“Excellent idea, my boy,” the Lord Mayor cried, and beckoned for one of his men. “Tell the sergeant that we will try Mother Lee first.” The man nodded and hurried toward the Warden’s offices. “It will take some time, but we will search out the other witnesses and try your case this morning,” Greenbury announced with a smile. “Come and sit with me until we are ready to begin. It has been too long since we talked.”
I risked a glance at Martha and saw panic rising within her. “Thank you, my Lord Mayor,” I responded. What else could I say?
“The sooner we can dispose of this matter, the better,” Greenbury continued. “And with you and Mr. Hodgson here at the Castle, nothing of import can happen in the city, can it?” The Lord Mayor chuckled at his own flattery. I could offer only the thinnest of smiles.
So Martha and I joined the crowd crossing the Castle yard to the courtroom where we would await Mother Lee’s trial.
* * *
To their credit, the Lord Mayor’s men gathered the witnesses against Mother Lee far more quickly than I would have thought possible, and in only an hour the witnesses, bailiffs, and jurymen gathered in the hall. Dried flowers had been strewn on the floor to prevent the spread of gaol-fever, so—for the moment at least—the room smelled curiously of spring.
The judge sat at an elevated table and peered at the crowd gathered before him. If the Lord Mayor qualified as aged, the judge was positively ancient.
“My god, where did they find such a huddle-duddle?” Martha whispered. “It’ll be a miracle if he lives through the trial.”
“They were in a hurry, I suppose,” I replied. “And not in a position to be particular.”
The judge looked around the room as if he was not entirely sure why he was there or what he should do next. Joseph apparently saw the same thing, and he crept to the judge’s side to whisper something in his ear. The judge nodded his approval, picked up a small wooden silence, and knocked it on the table three times before the hammer fell from his hand. A few men glanced at the bench, but the hubbub continued unabated. Martha covered her mouth to hide a smile.
“He is a clownish one to be sure,” I said. “But who do you think will be the true master of these trials?”
Martha’s smile disappeared. “He’ll do Joseph’s bidding.”
“Aye. Joseph has planned every step in his journey, from the pamphlets to hiring Rebecca as his Searcher. Of course he’ll find a malleable judge to oversee the trials.”
“And if he’s the one who oversees Will’s trial…,” Martha said. I could hear the fear in her voice.
I finished her dreadful thought. “He’ll demand that the jury return a guilty verdict.” Though I had never seen the practice myself, I had heard of judges who kept the jurymen without food for days on end until they rendered the desired verdict. While such cases were rare, I had no doubt that Joseph would bend the law to meet his ends.
“Quiet!” a voice cried. “The court is in session!”
My pulse raced as Mark Preston strode toward the jury, his mere presence threatening great violence against those who did not heed his words. The jurymen, and everyone else in the room for that matter, fell into complete silence.
The judge looked up at Preston as if surprised to see him, but he said nothing. With an exasperated sigh, Joseph crossed the room and whispered in the court clerk’s ear.
“The first case we will hear is that of Mother Lee,” the clerk announced. “The charge is the most damnable sin and crime of witchcraft.”
A door behind the bench opened, and two bailiffs led Mother Lee, shackled hand and foot, into the courtroom to begin what would be her last day on earth.
Chapter 16
Mother Lee’s time in gaol had done her no favors. Though some life remained in her eyes, she was far more pinched and gaunt than when I’d last seen her. When she entered the room she inspected the faces of the jurymen and the judge before turning her gaze on the rest of us. Perhaps she hoped to find a friend or a neighbor who had not turned against her. One of the bailiffs nudged her, and she shuffled forward, her shackles clanking and scraping as she crossed the room. I could not help noticing the cuts and scabs on her wrists where her aged flesh had been scraped raw and bleeding. Mother Lee turned to face the judge, who stared back, utterly unsure of what to do. Joseph climbed up onto the bench and gave the judge his orders.
“The clerk should charge the accused,” the old man said.
The court clerk stepped forward and announced the grand jury’s charges against Mother Lee, that by witchcraft she had murdered Lucy Pierce’s infant son.