Torches snapped back at the darkness as the men made their way through the streets. The whores that still lingered were briefly illuminated by the torchlight; a pale thigh or breasts exposed hither and thither only to fade back into alleys, suddenly afraid, at the determined pace of the magistrate's men.
John should not have come with the men, but he wanted to see. Before the dawn crept above the filth of the Fleet, he would see both cunts sent down a peg; the only thing worse than being the favored child of an old whore was being the unfavored child.
The man's fist came down upon the door in three short and brutal strikes. When John's bewildered mother answered the door the stridulous voice demanded, "Where is the whore named Bess?" "I am Bess Clerkenwell, what do you want?" his mother replied.
"Bess the Younger," the man clarified, "we have a warrant for her arrest." John's mother stiffened and she looked again at the group of men and saw her son among them, hovering just beyond the shroud of the darkness. Her lips twisted into something resembling a smile, "She's not here."
The old whore tried to close the door in his face, but his thick arm shot out and slammed the door back. Knocked to her knees the old cunt spit out, "How dare you!" as the men walked over the threshold and dragged her up to her feet.
"Where is Young Bess?" the man demanded and Bess the Elder spat in his face. He backhanded her before he whipped her spittle from his cheek. "What do you want?" the old whore screamed at him and tried to kick at the men holding her arms back.
At the snap of his fingers, a younger man stepped forward and handed him a bag. "What is that?!" she screeched, knowing full well what it was. "Evidence," the main said as he reached his hand into the bag. "Evidence of what?" she demanded.
"Murder," the man said as his hand pulled a dead infant by its neck from the confines of the bag. Bess the Elder went dead white at the body of her granddaughter, blue and bruised red from where her tiny body had settled on the stones in the bottom of the boy's bag.
She started keening, an animal sound. Then she screeched, "Run, Bess!" A man punched her in the face and shut her gob before pounding up the steps to search for the murderess. Bess the Younger was on her bed, her face turned towards the wall. There was no place for her to run, even if she could.
The younger man found her first and rolled her over. Her mother's blows were starting to show on her pale skin; her hollow eyes and dry lips made her look like a wraith. The older man came into the room, still holding the infant by its neck like a broken doll.
Cocking his head to one side, he asked, "Are you Bess?" "Yes," she croaked out. "Is this yours?" the man held up the infant before her eyes. "Yes." The man had a hard face, "You are under arrest for the murder of your child." 'Yes," she said, "I killed it, now get rid of it."
The man's face did not flicker the least in regard to her confession, he put the dead infant back into the bag. It took two men to hoist her up and drag her off to Bridewell. On their way out the front door they passed Bess the Elder beating her son in the kitchen; it was not their place to intervene in family affairs.