judge said, wiping his brow. “Our recorder has faithfully described your trials and tribulations for your next chapbook. Constable, if you will?”
Next to be tried were two more pickpockets, one nervous and scared, the other grinning impudently. The judge regarded them sternly. Looking closely, Lucy recognized the younger one. Sid! He was the one she had tricked so long ago at the market.
“Sid Petry and Geoff Hicks, you have been accused of pickpocketing on at least five separate recent occasions. How do you plead?”
Sid quailed. “Guilty, Your Highness.”
There was a tittering in the crowd, as the older boy shoved him. “I meant, not guilty, most noble sire.”
The room laughed again; for a moment, the judge’s lips twitched. “Indeed, ‘sir’ is fine. I shall enter a plea of not guilty on your behalf. What about you, young man?” He directed his gaze at Geoff, who kept his cheeky smirk.
“I can think of no reason I am here,” Geoff stated blandly. “Those witnesses are all liars, and them jurors will just agree with them. They’re all liars, too.”
A group of men and women began to scream at him. The judge raised his hand.
“Guilty or not guilty?” the judge demanded.
Geoff shrugged. “There ain’t no justice for me here.”
“In that case, if you do not wish to plead or to be tried by this court, then the court will adjudge a verdict of peine forte et dure.”
The judge beckoned the constable, who stepped forward. Like him, many of the jurors looked impassive, but several looked openly stricken. Others whispered to their neighbors. “What does that mean? What shall happen?”
Geoff looked around, sensing something amiss. “What? What does that pen, pen…”
“Peine forte et dure. It means, my insolent boy, that you shall be taken back to prison and live out the final days of your life in that dirty vile place. You shall be stripped to the waist and hoisted above the ground, so that your arms can be tied to two corners of the dungeon, and your legs in the same fashion. You shall then have iron placed on your body, adding to your weight. For three days, you shall thus hang, with just a bit of barley to eat, and maybe just a spot of water, and then no food or water at all, hanging until you are dead. That, or an hour in the stocks.”
The crowd murmured again, enjoying its own shock. Lucy balled her fists in her lap. “Oh, he wouldn’t! He couldn’t! Why can’t the stupid boy just admit it?” she muttered to herself.
Sid began to sob. “Geoff, Geoff … that would hurt so much!” he cried. This plaintive wail made a few laugh and others look nervous.
The judge slowly lifted the gavel in the air, looking meaningfully at the boy. He finally seemed to catch on. “Guilty, then, I guess! The stocks ain’t so bad, compared to all that!”
“Just so,” the judge agreed. “One hour in the stocks. Constable?”
Geoff and Sid were led away to take their turn in the stocks outside. Lucy was glad that was all. He shouldn’t be pickpocketing, but no one deserved that peine punishment. Well, except the vile cur who killed Bessie, of course. That thought brought her back to the matter at hand.
Sure enough, William’s name was called next. Thankfully, the judge ordered a short meal break, reminding the jurors that dinner was available in chambers. William was given a piece of bread and a drink of water from the pail in the corner. He grimaced, yet took a sip from the ladle anyway.
While a few people went off to use the necessity, or down a quick pint at the pub around the corner, most left someone holding their spot on the bench. Everyone had come to see Will’s trial. A murder trial was far too sensational to be missed, especially when the accused was so young and handsome.
Since John was there to guard her seat, Lucy pushed her way to the front, where Will sat, dejected. She pressed a bit of gingerbread into his hand. “Eat. Please, dear.”
Neither Will nor Adam acknowledged her presence. She had apparently interrupted Adam’s final instructions. “So remember, Will, I cannot ask questions of the witnesses myself—God in heaven, how I wish I could!—but do not let a witness retire until we have finished. When I nod, all right?”
Will just stared ahead, inclining his head slightly to show that he heard.
Adam continued. “It’s important! ’Tis very difficult to call a witness again. The judge will not like