by Smith, Skye
For Christians, even the Puritans who publicly scoffed at the Catholic traditions, the next few days were All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and then All Souls Day. All of them were Christian holy days celebrated out of fear of the unknown. The first on fear of evil spirits, the second on fear of their own unrepented sins, and the third on fear that their forefathers were no longer watching out for them.
Mary was mumbling something to him. At his "eh?" she repeated, "Please don't tell Henry. He does not believe in such nonsense, or at least he says he does not."
That explained the stack of sweetened oatcakes in the kitchen. Mary and her cook had made them in case any mummers or guisers came to their door this night. If you did not feed the poor on All Hallows, then you risked an entire year of bad luck. Perhaps it was from thinking of his village in the Fens and of how he should be there now stretching sail cloth around walls, or of how many poor folk there were in London these day, but he set himself a task for All Hallows, a task that must be completed before dark. He pocketed some oatcakes and told Mary not to wait dinner for him.
Henry Marten and John Pym lived in new houses built around a new close towards Westminster from Holborn. There were other townhouses being built all around, and all of fired brick. These bricks were being made not a street away in a brickyard that would eventually also be covered over with fine new houses. Making bricks took a lot of hands and backs and firewood. The bricks were cheap enough, but only because those hands and backs belonged to young folk just arrived in London from the country, who had been nabbed by the wardens of the Poor Laws.
Under the Poor Laws, a vagrant must accept any work that paid room and board. The consequence was that factories such as the brickyard could dismiss their paid workers and instead work these migrant folk for the cost of a crust of bread and a straw bed in a thatch shed. Not that the brickyard was a bad place to work in the winter, compared to other factories. At least the folk could stay warm around the kiln fires.
Daniel's first stop was down at the docks, where he paid seven shillings for a cartload of old sail duek including the cost of it being delivered to the brickyard near Henry's house. Already he was having fun, for the carter never stopped telling his rude, but hilarious stories all the way back to the brick yard. From the height of the cart he noticed that most of the brickyard workers were under twenty. It seemed like every second woman had a baby held firm against her back with a threadbare shawl, even as they moved bricks, endlessly moved bricks.
The work of making bricks was all about moving bricks. Move finished bricks from the stacks to a waiting cart. Move the row of finished bricks at each edge of the trench kiln over to the stacks. Row by row, flip and move the bricks in the kiln further out towards the edge of the trench to replace those that were now stacked. Move newly-formed bricks to the kiln trench to create a new row on each side close to the coal fires running along the center of the trench. Move the mix of clay and sand to the now-empty forms and fill them and pack them, and press the water out of them. It was continuous, mindless toil that formed clay, fired it, and stacked it.
There were a half-dozen low sleeping sheds with good roofs but no walls to speak of, and one larger taller shed where the forced labour were all fed, but it had no walls at all. If this winter brought frigid winds, these young folk would sleep cold and sicken despite the heat of the kilns. He left the carter with his cart and went to speak to the fat man in a greasy apron who was slopping gruel into wooden bowls in the large shed.
"I have come to help these folk,” Daniel said to the filthy fatty. As with all English not born wealthy, the man's rolls of fat were a sign of his respectability. It meant that he had for years and years not gone hungry, not in any of the all-too-frequent famines that England's ruling elite ignored. Fatty ignored him. Daniel looked down at the clothes he had worn to the docks and realized that Fatty had judged him as a vagrant looking for a meal and a bed. "I mean that I came with a Hallows gift for these folk."
"If it's a cheap shag yer lookin' fer, then go thee to the alehouse on the next corner. My girls are forbidden the coins of sin."
"You misunderstand. I bring used duek from the dockyard to wrap the hut walls with. My gift to them is warmth, not lust."
"Are you criticizin'? The law says food and shelter. That I supply, I does, if they work the day."
Daniel despised the Poor Laws. No matter the good intentions of Queen Bess when she enacted them, the law had created the ever-expanding poverty trap that was making English workers poorer and English factory owners richer. If these 'vagrants' had to work the whole day, then they had no time to search for other work. If they took the jobs of paid men, then those men couldn't pay rent so they become vagrants themselves. It was a vicious cycle that boosted the profits of the factory owner, so they could bribe the wardens to enforce the Poor Laws and supply them more vagrants.
It was no use telling all this to Fatty, because despite his respectable belly, he was not the owner. "Did you not understand the word 'gift'? I am surprised that the owner did not supply the duek himself, after all, if these folk sleep well they will move more bricks."
"What's in it fer me?" Fatty said as he motioned some ragged women over to the bowls of slop.
"More bricks."
"Less bricks, you mean, cause they will be messin' with dat sail cloth, cutting it and hanging and all. Hop it afore I call the watch." He was not serious, just bargaining, for he held his hand out expecting a bribe to allow Daniel's gift to these poor folk. He didn't remember how he ended up on the ground holding the top of his belly and gasping for breath. When he saw Daniel's boot getting ready to give him a swift kick in the unmentionables, he used the little air he still had in his lungs to whisper, "Don't kick me. Go on, do yer giving."
He didn't need to call the folk towards him to tell them about his gift. They had all been watching out of boredom, and as soon as Fatty was laid out, they had all run towards the shed to grab a bowl of slop before he got up again. As they gulped it down, Daniel explained the purpose of the duek. With everyone looking on, and with the help of four likely lads new here from the country, he dressed one of the sleeping sheds with the sail cloth.
Fatty was not a stupid man. Once he was standing and breathing again, he stomped around as if he were in charge and giving directions. How else could he claim that this improvement in the living conditions was all his doing at his expense? With other folk now wrapping their own sleeping sheds, Daniel took his original crew, and some of the larger pieces of sail cloth, and dressed the eating shed.
An hour later he was feeling very good about his day's work as he poured ale into his friendly carter in the alehouse that Fatty had pointed out to him earlier. The one with cheap shags. Even with a skinful of ale in their bellies the alehouse's whores looked very used, so come sunset the carter left with his honor still in his pants, and Daniel left shortly after in search of an All Hallows bonfire.
He had barely left the alehouse when his somewhat woozy eyes beheld a bench of skulls with glowing eyes and mouths. It took him longer than it should have to realize that they were turnip lamps. Giant turnips turned point up and then hollowed, shaped and carved to look like skulls with holes for eyes, nose and mouth. The light was the flicker of a candle stub inside each one.
A family of children were selling them for a penny, which was well worth the price on such a dark night. While he admired the children’s work and tried to decide which to buy, their mother kept rubbing up against him and telling him about how she grew the big turnips herself and about how she liked a big turnip, and how big was his.
By this time the bench of lamps had attracted a group of guisers. It was a wild group who were not strangers to strong ale on this strange night. They all wore masks, and those with women's voices were dressed as men, and those with men's voices were dressed as women, and before they could plunk down their coins, Daniel grabbed up the skull with the longest candle stub for himself. The mother was still rubbing herself against him, and now
her hand was rubbing his turnip, so in the interests of decency he joined with the guisers as they danced away into the darkness.
They all ended up back at the brickyard. Of course. Where else would it be easier to build a big bonfire than in an open yard which was well stocked with wood and coal for the kilns? The bonfire was already blazing and there were many folk dancing in a ring around it. He and the guisers joined the dancers, and the night became ever more surreal, what with faces coming out of the dark as they faced the fire, and then disappearing into the dark as they faced away.
Some of the faces he recognized as workers from the brickyard, but not many because almost everyone was dressed in the wrong clothes and wore a mask, even if the mask was simply a rag with eyeholes. As the crowd grew in size, so did the bonfire, and so did the number of aleskins being passed around. The light hops of the dancers became slower and heavier and out of balance as the aleskins took their toll on the fine footwork. And then more and more of the folk began to lose their 'wrong' clothing.
Not the masks and not the shirts and bodices and jerkins mind you, but the bottoms. More and more of these folk were lifting the hems of their clothes well above their bare bums as they swirled and twirled. Those dressed as women were shaking their hairy man handles at the other dancers, and those dressed as men were shaking their hairy purses, and in most cases this was not a pretty sight.
When the folk began dancing as physically joined couples, Daniel decided it was time to leave. He hoped that this was a sign that husbands and wives had found each other despite the darkness and the guises, but he seriously doubted that any of the humping couples had ever met before. Not that he was prudish. In his own village during the spring festivals, there was a lot of coupling-for-the-day. But that was the light happy sex of spring flowers, where as this had a sordid darkness about it.
He asked some locals about this shocking show of public lewdness, and if it was normal. They denied it. This was the first time they had ever seen it, though their grandparents had told them of similar abandon in the times of the great plagues. One of them even quoted the Bible to him. "Let us fuck and drink for tomorrow we die."
His time at the bonfire ended with him tripping over a dried out broom switch that some masked faux female had been riding as if it were a hobby horse. As he regained his feet and was getting ready to chuck the aging broom into the fire, he realized that it was a sign from fates. It was the perfect torch with which to take some of this bonfire back to Mary.
Mary's street was empty, black and quiet. He could still see the glow of the brickyard bonfire on the low clouds above the fine houses, and he could still hear muted howls from that direction, but in this close of fine houses there was peace. He didn't know the time, or whether he could use the torch on Mary's hearth yet, but he did know that the broom was burning down fast, so he hurried his step. Just as he reached Mary's house the close was suddenly filled with the clatter of hooves and the clap of clad wheels on cobble, and he swung around and then dived against the wall in fear.
A coach and four, a black coach pulled by four black horse was slowing and then stopping in front of him. He pulled back into the shadows and tried to see the drivers. They were also dressed in black, and in the dark of night he could not swear that they had faces. The horse's heads were hidden by the mist of their hot sweat and their breath. The door of the coach swung open with a creak and a fog billowed out of the coach with a short man.
"Daniel, is that you?" a familiar voice called out. "And why are you burning that broom?" The man walked to the back of the coach and heaved a trunk off the luggage shelf and lowered it to the ground. "Alf,” the voice called to the driver, "your lamps have all gone out."
"Aye, well it's been a long fast haul. I've not far left to go now. Goodnight Master Blake, and I wish you a warm bed tonight." The carriage lurched around in a half circle and was away.
"Robert, is that you?" Daniel called. The gate behind him squeaked and Henry Marten's footman came running out to carry Robert's trunk.
"And who else would it be? Has parliament been called into session yet? Bristol may be the second largest city in the kingdom, but you wouldn't know it by how slowly the real news reaches us. The latest gossip reaches us overnight, mind you, but the real news takes days. Only yesterday did I get John Pym's warning that I should come to London immediately.
I caught a ride with the members from Bristol, but they were set down first." Robert had to stop talking because he was being smothered by the hug from his tall friend, and besides he was trying to keep his cloak away from the burning broom stick. Eventually it was easier simply to take the broom out of Daniel's hands.
Mary met them at the front door and instantly realizing what the broom stick was for, she immediately raced around her house from fireplace to fireplace, lighting the kindling. When she got back to the company of her guests, she apologized for leaving them so abruptly. "The house is perishing cold, and I didn't want to explain that to Henry. He has a Puritan's distain for old customs." She put her hand in front of her mouth and whispered, "No offense meant,” for besides being a man most dear to her heart, her new guest was a Puritan.
* * * * *
Henry, Mary, and their two pistoleer guests were sitting down and enjoying a very late breakfast when John Pym was shown into the house and into the dining room. He was red in the face as if he had been running. "I had to bring you the news in person,” he said after a gracious bow to his hostess. "The king has returned from Yorkshire with a draft treaty, and he is summoning both houses of Parliament to meet with him on the morning of November third."
"That is the day after tomorrow,” Henry stood up while replying so that he could offer Pym a chair. "But it is too soon. There is so much to do, so much to decide before then."
"Nay friend, don't get flustered,” Pym replied. "We can delay those decisions by demanding the release of all of our goaled pamphleteers as a precondition for our even reading the treaty. Our friends in Edinburgh have sent me a copy of the bill they passed to prevent Charlie from dismissing or proroguing parliament without parliament's assent. Passing it here in England will be our first order of business, and it is all ready to be submitted. Between the two we will buy ourselves time for the rest."
"I have bad news for you John,” Robert told Pym. "For the last parliament I was able to outfox the Wyndham family who rule Bridgwater. This time they were ready for me, so Colonel Wyndham has replaced me as the member, and he is Charlie's man to the bone."
"Aye, and you are not the only one of our party who has been defeated. We should still have enough to carry a vote in the House. Are you staying on to help?"
"I am staying on just to see what will happen," Robert replied. "Put me to work for the cause."
* * * * *
As much as Daniel felt guilty about shirking his responsibilities in Wellenhay, he could not possibly leave London now that his best friend Robert, had arrived, and now that Parliament had been recalled. These were exciting times to be living in London, and in the company of these politicians. These men were about to make history by collaring a king.
Over the next few weeks, he was endlessly glad he had not returned to the Fens, and he was certainly not just an idle bystander. With Oliver sitting long sessions in the House, it was Daniel who had arranged for his wife and children to be moved to London. This began with him inserting a message to Anso in Oliver's next letter to his wife, Betty. A week later a cart of possessions, the young children, four of his crew, and Betty arrived at her father's house in Cripplegate.
With Pym and his supporters fully busy forming parliamentary committees to deal with issues of religion, grievances, trade, privileges, Irish affairs, and member's petitions, it fell to Robert and Daniel and his four crew to meet, greet, and protect the Puritan pamphleteers who, one by one, were being released from their long-suffered cells. These pamphleteers were Charlie's most public critics, and they knew how to get news out into the main streets of the kingdom. Thus Dan
iel briefly met Henry Burton, John Bastwick, William Prynne, and John Lilburne, all of whom were in failing health and missing their ears, which had been cut off as part of their punishment for speaking out against the king and the archbishop.
With Scottish parliamentarians arriving daily to confer with the English parliament about the drafted Treaty of Ripon, it was Robert and Daniel who were tasked with their security, and when Charlie sent for his bully boy, the Earl of Strafford, to come to London, it was Robert and Daniel who were asked to run the spies that kept an eye on him.
The arrival of Strafford so frightened the English parliamentarians, and so enraged the Scottish ones, that both immediately refused the king's presence during treaty discussions. When Charlie tried to attend in any case, their reaction was to warn Charlie that all discussion about the Treaty would cease until Strafford was impeached and imprisoned under charges that he had urged the use of the Irish Army to quash parliament.
The two men in the kingdom who were most surprised by Charlie's order to detain his favourite lord, were Strafford himself, and John Pym. Strafford's arrest sent a clear message to Charlie's other cabinet favourites and they too began to fear for their high positions and their freedom. In early December, the Secretary of State fled to his Catholic friends on the Continent, and Charlie was left without a Cabinet. The many dinner meetings that Mary had been hostessing turned more and more into victory feasts.
There was something about these celebrations by these wealthy and well-connected politicians that soured Daniel's enjoyment of the string of victories over the king. John Pym and his right hand men, John Hampden, Arthur Haselrig, Denzil Holles, and William Strode, were lauded, and slapped on the back, and cheered, by parliament, but mostly by their own Reform members. Somehow all this self-aggrandizement made Daniel resent them.
Just before Christmas, it was made very clear to the people of all four kingdoms that Charlie had been collared, because their king allowed impeachment proceedings to begin against Archbishop Laud, and along with him, all the lords and judges who had upheld the hated Ships Money tax. Daniel did not attend the celebration of parliamentarians. Instead he and his four crew packed their things.
