Havoc, in Its Third Year

by Ronan Bennett

  He recalled one occasion, about the time of her quickening, when they lay in each other’s arms. She asked, “Do you remember our wedding night?” And so for her, because it pleased her so plainly, Brigge recalled aloud the deep feather bed he had from his mother, and the bolsters by bequest from his beloved sister, now dead. He recalled for her the floor of the chamber, a carpet of rushes she had gathered from the marsh, scented and strewn with white jasmine and honeysuckle and colored with primula and violets. He had never seen or smelled anything so beautiful as the carpet Elizabeth made that day. He recalled them put to bed and her being naked before him. Brigge had never seen her fully unclothed before. He would carry to his grave the image of Elizabeth lying facedown on the bed and he at work on her with strength he had not known he possessed, and when she turned her head, her eyes saw nothing. “I cannot move,” she said, her breath faint and her force all gone.

  I AM CARNAL, Paul told the Romans, sold under sin. The law of sin is in my members. Brigge had sinned.

  Love God, his mother had taught him to pray:

  Love God,

  Fear God.

  Falling down, despair not.

  Brigge had fallen. He had fallen so often he sometimes could not tell whether he was standing or prone. He fell because he was weak. Doliffe and Favour and their kind did not fall. They were men of weight— weighted by authority, commandment and expectation—and a heavy man dare not fall. They lived in terror that once on the ground they would never rise again; the hotter sort have horror perpetually in their conscience. Brigge fell, again and again. But he believed there would be mercy.

  Man without mercy, of mercy shall miss;

  And he shall have mercy, that merciful is.

  Did Doliffe and Favour have stars by which to fix their way? How else could they be so certain? How else could they judge the sins of men so readily? If they had stars, what had he? Jumbled points of light, a swirl in the heavens.

  Eventually, Brigge slipped into a light, unhappy sleep, and in his troubled dreams he fell again. Now it was Katherine Shay who sat next to him at the great table with the lepers, beggars and whores. She had before her bread, milk and also the key to the city. Brigge took the bread she proffered. She gave him milk too and he took it. But when she offered him the key he had left outside the walls, he scorned to receive it from her, saying such things were vanities and trifles to snare man. She threw her head back and laughed and her eyes glinted with desire.

  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

  Seven

  BRIGGE HAD HOPED HE WOULD NOT BE DETAINED LONG, BUT his heart sank when he saw Scaife herd the prisoners and petitioners into the sessions hall. There were some forty or fifty, the usual miserable company, shuffling and coughing and glancing fearfully about. He looked for Adam but could not find the boy.

  Fourness, the oldest and most venerable of the governors, came in convoyed, as was usual with him, by splendid youths of the better sort, among whom he enjoyed the reputation of a hero for his selfless fight against Sav-ile’s misgovernment. On seeing Brigge the old man at once broke into a smile and shuffled over, taking the coroner’s arm and kissing him and asking him how he did. “Come with me,” he said, taking Brigge aside and dismissing the youths with a wave of the hand. He walked stiffly and his fingers were so deformed with arthritis they appeared as claws. He eased himself into a chair and used a hand to unbend his knee and straighten his leg.

  “You have returned not a moment too soon, John,” he said, casting a glance at the constable, who was keeping a narrow interest in their conversation. “In your absence the Master has inclined his ear close to the mouths of incautious men, and I fear the words he has heard on their lips have sent him into unnecessary alarms. He now appears to believe the greater part of the town has turned against our project.”

  “Perhaps he has reason,” Brigge said, indicating the blue ribbons among the witnesses and spectators.

  “There will always be men who favor a Draco,” Fourness said. “But this is no reason to court and flatter them. Rather it is better to refute their prejudice for severity and insist that men deal justly with each other without they have to deny their neighbors charity and go about threatening to hang as they please.”

  “Mr. Brigge! I had news you were in town.”

  They looked up to see Dr. Antrobus approach. The doctor was so spare he scarcely seemed there at all. He was not well liked or trusted by his fellow governors; even Fourness, noted as a generous Christian gentleman who was gracious to every man until shown good reason to comport himself differently, was unceremonious with him. Seeing the slyness in his manner, the ambitions in his eyes, Brigge could think of Antrobus only as a creeping lust for power.

  “Your wife is well, I trust?”

  Strange, Brigge thought, how Antrobus could load a simple question with hints of menace and conspiracy. His tone was always facetious, even when he intended to be solicitous. It was his habit to bring his face close to those he addressed as though to compensate for the meagerness of his presence. Brigge shifted uneasily.

  “I cannot say,” Brigge answered. “I left the Winters yesterday and have received no word since.”

  “Did you not tell the Master of your predicament? Surely he would have excused your attendance had he known.” It was an invitation to prate and complain; Brigge pretended not to hear. Turning to Fourness, the doctor continued, “Have you informed Mr. Brigge how things have developed since he was last here?”

  “We were discussing the matter just now,” Fourness replied coolly; turning to Brigge, he said, “John, you must speak with the Master. He holds you in great esteem and would certainly listen.”

  “What would you have me say?”

  “Remind him of the solid principles of our project. Mr. Doliffe is a man of integrity and sufficiency, and Dr. Favour a most pious, religious and indefatigable Christian. Both see sin first and most, which is right but must always be tempered with forgiveness.”

  “Speaking with the Master will do nothing,” Antrobus said. “The reason he listens to Doliffe is because he is already inclined to the constable’s methods.”

  “I flatter myself I know the Master, sir,” Brigge said sharply, “and he is and has ever been a man for justice.”

  Antrobus smiled thinly; he said, “This is most reassuring.”

  The hall fell silent as the Master entered, leading the governors in a solemn procession to the bench—Doliffe, Straw, Admergill, Wade, Lister and the other great men of the town.

  “I should take my place,” Brigge said.

  Antrobus cocked his head as though sifting his words for hidden meaning. He said, “We should all take our places while we may.” Brigge was about to do so when the doctor said with a pawky smile, “If I can be of assistance—to you or your wife—please do not hesitate to ask.” Brigge thanked the doctor courteously and went to his place.

  Dr. Favour got up to make his sermon.

  “IF THOU DO THAT which is evil, be afraid,” Favour began, stretching tremulous hands out before him; he enjoyed to the full his reputation as a strict and passionate divine. “For he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”

  The voice was marred by his disfigured mouth but had all the nasal vehemence of the Elect and so was heard. “When Moses executed justice, was he not merciless?” he went on. “This is no ordinary time. It is a time of judgment when we preach no gospel but the sharp law of vengeance. We exhort those in authority therefore to return to Moses’ law and deal strictly with evildoers and villains in all their guises.”

  Amen.

  “Let them sear fornicators with a hot iron on the cheek so that honest and chaste Christians might be discerned from whores and whoremongers.”

  Amen. Brigge searched the faces around him. It was plain that many in the hall had a special affection for the vicar. The only peace their tormented so
uls knew, peace of a kind, fleeting and unperfect, was to hear that their torments were not theirs alone, but universal and ineluctable, connate with man’s condition, and in this Favour did not disappoint them.

  “Let them kill adulterers, for adultery is the foul disease of marriage and society itself,” Favour continued, growing more heated as he went. “Did not Luther say that he who broke his marriage had already severed himself from life and was to be regarded as a dead human being? And in Geneva the great Calvin had adulterers tied with stones and drowned in the Rhône. Who dares say this is harsh? If a man who steals a horse is hanged, why should the man who steals another’s wife go free?”

  Favour paused to look from face to face. “And if it is right to kill these, what of the horde of papistical malignants in our midst? What of these Catholics and recusants? Why should these heretical papists with their insatiate avarice and thirst for blood, why should these conjuring priests and scheming traitors—why should these live?”

  Amen. It was then Brigge noticed Adam among the crowd, listening attentively to the sermon though the boy had never shown himself inclined to the words or company of the hotter sort but rather shunned them as fanatics.

  “And what of these masterless men that plague us? These rogues and beggars, these vagrants who live as the brutes do, who consort together with the instincts of dogs. They are villains and the sons of villains. They live by theft and plunder. They have disfigured the face of God. They are the base excrements of the commonwealth. Do they not deserve death?”

  Amen. Adam glanced at the bench and met Brigge’s eyes. The coroner sent his clerk a questioning look: where had he been? The boy turned his gaze from his master back to Favour.

  “And yet these vagrants live,” the vicar went on, growing yet more impassioned. “Authority is indulgent and tender, the governors of our town are bound by the lax laws of the commonwealth. They are not free to execute Moses’ justice. At this most fearful time, let our governors act to the full measure of the law, insufficient though it may be! Let them look about! Search out the fornicator! Search out the adulterer, the vagrant, the thief and the papist! Let them not hesitate to wield the sword of justice as mercilessly as our present laws allow!”

  When Favour finished, many on the bench were in tears, marveling at the clear truths he had laid before them. The Master made great show of nodding vigorously and commenting on Favour’s ingenious sermon. Staring at the coroner, he said loudly, “Amen.”

  The Master let his gaze fall on Brigge and linger there.

  “Amen,” Brigge murmured.

  John Marsh of the town, weaver, whose wife was dead and who is now without work so he is not able to maintain his three children. His fourth time before the governors seeking relief. Ordered given one shilling by the Overseers of the Poor but told he shall have no more.

  A child of nine years, suspected to be a bastard, having lived with his grandmother who maintained he was her son and who was now dead, and with no one left to care for him. Ordered sent to the House of Correction to be put on work.

  Alice Cartner of Sowerby, spinster, found dancing and far gone in drink and gave foul insulting language to the watch and derided and scorned their authority. Ordered put in the stocks and bridled.

  A Scotchman and a woman from Cumberland found sleeping in a barn and consorting together like beasts to the great consternation of he who chanced upon them. Unable to give evidence of where they were married or by whom. Ordered stripped and whipped until both their bodies are bloody, then burnt through the gristle of the right ear and put out of the town.

  Charles Denton of Ovenden, labourer, stole two chickens from Mr. Sharpe worth 6d and threatened to burn his house to the ground. Ordered whipped and sent to the House of Correction.

  The last prisoner was a girl of sixteen with pretty, fair hair. She was thin and delicate, with a pallor. “Green-sickness,” Antrobus whispered to Brigge with a smirk. “The girl is plainly suffering from love-melancholy.”

  Margery Farrer of Rastrick, spinster, whose father was grave-maker in the town and died of a dropsy two years ago. Now maidservant to Mrs. Hodge. During divine service found in a barn committing the detestable sin of fornication with someone who ran away. Refused to reveal his name.

  Doliffe pressed her on the one whose name she protected, but the girl only sobbed. Brigge thought of her being kissed in the barn, of her back being caressed and the words her lover breathed to her. He hoped the words were tender, that the lover was a good doer, that Margery Farrer had at least some pleasure before the pain she would shortly endure.

  Doliffe leaned to the Master and said she should have fifty lashes.

  “A good number,” Antrobus said behind his hand, “if they wish to put her in one of the graves her father made.”

  Brigge stared at the girl and thought of her receiving the lash. The governors had never been slow to punish, but there seemed no diminution of thefts, fornication, begging and drunkenness. Still offenders came before them, week after week, sessions after sessions, an endless torrent. They were punished severely for an example to the rest, but the rest did not seem to take heed. And when the rest were apprehended in their turn, they were whipped, branded, cucked, stocked, pilloried, bridled, sent to the House of Correction and put on labor. Some were sent to the judges of assize and hanged, others burned. But still it went on, the crime and the punishment.

  “Fifty lashes to be laid directly after these sessions,” the Master pronounced. “To be whipped again, fifty lashes every market day until she names the man.”

  There were gasps from those in the hall and also from the bench.

  Brigge suddenly stood up, pulling his sword from its scabbard. Before he had time to think, he threw the sword clanking to the floor in front of the girl with the anger and force of a soldier launching a spear. She looked up at him in terror and shrank into Scaife’s arms for protection. The constable’s man pushed her roughly forward and soon there was coarse laughter from the baser sort. The clatters on the stone seemed to echo around the hall for a great space of time. The Master and governors and the crowd turned to Brigge.

  “Mr. Brigge?” the Master said at last. The silence continued for some moments, no whisper or cough to break it. “I think you have forgot your-self.” He nodded to Scaife, who took up Brigge’s sword and handed it back.

  Brigge took his seat again. Beside him Antrobus yawned. The judgment was duly delivered. Margery Farrer would have fifty strokes and fifty more every market day until she named the man with whom she had sinned.

  After the sessions Brigge found himself the center of a circle of men, all pressing in on him with curiosity or admiration in their looks. He shifted uneasily under their stares, never at ease with men’s expectations of him. Fourness came forward to congratulate Brigge on the courage of his gesture.

  “Fifty lashes,” he scoffed. “Why not a hundred? Why not a thousand? You were right to protest.”

  Brigge saw admiration in the eyes of the handsome youths that accompanied the old man when they looked at him, and two or three expressed their esteem in such exaggerated high terms that the coroner began to feel more affronted than flattered.

  Antrobus too came up. “I always took you for a man who liked to keep his foot in the stirrup,” he said, pretending to marvel at the coroner’s audacity.

  Brigge was not conscious to himself that he had protested; he was not sure what he had done, or why. He knew, as wise and cunning men did, that the safest way for men in troubled times was to say nothing.

  Eight

  IN THE ROOM RESERVED FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE TOWN’ S business, they gathered at the long table. The Master got to his feet and looked the governors over. Whenever he was about to come into his sincerest manner, he would tighten the muscles around his mouth and push out his chin to make himself appear more forceful.

  “Our situation worsens by the day,” he announced gravely. “The recent disorders have undermined the confidence of the better sort. Many
are abandoning the town, complaining of the taxes and assessments we levy on them. If they desert us, the town shall be utterly impoverished, unable ever to recover itself. We must make prudent and necessary regulations to prevent any further flight.”

  “What do you propose?” Fourness asked, suspicion gathering in his voice.

  The Master paused before continuing. “We must reduce the levels of assessments, and reduce them substantially, and we must do so at once.”

  There was some murmuring among the governors. “By how much?” Fourness asked.

  “By three parts in five,” Doliffe answered for the Master, not apologizing for the measure or the sad necessity of it, but delivering what he said harshly. There were expressions of approval and astonishment in equal measure.

  “Impossible!” Fourness declared. “We have growing numbers of poor—we should be unable to pay out doles to maintain them.”

  “We cannot ask those of modest means, who labor diligently for their families, to beggar themselves so the poor might live well,” Doliffe said.

  “We are to let the poor starve then?” Fourness said. “Such miserable parsimony would be a depravity, it would be the greatest corruption of the foundations of our project.”

  “There are other corruptions and worse depravities, and you would do well to remember it, sir,” Doliffe said in brutal rejoinder.

  The table fell silent. Fourness was venerable, crippled and white—haired, having declined greatly in health during the imprisonments he suffered under Savile, and no man, not even Challoner himself, could rival him for credit and respect among the people of the town, both the better and poorer sorts. For Doliffe to treat him with such contempt shocked the governors, even those among the constable’s friends. The old governor’s face flushed with affront and his eyes blazed, but he did not respond to Doliffe’s goading. Brigge looked to the Master, who had always been careful to preserve unity among the governors, trimming skillfully so as to offend no man, to rebuke the constable for his lack of charity.