to be Christians. It is a shining example for the common ruck, don't you agree? And you, my lord,' he turned to Lord Christopher, 'I understand that this morning you will see justice done for the grave insult committed against your family?'

'I hope to,' Lord Christopher said.

'Oh, really, Kit!' Lord Alexander expostulated. 'The revenge your family seeks will be provided in eternity by the fires of hell