Havoc, in Its Third Year: A Novel Page 11

  Fourteen

  THE CORONER RODE HARD AND ARRIVED BEFORE MIDDAY AT Skipton, where he rested an hour at an inn in the lee of the castle and revived himself there with small beer and bread. His fever was neither less nor more, and with hopes of the attack being not very severe, he set out again, taking the road to the north. He came to a great moor which he traversed by means of the bridleway. The rain fell heavily; there was not one tree for shelter.

  As he went, he considered again the purpose of his journey, asking himself if he were not mad, if he should not, with this tertian fever coming over him, return to the Winters to be with Elizabeth and his new son. But the more he thought about it, the more certain he was there was something amiss in what he had heard at the inquisition. Quirke the alehouse-keeper had said that Susana Horton went to Burnsall to her sister whose husband suffered from a shaking palsy. He recalled Quirke’s manner in the giving of his evidence. It had been furtive and sly. How had the alehouse-keeper allowed his serving girl to go to her sister? Could she not have waited one day more for the coroner to come? And why had the constable consented to the said Susana’s going? This was the question Brigge wanted to answer above all others. For Doliffe to consent to the girl’s going was a dereliction of his duty. Brigge could think of no explanation save that Doliffe did not want the girl heard, though for what reason he could not guess. If he could find out the cause, perhaps he might turn the tables on the man who was conspiring to destroy him, and for this reason he went doggedly on.

  At a place where there were miners burrowing the hills for lead, he stopped to be sure of his good direction and there again took beer for his refreshment before continuing on his way and, coming to a broad river, followed it a mile or so and entered at last into Burnsall just as the sky grew dark.

  He went to an alehouse at the east end of the great stone bridge and sent for the constable, whose name he discovered to be Beattie, to come to see him there. Brigge took some salt bacon, bread and peas and, by the warmth of the fire, began to think he might yet fight off the fever, that by morning he would be well again, for though he was tired, he felt his strength returning. After an hour there was no sign of the constable, nor of the man he had sent for him. Brigge began to be impatient. The keeper said it was strange, for only that afternoon he had seen the constable drive his cows over the bridge. Brigge questioned the man about Susana Horton, whose sister was married to a man with a shaking palsy. The keeper frowned and pursed his lips and said he knew no Susana, nor one in Burn-sall with such a disease. The tipplers in the house said they likewise had no knowledge of any Susana.

  When he could stay awake no longer, Brigge went to his room, leaving instruction he was to be woken the moment Beattie came. He found it suspicious that the constable could not be found, but fell into a deep sleep before he could ponder what this meant.

  He woke late in the morning feeling thick in his head and heavy in his limbs, the fever still in his blood and bones.

  He roused himself and went to find the keeper and was short with him when he asked why the constable had not come.

  “He did come, your honor,” the keeper protested.

  “Why did you not wake me?”

  “We could not, sir,” the keeper said. “For as much as we tried, we were unable to stir you.”

  Brigge felt abashed. “Where is the constable now?” he demanded.

  The alehouse keeper summoned his boy and told him to lead Brigge to the constable.

  They found Beattie in a pasture on the far side of the river, carrying hay to his kine. The man put down his load and came to greet the coroner, saying he was sorry for the lateness of his coming last night but that he had gone to visit his brother who lived in Appletreewick. He asked in what way he could help the coroner. Brigge told him. The constable said that he had never heard of Susana Horton, or her sister, or her husband who had the shaking palsy. He asked if Brigge was certain it was to Burnsall the said Susana had gone. Brigge eyed him suspiciously.

  “Do you know Mr. Doliffe?” he asked.

  “No, your honor,” the constable replied, looking perplexed. “I know no man by that name.”

  “Do you know Quirke, the keeper of the Painted Hand?”

  Again the constable denied he did. He appeared to Brigge to be the sort anxious to please his betters and wanting to be thought well of by them, a humble and honest man, by outward show at least. He said that if he might assist the coroner in any other way, Brigge had only to ask. Brigge shook his head.

  “I can only think, sir,” Beattie said, “that you have been misinformed as to this Susana’s whereabouts.”

  Brigge rubbed his tired eyes. “I think it likely you are right,” he said. He thanked the constable and returned to the alehouse where he paid his reckoning. Though he had not breakfasted, he would not wait to eat but, wanting to be home as soon as possible, set out on his way.

  At the very least Quirke had lied in his evidence. But what did that mean for his suspicions of Doliffe? Was Doliffe in collusion with him? And if so, to what end? And what of Katherine Shay? A child was found dead in the room where she had lodged. Shay was discovered to have recently given birth. A birth. A murder. A murderer. How could so simple a matter spin a single complication? Yet Brigge was certain that it did. He would have to find Susana Horton. Where was she? How could he begin to search for her without that Doliffe would discover his intentions and attempt to frustrate them?

  BRIGGE’ S HEAD SWAM in the contemplation of these questions so that after a time he was not certain where he was. He stopped his mare and looked about. He found he could not remember if he had passed through Skipton or not. All about was blasted moor and black heath with mountains beyond, a pure, benighted wilderness. It started to snow, gentle, fat, wet flakes. There was thunder in the distance. He drew his cloak about him and nudged his horse forward.

  A sudden mist came in, and the horse had difficulty picking out a track. Eventually, he found a causey-stone path which he followed until it became submerged in moss and heather and tufts of spiked grass. It seemed to him he was the only man living in the world. Nothing moved before him.

  Then, of a sudden, he heard noises in the wind, muffled footfalls, it seemed, behind him, hard breaths, someone charging. Taking out his sword, he turned against his assailant. A shadow sprang at him, or seemed to. There was a flapping, a beating like a sheet struck by the wind, and then silence and emptiness once more. Brigge dug his spurs into the horse’s flank and went forward at a gallop, whipping his mount hard, making her go on. But she was soon run out. The mist swirled, clearing for moments only to come in again thicker than before. There was no path before them now, only treacherous soft ground. Brigge cursed his mare, but however much he whipped and jabbed at her, she remained stubborn. Unable to advance, he stayed fixed in his place, in this place, with the wet snow blown about and the clouds crashing on the mountains. Then, as abruptly as it came in, the mist lifted.

  THE CORONER SAW he was near a crossroads with a dark forest beyond it. As he drew near, he saw some people gathered there, some playing at a game of bowls on a patch of green, others dancing to a fiddler. A strange place to make such entertainment and such a cold, wet time for it. They had the look of men and girls of the baser sort: butchers’ and clothiers’ apprentices, laborers, weavers, and light, loose women. When they saw him, they removed their caps and hailed him with careful greetings of your honor, and even my lord. Brigge examined their expressions for hints of scoffing or sarcastic senses, but it was always hard with the common sort of ignorant people to discern the sentiment behind such words; ridicule was their weapon against those set in authority over them and had to be secret or disguised if it was not to bring a whipping. They offered up a jug of ale with tentative hands and appeasing hearts. When Brigge accepted it, they relaxed into the gilded smiles of false fellowship and said the coroner was to drink and he was welcome to it and whatever else they had. The drink was harsh and had a filthy smell, very cadaverous and revolting.
Brigge wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and returned the stinking pot. As he did so, he became sensible that the smell belonged not to the ale.

  Lifting his gaze, he saw suspended from a tree, twenty feet high in an iron cage, the scarecrow remains of a man bound in chains-the object of this merry excursion. The tattered clothes were rotting on decayed and shrunken limbs. The crows had been at work on the exposed flesh of the feet and hands, but the face and shaven skull had been pitch—tarred, the longer to be preserved for a terror.

  “Who is this man?” Brigge said.

  The revelers answered that he was Moore, the highwayman from Mir-field.

  Moore the highwayman. The coroner had seen him at the castle when the assize came on and he was tried on seven indictments with his father and brother. They had robbed seven clothiers traveling from Manchester to Hull, taking what coin there was and some packs of cloth, as well as boots, cloaks, gloves and hats for themselves. Their enterprise was not very successful. Their broken nags could not outrun the hue and cry and they were apprehended at Pontefract. Brigge recalled that when he stood at the bar for his trial, Moore looked a pathetic creature, slight and pale and stoop-shouldered and not more than five feet high. He had long lank hair and a wracking cough he fought to subdue but could not. The judge condemned him and, because Moore and not his father was suspected for the ringleader, ordered for an additional punishment that he be taken from the scaffold, where he would swing with the other two, to be hanged in chains at the place where he committed his crimes. Moore wept at this violent retribution, and his mother begged the judge to have the body that she might bury her son fittingly. But she was refused and so the family’s shame was perpetuated. All for the dread and better instruction of the populace.

  While Brigge stared at the caged cadaver, the fiddler whipped a jolly leaping jig and one of the women pointed to the convict’s half-covered groin, now empty of what once was there and had made him a man.

  “He was not well provided,” she shouted with a coarse jesting laugh.

  “He may have been so before the crows arrived,” one of her friends replied. “They say the birds will first peck the sweetest parts.” There was more raucous laughter.

  Brigge wheeled his horse about. The animal snorted and the revelers tripped carefully about her flailing hooves. “The law has hanged this man,” he shouted angrily, “not to make brutes of those who gaze on his bones, but to make Christians of them.”

  They gaped at him, big-eyed and fearful, and backed away with small steps they wished could be larger ones.

  “Go!” Brigge shouted. “Get to your homes! Be gone!”

  With barely a murmur, and as one body, the revelers obeyed. Brigge was about to nudge his horse with his toes and start forward when a woman’s voice, old and cracked, called him by his name. He looked about, startled, and saw a black figure huddled motionless beneath the iron cage, so small that Brigge had not devised it until now.

  Brigge drew up to her. “Who are you who calls me?”

  “It is Goody Moore who calls to you, Mr. Brigge. The mother of the poor child hanging in chains there.”

  “Your son was no child, but a notorious thief who preyed on merchants and travelers here.”

  “He was my child, whatever he did.”

  “That I must grant you,” Brigge said out of pity for her. “Why are you here on such a terrible day?”

  “Why, sir, I am here every day and will come every day until I may bury my son with his father and brother.”

  She held something up for the coroner to see. A broken staff? A gray-white stick caked in black earth? Brigge looked up at the chained felon. It was not easy to perceive what bones were there and what were not. A missing forearm perhaps? The lower part of a leg with its last rotten meat?

  “Do you have the key to this terrible cage, sir?” Brigge stared at her, not quite understanding. “I must have his bones to bury him,” she said. “How else will he meet Christ on Judgment Day? He must have a grave to rise from, if he is to live again.”

  “I have no key,” Brigge told her, turning his horse about.

  The old woman took time to consider this. She seemed quite downcast for a time. She said at last, “You were not in the right in what you said to the heartless wretches you sent away.”

  He pulled up and turned in the saddle to look at her. “In what was I wrong?” he asked.

  “You said the law hanged my son to make Christians of them.”

  “Your son’s punishment was terrible, but he merited no less.”

  “I am his mother and cannot say anything to that. But this I know: the law will never make Christians of men by hanging other men.”

  “Good day to you, Goody Moore,” Brigge said, urging his mare forward and leaving the highwayman’s mother waiting for more of her son’s bones to drop from the cage.

  The light was fading, the clouds gathered blacker and blacker. The coroner murmured to himself, This one night, this one night, Every night and all …

  When you from hence away are past,

  Every night and all;

  To Whinny-moor you come at last

  And Christ receive your soul.

  Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed through the gloom. Brigge had never known lightning and snow together.

  This one night, this one night,

  Every night and all;

  From Whinny-moor when you may pass,

  Every night and all;

  To Bridge of Dread you come at last;

  And Christ receive your soul.

  The wind was unforgiving cold; his hands and feet were desperate numb. Brigge craved a bed and rest. He wanted only to sleep. In a place where there was no habitation anywhere near, he found Katherine Shay with some inmates of the House of Correction standing together, their hair and clothes whipped by the wind.

  “What do you do here, Shay?” Brigge demanded, perplexed that she should be free from her prison.

  “Come,” she said, putting out her hand to help him down from his horse. “You have no need of a mount now.”

  She led him to be among her strange friends. One offered him a staff and bade him take it, which he did. Then Starman the cripple, who was also part of their company, put a silver penny in Brigge’s right hand and a gold crown in the left.

  “You have all you need,” Shay said. “Now you may go on your way.”

  Brigge looked uncertainly about. “Where do I go?” he asked.

  “You will find the way,” she said, and kissed him.

  A freezing mist came down, thick as milk, enveloping them in pure whiteness and silence. When he looked again, he saw that Shay and her friends had gone. Brigge thought he could hear someone crying and, walking some way, he came on Elizabeth sitting cross-legged in the snow. Before her lay Samuel, cold and inert. Husband sat beside wife and joined in her grieving. Then he lay down to sleep beside his dead son.

  THE THIEVES BUNDLED him roughly, taking him by the legs and shoulders. Brigge struggled against them and called for Elizabeth and Samuel. He felt himself hoisted upward, heard their groaning as they pushed and pulled. One cursed him; another complained at the weight of their burden. He smelled the sweat and dung of horse. Brigge flopped forward. He felt coarse hair prick his cheek. Hands came up to steady him.

  “I will take him,” one of the thieves said.

  Brigge gazed at this assailant and saw it was Starman. “Have you come to take back the silver penny and gold crown you gave me?” Brigge asked. He saw Starman turn to his companion. He heard their laughter. A hand smacked the horse to set it walking.

  Fifteen

  HE THRASHED ABOUT, A MAN WRACKED, HEATED AND TOR- mented from without and within, by the air in the room and by his body’s own fever. His limbs ached, his bones were full of pain. So great was the torment of his belly and of the vapors ascending to his head that at times he was not conscious to himself and swooned out of all perception. And then, at last coming back into himself, he was stricken and over
whelmed with thirst, horror and heat. He called out for Elizabeth and Samuel. He called on the Holy Mother of God, full of tender love, fount of mercy and gentleness. Immediately, his intellectuals became again unclear and imperfect, and he did not know where he was or what he was saying or if he spoke at all or if he was alone or surrounded in the midst of an infinity of persons.

  A COOL HAND touched his brow.

  “Elizabeth?” he said, peering at the form above him. There were mists and films over his eyes, and the shapes he conceived made no sense to his brain. He fumbled for the hand to clasp it. “It is you,” he said. She seemed dispirited by his words. “Samuel?” he said suddenly, recalling the vision he had had of his son lifeless in the snow. “Does Samuel live?”

  “He does not feed easily and vomits much of what he takes down. We pray every hour that he might live.”

  Brigge closed his eyes. Why was he being punished? Was his sin so great that God would take his child from him? He had not confessed. He had compounded his offense by denial and now he was being punished. He felt his head being lifted and a cup put to his lips: a warm drink of bitter herbs and, though sweetened with honey, harsh and pungent.

  He shook his head when he could take no more, then took her hand and kissed it. His lips sensed a fine film of sweat and dirt. “I have something I must confess to you,” he said.

  “Say nothing. You have nothing to confess.”

  “I must be honest,” he insisted. “My conscience is overwhelmed. I must confess.”