Isabella's Heiress

by N. P. Griffiths

  “Please, help us.”

  The voice was weak and barely audible and had Emma not seen the woman’s lips move, she would not have known that she had said anything at all. She looked at her and tried to frame an answer that wasn’t as callous as it sounded but no words came to her.

  “I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m not here for you.”

  The woman’s face contorted in desperation as she forced her arm out as far as it could go.

  “You’re her, aren’t you? You’re the one that mad old woman’s always going on about. The one she says will come for her.”

  Emma froze. “What mad old woman?”

  “The crazy woman they hang from the central post below the tall mans tower. She always talks about her friend who’s coming for her.”

  “Where is she now?”

  The woman hesitated before answering, “They took her from her cell and placed her on the post.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, about three months ago now.”

  “What? What do you mean three months?” Emma remembered what Rodolfo had said about the time difference between the twilight plane and this place but she still couldn’t get her head around what this woman was saying.

  “Maybe it was longer, I don’t know. You lose track of time down here.”

  As the woman talked Emma noticed that the iron semicircle was repeated time and again along the wall all the way around the hall. Hands and arms poked through the grilles and she shuddered as she realised that she would have to pass them all if she was going to get to the other side.

  “Where’s the tower?”

  “Through this hall and the one beyond.”

  Emma ran to some steps and hid in the shadow that they gave off, leaving the woman behind. She ignored the outstretched limbs, hoping that none of them were Taryn’s.

  The further she got into the hall, the more it seemed to make no sense as steps and walkways led off in abstract directions creating a labyrinthine mess. Emma concentrated on making it to the other side and not getting seen in the process. She moved from the steps and made a quick dash to an archway that supported a stone bridge running the length of the hall, then to a large wooden post that ran up towards the ceiling. She was near a large arch that led to the next hall by now and she raced to the shadows, which swallowed up the wall on the left hand side.

  When she reached the arch, Emma looked through into a room that was as confused and vast as the one she was about to leave. The first thing she saw was a large set of stairs, which ran up to a series of huge archways. On each side of the steps were two stone lions, set in bas-relief, each of which had a leopard’s head in its mouth. Emma heard voices and slipped back into the shadows. Two monks walked past the lions and their words carried over to where Emma stood. They were low and rasping and reminded Emma of a record being deliberately played on a slower setting than it should be. She waited for them to pass before looking around again. The floor was empty and she took the chance to enter the new hall. At the base of the steps, the height hit her for the first time. She only came up to the lions shoulder and the steps came up to her knees but she climbed them, having to stop on every second one whilst her lungs recovered. When she finally reached the top she had to duck behind the last step as another three monks walked past but she was in luck, their hoods covered their ears and her movement was hidden from them. She waited for their voices to disappear into the distance before plucking up the courage to see what was beyond. When she looked out over the last step, she was greeted by a large piazza made up of elevated walkways with intricately carved friezes running their entire length, Fluted Corinthian columns ran up to statues which sat just below a ceiling with liquid flames rolling across its length, giving the hall a deep red flickering tinge which, Emma thought, seemed to fit perfectly with the ridiculous heat in this place.

  This was going to be more difficult for Emma. There were fewer places to hide and more people to see her but the ever present voice muffled her movements which was something. Emma scanned the hall in front of her looking for a route to the other side. At first there didn’t seem to be anything that would help her but then she saw a monk appear from nowhere on the left hand side of the hall. On closer inspection, she saw a covered walkway running the length of the wall. It was a cloister that, if she could reach it, would allow her to move to the other side of the piazza unseen.

  On the other side of the arch was a stairway that dropped down three steps before splitting left and right. Emma’s groaned as she realised that there was no way to get safely down the stairs as they were completely exposed to anybody who looked up. She got down on all fours, wincing as the heat from the stone burnt any exposed skin, and slid down to where the steps split. Down here it was safer as a balustrade sat on top of a brick wall and it provided cover all the way down to the bottom. Once she had got to the floor, it was just a matter of reaching the cloister, which was twenty feet away. Emma checked to make sure that there was no one around and ran to the stone canopy where she slipped behind the first supporting column. Looking down the corridor, Emma saw that there were several large wooden doors set in to the wall. It must have been where the monk had come from. She moved to the next column, silently praying that no one entered the cloister.

  The voice was in the distance now and Emma was silently grateful for the reprieve as she moved slowly onwards. She spent the next half hour working her way down to the end of the walkway until finally she found herself within touching distance of the next hall. Three stone arches indicated where the entrance was and Emma made a dash for the nearest one. She got there and found it opened onto a small recess. Looking through to the next hall, she saw that it was smaller than the last two and was dominated by a huge round tower in the centre. A set of stairs coiled round the outside until they opened onto a balcony. As Emma followed the stairs down her heart stopped. At the bottom was a set of rings attached to the wall just like the ones in the previous halls, but unlike those there was only one woman hanging from them.

  An old woman that looked suspiciously like someone Emma had once known.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mind games

  Father Eamon looked down on Newgate Gaol from a roof directly opposite Debtors Gate. From his vantage point, he could see a thirty foot high scaffold was being erected along the wide expanse of the Old Bailey. The gaol was shrouded in the mist that had fallen as he had walked along Cheapside but the silhouette of the walls could be seen as the strands of fog momentarily drifted apart. The noise of hammers against wood carried over to the guides and the two men watched as the scaffold rose up from the ground whilst dark horsemen could be heard in the surrounding streets hustling and cajoling people towards the gaol. The sound of hooves clashed with the mixed tones of fear and panic as they corralled the realms inhabitants into the centre of the Old Bailey. At the top of the scaffold, the two workmen had just put the finishing touches to their work and were now climbing down some hastily erected steps.

  Father Henry looked at Father Eamon. “Gallows. What are they doing? I haven’t seen this before.”

  “I have. They do it to instil fear across the plane but I haven’t seen it done in centuries. They know something is up.” Father Eamon squinted to see through the mist, “They hang people until someone tells them what they want.”

  “Bit late to hang anybody, isn’t it?”

  “They may already be dead but that won’t stop them feeling the pain that goes with a slow garrotting.”

  The riders were now separating a small cluster of men from the main group and herding them towards the large wooden platform. The horses barged them left then right until finally they found themselves as the foot of the steps that led up to the ropes. There a group of monks grabbed them and forced them forward. The men, cowed and broken, gave the bare minimum of resistance as they were beaten and slapped on the way up. It wasn’t until they arrived on the top of the scaffolding that the first one pushed back as he caught sight o
f the nooses and the two large masked men waiting for them. He tried to force his way down the steps but the executioners ran forward and dragged him back kicking and screaming whilst the monks that had come up with the men formed a barrier behind the other four, stopping them from trying the same action.

  The man was dragged to the furthest noose and forced to the floor. His hands and feet were tied and a hessian sack placed over his head. As the executioners raised him to his feet, muffled prayers could be heard coming from inside the sack. He started to tremble uncontrollably as the noose was placed around his neck and nearly buckled when one of the executioners hit him in the stomach before walking away laughing. The process was repeated four more times until all five men were standing, hooded and trembling, in a row.

  By now the road was full and the horsemen were riding at the front of the crowd in an effort to herd them into the ever decreasing space. Eventually, when they had filled every possible recess and cavity and couldn’t fit any more in, a hush descended on the crowd.

  A tall man, dressed in a long dark robe, had appeared on the scaffold and was walking slowly to the loose chains that ran along the outside. As he dropped his hood, revealing a shock of grey-white hair, he raised his hands and the low murmur descended to a fearful stillness.

  “Grainger!” Father Eamon’s face darkened as he watched the man take in the crowd below him.

  “You know him?”

  “Stephen Grainger. He was the Bishop of Winchester. Rumour has it he was partial to getting his hands dirty when it came to extracting confessions. I had heard he was here but didn’t want to believe it.”

  Both men watched as this man placed his hands on the scaffold and gave the crowd a cold look.

  His chipped and broken fingernails extended out in a shallow arc and caused the woodwork of the scaffold balcony to splinter as his knuckles went pale and taut around the handrail.

  “You all know why you have been brought here.” His voice was thin and reed-like, his rakish frame belying the authority that everyone around bestowed upon him. “You have been less than helpful in finding the woman we require, so a lesson in acquiescence would appear to be in order.”

  The man turned to the five men before looking towards a door that led into the gaol and nodding. Four monks staggered out, struggling under the weight of two large wooden buckets. Each one had a large ladle sticking out of it and a dull black rim sat around the lip. The monks dropped the buckets on the wooden floor in front of the condemned and proceeded to stir the contents. The men, unsure what was going on, started to get restless until a heavy punch in each of their lower backs by the executioners caused them to dip their knees.

  One of the monks dragged its bucket over to the man nearest to the door and proceeded to raise the ladle to his legs. A thick black liquid oozed onto the mans body and he started to twist and turn in a panicked attempt to get away but it was no good, all that happened was that he lost his footing and the noose took hold. His gurgling soon caused the other men to forget their fear of the executioners. They tried to force themselves free of their binds but they were tied fast and weren’t going anywhere.

  Father Eamon looked down for a second and groaned, “Tar. They are going to burn them while they hang.”

  Father Henry closed his eyes, “Just when you think you have seen everything this realm has to offer. Is there anything we can do?”

  “Nothing. They will burn regardless of what we do. At least we now know what they do not. She is amongst them.”

  Father Henry looked up at these words, “How do you know?”

  Father Eamon smiled “Because if she was outside, she would have found a rooftop to watch this from and I would have seen her by now.”

  After five minutes the men’s legs were completely covered by the tar, the pungent smell drifting across the road and slowly tickling their noses. The tall man turned first to the executioner and then to the monks that had forced the men up the stairs. On cue, they produced wooden torches from under their cloaks and proceeded to dip them in the nearest bucket. The tall man raised his right arm and the torches burst into flame.

  The crowd started to baulk and the horsemen had to knock the people at the back forwards into the people ahead of them as a wave of fear swept over everybody there.

  The tall man turned to the crowd, “All I ask is for the location of the one they call Elliott. She shall be cleansed and it is in everybody’s interest here that they hand her over!” The man’s voice was calm but his hands trembled in front of them. “If we receive news of this woman, then these men will walk free. If, however, the information is not forthcoming they will burn. You have two hours.”

  He turned on his heels and was followed off the scaffold by the monks and executioners, leaving the men to stand, trembling, on their own.

  Father Eamon looked at Father Henry. The two men stayed silent for a few seconds before Father Eamon drew breath.

  “This is a problem, there are more horsemen than I would have hoped for and I haven’t seen them out before dark in a long time. If we are careful then we should be able to get to Emma without them seeing us.”

  Father Henry shook his head in response. “That is what I was going to tell you. The sewer had collapsed when we got there. The tunnel is blocked off.” His gaze turned to the door that Stephen Grainger had just entered the gaol by. “She will have to come out over there.”

  Emma had spent nearly an hour looking at the woman hanging limply from the wall.

  She had managed to get herself closer to the woman by flitting from column to column. All the time she stuck to the shadows she was relatively safe but now she was less than twenty feet from the old woman and if she was going to get any closer, she would have to expose herself as she moved over the open ground. Emma looked around, searching for anybody that may be about to come along. When she was confident that she was alone, she looked up and waited for the bridges to clear. There was movement on the ones further up but it was the two that sat closest to the ground she worried about. From there anybody walking across had an unobstructed view of the tower and everything surrounding it. When she was satisfied they were empty, Emma dashed from her hiding place and raced over to where the woman was.

  On closer inspection Emma realised that she had underestimated the woman’s appearance. She was ancient, her skin blotched with liver spots and even in the darkness of this place she could see that it was stretched and grey. Her clothes were rags that had holes torn in to them for a head and two arms. The woman’s limp grey hair blended with her skin and Emma started to doubt whether this could ever have been her friend.

  Emma stifled a desperate cry as she looked at the woman’s arms. They were a patchwork of scars and the manacles that fixed her wrists to the chains had worn them through to the bone. She looked for any signs of life but the woman seemed to be dead to the world. Her head hung down and she seemed oblivious to her surroundings but her mouth moved ever so slightly as silent words made their way out. The rags she wore had stuck to her skin where blood had soaked through and Emma felt tears start to well up in her eyes as she saw the striations across her waist where the skin had broken and healed. The woman’s breathing was ragged. Her chest rose and fell in an uneven cadence and it seemed like every breath would be her last.

  Emma suddenly felt very exposed; she looked around at the surrounding columns and bridges, worrying that she would be seen at any second by passing monks. The low level roar in the background covered the sound of anybody coming by and Emma found herself spinning round like a startled rabbit at the slightest noise until she was almost a nervous wreck.

  She was just about to head over to the safety of the far wall, when the woman raised her head. She opened her mouth in a haggard and toothless smile and Emma had to look away as the release of foul breath hit her.

  “Emma. You came.”

  The words were low and pained but they were followed by feeble smile.

  “Is that really you? After all this time? It’s
been so long.”

  Emma cried despite herself, she covered her mouth as much to hide her feelings from Taryn as to disguise the noise and let out a series of gasping sobs. She raised a trembling hand and touched the cheek of her friend but try as she might, she couldn’t accept that this frail, old woman was Taryn.

  “They told me you’d never come. That you’d forgotten me but I always knew you’d come.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” There could be no doubting now that this was Taryn but the beautiful, vivacious woman Emma had known had long since disappeared and now it hurt her beyond words to see what had become of her, “I’m going to get you out.”

  Taryn smiled but the look on her face was one of resignation. “There is no escaping here, Em. They always put me here on my own as a punishment for trying when I first arrived. This place is like a warren.”

  “Oh, baby, what did they do to you?” Angry tears ran down Emma’s face. The response was a pained look from Taryn as her eyes flicked back down to the floor.

  “Things. I…I don’t want to say.”

  Taryn’s voice faltered and Emma hated herself for asking. She looked up at the chains that held Taryn’s arms to the wall. All the time she had been circling in the shadows; she had been trying to work out how she would get her loose from her shackles. As she hid herself from the second set of monks that had passed an idea had formed in her head and now as she looked around for the next ones to arrive, she told it to Taryn. As she did so, a faint, hopeful smile crossed the old woman’s face.

  By the time they reached the ground level, the dark horsemen had managed to force even more residents in to the Old Bailey. From here the gallows intimidated and terrorised in equal measure. Father Eamon moved along the cobbles, keeping himself tight to the wall with Father Henry just behind. The horsemen were too concerned with the crowd to notice the two guides slipping away.