Havoc, in Its Third Year: A Novel Read online

  Brigge went to the stand to read the verse the Master himself had chosen at the first meeting of the governors to compensate with compassion, he said, the severity of the motto outside. Charity suffereth long and is kind, Brigge whispered from memory as he came up, charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. But what he saw was a new page and this injunction: Thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. This too is written.

  The keeper entered at the door. Brigge brought up the candle to have a view of the thing that was with him. He was accustomed to the sight of men kept prisoner for long spaces of time, but even he was aghast at the Irishwoman’s condition. She was shrunken in girth and height, so wasted in her body that it was hard to credit she had ever had the carnality and voluptuousness Brigge remembered in her. Her hair was matted and coarse, her color ghostly.

  Brigge directed the keeper to bring her a posset, then, supporting her by the arm, led Shay to a chair at the table where he saw by better light that some teeth at the front were broken and others gone. From these and other signs he could tell she was suffering from the scorbutic fever. Her breath stank.

  He pondered long her dreadful state. “Forgive me,” he said at last.

  She peered about as though confused by things that were ordinary, the chair she sat on, the window, the candle.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  On hearing him she cocked her head like a bird. He was uncertain of her intellectuals. She smiled, exposing the horrid blackness in her mouth.

  “For what do you ask forgiveness, Germanus?” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  Brigge had to work through her words as he had at the inquisition when he first heard her speak, and she repeated herself when she saw him unable to interpret the sounds of her tongue.

  “It is I, Brigge,” he answered her. “Do you know me?”

  “I know you very well, I think.”

  When he had understood her, he continued, “I have spoken with Susana. Do you remember Susana?”

  Her eyes moved like those of a child when questioned as to a thing of which it is uncertain. She said at last, “The poor child at the alehouse.”

  “Yes,” Brigge said, encouraged that she had sufficient perception to remember; he went on, “She told me the dead child was hers.”

  Her gaze and attention wandered away again. Brigge called to her, speaking her name several times, but still she paid him no mind. He inhaled deeply, thinking of how he might persuade her concentration.

  “Mistress, you will hang,” he said quite brutally, “unless you tell me what you know.” She continued to observe her surroundings as though they were strange and rare. He said with force, “If I am to save you from the rope, you must help me.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, turning to him at last. “We must all help one another. This is a good lesson you have learned, Mr. Brigge.” Of a sudden she held out her arms. “Unfasten these chains,” she said. “Let me go free from this place.”

  Brigge shook his head slowly. “That I cannot do,” he said.

  “But Germanus, do you not remember Germanus who could not bear the suffering of poor prisoners? He worked miracles so they might be free.”

  “I am not Germanus and have not the power to make locked doors fly open nor chains to fall off. If you are to have your freedom, it must be by the law of the land.”

  Katherine Shay shook her irons in demand that he free her. The keeper knocked and came in with Shay’s drink of hot milk and ale. Brigge helped bring the can to her mouth. She sipped at the drink but would not take it down, being too rich for her constitution. Though he encouraged her, she begged to be spared from drinking more.

  Brigge waited until the keeper was gone again before he continued his questions. “I know you gave birth to a child before you came to the town,” he said.

  “You think I was delivered of a child, Mr. Brigge?”

  “From the evidence of your body you could have done nothing else.

  What became of that child?”

  “Set me free, Germanus.”

  “I am laboring to set you free and shall do it if you tell me what I need to know.”

  She laughed, a raw, mocking, exulting sound. Her eyes were as big as saucers. “You wish to know what I know?”

  “I must know it.”

  “This is what I know: If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violentperverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they, “ she said. “This is what I know, Mr. Brigge, and is all you need to know.”

  “This is vanity, mistress, for which there is not time,” Brigge said, despair coming into his voice.

  “This is also vanity,“ she said. “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase. How is there no time for this? This is the word of God.”

  “I know it, Katherine, and believe it with all my heart,” Brigge said, taking her hands in his and leaning closer so she should know his sincerity. “But there are other things I must know, the things of this world. Will you not tell me what happened? Susana came into her labor. Was it suddenly? Did it take her by surprise?” She did not reply or give any sign that she understood him. He continued, “Did Susana smother the child? Did some other person do that deed?”

  What little concentration she had now seemed to be slipping away. His voice growing desperate, Brigge said, “Did Doliffe come to the alehouse that night, the night Susana gave birth?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She said, “Doliffe?”

  “Mr. Doliffe, the constable. Do you remember him?”

  “A bitter, harsh man,” she said.

  “Doliffe was the father of Susana’s child,” Brigge said slowly. She gave him a strange look, unbelieving of what he told her. “Susana confessed it to me,” he continued. “She named the constable as the one who got her with child. The constable wants to see you hang, Katherine, but we shall turn things upside down and have him revealed for the hypocrite he is.”

  He waited for her to answer or merely acknowledge what he said, but she did not. He lifted the posset again and encouraged her to drink. She ventured to sip, then took the rest down very quick, the milk running down her chin and dripping onto her lap.

  Brigge heard sounds from the hall and made out the keeper’s voice. Going to the door, he pressed his ear to it.

  “Good milk,” Shay called from the table.

  Brigge, straining to listen to what was being said outside, quieted her with an impatient wave of the hand. He heard a man’s steps and a door open and close.

  Brigge came back to the table. “Listen carefully,” he said. “The keeper has sent for the constable. We do not have time to waste. Did Doliffe come to the alehouse? Did you see him?”

  “The poor child came suddenly into her labor,” she said. “She was in the room next to mine, and hearing her cry out several times, I rose from my bed and went to her.”

  Her gaze was away again. Brigge put his hands on her shoulders. “Go on, Katherine,” he whispered. “What happened then?”

  “I had seen her in the day several times since coming to lodge in the house, but did not know she was with child, her belly being not large, and well hidden by her shifts and petticoats. So seeing her much tormented with pains, I said I would go to summon others in the house, but she confessed what was the cause of her suffering and begged me to tell no one, and so I sat with her to comfort her.”

  “Did you deliver the child?”

  She did not answer for some moments, then shook her head. “The poor child’s labor was very hard and blood coming forth and she in great agony, I went at last against her will to fetch the tippler.”

  “Quirke?”

  “If that is his name.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He came to the room wher
e Susana lay and, she seeing him, she began to cry for fear of what he would do to her. He would have had me leave, but I said I would stay and let him attempt to throw me out and he would see how I would repay him for his efforts.”

  “Did Quirke say anything?”

  “The tippler was much agitated and very troubled,” she answered, “saying that she would ruin him by having this bastard.”

  “Did he mention Doliffe by name?”

  “He did not mention any man,” she said; she continued, “The child came forth of a sudden, a boy child.”

  “The child was alive?”

  “A fair child it was. I was the first to hold him, and giving him to his mother, Susana only screamed and would not at first even look on him but then by persuasion did accept to receive him in her arms.”

  “They must have smothered him. Who else did you see?” Brigge said, his impatience rising.

  “My work being done and returning to my bed, I saw nothing more, but only heard the voices and footfalls of those who came during the night.”

  “Did you see Doliffe come to Susana?”

  “I saw no man other than the tippler,” Shay said with a shrug.

  Brigge gazed at her. She appeared not to care, or perhaps not understand, what the deficiency of her evidence meant for her.

  “Why did you not reveal any of this when you appeared before the inquisition?”

  She smiled, an odd cracked smile, and leaned toward Brigge and said in a confiding whisper, “When you set me free, Germanus, I will lead a crusade.”

  “Why did you not reveal that the infant was Susana’s?”

  “And have the poor child brought to the place where I was? To see her suffer thus?”

  “You were prepared to hang for her?” Brigge said, scoffing. “That is very noble.”

  “No!” she said sharply as though Brigge were an idiot. “I would never hang. I am to lead a great crusade,” she continued, her voice rising. “We will not go to fight. We will not raise our hands against any man. We will go from village to village and town to town. They will be humble men and women since great lords and prelates will not bestir themselves to our cause. But all may go who desire it and who keep the rule.”

  Brigge got to his feet. “What rule is this?” he asked wearily.

  “The rule is, first: the pilgrim will go barefoot. Second: he will not sleep within stone walls. Third: he will preach mercy, brotherhood and peace.” Roused by her vision, she reached for Brigge’s hands, rattling the reckons that bound her. “The pilgrim will go as our Savior went, taking thread and needle and a hat and a staff.”

  Brigge had a sudden recollection of the dream he dreamed when he had fallen into his fever while returning from the town. He remembered receiving two coins, one of silver and one of gold, but also a staff. “What do these things signify?” he asked.

  “When Christ was on earth, he kept a thread. This was charity, which sews and binds. The needle was his penance, the hat his crown of thorns.”

  “And the staff?”

  “The staff he took was the wood of the cross on which he rested on Calvary,” she said, recognizing from Brigge’s look that what she said had a meaning for him. She pulled at his hands. “You will come with me, John, and preach brotherhood and peace and mercy. You must sing this hymn.

  Listen and keep the words in your heart.”

  She sang:

  Mercy, eternal God

  Peace, peace, O gentle Lord

  Look not upon our errors.

  Mercy we call upon

  Mercy be not denied

  For mercy we implore

  Unto the sinner, mercy.

  She sang the hymn three times more and made Brigge repeat the words. He did so only to pacify her, and she began to sing again. Brigge went to the door. The keeper was waiting outside as though maintaining guard.

  “Return the prisoner to her room,” Brigge said.

  The keeper went and raised Shay from the chair.

  “Should you falter, John,” she said as she was led to the door, “only remember this: The profit of the earth is for all .”

  “What is that the runagate says?” the keeper asked. “She claims to interpret the word of God?”

  Shay rounded on him, shouting, “Hear what I say, you foolish fart-sucker. I have listened to great divines discourse and dispute the meaning of what is written in the Holy Book. But even a drunken wittol and speakarse such as you can know the meaning of so simple a promise: The profit of the earth is for all!

  “ The keeper smarted under her rebukes, and Brigge knew he would have struck her to keep her tongue still had he not been there.

  “You are kind, Germanus,” she said as she passed Brigge. “You are very kind.”

  The keeper pulled her away, she scolding him in her raw hoarse voice all the way to the top of the stairs. Brigge listened to the receding sound of her fulminations and footsteps and to the voices she provoked that called out from their imprisonment, souls in purgatory crying to heaven.

  He left quickly, before those the keeper had sent for had time to come.

  THE AIR WAS WARM and gentle and carried the prisoners’ cries outside. There they were mixed with other sounds Brigge could not at first apprehend. Then, listening with greater attention, he thought they were the noises of wild jubilee, as of drums and timbrels and trumpets. He started toward where he perceived the celebration to be when, out of the shadows, came a figure so swift and noiseless that Brigge had no time to draw his sword before he was overtaken.

  “John,” a voice said in urgent whisper. “It is Dorcas.”

  Brigge glanced about the dark street as though fearful of being set upon by those Dorcas had brought with her.

  “There is no one here,” she said when she saw what was in his mind. “Every man goes to Bull Green to see the celebration.”

  “What cause do they have for celebration?” Brigge asked.

  “They have double cause,” she said. “The town’s government is newly remodeled and the priest that was captured is to be executed. You must go away from here, John. The governors have been told you have come to town. Do not let them find you here.”

  “I have business to attend to. Goodnight,” he said. “My greetings to your husband.”

  At his mention of Adam, Dorcas dropped her head. She said, “I have heard report that Elizabeth is dead.”

  “I buried my wife yesterday.” Dorcas’s eyes filled with tears. “Why do you cry?” Brigge said in goading tones.

  “By reason of the love I had for Elizabeth,” Dorcas replied. “She went to her death without I could beg her forgiveness.”

  “She forgave me who committed the greater sin,” he said, his voice becoming less strident, “so perforce she forgave you.”

  He stepped away from her. She called after him but he would not stop.

  Running, she came up to him and caught his sleeve.

  “Do not be cold with me, John,” she said. “Do you imagine I have betrayed you? Is that what you believe?”

  “Challoner came recently to my house to tell me I was accused of adul-tery.”

  “Do you think it was I that accused you?” she said, her eyes wide with indignation.

  When Brigge made no answer and she perceived she had been right in her suspicion, she stepped back from him to look at him more plainly and accusingly. They heard the approach of men in celebration, banging tabors and playing at trumpets, but neither Dorcas nor Brigge moved.

  “I know you never loved me, John, as I loved you,” Dorcas said. “Or that you ever would love me as I wanted to be loved. I know what every woman who yearns for a love she cannot have knows: that I should suffer for it, that the embraces you gave me would in the end bring me not closer to your heart but further from it. But I never thought my punishment would be to be mistrusted by you, to be held so fast in your discredit.”

  Her words tumbled out, ardent and honest. When they were finished, she cried and turned and ran from him. Brigge calle
d after her. He started to give chase but, turning at the bottom of the street, ran into a crowd of men and women, all in high spirits and with blue ribbons and sprigs of laurel in their hats. They hailed Brigge without they knew who he was. “Do you not go to Bull Green?” they cried. “What keeps you here, brother, on this great day?”

  Another company came from another street, swarms of people joining together, tributaries of a great river of reveling men. Brigge struggled desperately to weave and veer and slip out of unwanted embraces to follow Dorcas, but one with the shoulders of a smith and powerful strong hands took Brigge by the arm. His face was cheerful, vehement and fanatical. “Is it not a great day?” the man said. “Now shall there be order and good government, and honest poor men who labor hard and live by the commandments and yet were neglected will at last be given their due!”

  Brigge was swept along.

  Twenty - eight

  AS THEY CAME INTOBULL GREEN , BRIGGE SAW THE SCAFFOLD and ladder. A great roar went up. Men cheered mightily in demonstrations of joy and threw their hats in the air, and others waved laurel branches and scattered bay leaves by the handful. Brigge at last freed himself from his unwelcome companions and was about to go in search of Dorcas when he heard the clatter of horsemen.

  The crowd ceased their cheers and a reverent silence fell, so that though five thousand or ten thousand or more souls were gathered in the green, there was not the sound of a single voice. Then a great drumming started, the reverberation and reecho entering into the chests of all those who were there, filling them with passion and courage, and from the far end of the green, from the direction of North Gate, came a second troop of blue-liveried horsemen, their countenances solemn and proud. They convoyed a great carriage of black and gilt and gold drawn by six magnificent black stallions. The curtains were back, but it was not until the occupants drew level with where Brigge was that he perceived who they were.