The Shining City by Kate Forsyth

away.
    “Rhiannon.”
    “No family name?”
    Rhiannon shook her head.
    “I‟m Bess Balfour. What ye in for?”
    Rhiannon had to swallow before she could answer. “Murder.”
    “Me too,” Bess said sympathetically. “Who did ye murder?”
    “A soldier,” Rhiannon said shortly. “He was trying to kill my mother,” she added after a moment.
    “I killed my father,” Bess said. “He was beating my poor auld ma almost to death, and so I grabbed the bedpan and whacked him across the head. He fell and hit his head on the
    hearthstone. Cracked his skull.”
    “And they locked ye up for that?” Rhiannon said indignantly.
    Bess nodded. “I have a lawyer, though,” she said with quiet pride. “He‟s costing my ma every penny she‟s managed to squirrel away over the years but she says he‟s worth it. I just have to wait till the next quarter sessions, when my case will go afore the magistrates, and then he‟ll argue my case for me. My ma and my sisters bring me food and coins to give Octavia, so she‟ll let me have an extra blanket and my shawl. I‟m lucky. If ye havena any family to bring ye money, ye‟ll starve to death in here.”
    “I havena anyone to bring me money,” Rhiannon said somberly.
    “What about your ma? Won‟t she help ye out?”
    “My ma‟s no‟ here,” Rhiannon answered curtly. She wondered if this girl would be so friendly if she knew Rhiannon‟s mother was a satyricorn.
    “Ye must‟ve had some money since Octavia gave ye a blanket,” Bess said. “Would ye like me to tuck it around ye? Ye canna do it yourself with the thumbscrews on.”
    Rhiannon nodded, and Bess reached over and took her blanket and tucked it around her.
    Rhiannon hung her head, blinking back another rush of tears.
    There was a sudden howl from the woman in the cage, and she rattled the bars, thrusting a wild-eyed face against them. Rhiannon flinched back.
    “Poor mad thing,” Bess said. “I wonder what they‟ll do to her after her trial.”
    “What did she do?”
    “Strangled her nurse,” Bess said with a little shiver. “She was in the madhouse, has been there all her life, I was told. They always thought her gentle. But one day she just grabbed her nurse and choked the life out o‟ her. They said it took three men to break her grasp.”
    “What about her?” Rhiannon asked, jerking her head at Clarice, who had finally stopped staring at her and was digging gunk out from under her toenails with her fingernails. “Who did she kill?”
    “Och, she didna kill anyone. She‟s a thief. She‟s already lost an ear, dinna ye see? If ye get caught again after losing an ear, ye hang for it. Or at least, ye used to. They do no‟ hang so many these days. Sometimes they send ye to work in the mines or summat like that.”
    “I thought this was the Murderers‟ Gallery?”
    “It is. I mean, that‟s what they call it, but no‟ everyone in here has killed someone. There are other crimes they‟ll hang ye for, like poaching or stealing horses or hawks.”
    “Like me. I‟m a prigger o‟ prancers,” the woman on the other side of Rhiannon said, scratching absentmindedly at her armpit. She was an older woman with a branded face and scraggy arms marked with vague blue tattoos. At Rhiannon‟s blank look she grinned, showing crooked, discolored teeth. “Horses,” she explained. “Me and my brother steal horses for a living.”
    “What about her?” Rhiannon asked, looking across at a young woman sitting on the far side of the room who had been intriguing her for some time. She was rocking a rolled-up blanket in her arms, swaying back and forth and singing to it under her breath.
    “She drowned her baby,” Bess said. “Her father‟s a rich merchant. He sells cloth, I think. No one kent she was pregnant. I dinna ken how she managed to hide it. They found the baby in the privy.
    She drowned it in her washbasin and tried to throw it out. I think they‟ll hang her for that too, though happen they‟ll just