Free The Secret of the Rose by Sarah L. Thomson Page B

been in, the disgrace he could no longer protect me from.
    What-will-I-tell-him, what-will-I-tell-him jogged in my mind to the rhythm of my feet upon the paving stonesas I turned up Newgate Street. No ideas came into my head, but I found I hardly cared. It did not matter. Nothing mattered except seeing my father at last.
    There was the prison. My quick steps slowed a little. The street led straight up to the prison’s gateway, and I felt as if I stood in a river with my legs braced against a current that wanted to sweep me away through that gate and into the darkness beyond.
    Mere fancy. It was just a heavy stone building, built over the roadway as if there had not been enough space for it elsewhere. It was foolish to let dread churn in my stomach. I’d known well enough my father was in prison. I could not let the sight of that prison, looming dark over the street, stop me in my tracks.
    There was a door set in one wall of the dark tunnel underneath the building. As I approached it, a filthy hand, no more than skin drawn tight over bones and knuckles, shot out of a barred window to seize hold of my elbow.
    “For pity’s sake, some bread,” a voice whined. “Have mercy, young sir, ’twill be to the credit of your soul….”
    I fought back the urge to shriek and wrench my arm away. My father might be reduced to this one day. No, I would never let that happen. But still, I answered civilly.
    “I am sorry, friend. I have nothing to give.”
    The hand dragged me closer to the bars, and in thedimness inside I could see a wolfish face, as thin as the hand, half hidden in greasy hair and a long, straggling beard. “Have pity,” the prisoner begged, as if he had not heard a word I’d said.
    “I am sorry, I—”
    “Pity! Pity!”
    “I have nothing!” I pulled my arm away; although the man clung desperately, he had no strength to hold me. Other hands were thrust out of the window, other voices pleaded. Guilt clutched at my throat. I had still a few coins in my purse, and a master who, strange though he might be, would probably feed me tonight. Should I give all I had to these starving wretches? But I could not. I needed—my father needed—what little money I had. Shutting my ears to the calls for bread and meat and mercy, I hurried past the window to the heavy oak door, bound with iron.
    “Pardon, master,” I said to an old man who sat slumped on a stool by the door. One of his legs, thrust out into the street before him, ended above the knee, with a wooden peg strapped on. He squinted up at me under thick white eyebrows and said nothing.
    “I wish to visit a—” My voice, already shaken, choked a little on the word. But this was no time for weakness. “A prisoner,” I finished, as steadily as I could. “May I go in?”
    The one-legged man held out a hand to me, palm uppermost. His skin was gray, creased with deep lines of black dirt. I blinked in surprise.
    “Halfpence for the doorkeeper,” he wheezed at me impatiently.
    Oh. I fumbled with my purse and drew out a halfpenny, which I dropped into the waiting hand, and Master Marlowe’s shilling, which I clutched tightly. The old man, with a groan, heaved himself to his feet and limped over to the door. He took out a key on a chain around his neck and worked it in the lock for at least a minute while my heart thumped and my feet twitched. Let me in, let me in, my mind whispered, in time to the beat of blood in my veins.
    The lock clicked open at last. I pushed past the doorkeeper and nearly tumbled down a flight of stone stairs that led to a long, dark hallway with another door at the end.
    “Wait!” I called back up the stairs. “Where should I go?”
    “To thy left!” the old man answered impatiently, and heaved the heavy door shut with a solid clang that shook me to my bones.
    The air was damp and hot and thick, and it smelled like a privy and something worse. A slaughterhouse.Blood and corruption. I put a hand over my mouth and looked to my left. Now