‘Poor boy,’ Woodburn sighed. He heaved himself into the nearest pew and bowed his head in prayer.
Jack shuddered softly and coughed. A thin trickle of blood slid from his lips. I hoped Woodburn was praying for Jack’s soul – it was too late for the rest of him. The shock of it brought tears to my eyes. Thirteen years old. I blinked them back and kneeled down next to him, wondering how on earth I had become entangled in all of this. On a different day, in a different mood, Acton could have clapped me in irons or beaten me just as he’d beaten Jack – and who would have come running to save me?
Jack reached for my hand. ‘Ben. Where’s Ben…?’
Kitty arrived with a bowl of hot water and a cordial. She shooed me away, loosening Jack’s grimy rags and examining his injuries with a speed and skill that surprised me. He was so dirty that it was hard to see where the bruises lay, but once the hot water had washed him clean the violence of Acton’s attack was clear enough. Thick red weals criss-crossed his body, deep, savage wounds that had torn almost to the bone.
Kitty cleaned them as best she could and put the bottle of cordial to his lips. ‘Just a few sips, Jack.’ She touched his hair softly.
‘Is he a friend of yours, Kitty?’
She nodded, setting the cordial to one side. ‘He cleaned bed sheets on the Master’s Side till he caught a fever. Then they threw him back over the wall.’ She ran her fingers across the boy’s battered body then glanced at Woodburn, still praying with his head down. ‘Look,’ she murmured, touching a large spread of green and yellow bruises running across his chest like countries on a map. ‘These are old beatings.’
I studied the boy with new eyes. Kitty was right; the bright red wounds from Acton’s whip were merely the climax to a brutal story that had played itself out for many weeks. Jack had been battered and beaten so badly that there was barely an inch of clear skin left. No wonder he’d tried to escape.
‘Why did they do this to him?’
‘He got himself into trouble with John Grace, Acton’s clerk,’ Woodburn said. He was slumped back in his pew, almost as grey as the boy.
‘Trouble?’ Kitty rounded on him. ‘His mother was starving to death on the sick ward! They left her lying in her own filth, no blankets, no bed. Nothing. Jack only asked for what he was owed. Just a bit of charity.’
Woodburn flinched, then turned a deep red. ‘Watch your tongue, girl,’ he cried, rising from the bench. ‘I did everything I could to help Jack and his family. I spoke with Mr Grace and Mr Acton on countless occasions.’
