Storm Warnings

by Vanessa Gebbie

  My name is John Launder and I am condemned. I am condemned as a heretic by the Lord Bishop Bonner seven months after my arrest at prayer in the house of the Flemish brewer at Brighthampstead. The brewer and I are condemned to burn and I thought we would die together. But it is not to be.

  He filled the cell, the brewer Dirick Carver. With his body, his soul and his voice. He would convert the stones in these walls with the Psalms and prayers! Then, a little while ago this July morning, they came for him. Two men came with lit staves and took him most roughly away. We had not the time to say our farewells, and they took him, shoeless.

  I hear him now: ‘For pity’s sake, I am to die without my shoes?’

  From the doorway, he looked back, ‘John, hold fast to my Book.’ I sought his Book then, but the sudden light had blinded my eyes so I could not see it. On my knees I felt among my dear friend’s bedstraw for his Book, willing it to come to my fingers. Then one of the men returned for it, saying that Book was a desecration, being not in Latin and must burn with its keeper.

  Thus were taken from me, in this little half hour, the last two things on this earth that kept this poor man whole.

  It is three days since we were brought here in an open cart, from Newgate Prison in London. I did not know this town. The cart rounded a corner; there came the squeal of pigs, a sudden lurch, and the driver cursed. Then, for all that his lips were cracked with the July sun and a lack of water, Master Dirick smiled. He knew this place, he said, where the townsfolk let their pigs roam the streets. ‘We are at Lewes. I could not sell my ale in Lewes.’

  We were greeted with stones and spittle. A few good people called upon God to strengthen us. I heard shouts, a voice from a high window: ‘They are come, they are come. See, they will be taken to The Star.’ We were thrown into this undercroft at the sign of the Star, the remainder of the building being an inn, and such an inn as sells poor ale, according to the brewer. We were to share our dark lodging with a singular iron device, resembling a rack, or a broiling bed. Thanks be that they have not used it on us. In the other place, at Newgate, we wore bolts, shackles; I lay for days on chill flagstones until my bones ached like those of an old man and I am not yet twenty-six. I sat for long stretches in my own dirt whilst in the stocks, and my body swelled. I have been called: dog, devil, heretic, whoremonger, traitor, thief, deceiver. But I count my blessings, still.

  Here, in my cell, there is a narrow grating giving on to the street, unlike our accommodation at the other place, where since November last we saw no daylight. There has at least been a little air, the sounds of the day and the night to remind me of the world I am soon to leave.

  Pity ’tis that not only air and daily noise enter the cell this way. Last evening we heard the noise of laughter, men and women in their cups, then piss streamed down the wall. More laughter and the rustle of skirts as a woman came astride the grating, more piss, then soon after the grunts and cries of fast coupling.

  A pig comes snuffling. It comes back and back, and methinks it was fed scraps by a previous tenant of this place. More like it is drawn to the animal smell.

  He is gone without his shoes, the brewer, and without a drink, for they gave us none last evening, nor this morning. He was parched and, as ever, was desirous of his own ale. Many a time in Newgate, the brewer lamented the lack of his own good ale brewed in the Flemish fashion with the round taste of the hop. We were given prison ale to drink: watery, thin, often old and rank. I said to him then that I wished most fervently that the hop were yet banned for brewing as by our late King Henry. I wished it had never been given credence in law by the young King Edward. For were this the case, I reasoned, there would have been no invite for the brewer to arrive from Flanders to teach the poor English ale-heretics how to brew using the hop. Were this the case, Dirick Carver would not have set his brewery in Brighthamstead by the sea, and I, John Launder, would not have accompanied my ailing father there. I knew the purpose of my father’s visits. And were the humble hop yet banned, this John Launder would not have been saved and damned at one time by the good brewer.

  And where is he? It is a full hour since they took him. A crowd has gathered for the burning, folk are restless. And yet they have ale. Women come from the inn on regular occasion into the crowd, carrying, I wager, heavy pitchers. I hear the shouts:

  ‘A drink! This sun it burns like fire.’

  ‘Here, Jenet, I pray you, fill me!’

  ‘As you shall fill Jenet later, Nicholas Hayward . . .’

  ‘When is the burning? Are we to wait until the Sheriff and bailiffs have dined at leisure?’

  I suspect they are right; these men dine well and think to persuade the brewer who stands before them in nought but his shirt, jerkin and leggings. Maybe they tempt him even now, not just with sweet words, thus: ‘Master Carver, you can yet save your body and your soul . . .’ but also with sweetmeats and with wine, perhaps ale. And if I know the man he will keep silent until he can keep silence no longer. Then his tones will put a fitting end to their feasting. I may not hear his voice again, his deep foreign voice, guttural and flat when he speaks our tongue. He will say their words are loathsome to him, like their ale. He will not keep counsel.

  He said to Bishop Bonner, in full knowledge of that man’s power to condemn him to die, ‘My Lord Bishop, your doctrine is poison and sorcery. I worship no idols. I say if a man can make a god, then that man can make a pudding as well!’ For a short while there was a silence, and I could feel the heaviness of it. Then a low hum among the churchmen, such that the Bishop had to quell the sound, and he did so most cynically with a blessing that was in truth our condemnation.

  I first heard the brewer’s voice little more than a year since. His house seemed dark and silent, and I was afraid. The untimely death of the young King has ushered in a Catholic Queen, and such meetings as the one we were about to join are banned. We have no Bible at our house, and were thus reliant and glad to be so, on hearing the words read in church. But such readings are, since her accession, in the Latin tongue, as are the services. There is no understanding the words and it is like being starved, or parched. But the word spread quietly of one Dirick Carver from Flanders who welcomed brave Protestant souls to his house, for he had the Holy Book and Psalter both in English and in his own tongue and would lead any as would come in prayer. My father being old was like a dog that will not learn new tricks, and I was happy to keep with him in this matter.

  I helped the old man my father up the dark stair, and it was then I first heard the deep strange voice of the brewer from an upper room: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear none evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.’ In truth, that voice, those words, were like a sip of good ale to a parched throat. The man himself, he is a presence not easily forgot. He stands a full head above me, and I am considered not short. It is said he has the strength to lift a full barrel and carry it to the slow count of an hundred. His hair it is thick and long, and of reddish colour, and his gaze most impassioned when he speaks of two things: his God and his ale.

  The night we were taken it was dark, late October the month, nigh unto All Hallows. There were twelve of us at prayer and contemplation, as we had been so often in the six months before, but now, without our knowledge, we are betrayed. Of a sudden there is the clatter of hooves on cobbles, men’s rough voices and the smoother assured tones of one who when he speaks causes others to fall quiet. ‘Where is the prayer meeting?’ ‘I am told an upper room, Sir.’ Hearing this the brewer Dirick Carver pauses, and says, ‘Almighty God have mercy upon us poor sinners,’ and he begins to read aloud from his Book in English. His voice it becomes louder and louder in the night, and we fall to our knees as the sound of men on the stairs comes to our ears, their boots stamping and I hear a sword being unsheathed, and my throat is closed up with fear and yet I stay praying on my knees, praying in my own tongue, led by the brewer.


  We are taken. All twelve we are taken by the men of Edward Gage from Firle, all who have ridden to take us at Brighthamstead. Later I am told Edward Gage is the young brother of Lord John Gage, Chamberlain to the Queen, and of such Catholic persuasion that the whole of Sussex must fall to the family’s wish.

  Wait. It starts.

  A hush. A child cries. I feel all eyes are on The Star, and yet I cannot see, I am too low down. I must see, I must not see — he is my dearest friend and we have upheld each other at Newgate. I would not fail him now. I pull at the iron rack device and it shifts a little. It is heavy and I am weak for not wanting to touch it, for lack of food, for fear, but I must do this. My arms shake and my fingers would break on the rack, but it moves. Slowly, it moves, scrapes over the flagstones as I drag it, push it, pull the infernal thing to the wall. Standing on it beneath the grating, my head is almost level with the street and I am damned, for I can see. I see men with torches in the midday sun.

  I see the pyre, unlit. I see a stake, wound about with chains, and my throat burns with bile. I see faggots, neatly tied, neatly piled. Some soul’s proud work. More faggots and kindling at a distance. Men with staves keeping back the people. I see the crowd, now, the townsfolk in a glad jostle as though this were a merrymaking, and yet they are hushed as though in church. Men with mugs of ale, women, their bonnets pushed back for the heat of the day. The only sound now comes from children in the dirt, playing, and some half-dozen boys kicking a pig’s bladder back and forth. I rest my forehead against the stones. They will burn him; in truth, they will do it.

  He comes, bound with a chain, his hands before him, bound with a rope. He seems smaller, as though the last hour has diminished him in body. He stoops. He limps in his bare feet and is held on both sides by bailiffs. There is a churchman of standing, in full robes, who carries my friend’s Book. A robed lad goes before, holding high a narrow cross, the sunlight glinting on a Christ figure. The good brewer pauses, looks up to the crowd, the pyre; he is blinking and lifts his hands together to his eyes. The sun on his hair seems to redden it further. There is a shout: ‘The devil goes to his own!’ He looks about him, and he smiles. But his lips are cracked and a little blood runs down over his chin into his beard, and I think they did not have the kindness to give him drink.

  There is another sound; a rumbling, I strain to see, and it is a large barrel rolled by two men out from the inn towards the pyre, and it is lifted up, secured by a chain to the stake. A barrel? What do they with a barrel? Oh, but is it not an abomination that they will jest at a good man’s dying and burn a brewer in a barrel? And what more? It is not a barrel from the Star. I see the brewer’s own device burned into the wood. It is one of his own barrels that they would burn the poor man in, and I cannot help but weep for him, for his own wood will keep the flames from his body, protecting for a short span and prolonging his agony.

  I stand here and weep, for him and for me, and I think who will there be left to weep for me when I burn? And yet what sorry games will they think to play at my dying? Oh, God, that I may die with dignity.

  The churchman holds out the brewer’s Book to him, and for a fleeting moment I think this is an act of compassion, but as he holds his bound hands out to take it, the churchman turns away and throws the Book into the pyre, and it falls into the barrel. I should shout words of comfort to him and yet I cannot, the words will not come into my mouth for bile. He holds up his hand and is asking to speak, and the churchman is giving him leave. But Dirick does not speak. He is helped on to the pyre and held as he steps into his own barrel, bending to fetch his dear Book. His knuckles are stark white on the edge of the barrel, and his hands are yet bound, holding the Book. And he is chained.

  Then I hear my dear friend’s voice rising above the crowd: ‘Witness you all that I am come to seal with my blood Christ’s gospel,’ and my fingers clutch the iron grating. ‘Because that I will not deny God’s Gospel and be obedient to man’s laws, I am condemned to die,’ and my fingers grasp so hard they bleed.

  The two men with lit torches approach, the churchman is saying words I cannot hear, but I hear the brewer again as the faggots are lit, as the smoke curls and the first little flames begin to take: ‘Lord have mercy on us.’ ‘On us,’ he is saying; he is looking toward the cell. I raise my fingers through the grating for him, I try to make the sign of the cross for him, but I cannot. Instead I put my torn shirt to my face.

  The wood is dry, the flames catch quickly. The brewer flinches, holds his bound hands out into the flame holding them, holding them, until the rope parts. His hands are black. Smoke begins to billow and he gives a great cry through the smoke and I see him raise his Book to his lips, then he throws it with a shout out into the crowd. And I am afraid. God forgive me, but I am afraid for myself.

  The Book is retrieved, thrown back again into the flames which are now high and fierce, the crowd shouts and seems to rejoice. Even the women seem to rejoice. I am afraid that when my time comes I will not be brave; I will not be a man. I am afraid that my bowels will empty and I shall die in my own mess. As I think this, my bladder empties. I stand here, wet like a child.

  The boys have grown bored with the fire; they kick at the earth near the grating. The pigs come snuffing again.

  I stop watching, rest my forehead against the piss-stinking stones, and I weep. Dear God it seems such a little thing now, to recant. I need say only a few words. Meaningless words. I need say we eat the true flesh of Jesus Christ at the Communion table and not bread. We drink the true blood of Christ, not wine. I need say the Book is to be read in Latin. I must make my confession to a man and not to my God.

  Why does any of this matter? Am I not a good man? Does God forsake me if I cut out my tongue and forgo speech? Does he forsake me if I pluck out my eyes from my head that I cannot read the Word, or pierce my ears not to hear it spake? Will not a good man attain His kingdom, no matter what creed?

  I am afraid to die. It will be a hurt such as none other. I am afraid for what comes after. Lord, help me.

  I lift my eyes to the pyre, no more see the brewer. The fire rages and he cannot live still. At least it has been quick, his dying. No, a black shadow moves in the fire, and I see an arm raised up slow as though drawn on a strap, and again his Book is thrown out, in flames. No one will catch it, this burning Book, it lands in the dirt a way away from the inn, close to the boys. One boy kicks the good Book, it flies a little way, trailing smoke and sparks, another boy kicks it, and the crowd cheers. The Book is finished, a burned thing like its keeper, who is now disappeared in the fire. Back and forth the boys kick the Book, until one comes close, taps it with his foot, and the Book slips through the grating to my hand.

  It is hot, it smokes still. There are patches of skin attached, black, where the brewer held it for comfort. And my skin burns. I smell it, but I do not feel it, I am like ice. I can not let it go, and the words come to me that I heard him speak that first day:

  ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear none evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.’ I shout them loud that all might hear.

  This John Launder is told by his gaoler that he is to burn tomorrow, at Steyning. I know no man at Steyning.

  I am brought bread, and a flagon of thin ale. The light is fading, the crowd has dispersed now, the pyre smokes still. I will not look at the shapes it makes on the ground. I have not left hold of the brewer’s Book, and I am drinking the ale to him. Of the bread this body has no need any more, and will feed it to the pig when it next comes snuffling.

  John Launder and Derek Carver were burned at the stake in Sussex, UK, in July 1555

  On the Beach

  I COME HERE EVERY day, no matter what the weather brings, and I search for your face. The children call me mad.

  I take up my place; I fold my blanket into four and lay it on the pebbles, so that when I sit I can reach all fo
ur edges without moving too much. I am old now.

  It is like sitting on the world and dipping my hand into the space in which we swim.

  And I begin. I pick up a pebble from this side, turn it over. I do this very slowly, with great compassion. And in that second before the pebble turns, I hope. My heart sings and lifts in welcome.

  It falls silent when the pebble turns to show just smoothness, or fissures carved by the waves, sometimes a hole right through. Once I found a tiny pebble within a pebble, as though it was in the process of giving birth. I put it in my pocket, kept it next to me all day, then took it home. It is on the windowsill. The only pebble I have taken.

  I shall only take one more.

  When I have turned a pebble, I place it on the beach on the other side of the blanket. Gradually, as the day stretches away, the pile grows until I am sheltered from the wind. And the hole grows deeper and deeper until the blanket slips.

  Sometimes, when I leave, when the sun sets and I have not enough light to see, I turn to look back at the beach. And all I can see is shadows, all I can hear is the rush of the waves, the scream of gulls tussling over some dead thing.

  Out of season, they leave my excavations for days, sometimes weeks. The beach becomes pocked and lined, as though there were trenches here and the men have run away. Or died.

  When they are preparing for the season, and visitors, they smooth the stones. They bring down rattling bulldozers and iron the tide-ridges. And they iron out my trenches, flattening my work so I must start again.

  The children call me mad. The parents warn them to keep their distance, as though I have some disease. I hear them:

  ‘Come away, come away. Do not go near.’