'We were requested to leave two front row places for the Sheriff,' Lord Alexander corrected him, 'and there they are. Sit down, Kit, do. What a delightful day! Do you think the weather will last? Budd on Saturday, eh?'
'Budd on Saturday?' Lord Christopher was jostled as the other guests pushed past to the rearmost chairs.
'Cricket, dear boy! I've actually persuaded Budd to play a single wicket match against Jack Lambert, and Lambert, good fellow that he is, has agreed to stand down if Rider Sandman will take his place! He told me so yesterday, after church. Now that's a match to dream of, eh? Budd against Sandman. You will come, won't you?'
A cheer drowned conversation on the scaffold as the sheriffs appeared in their breeches, silk stockings, silver-buckled shoes and fur-trimmed robes. Lord Christopher seemed oblivious of their arrival, gazing instead at the beam from which the prisoners would hang. He seemed disappointed that it was not bloodstained, then he looked down and flinched at the sight of the two unplaned coffins waiting for their burdens. 'She was an evil woman,' he said softly.
'Of course you'll come,' Lord Alexander said, then frowned. 'What did you say, my dear fellow?'
'My stepmother. She was evil.' Lord Christopher seemed to shiver, though it was not cold. 'She and that maid of hers, they were like witches!'
'Are you justifying her murder?'
'She was evil,' Lord Christopher said more emphatically, apparently not hearing his friend's question. 'She said she would make a claim on the estate, on the trustees, because I wrote her some letters. She lied, Alexander, she lied!' He winced, remembering the long letters in which he had poured out his devotion to his stepmother. He had known no women until he had been taken to her bed and he had become besotted by her. He had begged her to run away to Paris with him and she had encouraged his madness until, one day, mocking him, she had snapped the trap closed. Give her money, she had insisted, or else she would make him the laughing stock of Paris, London and every other European capital. She threatened to have the letters copied and the copies distributed so everyone would see his shame, and so he had paid her money and she demanded more and he knew the blackmail would never end. And so he killed her.
He had not believed himself capable of murder, but in her bedroom, begging her a final time to return him the letters, she had mocked him, called him puny, said he was a fumbling and stupid boy. He had pulled the knife from his belt. It was hardly a weapon, it was little more than an old blade he used to slit the pages of uncut books, but in his mad anger it sufficed. He had stabbed her, then hacked and slashed at her loathsome and beautiful skin, and afterwards he had rushed onto the landing and seen the Countess's maid and a man staring up at him from the downstairs hall and he had recoiled back to the bedroom where he had whimpered in panic. He expected to hear feet on the stairs, but no one came, and he forced himself to be calm and to think. He had been on the landing for only a split second, hardly time to be recognised! He snatched a knife from the painter's table and tossed it onto the red-laced body, then searched the dead woman's bureau to find his letters that he had carried away down the back stairs and burnt at home. He had crouched in his lodgings, fearing arrest, then next day heard that the painter had been taken by the constables.
Lord Christopher had prayed for Corday. It was not right, of course, that the painter should die, but nor could Lord Christopher be persuaded that he himself deserved death for his stepmother's murder. He would do good with his inheritance! He would be charitable. He would pay for the murder and for Corday's innocence a thousand times over. Sandman had threatened that exercise of repentance and so Lord Christopher had consulted his manservant and, claiming that Rider Sandman had a grudge against him and planned to sue the trustees and thus tie up the Avebury fortune in the Court of Chancery, he had promised a thousand guineas to the man who could rid the estate of that threat. The manservant had hired other men and Lord Christopher had rewarded them richly for even making the attempt on Sandman's life. Now, it seemed, further payment would be unnecessary for Sandman had evidently failed. Corday would die and no one would then want to admit that an innocent man had been sent to dance on Botting's stage.
'But your stepmother, surely, had no claim on the estate,' Lord Alexander had been thinking about his friend's words, 'unless the entail specifically provides for your father's widow. Does it?'
Lord Christopher looked confused, but then made a great effort to concentrate on what his friend had just said. 'No,' he said, 'the whole estate is entailed on the heir. Onto m-me alone.'
'Then you will be a prodigiously rich man, Kit,' Lord Alexander said, 'and I shall wish you well of your great fortune.' He turned from his friend as a huge cheer, the loudest of the morning, greeted the hangman's arrival on the scaffold.
''I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle,' the Reverend Cotton's voice grew louder as he climbed the stairs behind the first prisoner, ''while the ungodly is in my sight.''
A turnkey appeared first, then Corday, who was still walking awkwardly because his legs were not used to being without irons. He tripped on the top step and stumbled into Lord Alexander who gripped his elbow. 'Steady, there's a good fellow,' Lord Alexander said.
'Hats off!' the crowd bellowed at those who stood in the front ranks. 'Hats off!' The roar of the crowd was massive as they surged forward to crush against the low wooden rail that surrounded the scaffold. The City Marshal's men, arrayed just behind the rail, raised their staves and spears.
Lord Alexander felt assaulted by the noise that echoed back from the prison's granite facade. This was England at play, he thought, the mob given its taste of blood in the hope that, given this much, they would not demand more. A child, sitting on his father's shoulders, was screaming obscenities at Corday, who was weeping openly. The crowd liked a man or woman to go to their deaths bravely and Corday's tears were earning him nothing but scorn. Lord Alexander had a sudden urge to go to the young man and comfort him, to pray with him, but he stayed seated because the Reverend Cotton was already close beside Corday. ''O teach us to number our days,'' the Ordinary read in a singsong voice, ''that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.''
Then the crowd roared in mocking laughter because Corday had collapsed. Botting had half climbed the ladder and was just lifting the rope from the prisoner's shoulders ready to attach it to one of the hooks of the beam, when Corday's legs turned to jelly. The Reverend Cotton leapt back, the turnkey ran forward, but Corday could not stand. He was shaking and sobbing.
'Shoot the bugger, Jemmy!' a man shouted from the crowd.
'I need an assistant,' Botting growled at the Sheriff, 'and a chair.'
One of the guests volunteered to stand and his chair was brought into the sunlight and placed on the trapdoor. The crowd, realising this was going to be an unusual execution, applauded the sight. Botting and a turnkey hoisted Corday onto the seat and the hangman deftly undid the line holding Corday's elbows and retied it so that it bound the prisoner to the chair. Now he could be hanged, and Botting clambered up the ladder, attached the rope, then came down and rammed the noose hard over Corday's head. 'Snivelling little bastard,' he whispered as he jerked the rope tight, 'die like a man.' He took one of the white cotton bags from his pocket and pulled it over Corday's head. Lord Alexander, silent now, saw the cotton pulsing in and out with Corday's breathing. The boy's head had dropped onto his chest so that, if it had not been for the flicker of cotton at his mouth, he might already have been dead.
'Show Thy servants Thy work,' the Reverend Cotton read,' 'and their children Thy glory.''
Venables came up the steps and received only a perfunctory cheer from a crowd that had exhausted itself at Corday's expense. The big man nevertheless bowed to his audience, then walked calmly to the trapdoor and waited for rope and blindfold. The scaffold creaked beneath his weight. 'Do it quick, Jemmy,' he said loudly, 'and do it well.'
'I'll look after you,' the hangman promised, 'I'll look after you.' He took the white hood from his pocket and pulled it over Venables's head.
''The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away,'' the Reverend Cotton said.
Lord Alexander, who had found himself appalled by the last few moments, became dimly aware of some disturbance at the southern, narrow end of Old Bailey.
''Blessed be the name of the Lord.'' intoned the Ordinary.
===OO=OOO=OO===
'God damn it!' Sandman found himself blocked by the press of traffic at the junction of Farringdon Street and Ludgate Hill. Off to his right the Fleet Ditch stank in the early morning sun. A coal wagon was turning into Fleet Street and it had jammed on the corner and a dozen men were offering advice while a lawyer in a hackney was
