Havoc, in Its Third Year: A Novel Read online

  That night some crept up to where Brigge lay with Samuel. “Do you know me?” a woman asked him. He gazed at her thinking he had seen her but where he did not know, only that it was in some other life that now had neither meaning nor worth to him. “I am Joanna Henry and was among those apprehended for taking grain from the cart of Morrison the badger,” she said.

  Another said, “I am Charles Denton, whipped and sent to the jail on the order of the governors.”

  “I am Alice Cartner, whom you bridled and stocked.”

  “I am Quirke, who got Susana with child and caused the Irishwoman who called herself Shay to be apprehended.”

  One more made his confession; he was very grave. “I am Robert Hewison,” he said. “I killed my wife by beating her, the which thing you demonstrated to all the world.”

  They whispered it was he who had condemned them but had also delivered them, and who could he be but St. Germanus that Katherine Shay had said would one day come to free them.

  Starman chased the fools from his master and told them to let him be and rest, then covered Brigge with a blanket and added his own blanket to the covering, and the kitchen maids came to be of comfort to him.

  When they left in the morning, they found others in the way. Their leader was a woman, small, toothless, old and frail, who still carried on her limbs the chains of her imprisonment. Katherine Shay smiled on seeing Brigge. “I thought the crusade was mine to lead,” she said. “But I was wrong, Germanus. It is for you to show us the way.”

  Brigge paid her no heed but walked on with his son in his arms.

  BY THE NEXT night they were past a hundred strong, all of them miserable, poor, disordered creatures raked up out of the refuse of mankind, many with infirmities, a multitude of blind, crippled, hunchbacked, limping men.

  THEY CAME INTO a small place where Brigge had never been before and did not know the name of. On seeing a ragged man with a dirty face lead the little nag and the woman and child upon it, the people came out and prayed, and some sought to touch Samuel and some fell on their knees and clutched at Brigge’s feet as he went past.

  Those with him 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.

  Starman sang the words and the others sang them too, and the people of the little place thrust bread and cheese and scraps of meat into their hands and pockets. Katherine Shay rattled her chains as she went, denying to have the smith break them, saying they were the marks of their suffering and their salvation.

  Some of those who had squatted at the new bridge and who were dispersed and hiding in the mountains heard their singing as they crossed the moors and came to join them, so Starman was reunited with his friends. He asked them of Exley and what news they had of his brother, but no one knew what had become of him, or whether he was dead or alive.

  At the next parish they came in to, some of the women went ahead so that when Brigge and Deborah and the child entered into the town they hosanna’d him and threw branches and saplings in his path. Men came from the fields and women from their work to ask who it was that came among them, and when they saw this great army of poor penitents and sinners, their hearts were touched and they gave food and drink.

  Mercy we call upon

  Mercy be not denied

  For mercy we implore

  Unto the sinner, mercy.

  On the seventh day, at the instigation of Katherine Shay, those who followed Brigge demanded of him that he reveal himself to them and speak to them and tell them what he would have them do. Brigge would have no conversation with them and struggled to escape their demands and imprecations. But they got him in a corner and confronted him. Brigge would only say what his name was, which was John Brigge and no other. His dwelling was at the Winters, he said, though he could not return there and never would live there again by reason that there were those who would destroy him if they found him, and since he could do no other thing, he would go from place to place as he had done this last week for as long as his life was spared, which he did not think would be long. He said they were fools to have any expectation of him or put any hope or faith in him, that he was neither teacher nor guide but was no more or less than they were themselves. He said they should go their own way, for he could not take them to any place that was better than where they then were, which was waste and high moor with nothing but rags for their apparel and stale bread for their bellies. Whereupon there was great crying out and lamentation, and men and women came forward, crying that he should not leave them or they should be lost, and nothing Brigge could do or say would persuade them otherwise.

  Seeing they would not leave him in peace, he waited that night until they were asleep and crept to Deborah and Samuel and led them and the little gray nag and slipped away. But Katherine Shay led the pilgrims to overtake him not a mile from where he left them and with tears and mourning beseeched him not to desert them and so brought him back to their camp.

  Brigge dreamed again of the key he was given. In the morning he spoke to Shay and asked what was the key for. She answered him that he should take the key and go forth into the world and have courage and speak and men would listen to his words.

  Brigge roused those who were with him. Coming slowly into their blear-wits, they gathered around him. For the first time Brigge took proper note of who there was: Lister, Lacy and Fourness, Isabel and Hewison, James Jagger and Denton, Henry and Cartner, Sara and Deborah, and to all of these and the others who were among them he said no one of them was without guilt and some among them had committed foul deeds and terrible acts, and he confessed he was one of these. He said they were forsaken but they would find fellowship with those that lived in cabins and dens and caves and in the desolate corners of the earth, and in their brotherhood and fellowship they would find first forgiveness and then life.

  Before they started on their way again, remembering the enjoinder of Katherine Shay, he made them throw away their shoes and vow they would never sleep again within stone walls. Lifted in spirit and with happy hearts, they tramped fields and highways and bridle paths and tracks. The sun was kind to them, neither searing their skins through its force nor chilling them by weakness. At night they made fires and slept on beds of moss and bracken.

  They came to a large town in the north and, as was their custom, the women went ahead to strew branches on the ground before Brigge and Deborah and Samuel. The townsmen left off their work and, coming upon them, said, “What is this that you do?” When Katherine Shay answered that they should be happy and not make show of such displeasure, they fell into a distracted rage and threw stones and excrements at the pilgrims.

  One came up to Brigge, who carried on though rained on with hard blows, and stopped him and said, “Who are you that goes in such mockery of our Lord?”

  “I am John Brigge,” Brigge said, “and no other. This is my son and this his nurse.”

  So saying, Brigge tugged at the rein, but the one who stopped him raised his club and brought it down on Brigge’s crown. Brigge sank to his knees. The blood dripped on the road before his eyes. His head swam and bile came up into his throat. Then he got slowly to his feet, took up the rein again and went. All round, the townspeople beat the pilgrims and pursued them from the town, scattering them in every direction.

  WHEN THEY HAD gone far enough to be safe from the crowd, Brigge stopped and sat down on the road. Deborah helped him, binding his wounds and setting him on the horse, she taking Samuel in her arms as she led the nag.

  Katherine Shay found them. She took Brigge’s hand in hers and held it close. As pilgrims came by in ones and twos, making their way as best they were able, she bade them halt until Germanus recovered himself.

  The hours went by and the pilgrims, fearful they would be attacked again, were restless to be gone. And so Ka
therine Shay took her leave of Brigge with a kiss and, her fetters clanking, led them away to continue their crusade.

  At their going, Brigge fetched a sigh for the sadness he felt in his heart. The pilgrims went as doves, but war was coming, it was on the horizon. Cities would crumble, men would die. There was nothing to prevent it.

  AT NIGHTFALL TWO men came out from the hedge, one of them Robert Hewison, the other Quirke. Deborah called on them to help her, but they, seeing Brigge to be dangerously sick, threw him from the nag and made off with it.

  In the morning Starman, one eye closed from a blow and his left hand broken, found them hiding in the hedge. He lifted Brigge, now unable in his whole body, and carried him some little way, but could go no further. A gentleman passed them and gave them some coin and felt such pity for them that he took off his coat and gave it to them. Afterward some carters came, and Starman paid them with the gentleman’s money to load Brigge on their cart and carry him to a doctor. When they had gone as far as they would go with him, they lifted him from their cart and placed him on the road. Starman and Deborah wept as they watched over him.

  By morning Brigge was recovered. His head was cleared and his wounds healed. He felt such extraordinary strength in his heart and limbs that he marveled at it as though he had fallen asleep an old man and woken a young one. He climbed the mountain with bounding steps and called for Elizabeth. Below, his sheep grazed contentedly and Starman waved to him that all was well, and in the fields the harvest was nearly done, the ripe corn, as high as a man’s middle, being gathered into the barn. He was so joyful he lay down on the heather and gazed up at the gentle sky.

  Someone leaned over him, and though Brigge saw the man’s mouth move, he heard no words. A second face appeared full of concernment and promise, and she gave a sad smile and reaching to her side brought up a beautiful, incomparable child, its belly full, its mouth wet and white, a happy gurgle of contentment in its throat. The mouths moved again. Brigge heard some muffled sounds they were making but still could not make out any words.

  He felt wetness on his cheek and saw the man and woman above him were crying, their tears dripping onto his face. Then he thought he heard someone call his name, gently and sweetly, and striving to turn his head, he felt his cheek stroked. He wondered who it was that called his name.

  Then Elizabeth came to him. She took his hand and put it to her breast and whispered to him that here there was mercy and all men who sought it should have it.

  Acknowledgments

  The lengthiest acknowledgment of the sources and inspirations that have gone into this novel would still be incomplete, for, as anyone who studied Tudors and Stuarts at school will know, the literature on the political, religious, social and economic (not to mention local) history of seventeenth-century England is vast. Nevertheless, I must cite a few of the most important.

  Apart from the obvious contemporary voices—Aubrey, Baxter, Clarendon, Cromwell, Evelyn, Fox, Lilburne, Pepys, Wallington, Winthrop and others—I owe debts to the modern work of, among others, James Cockburn, A. G. Dickens, Conrad Russell, Keith Thomas, Keith Wrightson, and, of course, Christopher Hill. I have also benefited from Peter Clark and Paul Slack (eds.), Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500-1700; David Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England; Stevie Davies, Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution, 1640-1660; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (the source for many of Brigge’s “prayers”); R. F. Hunnisett, The Medieval Coroner;William Hunt, The Puritan Moment: the Coming of the Revolution to an English County; Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun; Robert M. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva; Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato; Joan Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. IV, 1500-1640; David Underdown, Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century and Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603-1640; and John Watson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax.

  John Brigge performed inquisitions in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the 1640s and ’50s, the records of which are now lodged among the gaol calendars, indictments and depositions of the Northern Assize Circuit in the Public Record Office/National Archives, London.

  Many years ago, I discussed this material with Alan Betteridge, Ian Roy and John Smail, albeit in a very different form. I hope they will not object to the use to which I have put their knowledge and expertise.

  Which brings me, lastly, to the acknowledgment every novelist working with history must make that when conflicts arise between historical fact and the demands of the novel we tend to settle them in favor of the latter. This is a work of fiction.

  About the Author

  RONAN BENNETT was born in 1956 in England and brought up in Belfast, Ireland. After moving to England as an adult, he went on to receive a Ph.D. in history from King’s College, London, where he now lives. He writes regularly for the British and Irish press, and is the author of The Catastrophist, two earlier novels, and several award-winning scripts for U.K. film, television and radio.