Crow Hollow (28 page)

For a moment there was stunned silence, then the rest of the king’s agents rallied around him. Cooper plucked away muskets, and McMurdle snarled threats at those who resisted. One of the older men from the court pleaded for peace, for the New Englanders to obey the king’s agents.

In a moment, Cooper and McMurdle had disarmed the militia and tossed all the weapons to the floor. Vandermeer hauled Knapp to his feet while Marianne covered him with a pistol. Blood trickled from his forehead, and he could scarcely remain standing without assistance.

Leverett crossed his arms and stared at Fitz-Simmons, who was still trembling. “Will you name your accomplices in sin?”

“Some died on the highway west of Boston.”

“And the rest? Name them.”

The deputy governor swallowed hard and nodded. “John Johnson. Harold Kitely. William—”

A gun fired. Men startled. Mary cried out in Prudence’s arms.

One of the older men slumped across the table, dropping a pistol that clattered on the floor. Blood gushed from his ruined head, spreading across the papers and maps on the table. He’d blown out his brains.

Prudence turned away with her daughter, covering the child’s eyes. James moved to her side, almost put an arm around her before remembering where they were.

Leverett cast an unforgiving glance at the dead man. “William Crispin, you were going to say?”

Fitz-Simmons swallowed hard and nodded. “Aye, Goodman Crispin.”

James was angry at himself for not checking all of the men for hidden weapons. He ordered Cooper and McMurdle to search the rest of the members of the General Court.

“Continue,” Governor Leverett told his deputy when that was accomplished. “Name the rest of the condemned.”

“Matthias Walker. Joseph Nance. Henry Edwins. And Samuel Knapp, our leader. That is all. May the Lord forgive me my wickedness.” Fitz-Simmons buried his face in his hands.

“The Lord may,” James said. “But His Majesty, Charles the Second, will not.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
F
IVE

A mob loved a hanging, and the good Puritans of Boston were no exception. By the time James and Cooper arrived at the frozen Common on horseback, several hundred people were milling about the large, open field around the gallows.

A small group of officials, wealthy merchants, and ministers gathered in a somber knot. Stone was up there, speaking to the governor in quiet tones. There were several women in the governor’s coterie; perhaps Prudence was among them. He hadn’t seen her since the trial three days earlier, when she’d testified against Knapp and his confederates. Since then, he’d been busy writing letters, negotiating with the colonial government, and arranging credit to finance the expenses of his final days in Boston before his return to England.

“McMurdle is on the
Vigilant,
guarding the prisoner?” James asked Cooper.

“Aye, with the mulatto. McMurdle will sail to London, if you’ll allow him. There will be honors. This could be his opportunity.”

“And you? This could be your opportunity as well.”

“With your permission, I will return to my family in Springfield.”

James considered. It would be a cruel thing to force Cooper back to London.

“Stay in the Bay Colony, if you must, but you will settle in Boston. I need a man in the city.”

Cooper nodded, looking relieved. “You could stay too. ’Twould be good to have a friend among these stiff-necked fellows.”

“No, I am leaving as soon as I settle affairs here.”

“Nothing could make you stay?” Cooper gave him a sharp look. “Not even the love of a good woman?”

“As for McMurdle,” James said, ignoring the question, “I have half a mind to order him back to New York. Vandermeer isn’t enough—I need someone with more cunning and force of will. The Dutch came back once—who can say they won’t try again? Moreover, if he’s enamored of Marianne, and she of him, they’d fare better in Manhattan than London.”

“Aye, that they would. What about the colonial charter? Will you seize it?”

“No. I made promises to Governor Leverett in order to secure his cooperation. Betraying that promise now would only incite more sedition. But I’ll make my recommendation to the king. Know this, the Crown will be exerting more control of New England. Soon enough, we will have those charters and these will be royal colonies.”

The two men ignored the stares as they came up front and dismounted. They tied their animals to the side of the scaffolding. The long arm of the gallows creaked in the wind. Six nooses waved back and forth, glistening in the morning sun, the rope coated with ice. The hanging was to have taken place the previous evening, but Leverett had asked James to grant a temporary stay. The wife of one of the condemned men had given birth the previous day, and the man wished to hold his child first. James granted the stay. Freezing rain had fallen during the night. The last thing the men would feel before the swinging was an icy collar tightened around their necks.

Eight conspirators. One was dead, having blown his own brains to kingdom come when his name was spoken. He would receive his reward in the next world. Another man was in chains in the hold of the
Vigilant,
on his way to England to face the king’s wrath in person. The other six would hang.

As James and Cooper stepped up front, Leverett and the other men with him turned away, refusing to look at the king’s agents. Only Reverend Stone approached.

“The widow is not here,” Stone said. “She is with her child and my wife at the house.”

James had been looking around for Prudence; now he turned to the reverend, attempting to keep the disappointment from his face. “It is for the best. A hanging is an ugly thing. One should not delight in the death of one’s fellow man.”

“How very true,” Stone said. “There has been altogether too much delighting in these parts as of late. We defeated our enemies in battle, but at a terrible cost.”

“It was a war. War is brutal.”

“Do you remember what Peter Church said when he denounced me during my sermon?”

“He was denouncing all of Boston,” James said, “not you in particular.”

“Instead of spreading the gospel to the native sons of this land, those who hungered for truth were given gall and hot lead. Their blood cried up from the soil for justice. And this,” Stone added with a nod toward the gallows, “is a taste of the punishment the Lord will deliver this land if we do not repent.”

“Here they come,” Cooper said.

In England, a beating drum would have announced the arrival of the condemned as they were marched up to the gallows. The hollow booms seemed to mark the footsteps of the men being led to their doom. But here, there was no drum, no crier. The crowd merely parted and five men came shuffling through the crowd with their hands bound behind their backs. The sixth would arrive later.

Stone took James’s arm, cast a glance at Cooper, then led him a few paces away. “Tell me, Master Bailey. Have you betrayed your trust?”

“How do you mean?”

“With Prudence. Did you form an understanding?”

A dull ache worked at James’s stomach. “We formed no understanding. I have betrayed nothing.”

“You were alone with her and wandering the wilderness, hiding from the savages and falsely claiming to be man and wife while you spent nights together in inns and country houses. I want to know if you respected her chastity.”

“Why are you asking me?” James pulled free and turned his attention to the five men trudging forward. “Put the question to Prudence if you’d like to know.”

“She refuses to answer, says the question is an insult.”

“Aye, and that it is.”

The five men reached the front of the gallows: John Johnson, Matthias Walker, Henry Edwins, Harold Kitely, and Joseph Nance. William Crispin was dead. Only Fitz-Simmons and Knapp were not present.

“But if you led her to believe something . . .” Stone continued. “Look at me, Bailey!”

“What?” He turned, annoyed.

“Prudence doesn’t understand the worldly ways of a man like you. She is a simple girl at heart.”

James scoffed at this. “She is a strong, sharp-witted woman. Confident and clever.”

“Aye, that she is, and I underestimated her all along. That isn’t what I meant. But if she is all of those things, Master Bailey—”

“If you’ll excuse me. I must attend to the king’s business.”

Cooper fell in next to James as he stepped up to the front. Leverett stood there, grim-faced, together with two armed men. Three of the condemned were trembling with fear. Another, this one the oldest of the conspirators and a former member of the General Court, stared at the ground with such a look of shame it was as if he wished a hole would open and carry him straight to hell rather than face the good people of Boston.

The final man was Henry Edwins, the man whose newborn baby had caused the delay of execution. Edwins stared straight ahead with tears filling his eyes. Never once had any of the men begged for mercy, and except for Knapp, who had remained defiant, all had confessed their guilt. Even so, James had wished someone would ask clemency on behalf of Henry Edwins.

According to the other men, Edwins had come into the conspiracy only after the war was over, and he had not been present during the attack that left Woory and Peter dead. He’d had no knowledge of these things, but he
had
been among the men who chased James, Prudence, and Cooper into the woods outside Winton. And he had attempted to hunt down Cooper on the road to Hartford. That made him a traitor.

“Tell your man to fire his musket,” James said to the governor.

“It is a hard thing you ask, Bailey.”

“It is a mercy compared to Samuel Knapp’s crimes. Fire the gun.”

The governor gave the order. A man lifted his musket and fired into the sky. The hollow shot rolled through the winter air.

For a long minute there was silence, then the sound of horse hooves came clumping from the direction of High Street. The crowd parted, and in trotted a horse without a rider, being driven by two men. One of them was Vandermeer. The horse dragged a naked man by his feet; the man groaned as the frozen ground battered him. When the horse stopped, they untied the man and hauled him to his feet. It was Samuel Knapp.

The drawing had torn the skin on Knapp’s back to ribbons, and blood streamed down his buttocks and legs. His shoulder hung crooked in its socket. He groaned when it shifted.

“Murderer!” someone shouted, and then dozens of voices were jeering and calling. People pelted the naked man with snowballs and rotten turnips.

“You have had your pleasure,” Leverett said. “Finish this business and send the people home.”

In truth, James gained no pleasure from seeing his enemy abused. These people had once hailed Knapp as a hero. Had Prudence failed, had Stone proven a coward, had Leverett believed Knapp, they would be cheering Knapp instead. James would be the one on the way to the gallows.

“Drawing was a courtesy,” James told the governor. “When the
Vigilant
arrives in London, Fitz-Simmons will be drawn to the gallows, then hanged until he is almost dead, then he will be disemboweled and emasculated. Only then will they kill him.”

“How is that justice?” Leverett demanded. “He was not even the leader of the conspiracy. Why should he suffer more than the others?”

“He was a high official, which makes his treason more severe. But what you should be asking is whether Knapp should receive leniency when your deputy governor will not.”

When Leverett didn’t answer, James told him to order the condemned men to the gallows. The governor gave the command.

Leverett’s militia led the men up and fit the icy nooses around their necks. Edwins fainted and had to be held up, and one of the other men cried out a woman’s name, presumably his wife’s. James stepped up to the gallows. His heart had sunk like lead to his bowels.

“Mercy!” one of the condemned cried when he saw him.

Knapp, still naked and bleeding, fixed James with pleading eyes. “For the love of God, mercy.”

At last, contrition. Fear.

“Like the mercy you showed Peter Church?” James asked in a quiet voice. “Or Sir Benjamin? Or the sachem’s wife, whom you violated in defiance of God and common decency? No, you will hang.”

James turned to face the crowd. People were shouting, many eager, or even angry. Others clenched each other; these, James counted as family members of the accused. There would be widows in Boston tonight. It was an ugly, terrible thing he was about to do.

He spotted Lucy and Alice Branch. Old John Porter. Men from the General Court or militia. Some of the men, he suspected, could as easily be up here on the gallows if not for a twinge of conscience at the right moment, the wise voice whispering that they stay away from the filthy bargain being offered them.

“People of Boston!” James cried. He had a loud voice, and it carried through the crowd, but he had to repeat it two more times until they quieted. “English subjects of His Majesty, Charles the Second, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etcetera. These men are accused of high treason and shall be hanged by the neck until dead: Samuel Knapp, Matthias Walker, Joseph Nance, Harold Kitely, John Johnson, and Henry Edwins.”

A woman’s high wail came above the whispers and crying children. It came from a young woman standing near the front, a bundle in her arms that could only be a baby. Who was she, Edwins’s wife?

As James spoke, men had put hoods over the heads of all of the men except Knapp. Some of them were openly weeping or still begging for mercy. Now the militia tied sand-filled bags to the feet of all of the men except for Knapp. Reverend Stone came trudging slowly up onto the scaffolding.

The reverend was a portrait of dejection, his brow low, mouth down-turned, his gaze fixed on his boots. Every ponderous step was as if he, not the condemned, were the one with bags of sand dragging on his feet. When he reached the top, he recited a scripture and uttered a prayer to God, thanking Him for His mercy, honoring His righteous anger. But Stone’s voice was weak, desultory. Nothing like the man who had thundered his sermon in the Third Church meetinghouse.

This might be Reverend Stone’s last sermon and prayer. During recesses in the trial, James had heard from more than one person that the Third Church was moving to strip Stone of his position. Stone may not have been guilty of conspiracy, but he had been spiritually blind, and for that he would pay.

When Stone was finished, he stood there, stunned, until James took his arm and nudged him toward the steps down from the gallows. The militia had descended as well, and now it was just James and the hangman, who came up the stairs when the reverend had descended. The man wore a scarf around his face, his head beneath a hooded cloak, but James had hired the hangman himself and knew his identity. He was a sailor and drunk who had been milling around The Windlass and Anchor, and who had been willing to do the killing in return for fifteen shillings and two bottles of Barbados rum.

James looked down at the expectant faces, the weeping women, and then back at the condemned men. Knapp looked gray. His hooded companions trembled as if they would fall before the platform was pulled away. The man on the end—Edwins—was still weeping.

And James’s resolve broke. Quickly, before he could reconsider, he made his way to Henry Edwins and cut the rope with his sword. He plucked off the hood, and the man stood gaping at him.

James lifted his hands until the crowd quieted. “These men have been condemned to death. But His Majesty is a merciful sovereign. This man’s punishment shall be commuted to a lesser sentence.”

“Bless you!” Edwins gasped as James cut the rope binding his hands.

But he couldn’t simply pardon the man and send him on his way. “Henry Edwins, your life is spared, but you will lose your freedom.” He spoke as loudly as he could over the sudden tumult of the crowd. “You will sell yourself into indenturehood for three years, the sum to be donated to the care of widows and orphans from the war. You may continue to live in your own house with your wife and child.”