The Trial of Barnaby Crewe – Part 2: The Sentence

The Lower Cell was cold stone and lantern light, a small vaulted chamber with a plank bunk, an iron ring in the wall and a high barred window. The door shut behind him with a long iron clang. His hand found the latch on his side, bright and plain, and his shoulders came down.

She came at dusk with the Executrix, a tall silent woman in black who was, in fact, Ottilie's oldest friend, Marguerite, a theatre costumier who had volunteered for the evening. Two lanterns were lit. A small table held a coin tray, a thin cane laid across a velvet cloth and a leather folder.

"The fine," said Ottilie.

He counted nine hundred wooden crowns into the tray, one at a time, aloud, and it took twenty minutes, and every one of them felt like a small, shaming gift.

"The correction."

He knelt on the cold flags. The Executrix stood beside him, silent as a statue, while the Justiciar read the sentence aloud again, slowly, and he heard his own offences in her calm, level voice and felt his face go hot. Then the count began.

It was a ritual and a rhythm. Each stroke was exact, brief and within the agreed limit, and she paused between every one, and he counted them aloud, one, Your Excellency, thank you. At every tenth, the Justiciar lifted a hand, and the cane stopped, and she asked, "Does the accused wish to continue?" "Yes, Your Excellency." "Say it plainly." "I do. Thank you." On the thirtieth she asked twice, and looked at his face, and he said, steadily, "I want to finish."

"Then you will finish," said Ottilie, gently.

At forty, the count was done. The cane was laid on its cloth.

"The correction is complete."

They fastened him, as the verdict said, with leather cuffs and soft rope, in a chair with the quick-release knots Ottilie had tied herself, and left him with the lantern and a tin plate of bread and broth and a bell on a cord. He ate. The cell was silent. After an hour, he rang the bell, once, to see what would happen, and the door opened within a minute, and she stood in it with a question in her face.

"I only wanted to know if you would come," said Barnaby.

"I will always come." She came in and knelt in front of him and, for a long moment, said nothing.

At midnight she spoke the word herself.

"Adjourn."

It ended the sentence. The Executrix, who had been standing in the shadows, slipped away without a sound. Ottilie unfastened the knots, rubbed his wrists, checked his hands and put a blanket round his shoulders, and then sat on the bunk and drew him into her arms.

"How are you?"

"Sentenced," said Barnaby, laughing damply. "Properly. Is that wrong?"

"It is the right answer." She kissed his forehead. "You were a model defendant."

"Was the fine accepted?"

"The Treasury is satisfied." She smiled. "I am drafting your next trial. The charge is vanity. It will be very thorough."

"I will plead guilty," said Barnaby.

"You always do," said the Justiciar, and rang the cell bell once, softly, for luck.

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