Havoc, in Its Third Year: A Novel Page 6

  “Something must be done,” was all the Master said.

  “Our Poor Law was well designed to relieve God’s honest poor and set them on work,” Doliffe said, warming to his argument. “But through abuse it is now the mother of idleness. The law should be: he that will not work, let him not eat.”

  The governors began to argue among themselves. At last the Master called them to order. “Gentlemen, we have more business to attend to. If you please.” He waited for silence before going on. “We must show our determination to stamp out the present disorders. To this end the constable, Mr. Doliffe, will reorganize the watch and search all manner of inns, alehouses and taverns and other places of ill repute to discover what rogues, vagabonds and thieves there are. Such persons will be brought before us at sessions and duly punished. Foreigners will have their passes strictly examined and those who cannot give good account of themselves will be expelled from the town.

  “From this day forth in this town, there will be no toleration for any crime, error or sin, however slight. Those whose offenses we have too often looked at through the fingers, pretending they did not exist or were nothing but the common sports of Englishmen, such as fornicators, swearers and drunkards, will be punished. Those guilty of larcenies, murders, rapes and the like will taste the bitter cup of justice to its full. These measures are most necessary for the greater number of the guilty have commonly escaped justice, and those few who do suffer for their crimes often do so far from here because we are required to send the worst offenders to the castle for trial at assizes, not having ourselves the power to hang.” The Master waited a moment, then added: “At least until now.”

  There was an outpouring of questions and exclamations. They had now authority to hang? How had this come about?

  The Master explained, “I have petitioned for a special commission of oyer and terminer so that we might have authority to hang those delinquents whose death we deem necessary for the maintenance of our security. The people should be able to see justice executed.”

  “Who will be the commissioners that shall have this power?” Lister asked.

  “Mr. Doliffe, Dr. Favour and I,” the Master replied. He looked over the assembly, perceiving the consternation and unease. “We must not be afraid to be bold,” he said. His voice, though he attempted to make it ring with determination, sounded flat.

  At the finish of the meeting the governors gathered in little knots in the courtyard by the entrance. Brigge approached Fourness to say he was sorry for the terms in which the constable had spoken to him, but the old governor went off alone and without a word, scorning the youths that usually followed him. The coroner went to search for Adam but did not find him.

  DOWN CROWN STREET and past the market cross, past the woolshops, beyond the trestle tables where are the bacons, cheeses and eggs. Past the capons, cocks and other fowls. And further, beyond the eels, trout, grayling and chub and the stink of fish. On, further, toward the shambles smell, not sharp like the fish, but deep, secret and laden. On to the shambles itself, through the viscera of the market, the panting contents of steaming cavities and all the carnal evidences of the solid world. Brigge went on, continuing to the cornmarket end where the maypole once was and where poor people now thronged to buy handfuls of last year’s musty corn by tuppence and the groat. A woman was complaining at the dearth, saying the corn being offered was old and stale, and, jabbing her finger at the badger, rebuked him for setting his prices so high.

  “The prices are fixed by the governors,” the badger replied with a shrug. “If this corn is not good enough, you must wait for the new.”

  “The new will not come till harvest,” the woman cried. “Are we to wait half a year to feed our families?”

  Brigge came up against a man who would not move out of his way. The coroner rebuked the fellow, who turned and swore an oath at him.

  “This one is a governor,” the man’s companion said, putting a hand out to restrain the other. “Leave him, or you will suffer for it.”

  “What do I care that he is one of those rogues? Let him push me again and we shall see what will become of this mighty governor.”

  “Let him alone,” his friend said, trying to bustle him out of the way.

  The one Brigge had rebuked spat on the ground. “Soon Lord Savile will throw them out by their ears,” he said at last, before consenting to be led away.

  Brigge came to the market square, arriving as Scaife was boring the Scotchman with a heated iron. The crowd roared its delight, grateful for the sating of its most insistent appetite—punishment. The Scotchman’s consort came after. She did not faint away but mastered her terror and stood her ground and set her jaw. One of Scaife’s assistants held her head fast. With one hand Scaife took the tip of her ear and brought up the iron’s glowing tip in the other. At its touch the woman howled and staggered backward. The constable’s man threw down his hot iron and stood panting beside the mangled pair, worn out from the efforts of his flogging and boring.

  It was here, among the throng, that Brigge at last found Adam. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

  “I was with my friends, as I said I would be,” Adam replied.

  The boy, though naturally given to closeness, had always been obedient. Brigge was perplexed at this new evasiveness; nor did he have appetite to question him further, now being so preoccupied with thoughts of Elizabeth. “Is it true that we shall see hangings in the town?” Adam asked.

  “Who has told you this?”

  “The whole town is talking about it.”

  “Is that so? And what does the town say?”

  “That something must be done.”

  “Do you share this opinion?” Brigge asked.

  Adam paused before answering. “The town’s argument has force.”

  “Something must be done is hardly an argument,” Brigge said, his voice quick, his tone hard. “These are the words of rash men who cannot otherwise defend their schemes.”

  “These are the words of Mr. Challoner, the Master,” Adam reminded him.

  The people parted as Doliffe brought Margery Farrer forward to receive her punishment. A silence fell as the constable stripped the girl to the waist. Many, the women as well as the men, pretended not to look, but peeped at her little white breasts. Scaife went back and forth, pretending to see to the preparations, so that he could have a look at her, and he did not stop in this until the crowd’s sniggers became so loud they shamed his master the constable.

  Doliffe, his voice ringing out with severity, read aloud the sentence on Margery Farrer passed by the governors of the town sitting in lawful sessions as magistrates of the law. He cut off the girl’s fine fair hair, drawing blood on the scalp with his blunt scissors, and when he was done, he held up the shorn mass to the baying crowd.

  Brigge heard a voice at his ear, smooth and guileful. “The Master says he wants only to suppress the present disorders,” Antrobus whispered, “but the carnival of retribution he means to unleash is only a mask for his motives. He intends with Doliffe and Favour to erect a tyranny over us.”

  The sly doctor waited to hear what answer Brigge would make, and when he made none, continued with greater insistence in his tone, “Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Brigge, that you will be happy to see this triumvirate of ferocity, ambition and cunning concentrate all power into its hands?”

  “The men you speak of have labored tirelessly in the service of the town and its people,” Brigge said, “without profit to themselves.”

  “I do not believe that in your heart you look upon their enterprise so favorably.”

  “Who are you to know what is in my heart, Dr. Antrobus?” Brigge said, shooting him a glance.

  “Your friend the Master did great service to the town in helping to oust Savile,” the doctor said. “But he is no longer the man he once was, he no longer believes what he once believed. Mark me, he will take Savile’s place. Who then will be safe when he has overawed the town? Will you be safe, Mr. Brigge?”
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  “I have no reason to fear sanction,” Brigge said shortly.

  “Only saints have no fear of sanction,” Antrobus said with a harsh laugh. “For myself, I go in fear of retribution every day.”

  The coroner pushed forward through the press, leaving the doctor behind. He came upon Adam among the people following Doliffe as the constable led Margery Farrer to be tied to the cart’s tail. He called him to leave off and come with him to get their horses, that it was time to return to the Winters. But Adam was in a frenzy with the rest, shouting in the girl’s ears and tormenting her with mockery, calling her a hot-arsed bitch and a dirty tattered slut, a whore that would burn in hell for her evil life. Adam did not see the coroner even when Brigge came right up to him.

  Brigge looked at the boy in amazement of his passion for this sordid entertainment.

  “It pleases you to see this?” he asked.

  “The girl has sinned. The law is that she must be punished,” Adam replied simply.

  Brigge did not try to argue with him: youth is not tender. If it is to be made so, it is by wounds and experience, not argument.

  They heard the first stripe laid on, heard the girl cry out as though lanced with a knife. The crowd surged as the horse started forward. Jeering, , the people followed the cart, yelling at Scaife to strike the whore harder. Those nearest spat at the girl. A woman stepped up and invited her to drink before emptying a can of stale piss over her bleeding head. Brigge danced back to avoid the yellow splashes but could not avoid the smell. Scaife snapped his whip again, breaking the skin across Margery Farrer’s thin shoulders. After two more stripes, the girl was broken. She fell to her knees and made as if to shelter under the cart, but her hands were fast before her and bound tight and so she was merely dragged along. Her legs, knees and feet were instantly torn, the flesh grated away by the sharp stones. She went out of all consciousness, to the disappointment of the raving mob that followed her with their taunts and scoffs. The drops of blood on the cobbles and stones were like those left by a bitch in season. The market square emptied. The sounds of the lash and the jeers faded in the distance. The rain came on, washing away the evidence of Margery Farrer’s sinful heat. They saw Doliffe looking stern and triumphant as a conqueror.

  “Have you sent to Burnsall for the serving girl?” Brigge asked.

  “There is no necessity to hear the girl,” the constable said. “You have sufficient evidences. I can assure you the jurymen are content to send the Irishwoman to trial and will return a true bill against her.”

  “If you have not already sent to Burnsall for Susana Horton, do so at once or I shall be forced to report the matter.” The constable’s face clouded with anger. “When she is brought back, send word to me at once. I would like to complete the inquisition on the dead child as soon as possible.”

  Brigge wished the constable good day and went with Adam to get their horses. They passed the jail and the House of Correction, where the governors diverted some of the torrent of sinners and evildoers who came before them. Perhaps the necks they would shortly stretch from the gibbet would at last succeed in stopping up this raging fast flow of delinquency. Something had to be done.

  AT THE NEW bridge there were now four hovels of sticks and reeds and clay daub. Brigge thought he was witnessing the foundation of a city of paupers, but then did not every great city, even mighty Rome, begin this way, in mud and wattle? If the meek shall inherit the earth ought he to despise their first claim upon the ground?

  They had built a small fire under a precarious shelter, more remarkable for its abundance of smoke than for its glow and heat. They had no animals, not even a goose or a chicken. There were some bags of meal and coarse bread, but no meat or fat that he could see. Looking beyond the camp to the thin wood fringing the moor, Brigge saw a woman pulling gray bark from a sapling and stuffing it in her mouth to chew. Beside her a filthy infant sat on the muddy ground, drenched by the rain. The children who gathered around them smelled like wet dogs.

  As he and Adam approached, the diseased man who yesterday had asked for alms hobbled over and doffed his cap.

  “Good morning, your honor,” he said cheerfully. He appeared to have neither eyebrows nor eyelashes. The coroner was fascinated by the wound in the man’s leg. The left calf was almost torn away. The knee was scarred and seamed with hard red welts, but the lower part of the leg was scurvy with running tetters and scabs. Brigge had never seen so horrific an injury on a living man.

  “What is your name?”

  “Thomas Starman, your honor. May I be of assistance to your worship?”

  “How did you come by this injury?”

  “I had it when I was a soldier, your honor.”

  He seemed an unlikely soldier, even without the wound. There seemed about him a lightheartedness and wit that was at once, Brigge thought, a mark of gentleness and of intelligence.

  “How did you come to these parts?” Brigge asked.

  “We took the road south to seek harvest work in Suffolk or Essex as we found it. That work finished, we started north again.”

  “With what purpose?”

  “With no other purpose than to find shelter, and so came to these fields, thinking to disturb no man.”

  “You know that in so doing you are in breach of the law?”

  “What terror does the law’s whip hold for them that would starve?”

  Someone came out of the wood toward the camp. Brigge recognized Exley, the vagrants’ leader. He carried an old fowling piece. Two dead pigeons twined together hung over his right shoulder. Noticing Brigge, Exley did not falter in his step but walked boldly to the fire, neither acknowledging the coroner nor attempting to hide from him.

  “What have you there, Exley?” Brigge called out.

  “Can you not see?” Exley answered without looking at the coroner but placing his fowling piece on the ground and tossing the birds to the women.

  “He has been hunting game in the woods,” Adam said. “We should inform the constable.”

  Exley heard what the boy said and flicked his eyes to Brigge. His manner remained what it was: resolute, angry and dark.

  “Take this as a warning, Exley,” Brigge called to him. “If I come upon you hunting in these woods again, I will have you brought before the sessions.” He looked over the encampment, at the men sitting and standing idly about. “Are any of the men here experienced in the care of sheep?” he asked Starman.

  Adam turned to the coroner, disbelieving his ears.

  “Does your honor have need of a shepherd or looker? There is someone, a young fellow, a very willing worker, who would happily care for your honor’s flock.”

  “Which one is he?”

  “He is not here now but will be back soon.”

  “Send him to my house at the Winters,” Brigge said, “on the other side of the mountain.”

  He remembered the raisins and figs he had bought in the town and told Adam to give them to the children.

  “You should move on when you are able,” he shouted to Exley as he went. “You shall never live well here.”

  Nine

  BRIGGE HEARD THE SCREAMS ABOVE THE WIND. SARA AND ISABEL, the old kitchen maids, came running out in tears and agitation. Leaving the horses to Adam, the coroner hurried inside.

  He found Elizabeth in her bed, the midwife and her helpers in a press around her. In her agony she tore at the sheets. She writhed and heaved and would have thrown herself to the floor had the women not prevented it. The clean white linen prepared in the weeks before her confinement lay in bloody soiled heaps by the bedside.

  The midwife tried to bustle him out, but Brigge rounded on her with hard words and went to his wife. Her face was flushed and contorted, her hair flat with sweat. Her eyes were filled with fear and this, more than anything else he saw, brought Brigge to the point of tears. He searched among the tangled sheets and found the little bottle of holy water Father Edward had blessed.

  “Drink,” he said. “Drink this, my
love.”

  She could not take the water down, but Brigge was satisfied that at least it had touched her lips. He took her hand and held it.

  Mrs. Lacy, his neighbor’s wife, came up and guided him gently from the bed.

  “When did she come into her labor?” Brigge asked.

  “Soon after midnight.”

  “How is the child? Is the head down?”

  “All is as it should be, John,” Mrs. Lacy said as soothingly as she was able. “I myself have had many dangerous confinements and yet all was well in the end. Let the midwife do her office.”

  Elizabeth let out a pitiful howl and sank with a gasp while the women stroked and mopped her face. Noticing the ring on Elizabeth’s finger and the bracelet on her wrist, Brigge demanded why they had not been taken off. “Removing them eases the passages from the womb,” he said angrily.

  Mrs. Lacy nodded, directing that the ring and bracelet be taken off. Brigge glanced to the midwife. He had doubts of her competence. “They should have been removed at the first,” he said.

  The midwife made to take the eaglestones from around Elizabeth’s neck.

  “No,” Brigge said, taking hold of the woman’s wrist and holding it fast. “Not these.”

  Mrs. Lacy intervened herself between the two. “Leave them,” she told the midwife quietly, “they will help her.”

  The midwife eyed Brigge suspiciously. These papists and their superstitions. Brigge could read her thoughts.

  On his way out of the room Brigge paused at the chest in the corner. Opening it, he saw the mantles and swaddling clothes Elizabeth had gathered for her lying in. There was something methodical and determined about her preparations, as though they proceeded from deeply instinctive causes. The strict impress of nature, he supposed; he could not but be reminded of the cat he had kept as a child, the way the restless animal had sought the dark and a place for its nest, and he thought it would never be satisfied but then, suddenly, it made its choice and from that day until the litter came hardly stirred from its chosen site. When Elizabeth had at last laid in all she needed, after much fretting and many changes of mind, she stood by the window and looked out over the two sloping fields. They had been recently harvested and were stubbled and empty but for trees without leaves and twists of coarse grass blasted by the wind.