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do!’
    I looked at her aghast. I felt sincerely grateful towards Fitzroy for the first time since my incarceration. At least he had seen I was fed properly, but whether he would continue to do I had no idea.
    Three guards, two bearing trays of bowls, opened the door enough to shove the trays through. Then another appeared and lobbed bread into the cell. Most of the crusts fell upon the filthy floor, but one hit Abigail Stokes above the eye. ‘Oi! That hurt!’ she yelled. ‘It’s bloody stale.’
    I tried hard not to smile.
    21 Actually, I could only think of one: Fitzroy. Both Bertram and Rory still needed my continued input to convince them of the durability of my sex. Though under my tutelage, if it is not too immodest to say, I do feel they have come a very long way.

Chapter Eleven
    Issues of trust and cake
    The women sipped unhappily at the gruel, but wary of dark mentions of force-feeding, it seemed that no one wanted to leave a full bowl. The bread proved more of a challenge. Eunice Pettigrew opined sourly that ‘it was a surprise they should gift us with something more useful for digging an escape tunnel than eating.’ A small ripple of amusement ran through the room. Her sister Jasmine followed her quip by suggested it might be more useful as a weapon, but unlike her sister’s strong if sour voice, Jasmine’s was weak and whispery. No one paid her much attention with the exception of Abigail Stokes. A lump already blossomed above one eye where the crust had caught her. With anyone else I might have offered sympathy, but my head ached and I longed for sleep. I felt I could not bear any more of her sharp-tongued hostility. I smiled at little Maisie, who had awoken for the food, but remained curled tightly into her chosen corner.
    I observed Mary sighing and crumbling her bread into gruel. I tried to do the same, but found my fingers were not strong enough. A lassitude had fallen upon the cell. Abigail and perhaps Mary had expected us to held overnight, but in the rest of our small group I espied a weary astonishment. I suspected Eunice and Jasmine had thought their age would protect them. Constance Woodley frowned into her gruel and I thought I detected the glint of tears on her cheeks. I assumed she missed her children. I knew very little about motherhood. My mother had not been the doting kind. And Richenda’s adopted daughter, Amy, remained a mixed bundle of joys and difficulties. I found myself wondering if Hans or Merry would be reading her a bedtime story tonight. An indulgence my mother would have decried as spoiling and ridiculous, but I had more than once read that Amy her story and seen her fieriness fade under the weariness of the day as she slipped into sleep. I had discovered that a sleeping child could easily burrow into one’s heart. How much worse must it be for Constance who had left her own little ones behind?
    Martha Lake suddenly stood up and began to pace back and forth. In our overcrowded state this action disturbed us all. When she stood on my foot for the fourth time, I rose from my seat on the bench and inquired if I could be of assistance.
    Martha lowered her face close to mine. Close to, her skin contained more lines than I realised and I mentally readjusted my estimate of age upwards. ‘Do you know,’ she asked me in strangled, but refined accents, ‘how one summons the man to use the necessities?’
    Unfortunately Abigail Stokes overheard us and gave a crack of coarse laughter. ‘That’ll be the bucket in the corner, milady!’
    Martha paled. ‘She cannot be serious?’ she asked me.
    At this point Constance came across to us. ‘I believe with the help of some other ladies we can arrange some privacy, but I fear that is indeed the basic commode we must use.’
    â€˜Never,’ said Martha.
    Constance gave her a gentle smile. ‘Sadly, it is not within our gift to control the tides of