Martyr

Начало книги

Rose Downie sat on the cold cobbles, cradling a swaddled baby that was not hers.

She leaned her aching back against the wall of the imposing stone house, close to its arched oak door. Under any other circumstance, nothing could have brought her near this building where baleful apprehension hung heavy in the air like the stink of tallow, but the man who lived here, Richard Topcliffe, was her last hope. She had been to the court of law, and the justice merely shook his head dismissively and said that even had he believed her-and that, he said with a scowl, was as unlikely as apple blossom in November-there was nothing he could do for her.

The constable had been no more helpful. “Mistress Downie,” he said, “put the baby in a bag like a kitten and throw it in the Thames. What use is it alive? I promise you, in God’s name, that I will not consider the killing a crime but an act of mercy, and you shall never hear another word of the matter”.

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