Oh, please God, no.
‘Chain him up, Chapman,’ Cross snapped, kicking the rats away with his boot. ‘Fix him tight.’
Chapman tore off my wig and shoved the iron skull cap hard on to my head. The weight of it – twelve pounds or more – was pain enough on its own. But then he fastened the screws and the metal bit into my skull, squeezing until I was sure it would crack. I begged them to stop but they just laughed again, pushing me to the ground until my back slammed hard against the cold, dank wall.
‘You can’t do this,’ I cried. ‘You can’t leave me in here. Cross! For God’s sake, have mercy!’
They fixed the back of the cap to the wall, screwing it firmly until I was held fast and couldn’t move my head. Then they set the collar around my neck, squeezing it tight. My throat was already bruised and swollen where Acton had choked me, and the rough iron bit deep into my skin. I began to panic, fighting to breathe as Cross checked my chains, cloth still pressed to his mouth. He nodded, satisfied, and rose to leave. The other men had already fled the room.
‘Cross, please, I beg you. I will choke to death.’ I clutched desperately at his jacket, all pride gone. The collar cut deeper as I tried to lean forward. ‘Would you murder me, sir?’
He hesitated. Then he reached out and loosened the collar by a few precious breaths. I was about to thank him when he poked his fingers into my jacket and pulled out all of my coins, down to the last farthing, and the silver watch Fleet had given me. He picked up the torch and moved to the door.
‘Have pity, sir!’ I called. ‘Leave me the light.’
‘Have pity, sir!’ he mimicked in a high, whining voice. And then he slammed the door, plunging me into darkness.
For a while I lay in a daze of pain and disbelief. It had all been so swift and so brutal; no time to defend myself or bargain my way out of trouble. My head pounded from the iron cap that gripped my skull like a vice; even the smallest movement would gouge my skin until the blood ran down my face. My body, battered and bruised enough from my beating in St Giles, ached and throbbed against the cold, rotten floorboards.
I could barely see in the gloom, but I could sense the corpses in the shadows, just a few feet away. The rats were creeping back; I could hear them moving in the darkness. One scrabbled across my legs. I kicked it away, kept kicking even when it was long gone back to the other side, back to the corpses. Easier meat. I tucked my legs beneath me and began to weep, silently.
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the gloom. There were no windows, but there was a narrow gap above the door and a few holes in the roof that let in the last of the day’s fading light. If I could just stay calm . . . I set my mind free; tried to imagine myself far away . . . but it was no use, the stench and the damp and the horror of the place held me pinned to the room just as tightly as the iron collar around my throat.
So this was where Captain Roberts had been found, hanging from a beam, his body shattered and broken. I prayed for his sake that he was already dead when they dragged him here.
The rats squealed, pouring over the corpses in a frenzy. I heard one of the bundles tumble from the stack, landing with a dull thud. The rats swarmed over it, and the cloth slid free. I saw an arm, grey-white and bloodless. Was it Jack Carter? Perhaps. It was hard to say for sure in the half-light. But I knew he was there, and I could hear the rats. I knew what they were doing only a few paces away.
I screamed, then. I screamed and cursed and howled at them to let me out. Screamed loud enough for the whole prison to hear me.
No one came.
In the end the fight left me and I lay back, exhausted and numb. As the sun set and the room sank into blackness my mind turned in upon itself, thoughts spinning and colliding. I thought of Gilbourne and Fleet, of Catherine Roberts, of all the mistakes I had made since I’d come to the Marshalsea. Later, I heard the nightly lamentation of the Common Side rise up into the night sky and I joined my voice with them, the other damned and wretched souls trapped in this hell on earth.
‘You fool. You fool,’ I whispered to the dark. For it didn’t matter how I railed against Acton, and the cutpurses who attacked me in St Giles, I knew where the fault lay. My father had predicted it, long before that witch Madame Migault. The path you have chosen leads but one way, Thomas.
At some point, perhaps around midnight, the light from a lantern shone through the hole above the door and a voice called out softly. ‘God save you, Mr Hawkins.’ Mr Jenings, on nightwatch. By the time I could think to reply, the light had gone.
IV) SUNDAY. THE FOURTH DAY.
Chapter Seventeen
I learned about despair that night. Its cold, deathless fingers wrapped about my heart until I was beyond fear and pain – beyond all feeling. The damp and rotten floor chilling my bones; my skin crawling with pests; the collar fixed about my throat; the rats fighting in the shadows; the festering corpses; the knowledge that I would join them soon enough . . . at some point I surrendered to it all and the night rolled on, inch by inch, moment by moment.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them Captain Roberts was hanging from a beam in front of me. But then I saw it was my face and I began to choke, the noose rough and tight about my throat, and I was twisting on the end of the rope, legs kicking, fighting to breathe. The rope snapped and I fell to the floor but I was cold, death-white, and the rats were pouring down from the walls, hundreds and hundreds of them, screaming as they clambered over me, teeth like daggers and eyes red like the furnaces of hell. Teeth slicing into flesh. Someone was banging on the door but they were too late, there was nothing left, nothing but bones and gobbets of blood.
‘Open this door!’
Charles.
I opened my eyes and the dream dissolved away. Daylight streamed through the tiny gap above the door.
A scuffle; raised voices. A moment later the door flew open. I squinted, dazzled by the light.
‘My God. What have you done to him?’
‘Wait, Mr Buckley, don’t poison yourself.’ Woodburn’s voice. ‘Let Chapman pull him out of there.’
Another scuffle and then Charles was kneeling in front of me, coughing into a sweet-scented cloth held to his mouth and nose. He loosened the screws of my collar with trembling fingers. The collar fell free and he began unscrewing the heavy skull cap, eyes on mine. ‘You’re safe, Tom. I’m here,’ he said softly. ‘You, there!’ he turned and shouted, voice muffled behind the cloth. ‘Unlock his chains, damn you.’ He pulled the skull cap free and rested my head on his chest while Chapman unchained me.
Charles grabbed my hand. ‘My God, he’s frozen to the bone! Tom, listen.’ He touched my face. I couldn’t stop shivering. ‘Try to stand. I’ll help you.’
He put his shoulder under my arm and I staggered to my feet, the room lurching and spinning about me. Trim was waiting outside with Woodburn. The chaplain gaped at me, horrified. ‘Lord help the poor boy. He’s half-dead.’
Trim rushed forward and helped Charles carry me out into the yard. I cringed and shrank back as the sun hit my eyes.
‘He needs heat and a bath, and quick; or we’ll lose him,’ Trim said.
‘Do you see, Buckley?’ Woodburn cried, trailing after us. ‘Do you see what is being done in Sir Philip’s name?’
‘Run ahead, sir!’ Charles snapped. ‘Call for hot water and plenty of it.’
I sank to my knees, wrapping my arms about me. I could still feel the weight of the skull cap pressing down on my head. I touched my fingers to my temples. They were sticky with blood. I began to shake again, more violently. I was still not sure if this was a dream. Perhaps I would wake again, still chained to the wall.
Across the yard they were opening up the wards and pulling out the bodies. Only three today. Trim and Charles turned away and began to retch.
They opened Anderson’s ward last. The men had been banging on the door and shouting furiously, screaming to be let out, so Wills had left them until last out of spite. When he opened the door all the prisoners spilt out
from the ward as if there were a wild animal trapped in with them. Anderson was the last one out. He was pulling something along the ground. Another body, trailing blood along the cobbles.
‘Which one of you did it?’ he yelled in a fury at his ward mates, spraying spittle in the air. ‘Which one of you bastards murdered him?’
He laid the body out in the yard just a few paces away. Harry Mitchell. My stomach lurched. He’d been stabbed through the heart, his eyes fixed in a final moment of horror. I stared at his white, lifeless face and the walls began to press in, squeezing closer and closer. Trim kneeled down and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Breathe,’ he whispered. ‘Just breathe.’
‘This is your fault, boy.’
I looked up at Anderson, looming over me, his face flushed red with anger. And I knew he was right. Mitchell had offered to help me – for a price – and now he was dead. ‘I’m sorry.’
Anderson spat at my feet. ‘I swear if you ever come over here again, they’ll be pulling your body out into the yard. Do you understand?’
Wills was walking down the line of bodies. He reached Mitchell, studied the gaping wound in the dead man’s chest, the twist of pain on his lips, the long trail of blood stretching back towards the ward entrance. He scratched his jaw. ‘Gaol fever,’ he announced. ‘There’s family in the Borough will pay for him. Sling him in the Strong Room with the rest.’
Up in Trim’s room, Kitty was building up the fire. As I stumbled into the room she gave a cry and ran towards me.
‘Wait outside, Kitty,’ Trim ordered, pushing her out of the door as the porters began to arrive, pouring bucketfuls of steaming hot water into the iron tub set by the hearth. ‘I’ll bring you his clothes in a moment. You must have them burned at once, do you understand?’
With Kitty gone Trim bustled Charles away to work on the fire then stripped off my damp, infested clothes. I stood, staring at nothing, dazed with horror. I could still smell the stench of the corpses on my skin, as if it had leeched into every pore. ‘I smell of death,’ I said. The room began to spin. Trim grabbed me and lowered me gently into the bath. I shuddered, the heat stinging my wounds. He poured bowl after bowl of water over me, scouring my skin clean, washing away the filth and the lice. When he was satisfied he rubbed fresh balm into my cuts and bruises and dressed them. Then he wrapped me in a clean banyan, threw a blanket over my shoulders and settled me down by the hearth.
‘Will you eat?’ he asked, softly.
I shook my head, staring into the fire.
He touched my shoulder. ‘Then I’ll leave you to rest. Take good care of him, Mr Buckley. He needs peace and quiet.’
Charles nodded, brow furrowed. ‘I’m so sorry, Tom,’ he whispered, when Trim had left. ‘I never meant to put you in danger like this.’
I sighed, and held up my hand. I didn’t blame Charles. But I was too tired, too broken by what had happened to respond. So we sat in silence for a while, watching the flames dance and flicker, and the warmth came back to my bones, though the night still clung to me somehow. I wished I could walk through the fire and scorch it from my skin.
‘Tom, forgive me. I must leave you now,’ Charles said, breaking my thoughts. ‘I have a sermon to give in an hour. I will speak with Acton before I leave,’ he added, clenching his fists tight.
I waited until the door closed then rose and dragged myself over to the bed. The sheets were fresh, and smelled of lavender. I pulled the blankets over me and tucked my knees into my chest, fingers touching the cross at my throat. For a second I heard Fleet’s voice in the room below. And then Charles, much louder. ‘Have you not done enough? Stay away from him, damn you.’
I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
I woke to the sound of Jenings ringing a bell and calling out for afternoon service. I felt weak as a newborn lamb, and my head was pounding, but unlike poor Mitchell I was alive. I should go to chapel and thank God for it. I inched myself from the bed, trembling with the effort. Trim had left a change of clothes folded neatly on a chair; I dressed slowly in front of the mirror, shivering now that the fire had died. New bruises bloomed across my chest and stomach and my lip was split. Worst of all was my throat, scraped raw from the collar with deep gouges where it had bit hard in the night. It was swollen, too, and mottled with bruises from Acton’s choking grip.
I covered it carefully with a fresh linen cravat, staring at the stranger in the mirror as I wound the linen round and round. The night had changed me. I was older, somehow, and harder. Some part of what I had seen had been trapped in my eyes, like a fly in amber.
The Park was almost deserted when I stepped out of the door and turned towards the chapel. By habit I glanced over at Fleet’s bench and there he was. He sprang up when he saw me and waved his red velvet cap. I turned away and headed up to the chapel, knowing he wouldn’t follow me. Fleet was many things, but he was not a hypocrite.
The same could not be said for Cross. There he sat, second pew from the front, head bowed, the very picture of a good Christian. John Grace sat next to him, back straight and narrow. Head clerk and head turnkey – my God, there wasn’t a priest in the land who could wash their souls clean. The service had already begun, so I slipped on to a bench at the back. Catherine Roberts was seated in the front pew with Mary Acton, while Henry squirmed on Kitty’s lap a few rows behind them. Trim was there, sitting with Mack and Gilbert Hand. Jenings, standing to one side of the altar, had transformed from nightwatchman to church warden; he glanced up as I entered and smiled with relief to see me alive. Only Acton and Gilbourne were missing.
I closed my eyes as the old familiar words of worship passed over me. It was soothing to hear them again. I had not attended a full service since the day my stepbrother had spoken out against me in church. Church was no longer a place of comfort and peace – it was the place where I had been betrayed and humiliated. Where my father had lost faith in me for ever.
I couldn’t take in much of the service; my mind kept wandering back over the wall to the other side of the prison. I stared at my unchained hands, clasped in prayer, and thought of those bundles of rags, discarded like rubbish on the Strong Room floor. My head began to pound, as though the weight of the iron cap had returned, pressing down upon my skull. I rubbed the sweat from my brow and took a deep breath, steadying myself again.
‘Some call this prison a hell on earth,’ Woodburn said sternly, gazing out at his congregation. ‘But that is not so! Remember the prodigal son. Only when he had lost everything, when he was a poor, wretched beggar, walking naked upon the earth, did his blood cool, his sinful lusts abate. And only then did he repent, and find salvation with the Lord.’ He paused, smiled benevolently. ‘And so are you poor debtors stripped of your luxuries here in this prison; stripped of the distractions and temptations that lead men straight into the fiery embrace of the devil. The countless cruelties you endure in this wretched place; the violent punishing of your bodies; these will be the saving of your souls, in the great and terrible day of the Lord!’ He paused, loosening his white neckerchief a little to relieve the bulging flesh beneath. ‘Pain,’ he continued and caught my eye. ‘Pain is remedy. Pain is the lesson God sends us to bring us back to the path of the righteous.’ He held up his hands. ‘Rejoice then, in this holy gift you have been given! Rejoice in the pain! Rejoice in the humiliation! And praise God that he has brought you here to suffer and to repent on earth, and so find your path to heaven. Amen.’
The congregation coughed and muttered their amens back.
I glared at the ground, and said nothing. Woodburn had visited the Common Side that very morning. How dare he suggest those poor souls should thank God for letting them rot to death? Was Acton to be praised for creating such a spiritual and inspiring setting? Did Woodburn really think God looked down upon the Marshalsea and was pleased with what He saw? I pulled myself to my feet and stumbled from the chapel in disgust.
Fleet was waiting for me in the yard. ‘Seven minutes,’ he said, holding up his silver w
atch. He must have bought it back from Cross. ‘Well, you lasted longer than I ever did. Which one was it? Praise the Lord for the purging power of pain? I’d like to show that blustering hypocrite the true meaning of pain.’ His eyes gleamed with venom.
I ignored him, limping across the yard towards the Tap Room. If I had been strong enough, I would have beaten him to the ground.
‘Tom, wait!’ he called. ‘Are you hurt?’ When I didn’t stop he ran after me. ‘Let me pay for a doctor.’
I halted, and closed my eyes for a moment, every bone in my body aching. ‘Did you take the letter?’
Fleet looked away shiftily, then cleared his throat. ‘I confess I borrowed it. Madame Migault wanted to play a trick on you so I gave it to her to read. I thought it would be . . . diverting. I never dreamed the old witch would sell the letter to Acton.’
‘When I am well enough,’ I said, quietly, ‘I think I will kill you.’
He tilted his head, fixed his black eyes on mine. ‘You almost mean it,’ he said, fascinated. I began to turn away and he touched a hand to my chest, blocking my way. ‘I only read the first page. I swear, if I had known it was so dangerous . . .’ He frowned. ‘And really, Tom, what on earth were you thinking, leaving it in your pocket for anyone to take? If you’re to become a decent spy you really must learn to . . .’
I glared at him.
He stopped, and moved his hand from my chest to his own, placing it over his heart. He looked as serious as I had ever seen him. ‘Forgive me. It was badly played on my part. Are we friends again?’
I shook my head. ‘We were never friends, Mr Fleet.’
He dropped his hand. For a moment I saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes – but then it passed. ‘Very well.’ He gave a short bow and turned to leave.
‘Hey there, you two!’ Chapman stamped towards us from the Lodge, swaggering with his own importance. On reaching us he thrust his thumbs into his pocket and planted his feet wide, glowering at us both. On Acton it would have been alarming. On Chapman it just seemed . . . a little silly.
The Devil in the Marshalsea Page 22
