William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

slightest doubt, reasonable or unreasonable, on Rhys’s physical guilt, and he was struggling without a glimmer of hope to think of any mitigation.
    Where was Monk?
    He dared not look at Hester. He could imagine too clearly the panic she must be feeling.
    Through the afternoon and the next day Goode brought on a troop of witnesses who placed Rhys in St. Giles over a period of months. Not one of them could be cast doubt upon. Rathbone had to stand by and watch. There was no argument to make.
    The judge adjourned the court early. It seemed as if there was little left to do but sum up the case. Goode had proved every assertion he had made. There was no alternative to offer, except that Rhys had been whoring in St. Giles and his father had confronted him, they had quarreled and Rhys had killed him. Goode had avoided mentioning the rapes, but if Rathbone challenged him that the motive for murder was too slender to believe, then he would undoubtedly bring in the beaten women, still bearing their scars. He had said as much. It was only Rhys’s desperate condition which stayed his hand. Fortune had already punished him appallingly, and the conviction for murder would be sufficient to have him hanged. There was no need for more.
    Rathbone left the courtroom feeling he had been defeated without offering even the semblance of a fight. He had done nothing for Rhys. He had not begun to fulfill the trust Hester and Sylvestra had placed in him. He was ashamed, and yet he could think of nothing to say which would do Rhys the slightest service.
    Certainly he could harass witnesses or object to Goode’s questions, his tactics, his logic, or anything else; but it would serve no purpose except to give the effect of a defense. It would be a sham. He knew it; Hester would know it. Would it even be of comfort to Rhys? Or offer him false hope?
    At least he should have the courage to go to Rhys now, and not escape, as he would so much rather.
    When he reached Rhys, Hester was already there. She turned as she heard Rathbone’s step, her eyes desperate, pleading for some hope, any hope at all.
    They sat together in the gray cell below the Old Bailey. Rhys was in physical pain, muscles clenched, broken hands shaking. He looked hopeless. Hester sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders.
    Rathbone was at his wits’ end.
    “Rhys,” he said tensely, “you have got to tell us what happened. I want to defend you, but I have nothing with which to do it.” His own muscles were knotted tight, his hands balled into fists of frustration. “I have no weapons. Did you kill him?”
    Rhys shook his head, perhaps an inch in either direction, but the denial was clear.
    “Someone else did?”
    Again the tiny movement, but definitely a nod.
    “Do you know who?”
    A nod, a bitter smile, trembling-lipped.
    “Has it anything to do with your mother?”
    A very slight shrug of the shoulders, then a shake. No.
    “An enemy of your father’s?”
    Rhys turned away, jerking his head, his hands starting to bang on his thighs, jolting the splints.
    Hester grabbed his wrists. “Stop it!” she said loudly. “You must tell us, Rhys. Don’t you understand? They will find youguilty if we cannot prove it was someone else, or at least that it could have been.”
    He nodded slowly but would not face her.
    There was nothing left but the violence of the truth.
    “They will hang you,” Rathbone said deliberately.
    Rhys’s throat moved as if he would say something, then he swung away from them again, and refused to look at them anymore.
    Hester stared at Rathbone, her eyes filled with tears.
    He stood still for a minute, then another. There was nothing to say or do. He sighed, then left. As he was walking along the passage he passed Corriden Wade going in. At least Wade might be able to offer some physical relief, or even a draft of some sort strong enough to give a few hours’ sleep.
    Farther along he encountered Sylvestra, looking so distraught she seemed on the verge of collapse. At least she had Fidelis Kynaston with her.
    Rathbone spent the evening alone in his rooms, unable to eat or even to sit at his fire. He paced the floor, his mind turning over one useless fact after another, when his butler came to announce that Monk was in the hall.
    “Monk!” Rathbone grasped at the very name as if it had been a raft for a drowning man. “Monk! Bring him in … immediately!”
    Monk looked tired and pale. His hair dripped and his face was shining