Stolen Lives (The Alice Chronicles #3)

33

F ewer miles separate Hillbury from Dorchester than Sherborne from Hillbury, and in an encouragingly short time, it seems, Alice and Jay have passed the village of Charminster and can discern the spread of Dorchester ahead. The name of Sir Thomas, the sight of Justice Norrys’ Information, these get them through the town gates without delay.

Alice has seldom taken notice of the large stone-built bulk on the corner of a lane leading off the eastern end of the High-street. Everyone knows the lane as Gaol Lane, but she has never seen people going in or out of the gaol. It is a tall, grim edifice, not a place to linger. They say that further down the lane is an inn where the condemned are obliged to eat their last meal. How can anyone eat, she wonders, knowing what is ahead of them? Perhaps if they are lucky, they can afford spirits enough to render them uncaring. Once, she stood on the high street at the junction with Gaol Lane gazing up towards Gallows Hill. There, two posts stand, wide apart and high enough to allow a cart to pass under the cross-piece. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be up there in the cart next to her own coffin, getting nearer and nearer, the hangman at the ready, the crowd gathered on the hill, shouting their collective hate, wondered what it would feel like to slowly strangle when the cart was driven away. They say that a man, or a woman for that matter, can take as much as forty-five minutes to die if there is no compassionate relative to pull on their legs and shorten the agony. She wonders what depth of injury the soul would suffer at having to do that for a loved one…

The thought weighs on her heart, her eyes mist, and she is glad of the darkness as she follows Jay through the silent streets. The little houses either side are shuttered, the occupants secure, if stifling, within. Even at dead of night the heat still seeps from the walls, blanketing and airless in comparison with the open country they have passed through. Here and there a light burns within, perhaps a sleepless occupant, or a child wakeful at the distant thunder. But no one is abroad in these small hours of the night, no one to see them pass, to notice the flickering lightning advancing from the west.

Jay’s instinct for their direction is unerring. He turns left and right and left again through the narrow alleys. Alice is more familiar with the market area at the top of the town, and the main street, High West, broad and shop-lined. The network of little backstreets is virtually unknown to her. They come to the end of an alley that opens onto High East Street, and Jay ahead of her is crossing towards the dark hulk of the prison building. ‘This is it. What was his name, the Keeper?’

‘Thomas Sparrow.’

Jay dismounts and approaches a wide, dim archway, kept by a dark door. Alice can just make out the sturdy planks, the great iron hinges with splayed tips, and the several reinforcing ribs of wood nailed top to bottom. Jay steps up and hammers hard. They wait. No sound, and no light struck. Jay hammers again. ‘Keeper Sparrow!’

For Alice, aeons pass. She hears what sounds like a footstep, only for it to fade and for her to conclude she imagined it. The street is still and silent. She tells herself that if it were near dawn, there would surely be the stirrings of life, shutters drawn back, the smell of baking bread, people setting off for work at the brewery, carts bringing supplies into the town.

Suddenly, as at the gaol in Sherborne, a shutter is thrust back in the door, and through a criss-cross of iron bars a lantern is held up and a face appears, raggedly bearded, sweaty, bloodshot eyes peering. ‘Who calls?’

‘We seek Keeper Sparrow,’ Jay tells him. ‘Is he within?’

‘He might be,’ is the surly answer. ‘And who might you be?’

Jay says, ‘We are here on an urgent errand, with a letter from a Bristol Justice.’ And Alice adds, ‘It is a matter of life or death.’

‘It always is,’ the voice grumbles as the face disappears. ‘Wait there.’ Through the grille they watch the bulky lantern-lit figure retreat with shuffling footsteps. He rounds a corner and the light fades.

Alice glances skywards, vainly trying to guess the time. At this time of the year the nights are worryingly short and they still have a long ride before them to get to Portland. ‘Please hurry!’ she shouts through the grille. ‘Do you think he heard me?’ she asks, and Jay’s silence could as well be a shrug.

Two minutes stretch to five and no sound comes from within. Alice approaches the door again, bangs hard several times, can hear the hollow echo within. ‘Anyone there?’

No sound.

‘If he does not return in a minute or two, we must continue, Jay,’ she says anxiously. ‘I wish I’d asked Sir Thomas how far to Portland.’

‘What was it William said? Twice as far from Hillbury to Portland as Sherborne to Hillbury. Don’t worry, mistress, we’ve made it to Dorchester, say half that. I’d hazard around ten miles to go,’ Jay says.

She goes back to the door, bangs again, fretting. ‘Come on, come on! How long can it take to don a gown?’

Faintly through the grille, a gleam relieves the black. At first dimly, gradually brightening, light swings across the walls, and then she hears footsteps and two men round the corner to approach the door. A man’s voice, not the gatekeeper’s. ‘I am told there is a Justice from Bristol here.’ As he nears the grille, ‘Do you show yourself, sir, though what you could wish to inspect at this time of night I – oh! Who are you?’

‘Am I speaking with Master Sparrow, the Keeper?’ Alice asks.

‘You are. And who are you, miss, to be rousing a gentleman from his bed in this manner?’

‘I am Mistress Jerrard of Hillbury, here on behalf of Wat Meredith. We travel to Portland Castle to prevent a serious miscarriage of justice. He is to be hanged there at dawn, but he is innocent and the hanging must be stopped, by express order of the Justices of Bristol.’

‘You have papers to prove this, you say?’ The man, though willing to listen, is not yet convinced.

‘We have the Information drawn up by Justice Norrys of Bristol.’ Alice accepts the paper from Jay and holds it up to the barred window. Keeper Sparrow raises the lantern but instead of reading, he looks at her.

‘And yet they only send a woman? It says little for their resolve to save a life.’

Alice bites down the impulse to take issue. ‘Sir Thomas Harcourt would have come but there has been an accident, and I am here instead. Read this paper.’

Keeper Sparrow looks closely as though reading, but Alice can see his eyes are not moving across the lines. ‘It says Wat Meredith is innocent,’ she says.

‘And how may I be of assistance? This Wat Meredith, he is indeed at Portland. They passed through here yesterday. But I am not the Keeper of Portland, madam. I cannot order his release.’

‘But Sir Thomas tells me you know who is in charge there, you can tell me to whom I must apply, to ensure this execution is halted.’

‘Stay, do you know the road, fellow?’ he asks Jay standing next to Alice.

‘Due south of here till we glimpse the sea, then pick up the Chesil bar and follow it across to the island of Portland,’ Jay says. I don’t know the way in detail, but the castle cannot be that hard to espy, I know it is on the north shore.’

Sparrow muses. ‘It can be misleading down that way, the road is not well defined. Wait a few minutes, I will come with you.’

‘We are hard pressed for time,’ Jay says.

‘You’ll be more hard pressed if you take the wrong way,’ Sparrow tells him and turns to the gatekeeper. ‘You, saddle my horse.’

At last. For the first time in this exchange, Alice feels herself relaxing. ‘Do you have a second mount, Keeper Sparrow?’ she asks him. ‘We are using a pair each, turn and turn about, to keep the horses fresh.’

‘The good people of Dorset do not see fit to provide their Keeper with such luxury. But do not fret, madam. I am like my name and am too slight to tire my mount. Look for me in five minutes.’