Spirit of the Highway

by Deborah Swift

  The crowd were roused to fever pitch, they surged forward. ‘Fetch a rope!’ shouted someone.

  ‘Bring the woman,’ Downall said. ‘She can watch.’

  My legs wanted to run, but I was surrounded. I had no weapon but my knife and there were too many people for me to fight my way out. Downall was at the head of them leading the way, I heard him shout, ‘The barn!’

  A jab in the cheek. A punch in the stomach. My heart beating like it would jump from my chest. Stumbling. Hauled up again. Feet dragging through stubble. The doors opening to a cavern of blackness. The crowd pushing me in, under smoking torches and lanterns.

  It took several attempts for Downall to lasso the rope over the beam. Once it was there the noose swung back and forth. The crowd fell silent. The noose was a symbol. A thing of awe. My stomach turned to water.

  ‘If you do this, God will strike you down! You will have killed an innocent man, and the Lord will remember.’ Kate’s voice was high and clear. ‘It was not this man who pushed Ned Soper from the cart, it was me. And it was not he who shot Ned’s father. It was Copthorne, the cavalier who lies dead in the yard. I saw him do it with my own eyes.’

  There was a hubbub as men whispered to each other, but the noise was cut short by Downall.

  ‘Fetch that stool,’ he shouted.

  One of Downall’s lackeys dragged the stool beneath the noose.

  ‘Think what you do!’ Kate begged. ‘This man fought for Parliament with his father at Worcester. We buried his father not a week past. Do you not remember?’ Her eyes caught two women standing near the front. ‘Audrey! Susan, do you not remember me? It’s Kate. From the Diggers.’

  ‘Never!’ Susan clapped her hand to her mouth. A fevered discussion.

  ‘’Tis her,’ Margery said. ‘She was at a Diggers meeting right here. ‘Twas but a few weeks ago.’

  The front row began to murmur, but I could not hear more, because I was dragged to the stool. Aiming a kick with my foot I managed to knock it aside, but I felt the weight of the noose drape round my shoulders, heavy as a yoke.

  ‘Men to the rope! We’ll haul him up,’ Downall shouted.

  Someone tried to tether my arms but I flailed them free. Enough men stood by the rope to lift me by the neck, I knew.

  ‘Let me pray!’ I shouted. ‘Surely I have the right to clear my conscience with God?’

  The men holding me paused, though one still kept hold of the noose, pressing it to my shoulders.

  Could this dark crowd of angry faces really be the folk of my village? Men I’d learned my letters with, the boys who’d helped me net tiddlers in the river, or taught me to ride? It was too dark to recognise anyone, but they must be there, the folk that knew me from a boy. And this barn, this was where I’d first fallen in love with Kate. Was I to die here?

  To my horror my throat tightened and I felt tears prickle my eyelids. Not now. I couldn’t cry now. They’d think me less of a man.

  In the distance thunder rumbled in a low growl.

  I swallowed, looked up at the trusses of the roof, saw the weight of rope slung over the beam above my head. It brought me to my senses.

  ‘Dear God, I don’t know how I come to be here,’ I called out, more to the assembled crowd than to my maker. I shook my head at one of the men holding my arms. ‘Don’t know how I got into this mess. Except by my own anger and foolishness, I suppose.’ I turned to the other. ‘I was always too quick of temper, even as a lad.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Downall said. ‘Pray if you’re going to.’

  ‘Aye, I was daft to pick a quarrel with Downall here. If it is your will I should die, then so be it. But it does seem mighty strange to survive the battlefield and then to die at the hands of those I was fighting for. I would like pray with my brothers, like I used to. Are there no men left like me, men who want to build a fairer world? Will you pray with me?’

  Nobody moved. Just before me lay a spade, put down by one of the mob. With a wrench, I freed myself, grabbed hold of it and raised it above my head.

  The men at my side snatched at my arms to restrain me.

  ‘Take him!’ Downall shouted.

  ‘No! Don’t you understand? This is what I believe in. I’m a farmer. Since when has a spade been a weapon we turn on each other?’ I shouted, brandishing it overhead.

  Downall pulled the spade from me and flung it down. Though I was strong, I could do nothing as he crushed my wrists behind me, bone on bone, and tugged a rough winding of twine around them. A sharp pull. I began to panic. Too tight. It will stop my blood. A clap of thunder. I had to make them understand.

  I railed again, with no arms to gesture: ‘There are men here who fight not with swords, not with firepowder, but with spades like that one, and their sweat of their brows. They want to graft something useful, something lasting, from our common earth. Winstanley’s men, the Diggers. Are there any of you here? Barton? Whistler?’

  Two figures in the front row looked to each other, shuffled. I pointed my gaze at them. ‘Will you pray with me now, the way we used to?’

  They were reluctant. But Kate stepped boldly forward, dragging two women I recognised as Susan and Margery with her. A small gaggle of other women followed. ‘Shame on you men!’ Susan called back to the menfolk. ‘Would you deny the lad a prayer? Prayers can hurt no-one! Let God be a witness to what goes on here.’

  At the back, men stood on tiptoe, craned their necks to see. There was a hush, as if we had invited God into the barn, and he was watching us. The men looked to each other, discomfited. But the women stood like rocks, defiant before Downall and his men.

  The rope chafed against my neck, my chest felt like it had already been cut open. If these words were to be my last they had better be sincere. I thought of my mother and William, how much I loved them, yes, and even my father. Love for them all pierced my heart. If I should need to join them, then at least there would be a welcome for me. I stood tall, calmed my breath.

  I looked straight to Kate, hoped my eyes would tell her what I could not openly say. Of all of them, I loved her best. I dropped my voice to a whisper. ‘May God help you make of the Earth a common treasury for all, both rich and poor, that every one that is born in the land, may be fed equally by the Earth his mother that brought him forth, according to law of Creation.’

  She held my gaze. ‘Amen to that. And we pray that no man shall have dominion over another —’

  ‘Enough!’ Downall stepped forward in front of me. ‘Are we going to let this gaggle of women prevent justice being done?’

  ‘Don’t seem much like justice to me,’ came a muttered male voice.

  From the massed men came whispers: ‘He’s right. I’m sick of all this strife,’ and ‘What are we fighting? She can’t do much, little Katherine Fanshawe, not with no husband by her.’

  The man standing next to me with his hand on the noose stepped aside, held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’ll not be party to this. If he’s done something wrong there should be a trial. We should fetch Mallinson. Do it legal.’

  ‘But he killed John Soper,’ Downall said, ‘and —’

  ‘She said not,’ Audrey said gesturing to Kate. ‘She said that other man did it. Will you hang her too?’

  ‘If need be! She’s a Royalist,’ Downall said. ‘What’s the matter with you all? You on the rope, pull!’

  I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath. Pray God make it quick. On the slate roof of the barn a sudden shiver of rain, a noise like lead shot rattling in a flask.

  ‘I’ll do it myself,’ Downall’s voice was almost drowned by the rain.

  I opened my eyes. ‘No,’ Barton shouted, barring his way. ‘It don’t seem right. I don’t like rough justice. Let the law decide it.’

  ‘Chaplin makes more sense than you do, Downall,’ the man on the other side of me said. ‘You do nothing but stir up shit. Have done since you were small.’ He lifted the noose back over my head. I gasped for breath, though it had never choked me.
r />   I did not move. I stood there with everyone staring at me, feeling naked without that noose, like a new born child. By my foot a trickle of rain leaked through the roof into a dark stain. The man at my side took a knife and sawed through the bonds at my wrists. I turned to him, held out my hand. He shook it, grinning like a fool. I recognised my old schoolmaster, Mr Trimble. Tears were in both our eyes.

  The crowd let out an audible sigh, then erupted into chatter. Barton and Whistler hurried up to me. ‘Ralph,’ Barton said, ‘I didn’t recognise you.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, colluding with his lie, ‘it was dark.’

  ‘Wait,’ called Downall, but the villagers had turned back, quietened, like tired dogs after a day’s hunting. Hats were being replaced on heads. Nobody looked at Downall. It was as if he didn’t exist.

  22 - A LIFE, A DEATH

  There was a crush to get out of the barn, with so many people, all trying to hold their aprons or their arms over their heads against the rain. I kept my hand on the small of Kate’s back. The rain stung the cut on my head, but the pain was nothing in comparison to the elation I felt. We paused as the dwindling torches went ahead of us through the door, and the knots of people disappeared into the dark and the rain.

  Barton and Whistler hurried with us, with their wives and the other Digger women. Nobody spoke, our heads were lowered against the weather. As we got to the yard I thought I heard the ring of hoofbeats in the distance. Automatically I pulled Kate back against the stable wall. ‘What?’ she said, her hair already glistening with beads of water.

  ‘Horses.’

  Her eyes filled with fear. We watched the riders emerge from the dark fields and clatter into the yard. Six men with the glint of arms at their belts.

  ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ I called.

  ‘Jacob Mallinson and the constable’s men. Your name, sir?’

  I did not answer, uncertain whether Jacob would give me a civil reception.

  ‘It’s us, Jacob. Seth Barton and Owen Whistler,’ Barton said, ‘on our way home.’

  Jacob reined in his horse. ‘What’s gone on here? Abigail came with Cutch, to tell us there was trouble at the Fanshawes, but we couldn’t understand it; she was too upset. I came straight over. My father follows in an evil temper, he is barely fit enough to ride. Where’s Jack Downall?’

  ‘I don’t know. He went that way.’ Whistler pointed.

  ‘I need to speak to him, Father says we’ve to bring him to the lock-up, let him cool off. What about the Fanshawes? Are they within?’

  Kate stepped forward. ‘My husband has fled. There is only me.’

  Jacob climbed down and spoke to the men behind him. ‘Go and see if you can find Downall, or better still, Ralph Chaplin. Word is, they’re the cause of it. I’ll go with Mistress Fanshawe and check the house.’

  ‘Aye,’ said one of his men, wiping his face of water. ‘They’re all still coming up from the barn, I’ll try there.’ They wheeled their horses and galloped away.

  ‘Kate,’ Jacob said, his voice full of concern, ‘are you all right? Where’s Ralph?’

  ‘Here,’ I said, stepping out from under the dripping eaves. It was time to face it all.

  Jacob squinted at me through the rain. My face seemed to rouse his anger. ‘What’s going on? I met Goodwife Soper on the road. She says Soper’s dead, and that it was you that shot him.’

  ‘Not true,’ Kate says.

  ‘Hellfire, Ralph! You’re always responsible, wherever trouble is. Father’s men will arrest you if they see you. What in God’s name are you doing here?’

  ‘I can’t run any longer. I came to find the man who killed my mother and my brother.’

  Jacob’s face set hard like a stone. Rain poured off his hat in a steady stream. ‘Is this a joke?’ he said.

  ‘No, I swear. I haven’t told Abigail yet, but Mother is dead, and William …’ My voice cracked. I shut my lips, looked down, tried to gather myself. How could anyone do that? To a baby? But then I remembered what Cutch had told me about Father. Even now it did not seem possible. Nothing seemed real.

  Jacob caught the look on my face. ‘Jesus.’ He was silent a moment. ‘Ralph, where’s Martha?’ He took my collar, shook me from my thoughts.

  ‘No, it’s all right. She’s safe. I took her to the vicarage.’

  ‘Quick. Come in the house,’ Kate said, against the driving rain. ‘We can’t talk here.’

  We ran for the shelter of the house, heads down, feet splashing up wet from the cobbles. As we arrived at the front door, three ragged black crows flew silently into the dark.

  In the house we sat round the kitchen table. My elbows dripped onto the wood. It was a while before anyone spoke.

  ‘Do you think Downall will come back?’ Kate asked.

  ‘My father and his men will round him up, but they may yet come here to get an account from you, of what’s happened,’ Jacob said.

  ‘I hope not. I can’t face it,’ Kate said. She stood and went to the door, drew the bolt across to bar it, but she did not sit. Her face was white. Tendrils of hair hung wetly round her face.

  She came and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘What happened to your mother, Ralph?’

  ‘Copthorne. Revenge. My father massacred his family.’

  ‘I’d no idea. When he arrived, Copthorne told Thomas he was a friend of his uncle. Said he was passing through on his way to London to get a boat to France. I thought it was odd he had no retinue, but we had no reason not to believe him. He knew friends of my uncle, and Thomas was glad to see a fellow cavalier. Thank heaven you came.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Dead. Downall’s men got him. The last I saw of him he had been bludgeoned down in the yard and —’

  A creak of a floorboard above.

  We froze. Silence.

  Jacob stood quietly and drew his sword.

  ‘Wait here,’ I said to Kate.

  I followed Jacob as he crept up the stairs. My blood was all a-jangle, my eyes staring round in the darkness. We crept across the corridor until we came to the upstairs chamber with the smashed door. Empty. Another creak of a board from the next room. Jacob pushed the door open with the tip of his finger.

  A sudden flurry of movement from behind the draped bed. ‘Look out!’ I yelled.

  Jacob shot backwards. A dark figure swayed before the moonlight pooling through the window. The silhouette was unmistakeable. Copthorne. But I thought he was dead. What was he? Invincible?

  His sword was already out, shining silver in the gloom. I recognised it as the one Cutch had given me, the one from Worcester. Jacob turned just in time, went for his musket, but there was no time to deal with powder and shot, even if it had been dry enough. Realising, Jacob took a step backwards, shocked, drew his sword.

  ‘Put your weapon down,’ Jacob called, ‘in the name of the Law.’

  Copthorne’s answer was to hurtle forward and make a slash at Jacob’s chest. Jacob leapt to the side on instinct, but Copthorne ignored him. He was coming for me. I was unarmed, had nothing to protect me. Copthorne made a thrust, but I dodged, held my hands up.

  ‘I don’t want to fight,’ I shouted, as I retreated. ‘I’m sorry. We’re even now. We don’t need more blood.’

  ‘Coward!’ Copthorne shouted, advancing. He was haggard, his hair bedraggled and one eye half-closed from a blow to the face. I backed away towards the door.

  ‘Here!’ Jacob threw his sword to me and I reached out to catch its glinting arc without thinking. But I did not want to fight.

  Copthorne goaded me with the tip of his sword, waiting for my anger to rise, his blade circling mine with dips and flashes.

  ‘No,’ I said. I knew now how precious life was. ‘My father shed enough Copthorne blood. I will not become him. It stops here.’

  His answer was a grunt and another thrust. Jesus. I parried it but did not counter with a strike. I saw the whites of his eyes disappear in anger and he let out a roar, pressed a se
ries of vicious upper-cuts towards my stomach and chest. Though I could barely see them in the dark, I parried them, my breath coming in short sharp puffs.

  Now I was backed against the wall, my sword held in front like a standard. I blocked a blow to the temple from the pommel of the sword that almost broke my knuckles and I winced and gave an involuntary shiver of pain. I heard Jacob cry a warning, and saw him bring down the butt of his musket on Copthorne’s head. But Copthorne did not flinch, the bloodlust darkened his face, as he made one thrust after another.

  Side. Shift. Side. Block. I was tiring. Legs shaking. Be strong, don’t fight back. His sword kept coming. Over his shoulder I caught a glimpse of something. Father? A pale figure, younger than I remembered, wearing his familiar slouched-brim hat. The world turned slower, the noise of the clashing swords stilled. I blinked. Father was gone. The noise was suddenly loud in my ears. The door to the side of me opened, and I turned as Kate came in.

  The first thrust to my chest did not register. You’ve torn my doublet, I thought.

  But my arms felt weaker, like arms of straw.

  Kate? Was she real? The woman entering the room was grainy, indistinct. My heart seemed to fly out to her.

  The second thrust winded me, slammed my back to the wall. I saw Jacob’s mouth open in a cry but could not hear it. I knew I was sliding down the wall, the plasterwork scraped down my back, but it felt comfortable, restful. I saw the third thrust coming, but found myself ready to welcome it, like a blessing. The tip of the sword was beautiful, the gleaming edge anointed with red blood. I sighed as it entered my chest, but felt no pain. Copthorne stepped back, satisfied. The sword slid out of my chest. His arms hung limply, and a bead of blood dripped from the point of his blade into my open palm. He stared down at me, but …

  Up. There I was, lying on the ground. Head tilted awkwardly against the wainscot. A bloom of something dark spreading over my chest. Outrage swelled in my chest but scattered out like powder. What was happening? I shouted to Jacob, but he ignored me, he was crouching over the slumped figure, feeling at the neck.