Twisted

not allowed into StarChamber proceedings but the lords, in their leniency, had allowed Margaret Cooper, the prisoner’s wife, to be in attendance. A handsome woman otherwise, Bolt observed, her face was as white as her husband’s and her eyes red from tears.
    At the table for the defense was a man Bolt recognized as a clever lawyer from the Inns of Court and another man in his late thirties, about whom there was something slightly familiar. He was lean, with a balding pate and lengthy brown hair, and dressed in shirt and breeches and short buskin boots. A character witness, perhaps. Bolt knew that, based on the facts of this case, Cooper could not avoid guilt altogether; rather, the defense would concentrate on mitigating the sentence. Bolt’s chief challenge would be to make sure such a tactic was not successful.
    Bolt took his place beside his own witnesses—the constable and the lackey, who sat nervously, hands clasped before them.
    A door opened and five men, robed and wigged, entered, the members of the Star Chamber bench, which consisted of several members of the Queen’s Privy Council—today, they numbered three—and two judges from the Queen’s Bench, a court of law. The men sat and ordered the papers in front of them.
    Bolt was pleased. He knew each of these men and, judging from the look in their eyes, believed that they had in all likelihood already found in the Crown’s favor. He wondered how many of them had benefitted from Murtaugh’s skills in vanquishing debts. All, perhaps.
    The high chancellor, a member of the Privy Council,read from a piece of paper. “This special court of equity, being convened under authority of Her Royal Highness Elizabeth Regina, is now in session. All ye with business before this court come forward and state thy cause. God save the queen.” He then fixed his eyes on the prisoner in the dock and continued in a grave voice, “The Crown charges thee, Charles Cooper, with murder in the death of Sir Robert Murtaugh, a knight and peer of the realm, whom thou did without provocation or excuse most grievously assault and cause to die on fifteen June in the forty-second year of the reign of our sovereign, Her Majesty the queen. The Crown’s inquisitor will set forth the case to the chancellors of equity and judges of law here assembled.”
    “May it please this noble assemblage,” offered Bolt, “we have here a case of most clear delineation, which shall take but little of thy time. The vintner named Charles Cooper did, before witnesses, assault and murder Sir Robert Murtaugh on Temple wharf for reasons of undiscerned enmity. We have witnesses to this violent and unprovoked event.”
    “Call them forth.”
    Bolt nodded to the lackey Henry Rawlings, who rose and, his oath being sworn, gave his deposition, “I, sir, was making my way to the Temple wharf when a man did bid me come running. He said, ‘Behold, there is mischief before us, for that is Sir Robert Murtaugh.’ Faith, sirs, before our eyes the prisoner there in the dock was challenging Sir Murtaugh with a sword. Then he did leap toward the unfortunate peer and utter words most threatening against him.”
    “And what, pray, were those words?”
    “They were somewhat to this order, sirs: ‘Villain, thou diest!’ Whereupon the dueling commenced. And Sir Murtaugh cried, ‘Help! Help! Murder, murder!’
    “I then did run to seek the aid of the constable. We did return, with the advantage of bailiffs, and arrived to see the prisoner strike poor Sir Murtaugh. He fell through the railing to his death. It was a most awful and unpleasant sight.”
    The court then allowed the defense lawyer to cross-examine the lackey Rawlings but the attorney for Cooper chose not to ask any questions of him.
    Bolt then had the constable rise and take the witness’s dock and tell much the same story. When he had done, Cooper’s lawyer declined to examine this man too.
    Bolt said, “I have no more to present by way of the Crown’s case, my lords.” He sat down.
    The lawyer for the defense rose and said, “If it please this noble body, I shall let the prisoner report on the incident, and thy most excellent chancellors and most noble judges will behold, beyond doubt, that this is but a most egregious misunderstanding.”
    The men on the bench regarded one another with some irony, and the high chancellor administered the oath to Charles Cooper.
    One of the judges from the Queen’s Bench asked, “What say thou to these