“Thank you,” I replied. I did not think mere words could save Will, but they could not hurt, and Will needed all the friends he could find.
“Also, have you considered writing a pamphlet of your own?” Newcome continued.
“What do you mean?”
“There is no reason to let your enemies have the only word in this matter,” he explained. “If the wars have shown us nothing else, it’s that pens and printing presses are no less important than cannons and harquebuses. Here I can only sell works written against the King, but in the south there are just as many mocking the Parliament-men. They’re much funnier, too. You should write in defense of your nephew. If enough citizens believe your nephew is innocent, he cannot be hanged.”
“And you think that a book could help?” I asked.
Newcome shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt, could it? So long as you are willing to pay the printer, he’ll say whatever you wish. And if you give the booksellers a little on top of that, they will give the books away gratis.”
“Thank you, Mr. Newcome,” I said after a moment. I slipped a few coins into his hand. “I will consider it, and I may come to you for help.”
Newcome bowed. “I will do whatever I can.”
I looked toward Peter’s Prison and decided to delay my visit to Will. There was nothing to be gained by telling him about the coming Assize. No, I needed to consult Martha, and we had to find a way to save him from the calamity that lay before him.
Chapter 14
Martha looked up in surprise when I arrived at home. She had been sweeping the parlor, but she stopped as soon as she saw my face.
“What is it?” she asked. “What has happened?”
“They intend to try Will along with the witches,” I said.
Martha paled and sat on the edge of the couch. “When?”
“I don’t know. They might wait until all the witches are tried. Or they might not.”
“Are you sure?” Martha asked.
“Not entirely,” I replied. “It is just a rumor now. I heard it from Peter Newcome, but he seems to know as much about the city as any man could.”
Martha nodded. “We should have seen it coming. Is it the Lord Mayor’s doing?”
“In some way, it must be,” I said. “If he hired a man to kill Mr. Breary, he’d certainly want to see Will—or anyone for that matter—hanged for it, and the sooner the better.”
“And if Agnes jumbled enough men she could find one to kill Mr. Breary,” Martha said. “And that would put the old goat in a bind.”
I nodded. “If he had to choose between seeing his wife hanged, or finding someone to die in her place, there’s no question which he would select. So he could hang Will in order to hide his own guilt or Agnes’s. And that doesn’t even account for Joseph…”
“Who would leap at any excuse to see Will on the gallows, no matter who killed Mr. Breary,” Martha finished my thought.
“Lord help us, we’ve found ourselves in quite a web,” I said.
“I’d rather we not wait for the Lord’s help,” Martha replied. “We must make our own way out.”
As we considered our options, Sugar wandered out of the kitchen and meowed. His appearance reminded me that our problems went much further than Will, the Lord Mayor, and Joseph.
“And then there’s Rebecca Hooke,” I said.
“What are we going to do?” Martha asked. “There are so many threatening clouds.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
In less troubled times, if the city were visited by the plague or some other disaster, I’d simply hire a carriage and send Elizabeth and Hannah to one of my estates. I would stay in York if I thought I could help, or go along if Elizabeth needed me. Martha could do as she wished. But either way I knew how to keep my family safe.
The problem, of course, was that a witch-hunt was not the same as the plague or a flood, and we did not live in ordinary times. Martha and I could not flee the city so long as Will remained in gaol, for without us to defend him, he would surely be hanged. And with the lawlessness that had overtaken England thanks to our civil wars, robbers and thieves haunted the roads like never before. Sending Elizabeth and Hannah away would be no less dangerous than keeping them in York. We were trapped in the city as surely as we had been during the siege of 1644.
“We must find an advantage over Joseph,” I said. “He is the keystone to both the witch-hunt and Will’s arrest. If we could bend him to our will or drive him from the city, the battle would soon turn in our direction.” I paused for a moment. “The chapman Peter Newcome says we should write a book.”