by Sam Thomas
“Lady Bridget,” he said when he saw me. “I thought Will might have gone to find you.”
I could not judge whether he approved of Will’s actions. I imagined he would have sent for me anyway, but I also knew he would have preferred that Will wait for instructions.
“And I am glad he did,” I answered. “You found another body?” I peered into the knot of men who had gathered inside the tavern, wondering if Stephen Daniels would make another appearance, but I did not see him.
“Aye,” Edward said. “Worse than Mary Dodsworth, I’m afraid. Worse even than the first whore, if you can imagine such a thing. The tavern-keeper found her tonight, but by the look of things, she was killed yesterday. Go up and see for yourselves. I will wait here.”
The three of us entered the tavern and, after passing through the main room, climbed the stairs. Lodgers foreign to York would have chosen to stay here for its nearness to the city gate, and it would not be strange for a whore to make her bed here as well. Where there were taverns and travelers, whores would follow.
When we reached the top of the stairs, we found Mark Preston standing, stone-faced, outside one of the rooms. I wondered what he made of his time in Edward’s service: no matter how bloody his time in the army, he must have thought he’d left such work behind when he came to York. I marveled once again at his imperviousness to the day’s events. Had his time at war so inured him to murder it disturbed him no more than an ill-cooked supper? He bowed slightly as we approached, and opened the door to admit us.
Even before we stepped through the door, a stomach-churning smell assaulted us. I instinctively buried my nose in my elbow, and I could hear Will and Martha coughing and gagging.
“Jesus, what is that?” Martha gasped.
“I should have warned you,” Preston said. “He burned her.”
“Oh God,” I moaned, covering my nose with a handkerchief. I steeled myself for the sight to come, then looked into the room.
The girl lay on her bed, most of her body covered by a rough sheet. Her bare feet stuck out from the bottom of the bed and her hands, both clenched into fists, protruded from the top. A short rope bound her wrists together and then wrapped around the frame of the bed.
“Is this how you found her?” Martha asked. “The murderer covered her?”
“No,” Preston said. “I sent for the cover. You’ll see why soon enough.”
Martha and I crossed the room and together drew back the sheet as far as the girl’s waist. Despite the horrid stench, and despite Edward’s warning, I still stood amazed at the sight before us. Edward was right. Whoever this poor girl was, she had suffered far worse than Jennet. Somehow the killer had heated an iron and used it to burn her skin. While many of the burns—and there were dozens—obscured each other, my eyes settled on a single mark on her forearm, where the translucent white of her skin had been marred by the perfect outline of a fire poker.
For a few moments, none of us could find words to express the horror that welled up within us. Had I tried to speak, I could only imagine the wail that would have escaped my lips. Her face was twisted into a mask of pain, her teeth bared, her eyes bulging. Scraps of cloth escaped from her mouth. The murderer had stuffed her mouth to silence her screams, just as he had with Jennet.
When we pulled the sheet entirely from the bed, Martha and I cried out in unison. The lower half of the bed was soaked in the girl’s blood. The murderer had slashed at the girl’s thighs and privities. I could not force myself to look closely, but he must have severed one of her arteries—else there could not be so much blood. This must have been how she died.
I turned my face to the heavens and closed my eyes. Why would God allow such evil to invade and conquer our town? What did He mean by this? I tried to pray that God would turn His hand in some other direction, but could find no words. I felt the sheet being pulled from my hands and opened my eyes to find Will covering the girl. It was only when I exhaled that I realized I’d been holding my breath throughout my feeble prayers. I turned to Will and Martha—they looked much as I felt. The blood had drained from their faces, and they seemed ready to collapse. So much blood; so much pain.
“Where are her clothes?” I asked, trying to find something other than the poor girl’s body to study. I spied them in the corner and picked them up.
“There’s no blood on them,” Will observed. “He ripped them off her before she died.”
“No,” Martha corrected him. “Look, they were cut.”
Sure enough, the cloth had been neatly sliced, and the cord that had bound her bodice had been severed in several places. I folded the clothes as best I could and laid them back on the floor. I cast my eyes about the room, but there was little to see. Except for the bed, the only pieces of furniture were a small table with a lantern on it and a clothes chest. Martha opened the chest—it contained a second shift and a set of skirts, but that was all.
“He used a fire poker to burn her,” I said. “Where is it?” It didn’t take long to determine that the poker was not in the room—there was nothing under the bed, and no other place to look. At that moment, the room seemed even smaller and more spare.
“He must have brought his own firepot and poker, and took them when he left,” Martha said. “He knew what he was going to do to her. He planned it.”
I looked again around the room, hoping that it would yield additional secrets. I found nothing.
“There’s not much to see,” I said. “Let’s find out what Edward knows about the girl.”
“Wait,” Martha said. She crossed to the bed, and gently pulled open the girl’s hands. The first was empty, but the second held a small piece of paper.
“Oh God,” I moaned. “What now?”
“Revelations, chapter seventeen, verse sixteen,” Martha read, and handed me the paper. “The godly are at it again.”
“We’ll see about that when we find a Bible,” I said, and slipped the paper into my apron. “Right now, we’ll talk to Edward. Perhaps someone from the tavern saw something.”
After we stepped out of the room, Preston closed the door behind us and resumed the grim duty of guarding the dead.
Chapter 13
We found Edward waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. The same small group of men who had been there when we arrived looked up at us and whispered among themselves. I had no doubt they were speculating about what had happened upstairs and why two women and a young man had been allowed inside. Edward waved us over when he saw us.
“This is Charles MacDonald. He owns the tavern and works the bar,” Edward said.
He indicated a small man with a pointed beard and two large, carefully tended mustaches. The poor man daubed at eyes red from weeping. Under ordinary circumstances the mustaches might have provided some amusement, but they seemed out of place on such a sorrowful visage. MacDonald nodded to Will and Martha before bowing to me.
“Did you find the body?” I asked.
“Aye.” He spoke with a distinct Scottish accent, but I could understand him. “Betty was late coming down to work. I went up looking for her and found her there, like that.”
“She was a whore in the tavern?”
“What?” he cried out, horrified at the suggestion. “Oh, no, my lady! She was a barmaid.” I looked at Edward in confusion.
“Mr. MacDonald.” Edward sighed heavily. “We know she wasn’t only a barmaid.” MacDonald shook his head, and Edward turned to me. “When she was short of money, she would sometimes go with men as a whore. The constable arrested her last January, and she was warned.”
“No,” MacDonald said again, as tears filled his eyes. “She wouldn’t.”
“When did you last see her?” Martha asked, putting a hand on his arm.
MacDonald took her hand and began to weep. I could feel his grief in my own heart, and pitied him, for I too knew the pain of being far from home, destitute of the ones I loved.
“She was here last night,” he said. “I left her to clean the kitche
n while I went upstairs to secure the money from that night. When I came back, she was gone and the door was locked. I thought she’d gone to her chamber.”
“You didn’t see her at all today?” I asked.
He shook his head and daubed his eyes with a handkerchief.
“And when she did not come to work tonight, you went upstairs to find her?” Martha asked.
He nodded miserably.
“Mr. MacDonald,” I said. “Did you see Betty with any men last night? Did anyone try to … win her affection?” Even if he’d closed his eyes to her indecent behavior, surely he could see how a man might make such an offer.
“Not last night,” he replied. “None dared look at her after the afternoon’s uproar.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, the godly were here again, weren’t they?” He sighed. “They howled that she was a ‘strumpet,’ called her a ‘whore.’ One even screamed at her ‘You abominable quean! You’ll burn!’ It was terrifying.”
“What?” I cried. “What happened? When was this?”
“Around four o’clock. Just when people started coming in, three or four of the godly came as well. They stood at my door at first, crying Sin! Sin! Some of my customers had just come for their supper! When that wasn’t enough, the godly came inside, and one of them stood on a chair and started preaching. Then he started in on poor Betty. One of my servants tried to drive him out, but the big one stopped him, didn’t he? More like a mountain than a man, he is. He said he’d thrash anyone who laid a hand on Mr. Ward.”
“Mr. Ward was here?” Will asked. “He was the one preaching from the chair?”
“Mr. Ward? Yes, that’s what the big one called him,” MacDonald said. “I’d never seen him before. He had it in for Betty, though. He’s the one who told her she’d burn in hell. He began to lay into her as soon as she came into the room.”
“Stubb was here in the afternoon,” Will said. “Then he came back and killed her.”
“Why would Ward stoop to preaching to a handful of people in an alehouse, when he could gather a crowd on any street corner in the city?” I wondered.
Martha came up with the answer. “Mr. MacDonald, what did Mr. Ward look like?”
“Nothing remarkable,” MacDonald said. “Taller than me, but most people are. He had dark hair, and was maybe a bit older than you.”
“Could it have been Praise-God?” Martha asked.
“Praise-God,” MacDonald said, nodding again. “Yes, that’s what the woman called him. It confused me at first, but that was his name.”
“Who was with him?” Martha asked. “What did they look like?”
“There was the big man, like I said,” replied MacDonald. “Also two women. One was young and pretty with dark hair. The other was old and stout. She seemed a mean one. Then there was another youth, about Mr. Ward’s age. He was tall and thin, that one. He was quieter than the others.”
“James Hooke,” I said.
“It sounds like Stubb’s prayer group,” Will said, nodding in agreement. “Plus the mother.”
“Was there anyone else?” I asked. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Two more came with them, but they didn’t say as much,” MacDonald replied. “A man and a woman. An odd pair they were. A tall thin man with a bent and broken nose…”
“And a short, pretty woman,” I said.
Mr. MacDonald looked at me in amazement. “Yes. How did you know?”
“I’ve seen them before. They always seem to go together,” I said. “How long did they stay?”
“I sent for the beadles, who chased them out, but by then Betty was sobbing in her room. I had a job of it trying to get her to come back out.” He gazed at the floor and slowly shook his head. “They were so cruel.”
“Mr. MacDonald,” I said. “Had you ever seen these people before?”
“I never had,” he replied. “And if I never see those devils until the Judgment Day, it will be a day too soon.”
“Thank you, Mr. MacDonald,” I said. “I am very sorry this happened.” He sniffed loudly by way of response. “Could I trouble you for a bottle of wine?” I continued. “We must discuss these matters, and I think we could all use a glass.”
The Scotsman nodded, and while he fetched our wine, Edward, Martha, Will, and I sat together at a small table.
Once we settled into our seats, I asked the question that had been tugging at me for nearly an hour. “The Wards live north of the river. If they wanted to trouble a whore, why did they come all the way to Micklegate? The north has plenty of alehouses and whores.”
“Perhaps because it is closer to Helen Wright?” Martha suggested. “Helen Wright connects Jennet and Mary Dodsworth. She could also be connected to Betty.”
“Does Helen Wright own this building?” I asked Edward.
He shook his head. “Henry Thompson does. I stood as his surety for the sale.” Henry was no less respectable than Edward. We would have to find another connection—if there was one to be found.
When MacDonald returned and filled our glasses, I reached in my apron for a few coins and felt the paper Martha had found in Betty’s hand. “Mr. MacDonald,” I said. “Do you have a Bible we could borrow?”
“Of course,” he said, returning moments later with a leather-bound volume. I looked at the slip and opened the book to Revelations. As I read the passage aloud, I could feel the anger rising from my belly.
“And the ten horns which thou saw upon the Beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate, and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”
“Oh, God, Aunt Bridget,” Will breathed. “Do you recognize that verse?”
“Silence Ward quoted it this very morning,” Martha replied in my stead. “I told her that God had not killed Jennet, and she started jabbering on about beasts and whores. I took it for godly bibble-babble, not some lunatic Biblical prophecy.”
“Just because it’s misunderstood by the murderer, doesn’t make the prophecy lunatic,” Edward objected. He did not seem inclined to accept Martha’s blasphemy, and I hoped she would have the good sense to hold her peace.
She did not.
“And what meaning could it have that isn’t mad?” She took the Bible from my hands. “What ten-horned beast is there? And the horns hate the whore? How is that anything but mad?”
“It is the word of God, and if you persist in your blasphemy, I’ll see you in the stocks,” Joseph said. I’d not noticed him when he entered the room, but now he loomed over the table. Even as he threatened Martha with public humiliation, he spoke softly, as if he were quoting the price of kersey cloth from Halifax. If he’d raised his voice, I’d have been less worried, but I knew he was deadly serious. This was a side of Joseph I’d never seen, and I hoped Martha would have sense enough to recognize that she’d wandered into dangerous territory. To my relief she did, and quickly fell silent. I reached over and took the Bible from Martha’s hands before she could find any more objectionable passages.
“Did you find Mr. Stubb?” Edward asked.
“Aye,” Joseph said. “He was already abed, but the beadles have him now. What is it that you’ve found?”
Edward told him about the verse we’d discovered in Betty’s hand.
“And you heard Silence Ward quote the same verse, did you, Martha?” Joseph asked. “You’re not much of a Bible-reader, so how can you be sure?”
“I heard the same thing that Martha did,” Will said. “Beast and all. It cannot be happenstance.”
“Are you saying that Silence Ward is the killer?” Edward asked. “A young woman and the daughter of the best-known preacher in the city?” Will considered his response before speaking, for he realized that his father would not accept an accusation against one of the Wards unless it were sound indeed.
“I am telling you what I heard,” he said at last. “Silence Ward quoted that passage. It is not some great haphazard.” He paused, unsure of how far to go. “You mus
t arrest and question her,” he concluded.
“Arrest her?” Edward burst out. “Arrest Silence Ward? Are you mad? You don’t arrest Hezekiah Ward’s daughter on a whim! The godly would riot!” He stood and looked at Will despairingly. It seemed as if Will’s suggestion had disturbed him more than the murdered body upstairs. “Joseph, I must speak to you alone,” he said before stalking off, with Joseph close behind.
I reached for Will’s hand at the same time Martha did, but he pulled back from both of us.
“Will,” I said. “You know you’re right.”
“Cold comfort that is,” he growled. “He’d rather protect godly strangers than the whores of the city. To hell with him. We’ll find the murderer on our own.”
“Good man,” I said with a small smile. “The question is, what do we do now?”
Before anyone could answer, the tavern door opened and John Stubb stepped through, accompanied by two beadles. Once again I marveled that he’d not broken free from the chains he wore on his wrists. “God, why have they brought him here?” I asked.
“He’s going to put the whore’s body before him to see if she bleeds,” Will replied. “If she does, it will prove Stubb’s the murderer.”
“What?” Martha cried. “Does your father really think bodies will bleed fresh blood just because their murderer is present? I’ve seen that that’s nonsense with my own eyes.”
“And I’ve seen men convicted on such evidence,” Will replied.
“Betty’s been dead a full day, and from the looks of the bed, she’s already been emptied of blood,” Martha said. “It’s why she’s dead, isn’t it? She won’t bleed for anyone.”
“I’ll talk to Edward,” I said. “Perhaps I can change his mind.”
I crossed the room and pulled Edward aside. “Edward, might I speak to you before you take Stubb upstairs?”
