Havoc, in Its Third Year: A Novel Page 3

  Throughout their evidence Shay sat slumped in the chair, her head lolling forward under the great weight of the iron cage, which she did her best to support with her hands. Blood dribbled from the corners of her mouth to her chin and dripped to her lap and the floor. She whimpered from time to time.

  The coroner next examined Quirke, keeper of the Painted Hand, the tippling-house near Bull Green where the dead child had been discovered. It was a place of very ill repute, suspected of bawdry and notorious for the thieves who haunted it.

  “When Shay came to lodge at your house, did you see that she was pregnant?” Brigge asked.

  “To tell the truth, your honor, I did not pay close attention to her, except that she seemed very weary and carried a flasket before her and could have been pregnant for all I know,” Quirke answered.

  “How did you come upon the body?” Brigge asked. His gaze was trained not on the witness but on the crudely swaddled corpse.

  “It was not I who discovered the child,” Quirke said, “but my serving girl Susana Horton who, while about her work, came upon the body hidden in a cupboard among some old clothes.”

  “She is here, this Susana?”

  “No, your honor. She is gone to Burnsall.”

  Brigge looked up sharply. “Did you not tell the girl that she would be required here to give her evidence?”

  “I did not know to tell her, your honor,” Quirke said, “never having had before the like occurrence in my house.”

  “Why has Susana gone to Burnsall?”

  “To help her sister there, your honor, whose husband suffers from a shaking palsy.”

  The coroner dismissed the man and called Doliffe forward to give his information. The constable took his oath on the Holy Evangelist, his high, light voice straining to convey the special sincerity he had for scripture, truth and the responsibilities of his office. He said on oath that the first he knew of the matter was when Quirke came to him with the body and told him of the Irishwoman who had left her lodgings at the Painted Hand. After he inquired of some townsmen and received intelligences from them, the constable set out on the road to Rochdale and, about five miles from the town, following her tracks in the snow, found Shay hiding under a hedge, and there apprehended her on suspicion of infanticide, brought her back prisoner and sent his man to fetch the coroner. Although his evidence could not have been more straightforward, Doliffe delivered it with pedantry, picking his words with exaggerated care and, like a scholar, correcting Brigge on trivial points of detail.

  “Did you speak with the serving girl Susana Horton?”

  “I spoke to her briefly.”

  “Did you tell her she would be called to give evidence at this inquisition?”

  The constable shot him an indignant look. “I did not consider her evidence to be necessary, the prisoner’s guilt being so plain.”

  “The necessity of her evidence is for me to decide,” Brigge said, dismissing the constable. He took some moments to consider the matter. At last he announced he would adjourn the proceedings until Susana Horton was brought back from Burnsall, when the jurors and witnesses would again be required to give their attendance.

  Doliffe strode forward and leaned toward the coroner. His voice was low and angry. “What do you mean by this, sir?”

  “I mean to see justice done,” Brigge answered, “as best I am able.”

  “Then send this tinker’s drab to be hanged,” Doliffe said. “You have heard what the women searchers had to say, what Quirke said. You heard my evidence. The jury will send Shay for trial. They need no more con-vincing.”

  “No doubt in time she will be hanged,” Brigge said, “but that time is not come yet, nor will it until Susana Horton is produced before me. If you would be so kind as to send to Burnsall for her, I would be most obliged.”

  Doliffe turned and left the sessions hall, watched in silence by the jurymen and the witnesses.

  The coroner made orders to have Shay detained in the jail and for the release of her child’s body for burial in the grave that had already been made for it outside the church grounds.

  WHEN THE HALL WAS cleared, the coroner ordered Scaife to remove the bridle and fetch some drinking water. Shay bent forward and vomited some foul stuff which a dog, being by, it lapped up. Brigge kicked the animal and it ran off yelping.

  “Hear me, mistress. This is not a simple homicide for which your life might be spared,” Brigge explained. “Your crime falls under the statute which was brought in to prevent the murder of bastard children. If you are innocent, you must say so or you will be hanged.”

  “I did not murder my child,” Shay said thickly, dabbing fingertips to her bloody mouth.

  Again, Brigge had to work at the strange inflections in her words. When he had them understood, he said, “You acknowledge the child is yours?”

  “I did not murder my child and I shall not suffer for something I have not done.”

  Scaife entered with a cup of water, which Shay accepted with trembling hands. When she had taken her refreshment, the coroner ordered her escorted upstairs to be held with the other prisoners. In due course the coroner would reconvene the inquest jury to hear Susana Horton’s evidence. The jurors would find that Katherine Shay had done away with her child. She would then be received into custody until she was produced for trial at the next assizes. If she survived her time as prisoner, she would be led to the bar and the charge put to her. She would make her plea, the witnesses would be heard, the trial jury would convict her and the judge condemn her. Katherine Shay would die on the gallows. There could be no doubt as to the outcome.

  Brigge found Adam waiting outside the House of Correction. He put his arm across the boy’s narrow shoulders and walked with him toward the Lion, where they usually lodged when in town. Two jurymen passed them and muttered under their breath as they went. The Irishwoman was guilty, they said, and justice had been mocked and abused again as it was daily by those in authority who cared not a fig for the wronged.

  “Did you see the blue ribbons in their hats?” Adam said as they went on. Brigge turned back to look. “There were others in the hall—men and women—also wearing them.”

  “A new fashion, perhaps,” Brigge suggested.

  “Will you need me tonight?” Adams said. “I would like to visit my friends in the town.”

  “Which friends are these?”

  Adam mumbled the names of some youths. They meant nothing to Brigge. Adam was not inclined to be forthcoming. Brigge became aware of the stiffness in the boy’s shoulder and removed his hand.

  “Do not stay out late,” Brigge said. “We must start back for the Winters at first light.”

  They walked on in silence, Brigge snatching glances of the boy as they went. The coroner saw him then as he had seen him twelve years before, when Adam had come to the Winters an orphaned scholar from the free school, a reticent intruder in the world. Drilled by his teachers in deference and by the hard life he had lived in caution, he was like a puppy that did not know if it was to be fed or kicked.

  They came to the Lion. Brigge wished Adam a pleasant time with his friends. He himself had business elsewhere.

  Four

  THE FIRST STAIRCASE LED TO THE ANGEL AND, OFF A SMALL landing, to the Canary, the Star and Columbine chambers. They were all large rooms, each decorated in the motif of its name, with comfortable beds of down, upholstered chairs and Turkey-worked cushions and carpets.

  Brigge came to the Dolphin, the most luxurious of the Swan’s apartments. A servant brought him to the fire and offered him refreshment, explaining that the Master was in conference with a visitor. Brigge asked for bread and cheese, and settled down to wait in one of the armchairs on either side of the mullioned window. Embellished on the walls were handsome pintados of dolphins, galleons and legends of the sea. There were sweet herbs to scent the air. From an adjoining room came the lulling murmur of men’s voices. Brigge imagined Elizabeth in labor, pretty Dorcas at her side, Mrs. Lacy and the neighbors
all busy about her, the midwife whispering encouragements, plying her with pennyroyal and rue. At the far end of the room was a bed with bed-steps up to it, its posts intricately fretted, the canopy and valance colored in jacinth, mulberry and jade, and embroidered with mermaids and figures of Poseidon and Amphitrite, and Triton and his shells. In the sumptuousness of his surroundings, Brigge could imagine sweet things. He saw Elizabeth lying beside their baby son. He would love this child, of that he had no doubt. But would he provide for him? The fees the coroner claimed brought small gain: a mark for every inquest held on view of a body slain. A mark also in cases of felo-de-se; nothing for deaths by misadventure or visitation of God. This year, with God’s grace, his land would flourish. This year he would buy marl and lime, and when the snows cleared he would see his fields properly graved for planting. He would hire a looker to watch his sheep for the rot and the turn and to guard against dogs and thieves.

  A glowing coal suddenly tumbled from the fire to the floor. Brigge leaped to his feet but the manservant was quicker, a good servant indeed, on the lookout always for the safety of his master’s property. He snatched up the tongs, dropped the coal in the hearth and, stooping, inspected the scorch marks on the floor.

  Brigge sat back in the chair. His eyes grew heavy.

  HIS DREAMS TOOK their own course. They led him to a rich city he had never seen before. He stood outside the walls, and a procession of the great men of the place came through the gate to meet him. The greatest among them came forward and, while the others of the procession watched, held up a key for Brigge and with tearful entreaties begged him to accept it, which Brigge denied to do. This great man then threw the key to the ground, bowed gravely, took out his knife and cut his own wrists and, having done so, sat down in the dirt to bleed. The procession clapped courteously. Brigge stepped over the cadaver and, ignoring the key, entered at the gate. In the market square he found a long table set out with roasted capons and boar’s heads, souse and apples, plums and cheese, and great quantities of beer and wine. But when Brigge sat down at the head of the table and invited those about to partake in the feast, he saw that none of the great men of the city had come with him to the meal. Instead came forward lepers and beggars and strumpets and the very worst-conditioned sort of people. A woman came to sit next to Brigge.

  “Eat,” the woman said. “Eat.”

  She tore at the loaves with bleeding fingers and offered Brigge to eat. He gazed at her stubbed fingers and at the meal of bloody bread she held out for him to take.

  BRIGGE BECAME AWARE of the Master standing before him. He got to his feet, drowsy and dazed, his senses disordered.

  “John, John!” the Master was saying. He cleaved the coroner to him and kissed him. “It is so long since I have seen you. I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  The Master repeated the apology twice more and begged Brigge’s forgiveness, though this was all unnecessary. He had won the good will of many in the town with the courtesy he used to speak to every man. He was, for one of his years, unusually ceremonious. He indicated his visitor—Dr. Favour. The vicar was tall, broad-shouldered, pale in the face and strong and straight-backed. His hair was the color of dark amber, and his mouth also reddish for being scarred with harelip. Brigge was disappointed to find the vicar here, for he wanted his friend to himself. He and Brigge saluted each other like hollow men, their insincerity equal.

  Favour asked about the inquisition. “An Irish vagrant, I understand?”

  “It seems so, from her speech at least,” Brigge replied. “She has said nothing about herself, not even to confirm her name.”

  “Has she confessed her crime?”

  “She has not.”

  “But there is other evidence against her?”

  “There is a great deal against her,” Brigge said.

  “Yes, I have heard the evidence against her was strong,” the vicar said.

  Favour gave him a straight look. Vagrants did these things. The Irish did these things. Brutality was expected. How could it not be so? They were ignorant of the Word. They had no Luther, Calvin or Melanchthon to guide them to salvation. Katherine Shay was a vagrant, a foreigner. She lived as the beasts live, without enlightenment. She murdered her child.

  There could be no doubt about it.

  “The Irishwoman is a papist, I take it?” Favour asked.

  The implication hung in the air with the question. The coroner had shown partiality to a fellow Romanist. Brigge thought for a moment the Master might intervene in his behalf, but he did not.

  “I did not ask,” Brigge said.

  Favour allowed a short silence to mark his surprise.

  “Did you examine the prisoner as to what knowledge she has touching the strangers who have been lately seen in these parts?”

  “Which strangers are these?” Brigge asked.

  “You have not heard, sir, that there are horsemen who go by night, armed with cutlasses and muskets?”

  “I have heard rumors of these, nothing more.”

  “They are no rumors, Mr. Coroner, but verified as true reports. You did not think to question the prisoner about them?”

  “In what particular?” Brigge asked.

  “Whether they be Frenchmen or Spaniards, sir,” Favour answered coldly, “or soldiers come from Ireland, or traitors from within the kingdom.”

  “I had no reason to think she might have information concerning horsemen of any kind,” Brigge said, his voice stretched as his patience. “My concern was with the dead child she is alleged to have murdered.”

  “Yet for all your concern you were apparently unable to conclude the inquisition?”

  “An important witness was unavailable,” the coroner said curtly.

  The Master said, “I am sure Mr. Brigge will conclude proceedings with all possible speed as soon as he is able. I myself will speak with the constable and have him closely question the prisoner to discover what she knows of any horsemen.”

  “The lives and freedom of those who walk in the truth depend on it,” Favour said.

  The vicar took his leave and went out of the room.

  “What madness is this?” Brigge said as soon as Favour was gone. He looked to the Master, expecting him perhaps to roll his eye or give a weary shrug, a politician obliged for the sake of quiet to indulge the powerful in their rantings but now free to express his true opinion. But the Master’s reply was solemn and without the easy affability Brigge was used to in his old friend.

  “You have been remote and cut off from us, John,” he said. “There are things you do not know.”

  The Master smiled to soften the harshness of what he had just said and led Brigge by arm to the table where servants were already setting out plates of mutton, pork and eggs, and carbonados and a shield of brawn daubed with mustard. Brigge insisted that all he wanted was bread and cheese. His host waved away his protestations.

  “You look tired, John,” he said as they took their seats.

  Brigge had thought the same of the Master, how he had aged in the months since he had seen him. Though his smile was still ready, the exhaustion was apparent in the eyes: the left was quite normal, but the other seemed to belong to another, older, more discouraged man. His shoulders were rounded, his hair thinning at the front.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever come to town again,” the Master said. “You received my letters?”

  “I should have responded,” Brigge said. “I am sorry.”

  The Master’s voice took on a more serious tone: “I wondered if I had offended you.”

  “No.”

  “As Master I am forever giving offense. I seem to disappoint so many.”

  Brigge took some mutton and drank his beer; it was as clear and fine in color as old Alsatian wine.

  “I know there are those who harbor suspicions of me,” the Master was saying. “They say I am impatient, that I am ambitious, that I am contriving to concentrate all authority into my own hands. I am sure you have heard these
things said.”

  “I have heard some talk of it.”

  The Master seemed dispirited by Brigge’s admission though he had solicited it. He exhaled heavily and held his hands out.

  “I am Master, first among the governors. I do as my office requires. I have no ambition for anything other than the good government of the town and the reformation of its people. Those who allege otherwise forge pretexts for faction and sedition.” He smiled wanly before continuing, “If I have offended you, John, you know how sincerely I would regret it. I hope you will not keep yourself distant from us again for so long. Tell me, how is Elizabeth? The child is due soon?”

  Brigge told him of Elizabeth’s condition and how he had left her this morning. They ate and talked of their homes and wives. The Master had no children. His wife had never conceived. Doctors and physicians had plied her with remedies for her condition but with no success.

  “She suffers vehemently with pains every month before her purga-tion,” the Master confided. “She believes herself to be barren, and in believing makes herself so. Gladness is fertilizing, and too much care has the opposite effect.”

  “This land is hard,” Brigge said. “It is not fertilizing.”

  “Yet Elizabeth conceived, with God’s grace.”

  With God’s grace and the intervention of a friend of Mrs. Lacy’s who made a poultice for Elizabeth of strong herbs and butter and earth, and directed Brigge to press the stinking pad on Elizabeth’s naked belly and to say seven Hail Marys and three Our Fathers in honor of God and the Holy Trinity, and then would Elizabeth conceive. Brigge said nothing of this to the Master, who would condemn it as magic and blasphemy and Romish superstition. And yet it succeeded; Elizabeth became pregnant and there was no miscarrying.

  The Master stared at the pintados and decorations. “I will have no children now,” he said.

  Until their talk of wives and conceptions Brigge felt he had been watching a performance of friendship. The Master had spoken with respect and courtesy enough but with nothing like their former free familiarity. The sudden sincerity with which he spoke of his childlessness gave Brigge hopes that he would drop this enforced ceremony. But then the servants came in again to bring them fricassees and quelquechoses. Like Caesar, the Master ever kept a good board. The food was excellent, but the opportunity for intimacy was lost.