I would brighten, nod.
“—But they send more Surveyors,” she would continue, “with armies, and they build many Sea-Walls—everywhere a Sea-Wall—and so many of our Fen-Tigers-friends is dead, and the fens is dead. And we’re scavengin’ the rot for some stinkin’ rotten piece o’ fish, but even that is gone. Then what do ye do?”
“Sell my labor to the Surveyors,” I would sob. “Sell Meself.”
My mother would smile sadly. “Yes, my love. They wish to dry the earth to a cracked turf so that they can make our hands, our very vitality, into property. Our sweat a property. Our very ’membrances a property. Remember when you was a Fen-cub, slipping in and out of the water, chasing pike in the sun? Will we let them take our Fen-knowledge and make it a property to guide them in their work?”
I’d shake my head.
She would take my hands in hers. “That’s right, love. This we will resist with our blood, our hands and Hearts. We will bestow a righteous Kindness upon the earth, with violence until the Surveyors tremble, and the rulers with their hats cocked Tremble.” My mother would hold my hands tighter, and I would feel the strength of her belief; the strength of her power.
But still, I was afraid.
One day, my parents took me to a moor-rally to see the sermonizer Laurence Robins, who advertis’d himself heir to the Ranter Abiezer Coppe. Robins had been at the fenshore for days, trying to convince the Fen-Tigers to put down their arms and engage only in free Love. Unrestrict’d Screwing would save them from the evils of the surveyors, he proclaim’d. My parents—I was rather aware—were great fans of Screwing, but it seemed peaceful Screwing was Robins’ sole aim.
When we’d finally decided to hear him out, my parents—and the rest of the Tigers—had already had an earful of his Antics in the area. There were not many inclined to listen anymore. At most a crowd of fifteen scuffing about while—on this day—Robins delighted in taking an unrestrained Shite on the moor. He encouraged the Congregants to do so as well; he’d even sniff’d at his Excrement, tast’d it, pronounced it “Holy.”
My parents were buzzing in disbelief with their mates. It wasn’t that we were against shiting in the fens. But there were spots far more Appropriate for that. Areas propitious for planting—for not soiling the water. Robins didn’t respect our Ways, or any of what he said was our “so-called logic.”
While the adults were taken up with Horror at the Thoughtless location of Robins’ shite, he held up a book, pronounced it “worthless academicizing,” and threw it to his feet.
No one was watching me. And I was curious. I nick’d it up and thrust it under my skirts.
As we walked home through the tall reeds, my mother continu’d to vent about Robins. There existed a Difference, she said, between “rapture and sheer insanity.” Rapture was an awareness of Connectedness, and a belief that this Connectedness—and a sound militancy—would save us. Sheer insanity was wild defecating near the most pristine bream and roach spawning grounds. My father joked that the shiting could serve as an effective deterrent to surveyors. He suggested to my mother that they propose it as a form of self-defense—a “natural Stinking Barricade,” he’d called it—at the next confecting meeting with their mates. We’d all laughed.
When we returned home, I feigned needing to check the vole traps, and left to find a private spot to study the book I had stolen. It was Spinoza’s Ethics. Hard reading, and I understood little. But I glean’d one lesson, and to this I held fast: Spinoza had a theory of Connectedness—as did my parents. But Spinoza’s was not to do with a God who had absent’d himself from us in heaven. Spinoza’s God was here on Earth. In Us.
Reading the Ethics sooth’d me. I studied the book frequently, storing it under my pallet in the hut. At night, the whole fenland itched and bleated with Spells and cant. When the north Wind came blowing over the moorlands, it would wake me from uneasy Dreams into an uneasier night. The air lifted a heavy bluish gault off the water’s skin—fir-soot pooled in the surface scum— Death—I felt—could arrive at any moment.
—And I would reach under the pallet, caress the pages thinking of Spinoza’s patient expositions, demonstrations; his God-proofs. He had a Method. His words promis’d a way to make sense of this life; a Theory of all of it. I study’d daily, suffering through page after opaque page, scribbling down my juvenile reflections on the book’s meaning. I became convinc’d that, through Method—if I was disciplin’d about it—I could keep us safe.
I was wrong.
One morning, in the grainy winter dark, I ask’d my father why he didn’t believe in Spinoza’s God. He was tending a vat of oily eel-soup. Frost from the outdoors and steam from the boiling mess mixed in bright drops along the hairs of his short black beard. We had just return’d from our pre-dawn eel-scooping and pheasant-hunting. I would shoot with my slingshot and he would finish off the bird with his knife. As usual I had argu’d vociferously to use the knife as well. I long’d to feel it in my hand—its hot handle, its Power. As usual, he shook his head. You’re not Ready, rabbit.
Back at our hut, he stood in front of the fire in his fen-boots, weeds clinging to his calves. His clothes bloom’d the scent of sweat and fog: forest Exertions. The smell fill’d the small hearth room. I sat at one of the cobbled stools at his side.
If my Passion is to hunt with the knife, then Spinoza would argue you’re preventing my freedom by disallowing it.
I don’t believe Spinoza was a parent, he said, smiling.
He allow’d the fire to cook the soup, and came to crouch by me on my stool.
Do you genuinely want to know what I think of Spinoza? he ask’d.
Naturally I did. Though I was quite sure I would argue with his perspective.
* * *
—
My father told me then about his journey on board the East India vessel. His days were pack’d full with translating between the Anglo and lascar sailors (his “official” task), while also being press’d into labor painting the quarterdecks, setting up the riggers, and climbing the dangerous, windblown topmasts. The Company had captured a Dutch Deist named Vermuyden as a stowaway (and likely, word was, a spy). My father would visit the Deist in the hold, sometimes to bring him a small ration of dried salted beef, sometimes to worry over the spectacle of Confinement and to nourish their shared hatred of the Company. From the dim reaches of the ship’s hold, Vermuyden had tried to indoctrinate my father in Deism, maintaining in a crackling, weak Voice that Spinoza was the gentlest but most stringent thinker the world had yet known. He had abstain’d from sex, from profligate spending, and from all lusty pleasures. He had lived in a small darkwood hut clothed in vines from foundation to roof, and carpeted in tendrils that worked their way through cracks in the stone, veining the floorboards green. Spinoza’s only vice, so Vermuyden had said, was that he “enjoy’d to watch spiders catch flies.”
* * *
—
This last my father now had repeated to me as if it were a damning Flaw.
“Spinoza who so enjoyed to watch,” he’d enunciated. “That’s exactly the trouble with Deists—the merchant ones in any case. They’ve been gentl’d into watching by the relative ease of Amsterdam life. Watching leads to Abstractions, Vagaries, Mistakes due to Distance and Contemplation.” He cross’d his arms. Held my gaze. “Nayler advises it’s much better to act on Raptures than to endlessly study them. And I don’t mean just shiting,” he said, referencing Robins.
But I wanted to act and study.
There was not much more time for debate, those days. The Surveyors were coming ever closer to Popham’s Eau, near to our fen. They had brought with them Scottish Inmates to conduct the labor. Teams of press-ganged Wretches who they made to sleep at the freezing shore. Every day a new Apocalypse. The Inmates died of overwork—we’d find their bodies strewn amongst the other suff’ring wildlife. The rivers were evaporating of fish and
eel—the fen deer lay panting and starv’d— Misery and fatefulness hung over the waters in a low-lying mist—green rot and Stenches. Daily, my parents had had to wade deeper and deeper into Wicken Fen for my favorite dish, the white-clawed crayfish that once teem’d the waters.
Soon all our debating concern’d how to stave off the surveyors. My parents joined up with other Fen-Tigers, local coves who sought to resist with everything we had. We strategiz’d with the Scottish Inmates in the woods. We knew the day was coming when we would fight. I trembl’d, full of purpose and Direction. I would battle the Surveyors with my parents. Beat them off with my fists if I must.
* * *
—
That Day came. I was brought to Popham’s Eau in the early morning by my mother, rowing silently through the fenwaters in our punt.
The sky was low, and the rains sure to fall heavily as they had done all week.
At the edge of the outfall, through fen-fog blowing horizontal in a hard wind, my mother and I slipp’d between the Scottish Inmates. I sat low in the punt, the way she had taught me. I saw my mother nod to the Inmates as we floated by.
At night my mother had taken to sleeping ’mongst the Scots on the peat at the water’s edge. She was recruiting them.
She allowed me to come with her once, to lie amongst Friends. None touched us in a bawdy way. She preach’d them at night with the rain streaming down their faces, or tears of joy, when she told them of the Worm with three heads that lives in the ground.
The first head is the head of Pride. He waits until the wind blasts hard over the fen and taketh your reed and eel, and the cold rains weaken you until you are fell’d. The second head is the head of Deception. He shelters underneath your Body from the rains, and tells you sweet things and appears honest but steals your crumbs from your pocket. The third head is the head of Truth and Faith. He is honest and shares his lot with all. This head is Gaol’d and laid low. He is ground beneath jackboots into the soil. For his Truth must not get out. And the oppressions visited on this third head spark a Fire by which the greedy first two keep warm.
When my mother preach’d the three heads of the Worm, it was as if a galactic wind increas’d the glimmer from the constellations down to us. I still remember the smell of the star-Wind. Red ashes. Blood drying on a rusted sword. It fill’d my lungs with a Bitter Breath. I knew the bloodletting was near, that the third head of the worm would rise, would sputter into a brilliant firework and singe the other two heads to a crisp.
* * *
—
March 12th was the day of the third head of the Worm.
We rowed quietly. My father was waiting upriver.
My mother knew the waters better than any of the Fen-Tigers. She measur’d the furze-bushes peeking through the skin, their thin branches enveloped in a yellow froth. She mark’d the sharp blue sparkle across the river, the splash of Brightness lit by the sinking sun. Gaug’d the sunken woods and shipwrecks lurking close beneath the surface.
The air was dense with early spring—sour red moss, the flinty scent of wet silt, decaying animal matter. The Scottish Inmates were spread along the channel of Popham’s Eau, the wind blowing open their Kersey shirts, skin purple to the daggercold drops of rain. I knew their feet were near icebound, lock’d in the mud.
The Overseers were clad in dry boots, waxed cloaks, and goatskin mitts.
Each Inmate gripp’d one long-handled axe for breaking up the frozen silt, and one shovel for freeing and scooping the lodes of soil.
It was the Day they had been instruct’d to break ground on the new sluice.
It was the Day.
My mother and I dragg’d the punt through the clogged marshland and inched it to the top of the berm before the Overseers could take note. She told me to wait in the ferns at the edge of the river.
She was Anxious. I knew because her breath was dry and sour when she bent down and spoke to me.
“Stay in this stand of whorl grass,” she said. Her breath made my nose twitch. Not in disgust. We knew—and lov’d—each other’s smells so well. Even the hard smells. No, I twitch’d in fear. Because I knew my mother was Afraid. I could smell it on her even if, in words, she show’d herself to be calm. “Your father and I will let you know when it is safe to come out,” she said, smiling and kissing my face.
And then my father’s shadow splash’d across the dirt as he emerged from behind a downy rosebush. He leaned down, pulled something out of his pocket. Handed it to me.
It was my slingshot—the one we’d practic’d on hare and rat so many times. He pett’d my hair. Kiss’d my head.
Then he handed me his knife, too.
“Hold fast to this,” he said, his eyes crinkling. “We’ll hunt some hare together tonight after we’ve won. We’ll have a roast for supper.”
I settled into the cold mud where I could watch my mother and father, but hidden from the Overseers by the grasses.
I watched the river. The waters rising with the rains; the waters evaporating of fish and eel. It has been this way since the work began on Popham’s Eau.
It was time to end the Drainage.
“Brothers,” my mother opened in a Roar, “today this Popham’s Eau—long the Mother of our fishes, our reeds and eels—is opened to the bowels of misery by the Surveyors!”
The Overseers chalk’d her up to a raving lunatic and ignor’d her rantings, chuckling amongst themselves at the “Plaguey bitch.”
But when they heard her cannonade, the Inmates stopp’d chipping at the frozen fen bank, their axes and shovels halt’d in the cold blasted air. The Overseers shift’d lazily in their boots.
“We will not allow this Fen-Murder! They would level Bedford! Well, we will level the valleys and lay the prideful men low! Today we bring down the mighty and exalt the lowly! Now let this Creek be our inlet to Paradise. Now wash away the prideful men, and open to the common holdings of common men! My heart is with ye now, Fen-Tigers! My heart is with ye now, mates!”
At the repetition of Now, and Common, the Scottish inmates turn’d as one, their axes and shovels held high. The Overseers grabb’d for their pistols, and all at once, the Fen-Tigers rose from their prostrate positions, hidden in the reeds at the edges of the fen-bank and pour’d down the berm towards the Overseers.
For one glorious Moment, the Overseers fell.
Caught between the Inmates and the Fen-Tigers, the Overseers blink’d into the heavy fog rising off the fenwaters for a way out. Plunge forward? Dive into the murk and swim for the clays off Ely? The Overseers squint’d for a second that seemed like a millennium—their fate closing in with the axes Looming closer out of the fog.
If the Overseers had taken an interest at any point in learning the fens, they might have stood a chance. They would have known that the tide at Popham’s Eau was four hours, the ebb eight. They might have known that the fens carry’d a very fine material—flint and limestone ground into a floating powder by the influx and outfall of the waters—that, rather than sinking, is carried by the currents, ’til they meet an obstruction.
Occurrences that can cause a tide to “throw down its silt” are as follows: a widening of the river-channel; a sudden rise of the riverbed; the pressure of fresh water as the tide rolls inland (this last depending on the quantity of recent rains).
If the Overseers had been vigilant they would have noticed that between tidal flow and ebb lies a “stillwater,” during which time the rivers reach a temporary Equilibrium.
During that stillwater, silts are deposit’d that, during an ebb, are brought up again from the bottom and distribut’d throughout the water.
At certain times, however, the tide runs at greater length than the ebb, and—due to the obstructions named above—the silt is not washed out. Such a phenomenon produces what is called an “Eager,” or silt-bar, which can grow to such a height that it stops up the rive
r entirely where the fresh and sea currents meet.
Well Creek, Popham’s Eau, the Ouse, the River Nene, and New Bedford were clogg’d with many such eagers—well known to the Fen-Tigers and the Inmates alike. In fact, there was one such rather massive bar ’round the bend of the Creek, behind which any one or many of the Overseers might have stood a chance of lying undetected until the frenzy died down.
The Overseers, however, knew nothing and cared to know nothing about the natural terrain of the fenland, so absorb’d were they in inflicting their Domination on the miserable Inmates, and spreading their venereal diseases upon the good doxies of Ely.
I could see my father in the fen, fighting with the inmates and the rest of the Tigers. He did not have a weapon—He—I realized—had given me his— The Overseers were falling, sheets of rain spilling off their oilskin hats—the Fen-Tigers advancing from behind and the Inmates with shovel and axe in the front.
I smelled victory on the air—it smelled just like the blood of the constellations, the exalted smell of the living universe.
Then I saw my father climbing the berm towards my mother, coming towards her, hands outstretched. She reached out her hands to him, her red curls wind-pasted to her face, smiling in anticipated, shared joy.
But he was not smiling, and it was then that I saw the shadow of the Overseer behind my mother. My father reach’d her, begging no with all of his expression—rumpled brow, wide wondering eyes—as the pistol was placed to the back of her head. Their hands met as the bullet shatter’d through her skull, plunged out the other side, and—doused in Blood and shards of Bone—pierc’d my father above his eye.
They fell together towards the water of Popham’s Eau— Hands entwined, they met the water in a splash drowned out by the other splashing and dyings all around— They sank, together, to the sunken forest floor—the forests the Romans felled long before—the branches groomed a ghostly white in the centuries of tidal ebb and flow.
Confessions of the Fox Page 20
