Blood on the Bench at Dunlow

• Chapter 1 The Ink and the Ale
• Chapter 2 The Assizes of Dunlow
• Chapter 3 A Ledger of Sins
• Chapter 4 The Gallows Bird
• Chapter 5 The Magistrate's Seal
• Chapter 6 Blood Upon the Quill
• Chapter 7 Whispers in the Vault
• Chapter 8 The Poor Man's Plea
• Chapter 9 A Draught of Bitters
• Chapter 10 The Bailiff’s Shadow
• Chapter 11 Under the Black Cap
• Chapter 12 A Stolen Deposition
• Chapter 13 The Cellar Beneath the Court
• Chapter 14 Midsummer Trials
• Chapter 15 The False Witness
• Chapter 16 Iron and Parchment
• Chapter 17 The Clerk’s Reckoning
• Chapter 18 Confession by Firelight
• Chapter 19 The Sheriff’s Price
• Chapter 20 A Torrent of Lies
• Chapter 21 The Broken Scales
• Chapter 22 Night at the Black Bull
• Chapter 23 The Condemned
• Chapter 24 Blood on the Bench
• Chapter 25 The Machine Breaks
• Chapter 26 Ashes of Dunlow

The ink in the court of Dunlow was thick, sour, and tasted vaguely of crushed oak galls and bad vinegar. Arthur Pym knew this because he frequently licked the tip of his quill when his mind wandered, which was often, and because he had spent twenty-two years wiping the splatter of it off his knuckles, his shirt sleeves, and the end of his nose.

It was a damp October Tuesday in the year of our Lord 1607, and the air inside the quarter sessions house smelled of wet wool, dried rush bedding, and the unwashed misery of three dozen suspects waiting in the hold-fast below.

Arthur sat at his small, sloped oak desk just below the high dais. He was forty-four years old, though his knees claimed sixty and his liver, had it been given a voice, would likely have pleaded for an immediate decree of mercy from the Crown. Beside his inkwell rested a pewter tankard filled with a murky, small-beer concoction he bought for a halfpenny a pot from the Black Bull down the lane. It was not good ale—it had a sharp, metallic bite that suggested the brewer’s wife washed her aprons in the vat—but it dulled the scraping sound of the quills and the incessant, droning lies of the local constables.

"Pym," a voice grunted from above.

Arthur did not look up immediately. He carefully finished dotting an i in the word larceny, allowing the tip of his quill to linger on the parchment until the dark brown blot had reached the respectable size of a flea.

"Pym, you deaf old hound."

Arthur raised his chin. Sir Richard Masterson, Justice of the Peace for the Western Hundred of Dunlow, was leaning over his velvet-cushioned rail. Masterson was a man shaped like an overripe turnip, dressed in a double-walled wool doublet that strained against his stomach like canvas over a woolsack. His face was permanently flushed from a combination of gout, high blood pressure, and an absolute, unshakeable conviction that God had appointed him to keep the lower orders from breeding.

"I am neither deaf nor an old hound, Your Worship," Arthur said softly, his voice dry as seasoned timber. "I was merely observing that Constable Higgins has spelled 'burglary' with two rs and no g again. It gives the roll a certain rustic charm, but the Circuit Judge will likely fine us sixpence for illiterate scribbling when the Assizes arrive."

Masterson snorted, spitting a speck of dried posset onto the corner of Arthur’s ledger. "The Circuit Judge won't care a fig for Higgins’s spelling so long as the gallows bear fruit before winter. Read the next indictment. My legs are stiff, and the air in this room smells of fish-wives."

Arthur wiped the spit from his ledger with his thumb, rubbed the thumb on his breeches, and reached for the next scrap of sheepskin.

The bench at Dunlow was not a grand court. It was a cold, high-ceilinged hall built of rough-hewn stone that held the damp of the river like a sponge. At the far end, behind a wooden railing rubbed smooth by decades of terrified hands, stood the accused. Today’s prize was a boy named Matty, no older than sixteen, whose toes protruded from shoes made of cracked leather and old twine. He was charged with stealing three yards of linen yarn from the hedge of Master Barnaby, a weaver who also happened to sit on the grand jury.

"Matthew Clout," Arthur read, his voice dropping into the flat, rhythmic cadence of a man who had read ten thousand such sentences. "You stand presented for that you did, on the fourteenth day of September last past, with force and arms, steal, take, and carry away three yards of flaxen yarn, value fourpence, the goods and chattels of Thomas

The town of Dunlow changed its skin three times a year, but never so thoroughly as when the Circuit Judge was expected. In ordinary seasons, Dunlow was a sleepy market borough that smelled of boiled turnips, damp malt, and sheep dip. Its roads were rutted gutters of yellow clay that held standing water well into June, and its inhabitants spent their days haggling over the price of barley or arguing over the boundaries of drainage ditches.

When the Assizes arrived, however, the town caught a fever.

It began three days before the judge’s carriage was due to cross the stone bridge over the River Dunt. The tavern keepers swept their rushes—or merely kicked the old, rotted ones under the settles—and watered down their ale to stretch the hogsheads. The butchers hung their poorest mutton in the sun to soften, while the cutpurses and ballad-mongers descended upon the High Street like crows upon a fresh carcass. A scaffold was hastily inspected by the town carpenter, who gave the oak beam a cursory kick, pronounced it sturdy enough for six middleweight thieves, and demanded fourpence from the bailiff for his trouble.

Arthur Pym sat in his room off the main court office, surrounded by stacks of fresh vellum, sheepskin rolls, and three separate pots of ink. One ink was made of iron gall and nut-paste, thick as molasses, meant for the permanent rolls of the Crown; another was a cheap, watery fluid of lampblack and vinegar used for draft writs; the third was a red dye made of cochineal that Arthur reserved exclusively for drawing margin lines and marking the names of those condemned to hang.

His eyes burned. He had been writing since four in the morning by the tallow stump that now flickered down into a greasy puddle on his desk-board. His right index finger was stiff, permanently bent into the shape of a goose feather, and his left hand rested upon a lukewarm mug of small beer from the Black Bull.

"Pym!"

The heavy oak door smashed open against the stone wall with a crack that sent a cloud of dried lime dust cascading from the ceiling. Constable Higgins stepped into the room, breathing hard, his broad face purple under a coat of sweat and road dust. He carried a bundle of greasy parchment scraps wrapped in a red wool handkerchief.

"His Worship wants the Assize Calendar finished before noon," Higgins said, dropping the bundle onto Arthur’s work, smudging a half-dried heading that read Inquisitio Indentata.

Arthur did not shout. Shouting required lungs full of fresh air, and the court office possessed none. Instead, he took his pen-knife, scraped away the smudge with meticulous slowness, and looked up at the constable.

"Higgins," Arthur said softly, "if you lay your foul linen on my rolls again, I shall write down that you were seen dancing naked around the Maypole with Master Croft’s sow. And Sir Richard will sign the indictment without reading a word of it, as he always does."

Higgins blinked, his thick brow furrowing as he tried to determine whether the clerk possessed the legal authority to indict a man for pig-dancing. He decided not to risk it and dragged the handkerchief back into his fist. "The Judge is past Oakhaven," Higgins muttered. "Two hours away. Sir Richard is sweating through his velvet doublet, calling for the rolls every five minutes."

"Let him sweat," Arthur said, dipping his nib into the gall ink. "Sweating is good for a man of his girth. It thins the choler. How many on the calendar?"

"Forty-two," Higgins said, smacking his lips with a terrible satisfaction. "Fourteen for the gallows, if the Judge is in an energetic mood. Three sheep-stealers, a witch from the marsh, four burglars, and a handful of cut-purses from the last fair."

"And young Matty Clout?" Arthur asked, his quill moving across the page with a dry, scratching noise like a mouse behind the wainscot. "The boy with the three yards of yarn?"

"Oh, he’s down below," Higgins said, gesturing toward the floorboards with his boot. "Sir Richard upgraded his charge. Grand larceny now. Valued the yarn at five shillings instead of fourpence."

Arthur stopped his pen. He did not lift his head, but his eye tracked the ink bead at the tip of the nib. "Five shillings? For three yards of flaxen yarn spun by Barnaby’s apprentice? It wasn't worth fourpence when it was on the hedge, Higgins. It was half-rotted by rain."

"Master Barnaby says it was fine flax, brought from the Low Countries," Higgins replied, puffing out his chest. "And Master Barnaby is a grand juror. Sir Richard said it wouldn't do to waste the Assize Judge's time with petty trespasses. Better to make it a hanging matter and show the Circuit Court that Dunlow takes proper care of its property."

"Proper care," Arthur repeated flatly. He let the ink bead fall back into the pot. "God preserve us. A boy killed for forty feet of wet string."

"Law is law, Master Pym," Higgins said, leaning against the doorframe and scratching his armpit. "If boys aren't hanged for yarn, next thing you know they'll be taking the sheep, then the horses, then setting fire to the manor house. It’s a slope, Sir Richard says. A greasy slope."

"Sir Richard would know about greasy slopes," Arthur murmured under his breath, though he was careful not to let the constable hear it clearly. He pulled the calendar roll toward him.

The Assizes were the grand engine of the state. Four times a year, the King’s judges rode out from London like grim harvesters, traversing the circuits to clear the gaols of England. To the common folk of Dunlow, the arrival of the Circuit Judge—Lord Justice Brampton—was a spectacle halfway between a holy day and a hog-slaughtering. To Sir Richard Masterson and the local gentry, it was a test of their authority. A long list of condemned prisoners demonstrated vigilance; a small calendar implied lazy magistrates and a lawless populace.

And to Arthur Pym, it meant twelve days of non-stop scribbling, copying depositions that were half-fabricated, recording verdicts that were predetermined, and smelling the sour fear of men who could not afford to buy a pardon or bribe a clerk.

A trumpeter sounded from the direction of the High Street. The brassy, slightly flat note echoed off the damp stones of the courtroom wall.

"He's here," Higgins said, his eyes widening. "The High Sheriff’s men are at the gate."

Arthur wiped his quill clean on a square of felt, rose from his stool, and straightened his faded black gown. The velvet collar was moth-eaten at the nape, and the elbows were so thin that the light from the window shone through the weave, but it was the uniform of his office. He took up his wooden ink-stand, his sand-box, and the long leather binder containing the Assize rolls, and walked out into the main hall.

The high hall of the Dunlow sessions house had been decorated for the occasion. Fresh rushes, mixed with lavender and dried mint to drown the stench of the gaol below, had been scattered across the flags. At the far end, upon the raised dais, the Great Bench had been polished with beeswax until it reflected the tall, narrow glass windows like dark water.

Sir Richard Masterson stood near the bench, surrounded by six of his fellow Justices of the Peace. They looked like a flock of well-fed rooks in their heavy black gowns and furred hoods. Sir Richard was nervous; his white linen collar was already wilted, and he kept adjusting the silver chain of office that lay across his massive chest.

"Pym!" Sir Richard hissed as Arthur approached. "Where are the indictments? Is the calendar fair-copied?"

"It is copied, Your Worship," Arthur said, holding out the leather binder. "Though if I might point out, the charge against young Clout—"

"Not now, Pym!" Sir Richard snapped, grabbing the binder and flicking through the pages with a thick, greasy thumb. "The Judge has had a terrible journey from Salisbury. His carriage broke an axle in the mud near Little Hinton, and his sciatica is flaring. He will not be in a mood for legal quibbles."

"A judge with sciatica is a dangerous thing for a sheep-stealer," Arthur noted dryly.

Sir Richard fixed him with a bulging, watery eye. "A judge with sciatica wants swift business, Pym. He wants clear cases, fast verdicts, and dinner at six. If you drag your feet with your slow, ink-stained pedantry today, I’ll find a clerk who can write twice as fast for half the beer-money."

Before Arthur could answer, the double doors at the rear of the hall were thrown open by two bailiffs holding tall white staves.

"Make way!" the Chief Bailiff bellowed, his voice echoing off the timber rafters. "Make way for His Majesty’s Justice of Assize, Sir Edward Brampton, Knight, Justice of the Common Pleas!"

The hall went silent save for the rustle of wool and the scuffle of boots as the local gentry bowed.

Lord Justice Brampton did not look like a harvestman of death. He was a small, withered man in his late sixties, wrapped in a crimson gown trimmed with pale ermine that looked slightly yellowed around the hem. His face was gray and drawn, pinched by years of breathing London fog and listening to property disputes. He moved with a stiff, limping gate, leaning heavily on a cane topped with a silver pommel shaped like a skull. Behind him walked his private secretary, a young man with sharp, cold eyes and an ink-horn made of polished horn slung over his shoulder.

Brampton climbed the steps to the dais with an audible grunt of pain. He did not look at Sir Richard, nor at the assembled magistrates, nor at Arthur Pym. He hauled himself into the high oak chair, set his silver skull-cane against the desk, and rested his chin upon his hands.

"The air in this borough," Brampton said, his voice like dry leaves scraping across a flagstone, "smells of wet dogs and bad cheese."

"My Lord," Sir Richard began, bowing so low his double chin folded over his lace band. "We are honored—"

"Save your speeches, Masterson," Brampton cut him off, without opening his eyes. "My hip feels as though a smith has driven a cold chisel into the joint. I intend to finish the criminal calendar by Thursday noon, sit for Nisi Prius on Friday, and be in Bristol by Saturday night. Where is the clerk?"

Arthur stepped forward, bowing precisely three inches—the exact depth required of an officer of twenty-two years' standing. "Arthur Pym, My Lord. Clerk of the Peace for the Western Hundred."

Brampton opened one eye. It was a pale, milky blue, like a skimmed milk puddle. "Can you write legibly, Pym?"

"The Circuit Judges have tolerated my hands for two decades, My Lord."

"Tolerated is a poor word," Brampton grunted. "I require speed and accuracy. If a man is to be hanged, I want his name spelled correctly on the warrant. It causes endless trouble with the Exchequer if the Treasury receives an execution list with mismatched initials. Is the grand jury impaneled?"

"They are waiting in the chapel room, My Lord," Arthur said.

"Bring them in. Swear them. Let us get this piece of butcher’s work underway."

The court moved into motion like an old iron clockwork mechanism that had been freshly oiled with cold lard. The grand jury—twelve substantial freeholders of the county, all wearing their best wool doublets and looking thoroughly unpleased at being dragged from their farms—were marched in, sworn upon a greasy Latin Bible, and delivered their charge by Brampton in a five-minute monologue that dealt entirely with the necessity of protecting property and the damnation of thieves.

Within thirty minutes, the first bills of indictment were returned True Bill—the grand jury agreeing that there was enough suspicion to try the prisoners.

Arthur sat at his low desk beneath the dais, his ink-horn unstopped, his sandbox ready. The tempests of human misery were about to be converted into dry lines of Latin prose.

The first case was a itinerant tinker accused of stealing a silver spoon from an inn in High Street. The evidence was presented by the innkeeper, who swore on the Bible that he had seen the spoon in the tinker’s pack. The tinker, a man with no teeth and a eye that turned inward toward his nose, tried to explain that he had found the spoon in the dung-heap behind the stables, but Brampton cut him short.

"Found it in the dung-heap, did you?" Brampton asked, not looking up from his fingernails. "A remarkable dung-heap. Does it yield silver forks as well, or merely spoons?"

The court laughed—a short, sycophantic bark led by Sir Richard Masterson.

"Guilty," the petty jury announced after a conference that lasted less than forty seconds. They were twelve small farmers who wanted to finish the list before the ale-houses closed.

"Benefit of clergy?" Brampton asked, turning his head slightly toward Arthur.

Arthur checked the book. "He cannot read, My Lord. Nor has he any previous marks."

"Then he hangs," Brampton said flatly. "Next."

Arthur’s quill scratched across the roll. Sus. per coll.—Suspendatur per collum—let him be hanged by the neck. Three tiny Latin words that erased forty years of ragged, mendicant existence. Arthur threw a pinch of black sand over the wet ink, blew it off in a grey cloud, and reached for the next scrap of sheepskin.

The second case was a widow named Goody Martin, charged with killing her neighbor’s calf by witchcraft. The evidence consisted of a withered toad found under her doorstep and the fact that the calf had died of the murrain three days after she had asked the neighbor for a cup of buttermilk.

Brampton leaned forward, his milky eye fixing on the old woman, who was trembling so violently her wool shawl kept slipping from her shoulders.

"Did you curseth the beast, woman?" Brampton asked.

"No, My Lord! As God is my witness, I only asked for the milk for my girl—"

"The court does not require a sermon," Brampton said. He turned to the jury. "The Law is clear on the practice of malicious sorcery. However, the King’s Privy Council has issued late instructions regarding small farm-beasts. Did the calf suffer long?"

"It swelled up, My Lord," the neighbor testified eagerly. "Swelled up like a bladder and turned black."

"A common murrain," Brampton declared, his voice laced with boredom. "We cannot hang every old hag who looks crossly at a sick cow, or we should have no grandmothers left in the West Riding. Scourge her through the market square, three lashes at every corner, and release her on a bond of good behavior."

The old woman began to weep with gratitude, falling to her knees on the stone floor until the bailiff dragged her back by the collar.

"Pym," Brampton snapped. "Record it. Five shillings fine to the clerk of the court, three lashes by the beadle. Next."

Arthur wrote the sentence. He did not look at Goody Martin. He knew her daughter; the girl was simple-minded and lived in a turf hut near the common. The mother would be black and bloody by four o'clock, and the five-shilling fine would mean they would eat nothing but boiled nettles until Christmas. But it was not his business to pity her. His business was to ensure the word Scourgeth was written in the clear, round Court Hand required by the Chancery.

Case followed case with the steady, sickening rhythm of a flail on threshing oak. A man who had snared a hare on Sir Richard’s estate was sentenced to seven years' transportation to the new settlements in Virginia—a death sentence by another name. A girl of fourteen who had stolen a silver ribbon from her mistress was ordered to be branded on the thumb with the T for Thief.

Arthur kept the iron heated in the small brazier beside his desk. When the branding iron was pressed into the root of the girl’s thumb, the smell of burning flesh rose up to the high rafters, sweet and fatty, like pork fat dropped into a hearth fire. The girl did not scream; she merely let out a long, wet sigh and collapsed against the wooden bar.

"Take her down," Sir Richard ordered, wiping his mouth with a silk handkerchief. "Next case."

The bailiff reached into the hold-fast entry and dragged out Matty Clout.

The boy looked smaller now than he had during the morning sessions. His bare feet were grey with the filth of the hold-fast, and he had lost one of his cracked shoes in the scuffle below. He stood before the oak rail, his arms hanging limp, looking up at the crimson-robed judge with the vacant, wide-eyed stare of an ox entering the slaughter-house.

Arthur picked up the indictment. He felt a strange, cold tightness in his throat—a sensation he had not felt since his first year as clerk, before the ale and the parchment dust had coated his insides with grease.

"Matthew Clout," Arthur read, his voice slightly raspier than usual. "You stand indicted for that you did, on the fourteenth day of September last..." He paused, his eye skipping to the figure Sir Richard had inserted. "Valued at five shillings..."

"Hold," Lord Justice Brampton interrupted. He squinted down from the bench at the paper in Arthur’s hand, then at the boy at the bar. "Five shillings for three yards of flax yarn?"

Sir Richard leaned toward the Judge, his face splitting into a broad, eager smile. "My Lord, it was imported flax. Very rare. Very costly. The owner is Master Barnaby, one of our most respectable freeholders—"

"I know Master Barnaby," Brampton said, his tone dry as bone. "He tried to sell me ten cords of rotted oak timber for the county bridge two years ago. The man is a knave." He looked down at Arthur. "Pym, what was the original valuation on the constable’s warrant?"

Sir Richard’s head whipped toward Arthur. His eyes were wide, white around the rims, full of a fierce, silent warning. A magistrate did not like to be caught inflating indictments to swell the Assize calendar, especially not before a Crown Judge who was already suffering from bad hips and a sour stomach.

Arthur looked at Sir Richard. He saw the sweat glistening in the deep creases around the justice's nostrils. He saw the silver chain of office rise and fall with his short, angry breaths.

Then Arthur looked at the boy. Matty was picking at a loose scab on his thumb, his chin wet with drool, completely unaware that his life was balancing upon a fraction of an inch of ink.

If Arthur spoke the truth, Sir Richard would make his life in Dunlow unendurable. He would dock his quarter-fee, inspect his accounts for missing pence, and eventually replace him with some half-starved attorney’s clerk from Salisbury who would work for fourpence a day and keep his mouth shut.

If he lied, the boy would hang on Friday morning before the town clock struck ten.

The court was quiet. The only sound was the crackle of the wood coal in the small branding brazier beside Arthur’s knee.

Arthur reached for his pewter mug. He took a long, slow draught of the sour Black Bull ale, letting the bitter taste coat his tongue. He set the tankard down with a small clink against the oak desk.

"The original warrant," Arthur said, his voice flat and even, "states fourpence, My Lord. Signed by Constable Higgins on the fifteenth of September."

Sir Richard let out a hiss through his teeth that sounded like steam escaping a pipe.

Brampton leaned back in his high chair, a faint, cruel smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. "Fourpence," he murmured. "A petty larceny. Not a felony." He looked down at Sir Richard with open contempt. "It seems your memory as to the value of Flemish flax is as shaky as your timber, Masterson."

"My Lord," Sir Richard stuttered, his face turning the color of a fresh bruise. "The error... the clerk must have miscopied..."

"The clerk appears to be the only man in this room who can read a warrant correctly," Brampton snapped. He turned his gaze back to the boy. "Matthew Clout. You are a stupid, worthless young vagrant who ought to be whipped for taking what does not belong to you. But you shall not hang today to please the Magistrates of Dunlow."

He turned to Arthur. "Pym. Record a plea of guilty to petty larceny. Value three pence. Sentence: to be stripped to the waist and whipped at the cart’s tail from the town pump to the eastern gate, until his back be bloody."

"So recorded, My Lord," Arthur said.

His hand did not tremble as he wrote the words. He used the cheap lampblack ink, not the iron gall reserved for the Crown rolls. Whipped and discharged.

As the bailiffs dragged Matty Clout back toward the holding cell, the boy looked over his shoulder at Arthur. He did not look grateful; he looked confused, his mind too dull to understand that he had just stepped back from the edge of a pit six feet deep.

Sir Richard did not look at Arthur for the rest of the afternoon. He sat stiffly in his chair, his thick neck red above his collar, his hands clasped so tightly over his stomach that his knuckles were white as lard.

By five o'clock, the sun had dropped behind the western towers of Dunlow Church, casting long, purple shadows across the rush-covered floor of the hall. Lord Justice Brampton called a halt to the proceedings, complaining that the cold damp of the stone was settling into his knees.

"We shall resume at eight tomorrow," Brampton announced, rising stiffly from his seat. "There are twenty cases remaining, including the murder charge against the blacksmith’s man. I expect the grand jury to have their bills ready."

The court rose with a great clatter of benches. The spectators filed out into the dusky street, eager to secure good spots at the taverns or watch the first round of public whippings outside the town pump.

Arthur stayed behind. He always stayed behind.

The great hall emptied slowly, until only the two court bailiffs remained, sweeping the dirty lavender and old rushes into piles near the door. The air was cool now, smelling of extinguished candles and wet slate.

Arthur sat at his desk, carefully wiping his pens on his piece of felt. He closed his ink-horns, put the wooden plugs into the tops, and stacked his sheepskin rolls according to their file numbers.

"You think yourself very clever, Pym," a voice said from the shadows near the bench steps.

Sir Richard had not left. He was standing by the high rail, his cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders, his face lost in the darkness above the candle-brackets.

Arthur did not look up from his papers. "I only read what was written on the sheepskin, Your Worship."

"The sheepskin says what I tell it to say," Sir Richard said, his voice dropping into a low, harsh whisper as he descended the steps. He came to a halt beside Arthur’s desk, towering over the sitting clerk. "You made me look a fool before the King’s Judge."

"The Judge knew Master Barnaby's timber," Arthur replied softly. "He would have looked at the yarn himself if the boy had been sentenced to the rope. He is an old man, Sir Richard, but he knows the value of flax."

Sir Richard reached out his thick, hairy hand and laid it on the edge of Arthur’s ledger. He pressed down until the wood groaned.

"You have been at this desk too long, Arthur," Sir Richard said. His voice was no longer angry; it had taken on a cold, smooth edge that was far more dangerous. "You think because you know the Latin forms and the old statutes that you are part of the bench. You are not. You are an instrument. A pen with boots on. And when a pen begins to scratch where it shouldn't, the writer throws it into the fire and trims another."

"The Assizes will be over by Friday," Arthur said, looking up into the magistrate’s dark, heavy face.

"Yes," Sir Richard smiled, a tight, thin line across his red skin. "The Assizes will end. The Judge will ride away to Bristol. But I shall still be here, Arthur. And so will the Gaol. And so will the winter."

He pulled his hand back, turned on his heel, and walked out of the hall, his heavy boots echoing off the flagstones until the outer door slammed shut.

Arthur sat alone in the dimming light. The silence of the court house was absolute now, broken only by the squeak of a rat in the wainscot and the slow drip-drip of water falling from the guttering outside the window.

He reached down to the floor beside his stool, picked up his pewter tankard, and tilted it back. It was empty. Only a small, sour dreg of yeast remained at the bottom.

Arthur set the mug down, picked up his leather case of rolls, and locked them in the iron-bound chest behind his seat. He blew out the last candle, leaving the high room to the dark and the memory of forty-two sentences, then walked out into the cold, damp autumn air of Dunlow.