ROGER’S APPOINTMENT TO MEET with the Reverends Mr. Selverson, Thomas, and Ringquist, elders of the Presbytery of Charles Town, had been arranged for three o’clock in the afternoon. Plenty of time to do a few errands and brush his good black suit.
For the moment, though, he sat on the bench outside the printshop, enjoying the morning sun and savoring the aftertaste of breakfast. Brianna had made French toast, to accompany the normal parritch and ham, and while Fergus had declared that no Frenchman would ever have conceived such a dish, he’d admitted that it was delicious, rich and eggy and slathered with some of the honey Claire had sent from her hives. It went some way to compensate for the lack of tea or coffee; as an American-occupied city, Charles Town had little of either. On the other hand, there was fresh milk, taken in trade from a dairywoman with a taste for ballads and the lurid confessions of felons about to be hanged.
Roger had read several of the latter screeds that Fergus had set aside for his customer the night before and had been fascinated, mildly repelled—and made somewhat uneasy.
All you that come to see my fatal end
Unto my final words I pray attend
Let my misfortune now a warning be
To everyone of high or low degree.
A stack of these broadsides had been left on the breakfast table; he’d caught a glimpse of one headline as Germain had gathered them up and tapped the pages tidily into order before putting them in his bag:
THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF HENRY HUGHES
Who Suffered Death on the Twelfth of June, Anno Domini 1779
At the County Gaol, Horsemonger Lane, Southwark
For violating EMMA COOK, A Girl Only 8 Years Old
No stranger to the excesses of the daily press—the things Fergus printed were in fact not that different in character or intent from the tabloid papers of his own time—he had been struck by one factor peculiar to this time: to wit, the fact that the condemned men （and the occasional woman） were always accompanied by a clergyman on their journey toward the gallows. Not just a private pre-execution visit to give prayers and comfort, but to climb Calvary alongside the condemned.
What would I say to him, he wondered, if I should find myself called to accompany a man to his execution? He’d seen men killed, seen people die, certainly; much too often. But these were natural—if sometimes sudden and catastrophic—deaths. Surely it was different, a healthy man, sound of body, filled with life, and facing the imminent prospect of being deprived of that life by the decree of the state. Worse, having one’s death presented as a morally elevating public spectacle.
It struck Roger suddenly that he’d been publicly executed, and the milk and French toast shifted at the sudden memory.
Aye, well … so was Jesus, wasn’t He? He didn’t know where that thought had come from—it felt like something Jamie would say, logical and reasonable—but it flooded him at once with unexpected feeling.
It was one thing to know Christ as God and Savior and all the other capital-letter things that went with that. It was another to realize with shocking clarity that, bar the nails, he knew exactly how Jesus of Nazareth had felt. Alone. Betrayed, terrified, wrenched away from those he loved, and wanting with every atom of one’s being to stay alive.
Well, now you know what you’d say to a condemned man on his way to the gallows, don’t you?
He was sitting there in the hot sunshine, trying to digest everything from French toast to the revelations of memory, when the printshop door opened beside him.
“Comment ?a va?” Fergus emerged with Germain and Jemmy in tow and raised an eyebrow at Roger, who hastily removed the hand still curled into his stomach.
“Fine,” he said, getting up. “Where are you off to this morning?”
“Germain is taking the papers and broadsheets to the taverns,” Fergus said, clapping his son on the back and smiling at him. “And if you agree, Jem will go with him. A great assistance, and one I have missed sorely, mon fils,” he said to his son. Germain blushed but looked pleased, and stood up straighter against the heavy weight of the canvas sack on his shoulder, filled with copies of L’Oignon and sheaves of broadsheets and handbills advertising everything from a ship captain’s desire for sailors to join a Profitable and Happy Voyage to Mexico to a list of the Numerous Benefits of Dr. Hobart’s Famous Elixir, Guaranteed to Provide Relief from a laundry list of complaints, beginning with Constipation and Swelling of the Ankles. Roger glimpsed Inflammation of, but the list of inflamed parts disappeared into the recesses of Germain’s bag, leaving Roger to imagine the extent of Dr. Hobart’s powers.