The Ruins of Lace

by Iris Anthony

  “I was taking care of Father Jacqmotte. It’s my work, you know.”

  “Well…I just…” She lifted her chin, stretched her cloak tighter about her shoulders. “I’m going out.”

  I let her go. And then I went to see to Herry.

  Poor man. In the day since I’d seen him, he’d gone raspy in the chest and grayer in the cheeks. I rolled him over and changed out his pallet and blanket. Spooned some potage into his mouth…or tried to.

  “You’ve got to eat it.”

  His gaze lingered on mine.

  “You’ve got to. You wouldn’t want to save it for Marguerite. I’d lay down money there’s some young man bent on buying her supper this night.”

  He blinked.

  I held the spoon to his lips.

  He opened his mouth and might have taken it if he hadn’t had to search for a breath.

  I grabbed him by his shirt, tugged him up to sitting, and then beat upon his back until he stopped his gasping. Then I lowered him down to the pallet.

  “What’s to become of us, Herry?”

  His only reply was a wheeze.

  “I’ve got to save my sister.” Anyone would understand that. “She was given to the nuns, you know. The ones over there in Lendelmolen, who make lace.”

  If I wasn’t mistaken, I saw sympathy in his eyes. “She has over thirty years now. You know what that means. They’ll throw her onto the streets soon. They always do. How many of those poor lace makers have we seen in the streets, begging for food, tossing their skirts over their heads for a bit of bread?”

  I knew he’d seen them just the same as I had. But bless Herry Stuer, I’d known him only to take up with honest whores. The kind who were willing.

  “I offered them money for her. Offered to buy her back as if she were a cow. Do you know what they said? They said I didn’t have enough money. That was five years ago. You know what I’ve done since then? I’ve worked to make up the difference…and it was quite a big difference, just so we’re clear. I’ve done things, Herry. Things you wouldn’t want to know about.” Things I didn’t want to think about.

  I pushed up from the floor and took up a broom. If I were going to spend my time here, why should I spend it in a sty? I pushed it around. Stirred up a nest of mice. I chased them out the door and then swept their mess out behind them.

  Pausing when I got to Herry’s pallet, I leaned the broom against the wall and sat down beside him. “I would never have done it if I hadn’t needed the money. You’d have understood. Some people you’d do anything for. Katharina is the only family I have left. Think if she were your sister. You’d not let her walk the streets, giving herself away for a piece of bread. Not if you could do anything about it.”

  Of course he wouldn’t.

  “It wasn’t that difficult, the thing I’ve done. And it didn’t really seem like it would make any difference.”

  Poor Herry, lying there silent, without anyone to cover up his feet. If I were his wife, I’d be ashamed to have him seen with a hole that size in his hose. I wondered how long he’d been walking around the city like that. You could pay a girl to warm your bed, but she wouldn’t darn your hose for you. I straightened the blanket so it covered his feet.

  “You wouldn’t want to know, Herry, but Father had given all of them their last rites. Not that he had anything ever to do with it. He never has. He doesn’t know. He can’t. It weighs on the soul. More than I thought it would. It’s just not quite…right.”

  I sighed. Put a hand to my coif and pushed it farther back on my head. “Some things just shouldn’t be done. And I wouldn’t have done them, Herry. Really, I wouldn’t have. I only did them for Katharina. And I only have to do it this one last time. That’s it. I’m done with it. I made a promise to myself.” Although, I’d made a promise to myself the last time, too.

  Promises. They were made only to be broken.

  “I hope…Do you think God forgives people…for doing things like I’ve done?” I would have gone to confession, but it was Father Jacqmotte who would hear it. And I wasn’t sure he would forgive all the things God might. Maybe this time I would go to one of the other parish churches. One of those, way across the city, where few knew who I was, and no one recognized my voice. But really, who had I ever actually hurt? And if it all worked out as I hoped, then Katharina would be saved.

  No one hurt.

  One person helped.

  Perhaps I hadn’t done as great a wrong as my conscience wanted me to believe.

  •••

  That night, Annen was delivered of her babe. She sent a boy to fetch me, so I was there for its birth. A long, plump boy. A healthy boy. Once it cried, once I knew it had breathed, my work there was done.

  There would be no coffins made for this family. Not this night.

  Later, before the sun rose, Father got called to the home of a mason. He asked me to come along. I didn’t know what had happened until we got there, but I knew it must be something terrible. Father called for me to go with him only when he thought I might have to lay someone out.

  When we got there, we were told the mason had been working at a job, cutting at a stone, that his tool had slipped and cut his leg instead. It was sliced to the bone. Father performed the last rites. It seemed the only thing that could be done. Then he left.

  I stayed. I had to. Actually, wanted to. I was hoping that mason’s misfortune would be my own good luck. I might have prayed for it, but that seemed too much like cheating. I did, however, hope very hard. I needed a dead body, and his seemed the only one likely to come my way. Indeed, he lingered between life and death. His face was drenched in sweat, his voice low and distant when it came at all, as if he had already glimpsed the flames of purgatory. But near about noontime, he asked, in a voice quite unmuddled by delirium, for a sip of beer.

  Miracles abounded in my parish in Kortrijk. But none of them blessed me.

  •••

  Is it a sin to pray for someone to die?

  It wasn’t as if I was praying death on any person in particular. It wasn’t as if I wanted someone to die. But no one lives forever, and death was a regular visitor to the streets and alleys of Sint-Maartens parish. If that dark angel were going to visit us in any case, then why couldn’t I just ask him to speed things along? Was there anything wrong with that?

  It felt like it. It felt very much like there was. I’d told De Grote I’d have a body. I needed the money he would give me, and De Grote was not a man who was familiar with disappointment. Though some of us were born to it, others, never having had the taste of it, grew testy in its presence.

  Nee, I could not disappoint him. I had to have a body. Surely someone would die.

  I had work to do in preparation. The coffin to be got. The grave to be dug. The burial. And then once the burial was over, there was the coffin to be brought up again. I stopped in at the tavern to catch Big Jannes before he’d drunk a cup too many.

  •••

  It had always been a bit of a trick to coax Big Jannes from his cups. And he was always vexed about it. I might have gone in and just spoken to him, but I didn’t want any to remember our meeting. I passed by the window twice, three times, before I caught his eye. Inclined my head out toward the square.

  He put his cup down and rose, setting his cap on his head and settling his belly over the top of his belt. After ducking through the door and peering round the square, he joined me. So to speak. As I stood by the corner, back to the building, he turned into the alley and made quick work of loosening his breeches to piss against the wall.

  “Do you have to do that? I know what you’ve got without having to be shown it, don’t I?”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Thursday. You’ll be wanted.”

  “Same as—?”

  “Same as always. And
bring your own shovel this time.”

  I was gone before he was done and no one the wiser. I just had to find out who the body would be.

  •••

  By the tolling of the church bells at Nones, still I had found no body. No one in the parish was in danger of dying. Not the new babe, not the Lievens’s daughter. Not even the mason who had nearly sawn his leg in two. Even the butcher’s widow looked better than I was used to seeing her. There were two babes yet to be born this spring, but neither of them due to be delivered until next month.

  I’d sought out the youngest in the parish and the oldest. I even nosed around the former lace makers who lived in the darkest alleys and plied their new trade in the most hidden of places. Not one cough, not one sniff among them.

  Panic started to clutch at my innards.

  Surely someone would die. Someone always had. Always. I’d never had to go looking for a body like I’d looked this day. Only one hope was left me. I went to see old Herry.

  I sighed as I looked at him lying there on the floor. “You have to understand, Herry, I’m doing this for Katharina. She’s a lovely girl. I’m not a bad person. I would never think to do a thing like this, but it’s Katharina’s only hope. Can you imagine what those nuns will do to her if I don’t? They’ll throw her out onto the streets. And she knows nothing. Least nothing about any of that. She’s not like Marguerite. Pardon me for saying what’s only true.”

  His eyes rolled about, showing the whites as they slid from side to side.

  “You’ve not long, Herry. We both know it. You’d be doing me the biggest of favors by letting me kill you now rather than dying later.”

  That was my plan. The only option I had left.

  So how was I going to do it? I couldn’t just wring his gullet as if he were the father’s chicken I was to cook for dinner. I couldn’t do that. His neck was too big, my fingers not long enough. I looked around the room for something. Nee, not a knife. I wouldn’t do it with a knife as if I were some murderess. Something else. A kettle. I could dash him in the head with a kettle. That would finish him off.

  Nee.

  Nee, I couldn’t see myself doing it like that.

  “Couldn’t you just die, Herry? And save me the trouble?” I didn’t bother to turn round as I asked him. He couldn’t answer me anyway, could he? That was one good thing. He wouldn’t cry out when I did it. He couldn’t.

  I stood there, not knowing what to think. Not knowing what to do. Really, it shouldn’t be so hard to kill someone.

  There was the slightest of sounds. The dribble of liquid over straw. I knew what it was before I smelt it. “Shame, Herry. You’ve gone and soiled yourself again.”

  I rolled him off and made him a new pallet. Got him settled once more.

  “I really don’t want to do this. You know that, don’t you?”

  I patted his hand and then pushed up from the pallet. It was one thing to decide to kill a man, but another thing entirely to do it. What was I supposed to do? I could throw a rope over a beam and string him up, but he was terrible heavy, and then no one could say he’d just drifted off in his sleep. Not with the burns from a rope around his neck. There had to be some other way.

  I needed inspiration, but I didn’t feel as if I could pray for any.

  Maybe…I could feed him something. In his potage. But, nee. Who knew how long it might take to work? And how much to give him? I’d just have to…do it. But, dear God, how?

  His long, raspy breaths began to grate upon my nerves. Why did he keep so busy breathing when he was supposed to be dying? And why should I have to hear him? I unfastened my apron and threw it over his head.

  There.

  I wouldn’t see him staring at me anymore. And maybe I wouldn’t be able to hear him quite so well.

  He gasped again.

  But then he breathed again, and it was such a terrible sound. If he would just shut up his mouth!

  I withdrew the apron and did it for him, pushing his jaws together.

  They didn’t stay.

  He took another gasping breath as they fell apart.

  I’d just have to tie them together. I took up my apron and knotted it at the top of Herry’s head. “There now. Much better. If you don’t mind my saying.”

  With Herry quiet, I could get back to my thinking. And so I did. But soon enough there came a great snorting sound. And how was I supposed to concentrate on finding a way to kill him when he kept distracting me like that?

  I turned around and knelt down to find tears trickling from his eyes. Using the hem of my skirt, I dabbed at them. “It’s not so bad, Herry. You know you’ve one foot in the hereafter already. What’s the bad in going one day sooner? Or two? I don’t think it would be more than three, if you pardon my saying.”

  That sound came once more. He was trying to breathe…and having trouble with the doing of it.

  “Could you just…do you mind? I have to think, Herry, I really do.” I pulled him to sitting and shoved a pot behind his head to keep it from falling back against the wall. “Better?”

  It sounded better. He was breathing easier. And that set me to thinking. Breathing easier is something I wanted to do too.

  I needed the money, but I didn’t need it that badly, did I? Badly enough to murder poor Herry Stuer?

  I reached out and took up one of his hands. Could have sworn he flinched. “There now. I haven’t been in my right mind, Herry, and that’s the truth. How could I hurt you? You’ll live to die an honest death. And that’s the best I can do for you. I’m just going to have to tell De Grote ‘No.’”

  No.

  The word rang in the stillness of the room.

  “Have you ever known anyone to tell the man ‘No’?”

  Herry closed his eyes.

  “Thought not. I haven’t either. Least no one who lived to tell about it. But why should I tell him ‘Yes’? I’ve done too many terrible things for him to agree to do one thing more.”

  Herry sighed.

  “I know it. Katharina’s stuck in that abbey. And they’re sure to discover her secret any day now, if they haven’t already. But if God can’t save her, then what kind of God is he? That’s what the priest says. And I find I have to agree with him. ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’ That’s exactly what Father Jacqmotte always says. I’m just going to have to tell De Grote ‘No.’”

  •••

  I had the coffin for De Grote. Everything was ready. Ready as it should have been. Except I had no body. Big Jannes came. I saw his shadow flitting between the gravestones. I called him to me and told him he didn’t have to dig. He had only to drag the coffin over from the side of the church. Empty or no, it was going to have to do.

  De Grote and his customer arrived soon after, their forms veiled by the clouds shifting across the moon. De Grote rapped upon the coffin. “Anyone in there?” He laughed one of his strange, silent laughs. Turned toward me. “Open it up, then.”

  Big Jannes glanced at me.

  I nodded.

  He prized the lid off with a chink of his shovel against the nails, and then a pull that distorted his face with the effort.

  I turned away. Couldn’t bear to look at De Grote’s face.

  There was a hissing intake of breath. An explosion of cursing. “There’s no body!”

  I shook my head.

  “There’s supposed to be a body there. The one I told you I’d pay for.”

  “No one died. I don’t have one.”

  “You don’t—!” It was as close as I’d ever come to hearing De Grote yell. Good thing he didn’t. The priest might have woken. He stepped closer. “I ordered a body.”

  Somewhere out in the darkness of the cemetery, a dog whined. A strange, rolling growl of a whine. It made the hairs at the back of m
y neck stand on end, and the strings in my belly tighten.

  “Nobody died.”

  “And yet, here we all are.”

  I shrugged. There was no body. What else could I say that I hadn’t already said?

  He took another step closer. So close I could feel his heat. “I asked for a body. You agreed to get me one. De Grote never gets cheated.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Say nothing.”

  I sent a glance toward the other man, De Grote’s customer. One hand had gone inside his coat, and he was reaching toward De Grote with his other.

  De Grote turned toward his customer. “Don’t even think—”

  “You promised to get my lace across the border.”

  “And I’ll do it! There will be a body for that coffin. One way or another.” He grabbed me by the arm and motioned to Jannes. “Bring that shovel here.”

  “Don’t—! You can’t—” I tried to wrench my arm from him. When that didn’t work, I dug my heels into the ground. But the rain had turned the graveyard into a mire. My heels slid right out from under me.

  “‘Can’t’ isn’t a word I use. I thought you understood that. No one crosses De Grote.”

  His customer grabbed hold of his shoulder and spun him from me. De Grote dropped my arm to grapple with him. From the darkness, that strange, growling whine came again. It was followed by a bark.

  “Unhand me!” De Grote pulled a glittering dagger from his waist and advanced upon the man.

  As the man retreated, stumbling over a gravestone, a streak of snarling fur swept past him. It leapt at De Grote, fastening his teeth about the man’s throat. De Grote fell, arms flailing as he tried to beat off the dog. The creature tore at him as if he were an avenging angel come straight from God.

  I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I’d never seen such a sight. The creature ripped De Grote’s throat out by the roots. And then he deposited it at his master’s feet and sat there, wagging his tail, as if he’d done some clever trick.

  Big Jannes gagged.

  The man bent to pat the dog on the head. “Well done, mon cher.”