The Slaughtered Widow by David Field EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Authors: David Field
- Language: English
- Genre: Renaissance Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Nottingham, 1593
Edward Mountsorrel, bailiff to the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire,
stood grim-faced at the back of a small crowd that had
assembled in the upper chamber of Nottingham’s Guildhall.
They were there to learn whether or not the presenting jury
would commit, for trial, the man sitting in manacles and
charged with murder. Having heard what passed for evidence
in the case — most of which Edward found impossible to
believe — he was hardly surprised when, without even
withdrawing to consider the matter, the lead juror announced
that they had found a ‘true bill’, meaning that they believed
the accused to be guilty.
Magistrate Charles Plowright announced that the prisoner
was to be kept confined in the cells below the Guildhall to
await trial at the next available assize, charged with the murder
of Agnes Timberlake. The shackles that had been around the
prisoner’s feet for the hearing were unlocked and he was
hauled to his feet and led down through the hatch to the cell
beneath. As he passed out of sight the committed man looked
across at Edward, and shook his head as if in resignation of his
fate.
Edward swore bitterly. The prisoner was his friend and
colleague, Francis Barton, and, if Edward were honest with
himself, his only friend these past few years. Francis was
accused of a murder that he almost certainly did not commit,
yet the evidence against him was both clear and convincing.
The murdered woman had been Francis’s lover, and Edward
could not bring himself to believe that such a brutal death
could have been at the hands of the bailiff to the Sheriff of
Nottingham.
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