“No vermin, no lousy cellmates urinating on your silk and defecating where they stand. Comfort will not speed your redemption,” was his opening address. “I am Dr. Whiting, a minister of the Church, sent by the King’s Bench to hear your confession, that God might forgive and return you to His flock.” Was I to have no peace, even after receiving sentence of death? I did not move. The bells rang eight. It was morning, I think. Would I know that hour again?

I heard him moving about as if my body was in the cell but my mind was elsewhere.

“It is within the human heart that Satan builds his nest. God never had fewer servants than in our days; where God has least, the Devil has most. He has forced his way into your mind and filled you with loathsome ambition. You have sought a higher state than that God ordained you and committed sins without number when all that God asks of us is to know our station. We must cheerfully and virtuously fulfill the duties appropriate to our lot, making ourselves useful to others as did Jesus; to do so is the only preparation for the life everlasting. Was it also you who poisoned Prince Henry?”

His accusations and questions I could not differentiate from the clatter of boatmen below, the screams of the gulls and the gusts of wind that made him pace faster about the freezing cell; all and none reached me. I cannot say how much later it was when he shook my shoulder. “Widow Turner, if you confess, your children will be brought to you.”

I rolled over to look at him. He turned his back to me and moved to look out of the narrow window, perhaps thinking I would speak more freely that way, as children chatter when traveling behind their parents in a cart. His hair was gray and close-cut to his skull; on it he wore the black cap of his calling, and over his thin, straight body a black robe. The crowds were gathering at Tyburn Tree, I could feel them pressing around me, but Frankie could still save me from that end. For that hope, and for love of her, I would say nothing of import to this man for why was he bribing me with the hope of a visit from my children? Even so, to see them again, to hold them, was my greatest wish. I heard myself whisper over and over, “Thank you.”

“Richard Weston poured away the poisons you gave to him,” he said. I thought I had misheard but he turned to me. His face was deeply lined and severe but perhaps there was also kindness there, well hidden. “The Lieutenant of the Tower also attested that he and Weston threw away the poisons you brought.”

“Then I am free?” I said, confused. I sat up slowly and my head spun.