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though she dreaded facing her sister-in-law, hated seeing her banked tears at Kate’s no-news report. So when Kate neared St. Paul’s churchyard with its cacophony of familiar bells, she did not turn into Paternoster Row and homeward but went west, past Ludgate Hill.
    There was still time to check Fleet Prison again.
    The effluvium from the river Fleet was always worse with approaching dusk. All day the human waste and refuse from the city’s gutters had bled into the river as it made its noisome way to the Thames. The smell of it made her heave, but nothing came up. She had not eaten since this morning and then only a bite of the heel from a stale loaf. There’d been no time for a proper breakfast. But when had John last eaten? she wondered as she approached the gates of the Fleet and entered its grim courtyard.
    The same old grizzled watchman she’d seen before slouched against the door of the gatehouse.
    “I told ye last week, and the week before, and the week before that, mistress, I don’t know of a John Gough here,” he said before she could even ask.
    “He may be here under another name. He could have been . . . unconscious when they brought him in. They might not even know his last name. Just let me describe him to the warden.” Kate fumbled in her purse.
    “Ha! As if his greatness the warden is ever here! And the deputy warden will not see ye again so there beint no use fer ye to waste yer pennies trying to get to him.” He leaned forward to whisper as he scratched his greasy beard. She steeled herself against the onslaught of his breath and tried to ignore the suggestive shouts directed their way from the knot of prisoners playing at dice in the center of the yard. “Ye’d be better served to save yer ha’ pennies for the prisoners begging at the grill on the Common Side. They’ll know more than the deputy warden. He scarcely ever dirties his boots in the galleries.”
    “The grill?”
    The watchman jerked his head toward the right wing of cells with their barred windows opening onto Farringdon Street where the lowborn prisoners begged for money from passers-by to buy food and fresh straw for their lice-ridden cells. She’d always avoided that end of the street, after that first time when she’d walked past to the hoots and hollers and banging of tin bowls on the bars. But she saw the logic in the watchman’s suggestion.
    Stiffen your backbone, Kate. Just do it.
    With a vision of Mary’s disappointment prodding her courage—and the certainty in her soul that her brother was still alive—she walked to the first window and peered inside. The cell looked to be about twice as long as a man was tall and about as wide. It had no furniture, just a pile of rags on the floor in front of a fireplace wherein no coals glowed. Her presence at the window blocked out the only light.
    The cell’s lone occupant stood gazing out the window an arm’s length from the bars, but Kate could see the prisoner clearly, like some caged animal, visible to all who passed by.
    She appeared to be oblivious to Kate’s scrutiny. The shadows under her eyes, the bruise above her cheek—or was it dirt?—all unsettled Kate. The woman was dressed in rags and painfully thin—except for the bulge of her belly. Yet she was not banging on the bars and shouting at passers-by, begging as the others did. Instead, she was just staring dumbly into space, her eyes half shut, her face vacant of any expression. This one would be no help,Kate thought. She was obviously mad with grief or fear. Kate started to turn away, but pity pulled her back. She loosened the strings on her little leather purse again and withdrew two pennies.
    “Here, mistress, I am sorry for your plight,” she called, and held out the pence.
    The woman looked frightened and withdrew farther from the window. She opened her eyes a little wider and stared at Kate, unblinking, but she did not move to take the money. Kate stepped a little closer.
Not too close,
she