They returned Alice to the gaol to eat her dinner, a fine stew thick with salt beef like she’d not seen at her gaoler’s hand since she’d been brought there. She pondered the significance of it and could make only one conclusion: someone had taken pity on her. She could think of only one reason to deserve such pity at that point in her trial. She pushed the stew aside.

When they returned to court after the adjournment the air had grown hot and stale; as Alice stepped inside she wished nothing in life but to step backward into the air, but instead of stepping backward she was edged forward. She looked at the men in the jury ahead of her and found only two now looking at her, one a rough-cut young man with a crooked nose and the other an old man who fingered his waistcoat buttons as he stared. What did it mean if ten men could no longer meet her eye? Oh, she knew what it meant! She knew! For a minute Alice didn’t believe her legs would carry her to her place; the pudding knees wouldn’t stiffen; she wavered, thinking who would collect her if she fell, and thought of Freeman, and her old daydream of being carried to safety. She removed her eyes from the jury and let them float without focus, but as she passed the crowd she thought she saw Nate Clarke, his usually pink cheeks gone pale as his hair.

Freeman stood and began to speak, his wigged head and robed form turning him into someone as much a stranger as the king’s attorney and the jurors.

“May it please Your Honors and the gentlemen of the jury, I’m here today to ask you to believe, not what I tell you to believe, but what your own eyes and ears and rational minds will tell you to believe, as you listen to the story of Alice Cole, a young girl just fifteen years of age at that time of her life which is the focus of this trial. But Alice’s story begins long before that time of her life; Alice’s story begins at the tender age of seven, when her father bound her into indentured servitude off the very deck of the ship that carried her here from London, her mother and brothers freshly dead and buried at sea. I ask you to think of that young girl as you look at this one standing in the prisoner’s box, gentlemen, standing today as she once stood on that dock at Boston—alone. I will ask you to remember that aloneness, for it is the key to much of Alice’s story. That aloneness allowed her to be preyed upon by an evil man; that aloneness forced her to run away to a strange land full of strangers; that aloneness suffered her to experience a time of panic and fear and confusion without a mother’s supporting arm or guiding voice; and that very aloneness was the only thing Alice Cole had beside her during a single moment of pain and swooning, her own untaught, untrained, unskilled hands the only hands to aid her. Perhaps those hands did not lift to tend her babe as they should, but certainly, certainly, gentlemen, they did not lift feloniously, willfully, or with the least degree of malice aforethought, toward the only creature on earth that might have put her less alone—her own cherished infant.

Now let us consider how Alice Cole came to be in this position in the first place. You’ve heard the king’s attorney’s fabrication; now you may hear the truth of it.”

And so Alice’s story was told. The ’tween decks of the London ship became a room in hell, Mr. Morton’s household became a dark, motherless, loveless place, the Verley home a filthy cage. Freeman described other things Alice had never spoken of at all: the fear, the panic, the pain, and yes, the ignorance. He might have said something of her foolishness as well, but he left that off. Alice heard the audience murmur and gasp as he told of the rapes, the burning, the blow from the poker, but when he asserted her right to leave such a scene of horror, no assenting rumble touched her ear. They would have their servants keep to their laws.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” Freeman concluded. “I ask but one more thing of you now: as you listen to the evidence presented to you I ask that you look at the young girl who stands before you and you remember the long, tortuous road that brought her here, a road she did not choose of her own free will, a road that was roughly thrust upon her by the evil deeds of others, and, yes, thrust upon her by her own innocence. And as you listen to this evidence I want you to think of Alice Cole as you would think of your own wives or daughters or sisters, upright, moral women, as Alice Cole is moral. The king’s attorney has told you that she is devoid in this particular, but how then, could he next talk of her shame? How might one feel shame if one were devoid of all morals? Isn’t Alice’s shame the best proof of her morality? Isn’t her attempt at concealment of a condition brought on against her will by the evil deeds of others only another proof of her godliness? Look at her, gentlemen of the jury! She sits before you not draped in concealing cloth or false paint to trick you as the king’s attorney would have you believe, she sits before you as who she is, a courageous young girl, a faithful and obedient child of God, an innocent, misused victim of a most heinous crime. This is all I ask of you, gentlemen: that you do as English legal tradition requires you to do and allow her her innocence until her trial is completed.”

How odd, Alice thought, that she should not know the girl Freeman talked of either.

FREEMAN BEGAN BY calling to the bar a midwife of his own, a Mrs. Crowe from Barnstable, a raw-cheeked, cheerful-looking woman who might have been Granny Hall’s daughter. Mrs. Crowe testified to the necessities required of newborn infants, of pinching off and cutting the cord, of clearing the air passage, of chafing it into its first breath, of keeping it warm. She testified to all the mistakes that an untaught young girl giving birth alone might make.

The king’s attorney asked Mrs. Crowe how many births she had attended; when she answered “just under one thousand, sir,” he looked at the jury to make sure they noted the great difference in the two midwives’ numbers, and dismissed her.

Freeman next called the shipmaster Hopkins and began by asking him to describe the condition of Alice Cole when she’d been discovered in his ship’s locker. The shipmaster fumbled about with a vague description of dirty clothes and mussed hair; Freeman prompted him about cuts and bruises and he said, “Oh! Yes. She looked to be banged up some.”

Freeman moved it along. “You might have charged this girl with stealing passage from you. You might have turned her over to the constable. Why didn’t you do this, sir?”

“Well, she was just a girl.”

“You weren’t concerned that if you let her loose on your village she might cause trouble? Do harm?”

The shipmaster looked at Freeman. “Alice? Harm?”

“I’m speaking of what you thought of the girl at the time.”

“Well, at the time, I’d say she was looking for a good supper more than she was looking to do any harm.”

“And later, once you got to know something of the girl, once you saw her at work in the widow’s home, what was your opinion of her then?”

“Why, I thought she was a fine little thing. Fine.”

Freeman waited.

The shipmaster added, “Oh! Yes! She seemed in every way a good sort of girl.”

“Thank you,” Freeman said in something of a rush, and sat down.

The king’s attorney rose. “Mr. Hopkins. You say that Alice Cole looked in need of a good supper. Didn’t it occur to you that a penniless, hungry stranger might have wandered about the village, found an open door, and pilfered someone else’s supper?”

The shipmaster said, “No.”

“It didn’t occur to you that an unknown girl from unknown circumstances and of unknown character might, in desperate circumstances, indeed do harm?”

“No.”

“And if your ship had a hole in it, would it occur to you to plug it up?”

Freeman shouted, “Object!”

The shipmaster said, “My ship’s got no hole, sir!”

The chief justice said, “Sustained.”

The king’s attorney sat down.

Freeman next called on the Widow Berry, to speak for the defense this time; she looked much the worse for the day’s efforts. Freeman began as he’d begun with the shipmaster, asking the widow to describe Alice Cole’s condition when she first arrived, and the widow did a better job.

“She could barely walk. Her arm hung limp. She carried a bloody wound on her cheek, and a festering burn on her hand. In addition, she was starved and exhausted.”

“Did she tell how she came to this condition?”

“Not at first. At first the subject was far too painful for her; she couldn’t speak of it without shaking all over. But later she told me, at great cost to herself, and I might add, at great cost to me when I heard it. This Verley used her against her will in as rough and offensive a manner as a man can. Why, he tortured her. He—”

The king’s attorney rose. “I object! This is naught but hearsay!”

The chief justice said, “Sustained.”

Freeman said, “You decided to hire Alice Cole to do some spinning for you. What prompted this decision?”

“I could see by the look of her she was an honest girl. And she proved to spin like the wind.”

“Were you ever made uneasy in any way about her character?”

“Never. She was a fine, hard worker, faithful in her attendance at meeting, and devoted to her prayers.”

Freeman thanked her solemnly a second time, and the king’s attorney stood up.

“Did you witness Alice Cole receiving her alleged burns and bruises, Widow Berry?”

“I did not.”

“So as far as you know she could have received them in a tavern brawl. Now you said a moment ago that you ‘could see by the look of her that she was an honest girl.’ What specifically about her looks proclaimed her honesty?”

“She was in no tavern brawl, sir!”

“I ask you to address my question, Widow Berry. What revealed Alice Cole’s supposed honesty to you?”

There the widow faltered. She flung an arm wide at Alice. “Well, look at her.”

The courtroom looked at Alice. The king’s attorney did not. He said, “Of course, when you discovered the girl to have lied to you about her condition you then changed your opinion about her honesty.”

“I did not.”

“You did not! You did not consider a lie to be dishonest?”

“I considered the cause of the lie. I considered what had been done to her. I considered the courage it took for her to come as far as she’d come and how afraid she must have been. I took the lie as nothing but her belief that not a single soul on all God’s earth would wish to help her if her condition were known.”

“And so you attempted to help her.”

“Yes.”

“As you attempt to help her now.”

“I attempt nothing but telling the truth about the girl.”

“Truth or lie being one to you.”

Freeman leaped up. “Object! Object! Object!”

The chief justice said, “Sustained.”

The king’s attorney said, “Very well. I have every confidence that I might leave the question of the girl’s honesty to the gentlemen of the jury. Thank you, madam.” He sat down.

FREEMAN ROSE TO begin his closing argument. First he reviewed the evidence, marking the glaring lack of it. He further reviewed the charge and then said, “Gentlemen of the jury, if you believe Alice Cole willfully and maliciously and with aforethought caused the death of her infant, than you must find her guilty as charged. If, however, you have any doubt regarding any single one of those three things, if you think it entirely possible that a young, innocent, brutalized girl, alone, uninstructed, and frightened, having survived a most difficult birth, did what she could to protect her infant from the cold, thinking only secondly of attempting to cover herself, and in her innocence and ignorance, not knowing what other things might need to be done to secure her infant’s life, if after exhausting her last reserve in the act of protecting her child, she then dropped off into a swoon, not waking until the women arrived to inform her of the most unfortunate death of her child, if you think any of that possible or, indeed, probable, if you are honest, moral, godly men, perhaps fathers or grandfathers of your own young girls, perhaps brothers of the same, you must in all conscience declare Alice Cole innocent of this charge.”

Freeman sat down.

The chief justice said, “Gentlemen of the jury, you will need no further instruction, since your good sense and understanding will direct you. Go now and do your duty.”

The jury departed. Alice peered at each face as it passed, but she seemed to have lost whatever skill she had gained over the past long year; each face looked as opaque and colorless as a stone wall.