Havoc, in Its Third Year: A Novel

by Ronan Bennett

  “What offense has Doliffe laid against Fourness?” Brigge asked.

  “Every man is guilty of something,” Antrobus replied. “All that is ever needed to convert guilt to destruction is another man’s malice.”

  “Nevertheless,” Brigge said quickly, irritated by the doctor’s foolish drollery, “they must have accused him of some crime.”

  “For all we know, they have,” Antrobus said. “But they will not tell us, and since they allow Fourness no visitors, he has been unable to inform his friends of the reason for his imprisonment.”

  “I will speak to the Master tonight,” Brigge said.

  “To what purpose?” Antrobus asked.

  “Doliffe has done Fourness a great wrong,” Brigge said. “I hope I shall make the Master see this.”

  Antrobus laughed bitterly. “It was the Master himself who ordered Fourness arrested and carried to jail,” he said. “It is nothing to do with any offense, it has nothing to do with right or wrong. It is to rid himself of an enemy and overawe the rest.” Antrobus leaned toward Brigge, very earnest and passionate. “It is said love is blind, but even the most silly lovesick girl can see plainly enough when her false lover fondles another woman,” he said. “Challoner has turned against you, Brigge. He has fallen into the arms of Doliffe and Favour. Why do you deceive yourself?”

  “I will speak to the Master as soon as I have opportunity,” Brigge said.

  “When you do,” Wade put in with sarcasm, “be so good as to ask of him what charges he intends to lay against me.”

  “And me,” Lister added.

  “We are all threatened,” Antrobus said. “Unless we strike, we will be struck down.” The doctor paused before continuing. “We are together four governors. There are others—Admergill and Ramsden to name but two—who would come with us if they believed you to be part of this combination. Then we would be six. And there are others in the town, honorable men, who are in dissatisfaction at the Master’s abandonment of all principle and justice, though they have not yet found the courage to oppose him openly.”

  “Do not waste your words with the Master,” Lister said. “I will send for those men who would support us so you may have conference with them.”

  “By force of numbers we will overthrow Challoner, elect a new Master and set about the continuance of our project as it was originally designed,” Antrobus said.

  Brigge considered what they said. Taking his hat and coat, he went to the door. “We are Englishmen who live under a constitution, not Romans in the forum,” he said. “The Master has not tyrannical power and we are not assassins.”

  Thirteen

  WHEN THE MASTER APPEARED AT LAST, AFTER BRIGGE HAD been waiting more than three hours at his apartment, Challoner had the same air Doliffe had, of a man hard-pressed by business and interviews and the expectations of the world, but where the constable exulted in the opportunity to comport himself as a great man, Challoner had a weary and troubled look. He eased himself slowly into one of the armchairs by the window. His hair was unwashed and unkempt and there were spots of blood on the white linen of his collar where he had cut himself in his shaving.

  He had in his hands a roll of examinations and informations, which he untied, and put on eyeglasses to read.

  “Please,” he said to the coroner, keeping his attention on his reading. “How can I help you?”

  Brigge said nothing but watched the Master pore over the documents. At last Challoner, alerted by the silence, looked up.

  “You wished to speak with me?”

  “Yes, Nathaniel,” Brigge said, “and I had hopes you might listen.”

  After a moment’s consideration Challoner put aside the papers and removed his spectacles.

  “I understand you have a son,” he said.

  “I have named him Samuel.”

  “Your father’s name,” the Master said. “You are very fortunate.” He peered at the coroner as though only then taking proper notice of him. “And you, John, are you well?”

  “I am well enough,” Brigge replied, “and in any case in a better condition than Mr. Fourness presently finds himself.”

  The Master exhaled noisily to show his displeasure at Brigge’s raising of this matter. “For that,” he said tersely, “Fourness has only himself to blame.”

  “Nathaniel, I have to tell you that this arrest has caused great anxiety in the town. They allege Fourness has been thrown in jail for no other cause than that Doliffe and Favour want him ousted from his office of governor. They say, Nathaniel,” Brigge went on, “that you have forgot what justice means or you would not suffer to see Fourness so abused.”

  “Do you say that because Fourness is a governor he should not have to answer for his wickedness?” the Master said with a vehemence that startled Brigge. “Magistrates, constables, coroners, overseers, governors-we must all show ourselves the keenest prosecutors of justice. We must be like Moses—the harshest tormentor imaginable of every delinquent and offender whether it be the robber who lurks in the highway or the fornicator in the hedge. How can the City on the Hill be the beacon for those who grope in the darkness if its governors themselves are licentious and wicked and would commit the most horrible of crimes?”

  “We could also be like the Mongol or the Turk and have those who displease us impaled on stakes.” Brigge’s levity incensed the Master and his face darkened. Seeing this, the coroner made himself more serious, and when he spoke again, it was with greater passivity and earnestness. “Moses’ law was very sharp,” he said, “too sharp for Englishmen.”

  “The law must be sharp or it is no law worth the having,” the Master said. “Englishmen are too tolerating. All around are outrageous seas of ignorance and darkness. They threaten to overflow the commonwealth, yet many still account them no sin at all, but rather a pastime, a dalliance. They are not rebuked, but winked at; not punished, but laughed at. From these sins proceed other crimes. Turn a blind eye to one and no evil will be seen anywhere.”

  The Master spoke hotly, but then he put out his hands in a gesture intending to give the impression of one doing all in his power to overcome provocation for the sake of a great good as yet unapprehended by the provoker. “John, I no longer flatter myself that you hold me in any degree of esteem,” he continued more quietly. “I will not speak of the injury and sadness I feel at our former love and regard for each other being now so desiccated. But even if you think me the most wretched creature on earth, I hope you will in your heart acknowledge that the project I have promoted with as much diligence as my poor capacities and parts enable me is still most worthy and of the utmost necessity.”

  “No man has been more active in the promotion of order and reformation,” Brigge said.

  “Am I wrong to oppose the overthrowing of good and raising up of evil, the beggaring of the better sort, the decay of good morals? Am I wrong to devote my energies to the rooting out of disorder and licentiousness, to the correction and improvement of the baser sort, those whose lives are disordered, to the enlightening of their minds, the purifying of their souls? What is so contemptible about desiring to see things stand better? Why do you hold me in such plain contempt?”

  “I do not.”

  “I think you do!” the Master exclaimed. “How have we come to this, John? Why do you oppose me? Antrobus, I understand. The doctor is vain, ambitious and pragmatical. He imagines himself Master but knows himself to be so mistrusted and disliked that he must have one to run before him, scattering his enemies, gathering friends, winning the battles from which he plots to profit. Wade is a mere trifle, a nothing, a dim-witted fellow and easily led. As for Lister, do not say his name in my presence, for he is an odious and reprehensible man, as all the world will soon dis-cover.”

  Brigge had long ago noted the tendency to reward even a query of the Master and his allies with displeasant glances and stares, as though merely to ask were a declaration of enmity and opposition. There was a logic to it, he understood as he listened to the Master, a
proclivity of power: for a follower to follow required faith in the leader; if the leader was right, those who questioned were wrong, and those who questioned persistently were more than wrong—they must be enemies. Although the habits of interrogation were strong in Brigge—the coroner was used to probing men with things to hide, he was used to searching organs and bones with tales to tell—he had responded to these unspoken reprimands by holding his tongue. He could sometimes wrest answers from dead men, but not from Challoner when he was Master.

  “Why do you oppose me?” the Master said again. “Why?”

  “I do not oppose you.”

  “Neither do you support me.”

  “I balk at the severity of our rule. I cannot help myself. I search my conscience and ask myself if such strictness is necessary.”

  “What would you do? Indulge weakness? License sin? Disregard the flood of vice and evil? Tell me what would you do!”

  “I cannot,” Brigge answered wearily. “I know only that the City on the Hill you are resolved to build, with Favour its chief architect and Doliffe the mason, these sour spirits and inventors of trouble, these busy-heads and dogmatics—the city they build will be a cold place, Nathaniel, full of spies, terror and mischief, as Fourness could give evidence of were he here.”

  “Fourness is a foul, corrupt man,” the Master said harshly. “He has committed the most heinous, contemptible of crimes. Not once, not twice, but countless times.”

  “What crime has he committed? Why will no one say what it is?”

  The Master reached for his papers and selected a parchment. “I myself took this deposition from Fourness’s own valet,” the Master said. “He accuses Fourness of unspeakable crimes against nature as well as other detestable acts infamous to, and unworthy of, any Christian man.” He held out the parchment to Brigge. “You may read for yourself, John, if you have stomach for what you will discover recorded there.”

  BRIGGE SAW IT WAS a legal deposition: The information of Daniel Emsall, servant to Mr. Joseph Fourness gent., taken on his oath before Mr. Nathaniel Challoner esq., governor and justice of peace. He searched it with a practiced eye and found at once what he was looking for. He looked up at the Master.

  “It is true, John,” the Master said gravely. Brigge turned back to the parchment but, his head swimming, all he perceived was a miasma of words. “The valet describes how he witnessed Fourness at divers times commit lewd acts with certain youths and men, severally and together, who came to his house.”

  “The prattling gossip of a servant,” Brigge said after he had recovered from his initial astonishment. “Such a man might say anything if he had a mind for wickedness.”

  “It is not just the valet,” the Master said. “Four of those with whom Fourness committed these foul deeds have been arrested and confessed to their crimes. There are other witnesses who say that Fourness corrupted youths of ten and twelve years. Lister is likewise implicated and shall shortly be arrested. Fourness is a sodomite and corruptor of children, and he will hang for it. Heed what I say, John. Doliffe and I now have authority to put on trial and judge whosoever is suspected of crimes and disorders.”

  “Do you threaten me, Nathaniel?”

  “I desire only to prevent you hurtling to your own destruction,” Challoner said. Brigge put his head in his hands, his mind a swirl of confusions. “John,” Challoner said tenderly, “there is no need for bitterness between us. Can you not see how Fourness and Antrobus would use you? Forget them and resume your place by my side. Help me with our great project.”

  “You do not need me, Nathaniel,” Brigge said.

  “To the contrary, I have the greatest need of you,” Challoner insisted, his voice sincere and pleading. “Savile is plotting to return. His agents in the town report every rumor, and the rumor they report to their lord is that John Brigge, the Master’s most trusted friend, is discontented and foments revolt.”

  “It is not true.”

  “They report that John Brigge and other governors are in a combination together to overthrow the Master.”

  “I have combined with no one.”

  “Not with Antrobus, to whom you owe much since the birth of your son?”

  Brigge hesitated. “No,” he said.

  “You have had no imparlance then with the doctor about the town’s government?”

  “I have combined with no one.”

  “Good,” Challoner said; he added, “As one who loves you and wishes to keep you from harm, I advise you to stay away from Antrobus and his friends.”

  As the coroner was about to take his leave, Challoner said, “How does your son fare?”

  “The birth was difficult for both mother and child,” Brigge replied. “Elizabeth is every day more restored, and Samuel, with God’s grace, will prosper and grow in strength.”

  “May God watch over and protect them,” Challoner said. “I will come to visit you as soon as I have opportunity, if I may.”

  “I would be honored to receive you, Nathaniel.”

  At the door Brigge paused a moment. “Do you know of any reason why Doliffe might be reluctant to have Susana Horton fetched back to the town?”

  “None whatever,” the Master answered sharply. “Why do you ask?”

  “The constable is famed for his diligence, yet in this matter he seems disinclined to do his office.”

  “That I doubt—he is, as you say, most diligent. Nevertheless, I will speak with him,” Challoner said. “The sooner the inquisition is settled, the better.” Challoner smiled and clasped Brigge to him and kissed him. “Take care how you go, John, and remember I am your most loving friend.”

  Brigge went to the Lion. Adam was asleep in their room. Brigge got into bed beside him and considered what he should do. Doliffe’s reluctance to fetch Susana Horton was plainly suspicious, though Brigge could not think what were the constable’s motives in keeping her from the inquisition. He thought of going to Burnsall himself to find her but was reluctant to suffer further separation from Elizabeth and Samuel, being desperate to know how they did.

  HE WOKE WITH a start, his heart beating fast. He wiped the sweat from his face. He was hot and his bones ached. He felt enveloped by confusion and fear. He tried to tell himself that it was nothing but the black chasm of the night, that in the morning light things would appear better. He tried to pray, but he could not make himself unafraid. This is man’s true state, he thought, to know fear. This is what being human means, above all else. We are bundles of fear and need. The rest is a mere distraction, a way to deceive ourselves out of our terrors, which we sometimes hide and sometimes forget, but we remain afraid. We are all afraid.

  He became aware that Adam was awake beside him. “Is something wrong?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Brigge said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Adam was silent for a moment, then said, “Dorcas avoids me. She will not give me her answer.” Brigge said nothing. “Would you speak to her for me?”

  Brigge was sweating profusely; his mouth was dry and his eyes hurt. “Go to sleep, Adam.”

  He felt Adam turn his head on the pillow. The boy lay still in his sadness.

  “Adam,” Brigge said softly, “Dorcas will make her own decision in time.”

  “She would listen to what you had to say.”

  “I think you have too high an opinion of my influence over her.”

  Adam was silent for some moments. “I would like to see my friends before we leave for the Winters,” he said.

  “These friends, are they the men of good religion you spoke of, the ones who want to be better?”

  “Your tone is mocking,” Adam said curtly, “though I can see no reason for it to be so.”

  “What are you doing gadding with these hotheads and fanatics, Adam? You never wanted their company before, why do you seek it now?”

  “Do you not see what is happening in the land? Sin piled upon sin, error upon error. Crimes and thefts multiply daily so that no man is now safe, neither his life nor
his property. Everything is uncertain, nothing is solid.The foundations of good government are crumbling before our eyes.”

  “Strange,” Brigge said. “I thought my eyes still good and yet have seen none of this.”

  “Your eyes cannot be so good as you think.”

  “When I was a child, there were also men who prophesied calamity and preached harshness and rigor. Every age, it seems, is the most dangerous there has ever been.”

  “This age is particular. Darkness threatens to overwhelm us as it never has before.”

  Brigge sighed wearily and mopped the sweat from his brow. “Your friends will have little regard for papists,” he said. When Adam made no response, Brigge continued, “Have they asked you about me?”

  “Out of regard for you and my mistress,” Adam said, “I have said nothing.”

  Brigge took care what he said next. For all that he loved and trusted the boy, he did not want to let his clerk think he had a power over his master. “The days ahead may be unsettled,” he began slowly, “and dangerous. I fear that men have become so afraid they are ready to turn on each other like wolves. Some may turn on me.”

  “I have said nothing,” Adam said firmly, “and will say nothing.”

  Brigge nodded his thanks. They lay in silence and eventually Brigge heard Adam’s breathing deepen and slow. He himself did not sleep. He rose before it was light.

  “I am going to Burnsall to find Susana Horton,” he told Adam as he pulled on his boots. The effort left him weak; the fever was taking hold. He rallied himself as best he could and pulled on his coat and hat. “There is something the girl knows that Doliffe does not want heard,” he said.

  “What?” Adam asked.

  “I do not know,” Brigge conceded, “but I am certain there is some-thing.” On his way out he looked at Adam. “I will speak to Dorcas,” he said.

  Adam’s face burst out in a grin. He reached for Brigge’s hand and kissed it.

  In the parlor below Brigge drank a posset of herbs, wine, hot milk and hot sugar and ate a penny loaf for his breakfast. Immediately he was outside, he swooned and vomited and did not stop until he had voided his stomach. His shirt was wet and cold with sweat. He waited some small space of time to recover himself, then went to pay the ostler and set off through the town. The watch offered him no insult and was content to let him pass. There was neither rain nor sleet, but a piercing raw wind. The frozen mud of the way blinked in the last of the moonlight.