A new terror now overtook C.J. In an age when the sight of a woman’s ankle was reputed to cause a calamity, she hoped against hope that the jailer would have too much propriety to lift her skirts in order to affix the leg shackles. But already as good as convicted, prisoners were apparently accorded no such decency, she soon learned, as Clapham knelt and roughly slipped his hands under her gown. C.J. flinched at his touch.
Perhaps it should not have surprised her that the jailer took every advantage of his opportunity to explore her anatomy. His gnarled hands closed around C.J.’s ankles as he applied the heavy cuffs, his palms slid upward and kneaded her calves. She was sickened by his touch. When she attempted to pull away, she was astonished at the weight of the irons, and found herself as much a prisoner of the shackles as she was of the roving miscreants that trembled as they inexpertly plied the stockinged flesh beneath them.
After fastening the shackles, Clapham proffered his palm to C.J., who looked at it uncomprehendingly. “Don’t tell me you’ve got no money, miss,” he said in evident disbelief.
“I’ve got no money, sir. If I’d had any, I would not have needed to avail myself of that apple.”
“No need to get bold in your breeches with me, young miss. Now, how do you expect to pay my fee for turning the key for ye?”
“I have to pay you for letting me out of prison?” C.J. replied, nonplussed by the entirely alien concept. “I’m not even free.”
The jailer cocked his head. “How do you expect a man to earn an honest living, missy? I’m no elected official. It’s garnish that puts bread on my table and clothes on my back,” he said, drawing attention to his misshapen anatomy. Clapham ran a wrinkled hand through his stringy white hair. “But then, I must be going daft in me dotage—expecting a thief to understand a thing about honesty!”
“I should think it would be ransom enough for you to be running your hands along a lady’s legs,” C.J. retorted.
The turnkey’s expression quickly conceded defeat. Clapham led his shackled prisoner up the clammy winding staircases and remanded her into the custody of Constable Mawl, who escorted her down a wide corridor thronged with curious onlookers and rumormongers who halted their conversations midbreath to comment upon the unfortunate malfeasant being led toward the courtroom.
“The young lady looks like quality to me,” an older woman whispered to no one in particular.
“Hardly,” a female voice sneered. “Why, just look at her shawl. Coquelicot went out of fashion three seasons ago,” she tittered, and received a handful of corroborative nods and murmurs.
At the end of the hallway, two scarlet-uniformed officers of His Majesty’s army standing sentry at either door swung them open with military precision as C.J. and Mawl approached.
“Oyez, oyez,” C.J. heard. She was thrust forward by the enormous constable into the Banqueting Room itself, transformed into a temporary courtroom for the assizes. As she shuffled along, C.J. noticed an impeccably dressed dark-haired gentleman and wondered what had compelled him to attend the proceedings. A bewigged, black-robed bailiff stood at the far end of the high-ceilinged room, his booming voice resounding off the plaster walls and high ceilings as he announced, “All rise for the magistrate.”
There was a noisy scuffing of feet and shuffling of chairs and benches as two hundred or so souls of all stamps of society rose expectantly, including the spectators in the small upstairs gallery who responded with jeering enthusiasm at the entrance of the defendant.
With a flourish, another redcoat opened the door at the far end of the pistachio-colored room and the magistrate entered, clearly pleased with the pomp accorded him. Reaching up to adjust his flowing white periwig, he mounted the platform to the judge’s bench.
For the briefest moment, as C.J. marveled at his ermine-trimmed crimson robe, she forgot that her life was in this man’s hands. They were plump hands, almost like a baby’s, and looked unaccustomed to any manner of manual labor. Okay, she thought, I can wake up now. I got the reality check and I’m sure it will better enable me to play someone from this era. But when nothing changed, C.J.’s fear of being placed on trial in this strange and terrifying world returned with a vengeance, and she fought to keep her wits about her.
“Court is now in session,” the bailiff thundered. “His Worship, Magistrate William Thomas Baldwin presiding.” The gavel landed with a crack as sharp as a gunshot and the day’s proceedings—civil as well as criminal suits—commenced apace.
Alongside the bailiff sat a young clerk who squinted over a pair of bifocals. The magistrate asked the clerk to read the name of the first case. The young man read aloud the name of one Hiram Goodwin, charged with beating his wife, Susan. Mrs. Goodwin cowered in a corner of the courtroom while her husband’s hired serjeant-at-law was able to convince the court that although his client had indeed assaulted his spouse, he had done so with an open hand and had never taken a stick to her that was thicker than the width of his thumb, and while not strictly codified, enough judicial precedent had been set to support the legality of Mr. Goodwin’s actions.
A sobbing Susan Goodwin stood as the magistrate issued his verdict, dismissing the case based upon the rule of thumb—the determination that the weapon used to discipline the plaintiff did not exceed the dimensions commonly accepted as lawful.
The derisive chorus of catcalls that issued from the mouths of the distaff spectators in the small balcony drowned out the resounding cheers of their masculine counterparts. C.J. was appalled by the verdict.
“Call the next case, Master Masters!”
The young clerk read C.J.’s name from the official docket. She shuffled forward and approached the bar. “I am she, Your Worship,” C.J. replied.
“Of what is this young woman accused?”
Constable
