Face Down Beneath The Eleanor Cross Part 3

Tears slowly rolled down Jennet's cheek at the thought. Sensing her distress, Mark gathered her close, kissing the unwanted moisture away.

"We must do something." Her voice broke on the words.

"What can we do?" He held her tight, as worried as she.

"Rescue her?"

Jennet had been trying to think of ways to break Lady Appleton out of prison from the moment Sir Walter's messenger had intercepted them on their way to London. He'd told them the terrible news and also delivered the letter Lady Appleton had written just before she was taken to Newgate.

"In some prisons," Jennet whispered, thinking of a tale she'd heard about the gaol in Gloucester, "the very walls do crumble away from age. Prisoners have only to step through gaping holes between the stones and walk away."

"A prisoner might also creep out over the roof, or escape by rus.h.i.+ng the gates, or contrive to cut holes in walls," Mark ventured, "but I do not see Lady Appleton doing any of those things."

They had both gotten a good look at Newgate when they journeyed from Sir Walter's lodgings in Blackfriars to the Saracen's Head. The stones seemed solid, the entire huge complex daunting.

With a sigh, Jennet snuggled closer to her husband's warmth. "Well, then, we wait until the trial is over and rescue Lady Appleton on her way to Tyburn to be executed."

Shocked, Mark went stiff in her arms. "No. 'Twill not come to that."

"It may." Lady Appleton always said it was better to face the truth, no matter how bad it might be.

"Sir Walter-"

"Sir Walter is but one man. If it lay in his power to free her, she would already be out of that dreadful place. We cannot let her be executed." Jennet choked on more tears, but this time when Mark sought to wipe her face, she jerked away and sat up in bed. "Will you help me?" she demanded.

"You know I will, love. When you have a plan that has any hope of success."

"I have told you my plan already. We will rescue her on her way to Tyburn. We will gather all the servants from Leigh Abbey and rush the dead carts and free her."

"And then?" Jennet heard his skepticism, but at least he was listening.

"Then we flee the country. All of us. We will send the children on ahead, to Sir Robert's sister in Scotland." Lady Glenelg was devoted to Lady Appleton. She was also young Kate's G.o.dmother.

"Let us pray," Mark said after a long silence, "that it does not come to such a pa.s.s."

Chapter 8.

Roused from a doze by the tolling of the great bell at St. Sepulchre, Sir Walter Pendennis could not, for a moment, remember why he was sleeping in his chair rather than in the comfortable bed in the next chamber. Then, in the act of rubbing his knuckles against eyes gritty with sleep, his bleary gaze fell on the jumble of papers covering his work table.

Susanna.

He'd been striving most of the night to discover some means to save her. The coded message her servants had brought him had been no help. It did naught but prove she should have been the woman supping with Robert in that tavern.

He had managed, just before he dozed off, to think of a way to secure her temporary release. It would, however, take another day or two to arrange.

With an utterance of disgust, Walter shoved the mess away from him and stood. A piece of parchment tumbled to the floor. The Lady Mary's letter. He left it where it had fallen.

Seizing his warmest cloak, he abandoned his lodgings and hurried through the frigid dawn toward Newgate. He knew what he would see, knew he did not want to witness it, and yet he could not seem to stop himself. He felt compelled to make the grim pilgrimage, as if by doing so now he could become inured to what might come after.

As it was Monday, the usual execution day, the clamor of the bells began at six. It would continue without letup as an accompaniment to the condemned procession. Walter arrived in time to see three two-wheeled carts emerge from the gatehouse. Each had a guard of halberdiers and in each rode a half dozen prisoners, shackled and fettered and sitting atop their own coffins.

There was not much of a crowd. Only a few hundred spectators and a handful of ballad sellers and hawkers. Walter took that to mean there were no celebrities among the condemned, no highwaymen to be mobbed for locks of hair and bits of clothing. He did not understand why anyone would want such mementoes, but apparently some folk did.

How long, he wondered, until he stood in this selfsame spot to watch Susanna brought out of Newgate? She had already slept five nights in that evil place. If he did not find a way to help her soon, the charges lodged against her would produce this inevitable result.

So far, his efforts to determine the ident.i.ty of Robert's real killer had fallen short. He'd pulled strings. He'd called in favors. He'd spent more than one late night studying reports from his agents, for he'd ordered every intelligence gatherer in his employ to learn all they could about the current activities of every political enemy Robert Appleton had made over the years.

There were a goodly number of them, all with sufficient reason to want him dead. No less a person than the regent of France, old Catherine de' Medici, who was said to know more about poisons than anyone, even Susanna, might have ordered his death. Another suspect was the king of Spain. He had little fondness for Robert after the debacle eighteen months earlier.

Had some foreign power ordered Robert Appleton's death? Or was his killer someone he'd angered since his disappearance? What had he done during those months? What person had he offended? Had his continued existence threatened someone? Walter had no answers, only dozens of questions.

The dead carts traveled north, moving slowly past St. Sepulchre. The death knell continued, emanating from the church which stood diagonally opposite the prison, its square tower distinguishable even from a distance by its four corner spires. As each condemned man was carted past, charitable members of the congregation handed out brightly colored nosegays. No one knew why. The origins of this particular tradition had long been forgotten. They also offered mulled wine containing a narcotic. That needed no explanation.

"Sir Walter!"

At the sound of his name, Walter glanced around. The Saracen's Head lay just beyond the graveyard adjacent to the church. Coming toward him from that direction at a fast clip was Leigh Abbey's steward, Mark Jaffrey.

"Any news?" Jaffrey asked.

"No." Together they fell into step behind the procession, following it along Giltspur Street and Snow Hill and across Smithfield to Cow Lane. The intent of the meandering four-mile-long route was to allow the greatest number of persons to gape at the prisoners, in the hope they would be deterred from committing similar crimes. Walter doubted the sight had any such effect. Most folk regarded executions as just one more spectacle provided for their entertainment, a cross between bull or bear baiting and a rousing Sunday sermon.

At length, the carts turned west to begin the steep descent into Holborn. Walter lifted a sweet-scented pomander ball to his nose as he crossed Holborn Bridge over the Fleet. Once Fleet Ditch had been a river flowing into the Thames. Now it was an open sewer, clogged with refuse and the bodies of dead animals.

The procession paused for refreshment outside the Half Way House, a tavern in Holborn. Another tradition, but one in which Walter was in no mood to indulge. The rest of the way to the place of execution was rough and unpaved, through countryside where houses were few and far between and hedges and brambles lined the lane.

"We have come far enough." His abruptness startled Jaffrey but the other man continued to keep pace, and silence, as they turned back. Walter was grateful he did not ask why they'd been following the procession in the first place, for he had no rational answer.

When Newgate's heavily decorated arch loomed once more before them, Jaffrey's steps faltered. He stopped to stare at the imposing edifice, made more impressive by the weight of time. For centuries, prisoners had vanished behind its high, thick walls. This vile place swallowed them, spitting them out again only to be carted off and killed.

"We will not let her be executed," Jaffrey said. "We talked it over. Jennet and I, and Fulke and Lionel, too. We're all of us willing to do anything we must, even if that means breaking the law ourselves."

Walter narrowed his eyes as he looked at the steward. "For the nonce," he warned, "tell me nothing more."

But the idea of arranging for Susanna to escape stayed with him. He began to think about where they might go afterward.

And wonder if she'd agree to marry him.

Chapter 9.

Susanna attempted to block out the mournful clang of the Great Bell at St. Sepulchre in the Bailey by putting her hands over her ears. It was no use. The sound was too loud.

At least, since this was Tuesday, the tolling did not signal more executions. When silence fell, sudden and final, Susanna swallowed hard. Then she s.h.i.+vered, although the chamber in which she was confined boasted both a hearth and a charcoal brazier.

She had been in Newgate less than a week, but it seemed an eternity. Since she'd been bound over for trial and committed to gaol, she'd heard nothing more from Walter, and she'd had no visitors save for the keeper of Newgate and his wife. Twice, she had been invited to sup with them, an event enlivened by music for entertainment and the consumption of a great deal of wine on the part of the keeper.

Restless, Susanna wandered about her quarters, finally stopping before a single narrow window. She had discovered, on her first day in prison, that the cas.e.m.e.nt was rusted. It did open, but forcing it was scarce worth the effort. Although the view encompa.s.sed the broad market street that ran from Newgate into West Cheap, the long rows of butchers' stalls in the Shambles were located at this end. It did not take much imagination to understand why Newgate Prison was also called "The Stink."

The sound of a key in her lock startled Susanna. She had lost track of time, staring blankly at the leaded gla.s.s panes and the wavery view beyond. She turned just in time to see the door swing open.

Walter Pendennis had never been so welcome. A rush of warmth engulfed her as he ducked under the lintel and entered the chamber. She moved toward him, arms outstretched, her eyes drinking in every detail of his appearance even as tears threatened to blur her sight.

He was taller than she, as Robert had been, and as broad-shouldered as her late husband, but somehow Walter had always been more approachable. Perhaps, she thought as she was engulfed in his embrace, it was that little paunch that showed even beneath his exquisitely tailored doublet, or the fact that his sand-colored hair was beginning to thin.

He had disillusioned her only once, by deceiving her about how much he knew of Robert's schemes, but she had long since forgiven him for that. In a choice between personal desires and duty, perforce he had been obliged to choose his allegiance to the Crown. Since then, he had shown himself to be a good and loyal friend, a man she could trust.

Encompa.s.sed by his strength, savoring the feel of thick velvet beneath her cheek, she allowed herself the luxury of remaining locked in his arms until he moved his hands from her waist to her shoulders and set her away from him. She saw that his blue eyes were troubled. His haggard appearance made her heart catch. He looked worse than she did.

"Will they not let me leave?" Until she whispered the question, Susanna hadn't realized just how much she had been counting on Walter to secure her release. The plans she'd made would be for naught if she did not regain her freedom.

"There are conditions," he said.

Relief surged through her. "I'll accept them gladly, no matter what they are."

"You are to be released on furlough. For the payment of twenty pence a day, a guard's wages, you will be permitted to go anywhere you please, but you will have to return for trial. And the guard will stay with you at all times, to a.s.sure that you do come back."

"How long do I have? When is my trial?"

"I have arranged for the case to be adjourned until the next quarter sessions. That gives us until seventeen days after Easter."

"Bless you, Walter. And Easter comes late this year." She calculated quickly. "We have nearly four months to discover who poisoned Robert. Surely that will be enough time."

"I also arranged for Robert's burial at Leigh Abbey." Walter removed his hands from her shoulders.

"I am indebted to you, Walter."

The words did not begin to convey her grat.i.tude. It had troubled her, not knowing what had been done with Robert's body. In the ordinary way of things, she'd have prepared him for burial, partic.i.p.ated in the rituals, the formalized grief and mourning. No matter how contradictory her feelings toward Robert had been, she'd owed him that much-the ceremonial respect of a proper funeral.

"I only wish I could have done more. Discovered more. Robert carried a few coins. Nothing else. Not even a forged pa.s.sport. Neither have I had any success in discovering whether he had lodgings in London at the time of his death. Or a horse."

"He will have had a horse." Robert always had a horse.

"I have been considering who might want Robert dead."

"So have I." As she spoke, Susanna gathered up the pages she'd spent the last interminable days covering with notes. "I remember a time, in Warwicks.h.i.+re, when Robert was attacked by two ruffians. He told me then that he had many enemies, that there were any number of persons who might want to kill him, though he never specified who they were."

She'd suspected he was exaggerating. He often did, making himself out to be more important than he was. And in that particular instance, it had turned out to be something she had done that had led to them being set upon.

"You have been making lists." Walter's smile was fleeting.

"I've had little else to do." She handed him the most important one to study while she fetched her cloak.

A moment later, a bemused look on his face, Walter returned the paper. "I am sorry. I had hoped you were unaware of them."

"Robert may have been an excellent intelligence gatherer, but he was never clever at hiding his mistresses."

She should have known, Susanna realized, that Walter would recognize all three names.

Before Robert's disappearance, she'd believed Walter was just another of her husband's colleagues. In truth, Walter had been his superior, answerable only to the queen herself. He wielded considerable power in the government, though not enough, it appeared, to save her from the necessity of proving her innocence.

"It seems likely to me," she told him, "that Robert would have contacted at least one of his former mistresses during the last eighteen months. Those three are the ones whose names I know, but I suspect there are others. At least one more."

"When?"

Susanna hesitated. Walter had known her husband longer than she had. "In the early days of our marriage, I came upon Robert and a woman. They were locked in a pa.s.sionate embrace in one of the gardens at Durham House. I do not know who she was. I only saw her from the back."

Walter looked so uncomfortable that Susanna suspected he did know, or could guess, the woman's ident.i.ty. For the moment, however, she chose not to press him to reveal it.

"I mean to talk to each of these three women, Alys and Annabel and Eleanor. Question them. I want to know if they had any contact with Robert, and I want to learn where each of them was when he died, for a discarded mistress, like a discarded wife, might have motive for murder."

"Alys is in Dover," Walter said, tacitly agreeing to her proposal, "but Annabel lives in Scotland. Leaving the country may be a problem. As for Eleanor, I've had no reports on her whereabouts for more than two years."

"I know where Eleanor is," Susanna told him. "She came to me after she gave birth to Robert's daughter."

Walter's surprise was evident in the way he fumbled for words. Normally one of the most articulate of men, he needed a moment to phrase his questions. "How old?" he asked first. And then, "Where is she now?"

"Rosamond was born during Robert's sojourn in Spain. Unable to reach him, her mother came to me at Leigh Abbey. I arranged for both of them to be installed at Appleton Manor. It seemed appropriate." The Lancas.h.i.+re property was Robert's inheritance from his father, as Leigh Abbey was Susanna's from hers.

"Did Robert know?" Walter took Susanna's cloak and draped it over her shoulders. He watched her face as he fastened the clasp.

"Not for a long time."

She had been considering where he might have gone after his disappearance. Why not Lancas.h.i.+re? He knew that county well, for he'd spent his childhood there. And would a man not want to meet his only child?

Susanna had also done a good deal of ruminating about what Robert had intended to do with the money she was bringing him. Run off with Eleanor and Rosamond? Perhaps. She suspected that, if they could find his bolt-hole in London and his belongings, they would have the answer to that question.

Pulling on her gloves, she moved toward the door. "We have much to do," she declared as she lifted the latch. Determined to remain optimistic, she sent a brave smile over her shoulder. "If you will introduce me to my guard, we can begin."

Chapter 10.

Jennet paced nervously, waiting for Sir Walter to bring Lady Appleton to the Saracen's Head Inn.