Hangman's Lullaby

By JoAnn Wendt

London. Christmas, 1653. The king has been beheaded. Oliver Cromwell rules England. Cromwell’s Puritan Parliament has banned Christmas, declaring it a pagan holiday. Anyone caught celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas risks arrest.

Strong-willed and kind-hearted, Merry O'Cork is a young midwife with big problems. She is called late one night in a snowstorm to deliver the baby of Captain Javier’s wife. Tragically, his wife dies giving birth to a healthy baby boy. Merry suspects foul play. She must also fight off her ne’er-do-well husband, a gambler and rogue, face her growing attraction for the captain, and defend her reputation as a midwife.

Follow the mystery that unfolds during the 12 days of Christmas revealing many suspects with motives that keeps you guessing until the very end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Belgrave House
• Release date: Feb 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781947812284

Book preview

cover-image, HANGMAN'S LULLABY

HANGMAN’S LULLABY

A Merry O’Cork Mystery

by

JoAnn Wendt

CHAPTER ONE

London, 1653

On a cold and frosty Christmas Eve afternoon, in a room as dirty as a pigsty, I rejoiced to safely deliver a young woman of a beautiful baby girl. The young woman, Nell Brown, was just a girl herself, only fifteen. Nell had recently come to the city. She had no husband, which was why other midwives had shunned her. I could never do that. Every laboring mother deserves midwife aid, whether she is a fine grand lady living in a mansion or a young prostitute living in poverty like Nell.

A sturdy farm girl, Nell was already on her feet, bubbling with excitement as she watched me tend her loudly squalling newborn. She couldn’t wait to take the babe in her arms. She chattered away nonstop as I bathed the babe in a leaky dish pan, wrapped her in toweling I had warmed at the meager fire in the room’s crumbling fireplace, then massaged sweet oil into her fragile skin and carefully bound her cord. I swaddled her in warm clothing Nell’s fellow prostitutes had contributed. Then, Nell fairly grabbed her out of my arms and immediately put her to her breast, although mother’s milk would not come in for another twenty-four hours.

Merry! Ain’t she the prettiest little thing you ever done see in all your born days?

I had to chuckle at Nell’s enthusiasm. Evidently, giving birth illegitimately did not worry her in the least, even though unwed mothers faced a public flogging. I would do my best to prevent that, even if I had to lie to the birth records clerk.

Absolutely, she is the prettiest babe I have ever delivered. She’s beautiful, I said. Nell beamed at that. It was true. The infant had large dark blue-violet eyes, a tiny rosebud mouth and wee ears shaped like delicate pink seashells.

When I had married my husband, Guy, five months earlier, I’d hoped to become pregnant immediately and give birth to a precious babe like this one. It hadn’t happened. And now, with a firestorm of hostility raging between Guy and myself, it would never happen. It made me sad. What a cruel joke, a midwife who had no babe of her own.

Reluctant to leave this dirty, unkempt room where so much love and happiness prevailed, I lingered to clean up a bit and to cook a kettle of beans for Nell. She would need nourishing sustenance when her milk came in. But this was December. Darkness came early. It would soon be dark and I feared Guy might have discovered my whereabouts. After checking the babe’s cord once more, I donned cloak, gloves and boots, took my midwife kit and set out. I smiled as Nell’s happy shout followed me down the unlit, rickety stairs. Merry? I’m gonna name her Merry. I’m gonna name her after you!

Thank you, Nell. I’m honored! I called back.

* * *

I kept to the winter-dark alleys, not the torchlit streets where soldiers roamed. My husband, Guy Palmer, was a soldier in Lord Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead army. Six days earlier, after a beating I did not deserve, I had packed my things and left our rented rooms in the Axe Yard. I had gone to where I had lived all of my life, my grandfather’s little cookshop in Wattling Street.

Loudly and in every gambling den in town, Guy boasted he would drag me back by my hair. Did he mean it? Or had it been a face-saving threat made in front of his Roundhead comrades. Either way, I was frightened. Guy could be sweet as sugar when he wanted to be, but mean as sin at other times. I sighed. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. To my regret, I had repeated my mother’s mistake, eloping with a handsome charmer only to waken in the bed of a liar and a louse.

Fearful of Guy, I kept watch over my shoulder, my heart pounding like a furniture joiner’s hammer. I hurried into a frigid gale, my cloak flapping in the wind. A Christmas Eve storm was coming. I could smell it. The air smelled of the sea. Clouds roiled dark and ominous overhead. Frost coated every rooftop in the city, the rime blackened with chimney soot and glimmering like some rich lady’s black diamonds.

Soldiers swarmed everywhere, their black uniforms stark as crows’ wings, their spurs jangling. Our long and bloody civil war between King Charles and Oliver Cromwell had ended with the king’s beheading. Cromwell now ruled and his army of Roundheads controlled the city. We Londoners had nicknamed them Roundheads after their absurd hairstyle, cropping their hair short as a newborn babe’s.

How intimidating they were, leaping down from their mounts, pounding on every door, threatening people with arrest if they dared to celebrate Christmas. Lord Cromwell’s Puritan parliament had banned Christmas, declaring it a pagan holiday.

My breath steaming like pipe smoke in the icy air, I made it to City Hall without incident. I had to report the birth as every midwife is required to do by law. Waiting in line at the birth records table, my heart pounded wildly, for I knew I would have to lie and invent a husband for Nell.

My turn. I stepped forward, gripping my midwife kit so tightly my knuckles turned white.

Witch’s hair, the birth record’s clerk said with a grin as he always did when I came in, taunting me for having red hair. I quickly tucked a wind-loosened lock of hair back under my starched white cap. Such talk made me uneasy. It wasn’t safe for a midwife to be called witch.

I want to report a girl-child born today in the Fly Market to—to Nell Brown and her husband, Dick Brown.

He opened the heavy birth ledger as if eager to be done with his workday and dipped his quill pen into his ink pot. I was relieved. Usually he tormented me by ogling me and commenting suggestively on everything—my hair, the few freckles on my nose, my midnight blue eyes.

Brown? Dick Brown? His employment? The quill pen scratched.

Dick Brown and his wife just moved to the city. Dick is a sailor, I said, pouncing on the first thought that came to mind.

He must come in and sign the tax records.

He cannot.

He paused and scowled up at me.

Why not?

As I said, Dick Brown is a sailor. He sailed to the West Indies last week. The far West Indies. Likely he will be gone a year or two...

Likelier, he would be gone forever!

Having invented him, I would have to dispose of Dick Brown someday. No matter. God and I had agreed. No child delivered by me, Merry O’Cork, would bear the awful stigma of bastard. Nor would any poor, unwed mother be flogged at the whipping post.

Besides, the shoe fit uncomfortably close. My own legitimacy was questionable at best. My father, Merriment O’Cork, had been an Irish rogue who’d wed and bedded my mother, then scarpered with her purse, leaving her pregnant with me. His only legacy to me had been my red hair and my name, Merry.

Impatient to be finished with his workday, the clerk waved me off, and with a deep sigh of relief I left.

By the time I reached Wattling Street the sky had grown devilish black and sleet pelted my head. Wattling Street is no more than a narrow alley. It is always dark, even in midsummer, because the upper stories of shops and houses overhang the street, almost meeting in the middle. If you wanted to, you could reach out of an upper window and shake hands with the person in the upper window across the street. In the darkness I did not spot my husband, Guy, until he jumped out of the shadows and grabbed me. Startled, I yelped and dropped my midwife kit.

Merry, my love. He slung me against the rough plank and plaster siding of Mr. LaPierre’s astrology shop and pinned me there with his hot body. He smelled of strong spirits. He was garbed in his Roundhead uniform, black hat and black cloak. His blond short-cropped hair curled around his ears. I tried not to cower. He was a bully, and bullies are always encouraged when the victim cowers. I straightened my shoulders and attempted to appear defiant despite my pounding heart.

Let me go or I will shout for help, I demanded.

He chuckled. Merry, such a big fat lie. You won’t shout. You are much too proud to shout for help.

I shoved him. Fruitlessly. How well he knew me. I had shamed myself enough by making this impulsive marriage. I would sooner bite off my tongue than cry out for help.

He ground his groin into me. Be sweet, Merry-mine. Give me a kiss.

He nuzzled me with his open mouth. He’d been in his cups. He was drunk. I wrenched my face away. A mistake. His grip on my shoulders grew hard as steel. I would find bruises there in the morning.

Have you been out earning a nice fat midwife fee, darling?

No! It was the truth. Nell had been destitute. I hadn’t had the heart to charge her anything. In fact I had left money for her to buy food.

Shall we see if you are lying, Merry-Merry-Quite-Contrary?

I panicked and fought him, but he was stronger. Pressing me into the rough plank and plaster wall, he fumbled inside my cloak, found my waist purse and yanked it free. A gambler, he was always out of money.

He kissed the tip of my nose. Thank you, my sweet. A good wife always brings her earnings home to her husband.

I hate you, I burst out rashly. And I hate you doubly for stealing from my grandfather’s moneybox. He is old, he cannot afford it, Guy!

That angered him. I did not steal, damn you! I merely borrowed. I intend to repay it in full.

When? I challenged.

Merry, Merry. Let’s not fight, sweetheart. Come home where you belong. I want you in my bed, my pretty Merry. He nuzzled me. Now be a good wife and give me a kiss.

I would sooner vomit, I snapped, my temper overriding good sense.

He slapped me so hard with his gloved hand that the back of my head banged against the wall. For a moment I saw stars.

The noise of our fighting had aroused the La Pierre family. The astrology shop door creaked open. Candlelight spilled into the darkness. Elderly Mr. La Pierre poked out his head. He wore a robe and a housecap embroidered with astrology symbols.

Who is there? he demanded in his shaky voice. I must warn you, I have a sword…

Any other time I might have smiled at that. Mr. La Pierre was a thin wisp of a man who hadn’t the strength to lift a sword let alone wield one. Ever his grandfather’s protector, his brawny grandson, Lamont, flanked him.

It is me, Merry, Mr. La Pierre. I thought quickly. I–I stumbled over something. I bumped into the wall and dropped my midwife kit.

Guy had run off, of course. In the few months of our marriage he had borrowed money from everyone in Wattling Street, including Mr. La Pierre. It burdened my soul. How would I ever repay these good people?

Merry? Great heaven, this is December the twenty-fourth. Two and four are your unlucky numbers. Did I not cast your horoscope the very day you were born? Haven’t I often advised you to stay home, stay abed on any date containing a two or a four?

That would be half the month. But I could not argue with the kind old soul.

The babe insisted on being born today, Mr. La Pierre.

He shook his head, distressed. Very inconsiderate of the babe. What is to be done about it, I do not know. Shivering in a sudden gust of wind, he clutched the lapels of his dressing gown. And an east wind, a wind blowing from Belgium! Very unlucky, Merry, very unlucky indeed.

I retrieved my kit, hoping none of my herb vials had broken.

Stay home, stay abed, Merry. That is what I do on my inauspicious days, do I not, Lamont? He glanced up at his grandson for corroboration.

Yes, Grandfather, Lamont verified sincerely.

Their kindness eased the sting of my encounter with Guy, although I still felt shaken. What could I do? Could the law force a woman to go back to her husband? I didn’t know, but I feared the courts could do so. I could not divorce him, even though he’d given me ample grounds with his constant cheating with other women. Divorce was a luxury of the rich and highborn, not a commoner like me. I had to face things as they stood. I was mired in a quicksand of my own making.

I bade the La Pierres good night and went on to my grandfather’s little cookshop, which was next door, separated by a narrow alley. I went in. The shop was narrow but deep and cluttered with cooking utensils, tables and benches. Copper kettles and tin trays hung from hooks on the walls, filling every inch of space. Two large fireplaces with attached ovens filled the rear wall. Each fireplace had a black iron spit connected to chains that turned the spit. A small turnspit cage with a treadmill stood nearby. When our turnspit dog, Happy Shanks, was set to work running on the treadmill, the spit turned smoothly. Happy Shanks loved his work because he knew his reward would be a juicy chunk of the roasting meat.

A door between the fireplaces led to a rear storage room and from there, out the back door into my grandfather’s small herb garden. Next to the back door, a staircase led up to the loft where I slept. My grandfather and his apprentice slept on cots in the shop to guard against the footpads and housebreakers who roamed London at night.

As usual, the shop rang with good-natured conversation and laughter, customers and friends discussing the recent capture of the notorious female highwayman, Big Maureen, and laying bets as to when she would hang. Also as usual, my grandfather, Isaac Crenshaw, was the center of attention, his bald head and fringe of white hair shining in the firelight, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief as he told ribald jokes to the men and flirted with the women. Our apprentice, Ben, added to the chaos, banging away as he scoured pots and pans. My best friend Rosamund’s children chased around the crowded room, playing with Happyshanks.

My grandfather’s special ladyfriends, Tabitha Fowler and Bonita Patch, hovered near him, each keeping a jealous eye on each other. They were widows and sisters, but could not be more different. Tabitha was tall, thin and dour. Bonita was short, fat and full of laughter. Both had set their caps for my grandfather, but he was too wily an old scamp to be roped into matrimony.

My grandfather’s cousin, Pearlie, perched on a stool in the midst of the din, singing to her doll. Pearlie’s mind had gone unhinged after she’d lost thirteen children in childbirth. Something had snapped in her brain. Now she was a child herself, drifting about the neighborhood, clutching a doll. She lived with a nephew but spent most of her time in our shop.

Ridding myself of midwife kit, cloak and cowl, I went and knelt beside her.

Helen? she said cheerfully. Helen was my mother’s name. She had died when I was ten.

It’s Merry, Cousin Pearlie, I said gently, waving a greeting to my grandfather who arched one bushy eyebrow at me in a look that asked, Has-that-son-of-a-bitch-Guy-dared-bother-you?

I shook my head no. I wanted no trouble for my grandfather. Being a Roundhead, Guy could be a danger to my grandfather.

Was you out birthing a babe, Helen? Pearlie said eagerly. My mother had been a midwife. My grandmother, also.

Yes. And you remember I am Merry? I tucked her sparse gray hair back under her housecap and re-tied the strings under her chin. With her green gown, green cap and beak-like nose, she looked like a little old parrot that was molting.

Will the babe live? she begged.

Yes, the babe will live, I soothed. The mother too. Don’t fret, Pearlie.

Don’t fret, she echoed. Comforted, she resumed her singsong tune, rocking her doll.

Martin McKenzie left the men and ambled over to chat with me. Martin and Rosamund lived in the street behind us. Our little gardens connected. Rosamund was a wetnurse. Martin confided that the mother of the child Rosie had been nursing would come to reclaim him next week. Rosie was heart-broken. I promised Martin that I would keep my eye out for another infant needing a wet nurse.

Martin gave me a piercing look. Is Guy giving you trouble?

No, I said quickly. I wanted no trouble for Martin.

If Guy does make trouble, there’s six of us in the neighborhood who’d be happy to beat the shit out of him. You’ve only to say the word, Merry.

No, Martin. I’m fine.

Our chat finished, Martin whistled to his children, two adorable little girls. Time to go home. Let’s go home!

Pearlie dutifully rose and headed for the door. She would have gone out into the gale if we had not caught her. Like an overly tame child, she tended to obey every order she heard. Young ruffians often took advantage of her, amusing themselves by ordering her to squat in the street and pee, which she would do. My grandfather had soundly thrashed a couple of them who would not do that again.

Martin and his girls left through the back door. The front door flew open and two Roundheads tramped in. The shop instantly fell silent. For a moment I panicked, thinking they’d come to drag me back to Guy.

The sergeant peeled off one gauntlet glove and tapped it in his palm. Is this a Christmas celebration? he demanded. If so, we would all go to jail.

No one spoke.

Who is in charge here!

Wiping his hands on his leather apron, my grandfather stepped forward.

I am!

The sergeant gestured at the plucked geese that lay upon the worktable, ready to be trussed for the Christmas Day spit.

Are them Christmas geese? he demanded. Give me the name of every person who bespoke a goose for tomorrow. They shall be arrested!

My grandfather scratched his bald head as if he’d never heard of a Christmas goose. He picked up one bird by the neck and eyed it.

Sir Goose, he quipped. Are you a Christmas goose? Or are you just a plain, ordinary, everyday goose? Come now, Sir Goose. Out with it. Confess!

My grandfather’s cronies burst into laughter. Even Bonita and Tabitha tittered nervously into their sleeves, but I held my breath. My grandfather was playing with fire, taunting Roundheads. Ben stopped scouring a pan and watched with big scared eyes.

The sergeant glared around the room at everyone who had laughed. Their faces grew sober. Then he seized my grandfather by the shirt front and yanked him forward.

Leave him alone! He is old, I burst out.

Old man, you are not too old to be carted!

Do it, my grandfather said cheerfully, offering his wrists for binding. You will look like the grand hero, dragging a sixty-year-old man behind a cart to Newgate Jail.

The sergeant knew my grandfather was right; he would look like a fool. His face grew so red I feared he would burst a blood vessel. Biting back a string of curses, he wheeled around and stomped out of the shop, his comrade with him.

Everyone laughed in relief and pounded my grandfather on the back. But I worried. Had this been a random stop by the Roundheads? Or had Guy been behind it? Guy knew I would do anything to protect my grandfather. I would even go back to him.

The thought depressed me. Matching my mood, the storm worsened throughout Christmas Eve with thunder, rain and lightning. The customers gone, my grandfather, Ben and I were eating our supper by the smoky light of a rush lamp when someone pounded on the cookshop door.

Ben said fearfully, Master, is them Roundheads back to arrest you?

My grandfather chuckled. In this storm? Unlikely. They are in their cups in some tavern, getting drunk. Go unbolt the door, son.

When Ben did so, a fierce gust of wind flung the door into the wall with a loud bang. I gasped at what I saw. Even my grandfather seemed momentarily shaken by the apparition standing at our door.

It was as if the violence