Betrayal (The Fenland Series Book 2)

by Ann Swinfen

  It was a complex drawing of a leg. No ordinary leg, however, but one composed of gears and levers. Because it looked more like a piece of machinery than a severed limb, I did not find it offensive.

  ‘This is, naturally, a cut away diagram,’ he said, ‘showing the interior machinery.’

  ‘This is one of the mechanical legs I have heard about?’ I said. ‘Surely such a thing can only exist in the imagination, not in practice.’

  He clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned over more pages. I saw drawings of whole legs, part legs from below the knee, arms of various types, hands which looked more like the interior of a clock.

  ‘This is the work of Ambroise Paré,’ he said, ‘the greatest benefactor to the art of surgery that the world has ever known. Though,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘we nearly lost him during the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, had the king of France himself not saved him, but that is another story.’

  He closed the book and tapped it with his finger. ‘I studied at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris for six years, where Paré himself once trained, though in his student days they still followed the ancient practices of Galen, and later did not altogether welcome his new ideas in surgery and patient care. Artificial limbs of one kind and another have, of course, been known since earliest times. The Greeks and Romans made some attempt to provide assistance for soldiers who had lost limbs in battle.’

  There was a gleam in his eye. I recognised the signs of a man launching upon a subject with which he was obsessed, so I attempted to divert him.

  ‘I noticed the two automata in your windows,’ I said. ‘Do they not also have gears like clocks and like these pictures you have shown me?’

  He jumped up again and carried one of the automata over to the table. It consisted of a man leading a donkey around a circular base. When Bolton wound up the key at the side, the man walked round the base, the donkey following after. There was no music this time, but the legs of both man and donkey, and the man’s arms, were jointed and moved like real limbs, while the man’s head moved from side to side. When they stopped moving, the donkey threw back its head and brayed, so unexpectedly that I jumped, then laughed.

  ‘Very clever,’ I said. ‘I have seen but one automaton before. Was this one made in Paris?’

  ‘Nay, it was made in my workshop here.’ He grinned, clearly pleased with my reaction.

  ‘You made it?’

  ‘Aye. And the other one, the dancing girl. It’s a common type, but normally the girl merely turns around, but mine kicks out her leg. Watch.’

  He set the second automaton moving, and the female figure did indeed kick out her leg, which moved from hip, knee and ankle. The movement was remarkably smooth and realistic.

  ‘These are not toys.’ He returned the two automata to the window. ‘They are a means of studying movement, so that I can reproduce it on a larger, a human scale.’

  ‘And the clock?’ I was truly curious now.

  He waved his hand dismissively. ‘I also trained as a clock maker. I must earn my living somehow. I make and mend clocks to put bread on the table, and to support me while I develop new techniques in the making of artificial limbs. Though to tell the truth, with the fighting we have seen in these last years, brother against brother and father against son, these latter skills of mine have been called upon more than ever before.’

  ‘You are a man of great talents, Master Bolton.’

  ‘I have dedicated myself to repairing those injuries which others besides yourself regard as making them less than whole men. Now, let us see what we can do for you. Come through into my workshop.’ He gestured towards the door at the back, and I rose awkwardly.

  ‘Before your expectations are raised, Master Bolton,’ I said, ‘I must explain that I am not a wealthy man. I am the son of a yeoman farmer, and my family has been comfortable enough in our rank in life, until a series of recent disasters. As I can no longer work as a farmer, I have returned to my studies in the law, but I must pay my way by doing clerical work. I have little coin to spare. These mechanical limbs appear to be quite marvellous, but I fear I can afford nothing better than a simple wooden post to strap to my stump and give me some support on my left side. I hope that I may then manage with just one crutch.’

  ‘Oh, that is simple enough, and you will be able to discard one crutch, once you are accustomed to it, but come through and let me examine you.’

  Despite my earlier reluctance, I found I did not mind removing my breeches and my rolled up left stocking, while Bolton washed his hands thoroughly in a basin of warm water and scrubbed his nails with a small brush. Then with remarkably gentle fingers he probed what was left of my leg.

  ‘It is unfortunate that you have lost the knee, for the replacement of the lower leg is far less complicated, but as you could see from the diagram I showed you, we now have the knowledge to construct jointed knees.’

  I opened my mouth to protest that I could not pay for one of the mechanical legs, but he held up his hand.

  ‘Later. I have a proposition to make to you. Now, I need to take some measurements.’

  He drew from his pocket a tailor’s measuring tape and told me to remove the stocking from my right leg.

  ‘Now, if you will lie down here on the bench, Master Bennington?’

  I did as I was bid. He measured my good leg – the length of its various sections, the width of the widest and narrowest parts of thigh and calf, the length and width of my foot – writing down everything in a small notebook. Then he measured the stump.

  ‘You have lost some muscle here,’ he said, lightly tapping my left thigh. ‘That is because the leg has been idle. Once you begin to use an artificial leg, the muscle will grow stronger again.’ He rolled up the tape and tucked it into a pocket. ‘You may put on your right stocking again.’

  I did so, and sat up on the edge of the bench. Bolton pulled forward a joint stool and sat down opposite me.

  ‘I can provide you with a simple wooden leg today,’ he said, gesturing toward a rack, where I had already noticed rows of wooden legs in different sizes. ‘This will strap on to your stump and you can use it to give you some support, but there is no knee joint, so you will find it awkward. When you sit, you will need to thrust it out like this.’ He thrust out his own left leg as if it were rigid. ‘And you will find it difficult to get up and down.’ He demonstrated, hopping and grabbing hold of the door frame to steady himself.

  ‘It will be sufficient for the moment, but I have another suggestion to make.’

  I could not imagine what he meant, but I waited patiently as he walked back to the stool.

  ‘I have been experimenting with a new design. Most artificial limbs are made of metal, for strength and durability, but they are very, very heavy, and can be exhausting to wear. Like this.’

  He jumped up and rummaged about on his work bench, which was behind me.

  ‘Here. See for yourself.’

  He laid a metal leg on my lap. It was indeed remarkably heavy.

  ‘Now a natural leg of flesh and bone is also heavy, but it is controlled by an intricate web of muscles and tendons and nerves, which we learn to use as tiny children when we first walk. Then as we grow, our natural control of our limbs grows with us.’

  He restored the metal leg to his work bench and sat down again.

  ‘Ambroise Paré made his original legs of iron. I have seen examples myself, and they are very like this one I showed you. This is the type I learned to make. However, in his book he states that he worked with a Paris locksmith, whom he calls “Le Petit Lorraine”. No Christian name. I suppose he must have been a small man. A locksmith would, of course, have excellent mechanical skills for the designing of movable joints. This Lorraine came up with the idea of making part of the artificial limb out of leather, to reduce the weight. The moving parts, naturally, must be metal, and probably the foot, with sufficient weight in it to draw the leg down to the ground, but it should be possible to make the outer “skin”, as it were, from lea
ther. This would both lessen the weight and make the leg less unpleasant to wear – warmer and less hard to the touch. Unfortunately, no examples of Lorraine’s work seem to have survived.’

  It was certainly fascinating. I had no idea all these discoveries had been made some hundred years ago.

  ‘But your proposition?’ I said.

  ‘I need someone young and healthy, not too heavily built, and living in London, to try wearing one of my experimental legs, so that I can modify it and develop it. You are young and slender. You are far healthier than most of the injured soldiers I see, who often have multiple injuries and are undernourished, as well as severely troubled in their minds. Often they do not live in London, while you will be here some time for your studies. What do you say?’

  I was taken aback. I had come to Bolton to purchase a simple wooden prop, but the man’s enthusiasm was infectious. I could never afford one of these marvellous inventions, but I could perhaps help him develop one.

  ‘Well then, I accept,’ I said, ‘if I can be of help to you.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent!’ He leapt up. ‘I have all the measurements I need. For now I will fit you with a plain wooden support, then I will set to work to design a mechanical leg covered in leather of the right dimensions to match your undamaged leg. Allow me a little over a week, let us say until a sennight this coming Monday, and I will have a prototype for you to try. I will need to give you instruction in how to use it.’

  After that he found a wooden leg of the right height and showed me how to buckle it on to my stump. A kind of cloth sleeve at the top fitted quite comfortably over the stump, and my breeches could be pulled down to hide the join, but I confess that it felt very strange and somewhat uncomfortable, although Bolton had padded the top of the wood, inside the sleeve, with lamb’s wool and a felt pad. I put my rolled up stocking into my pocket and we went through into the front room of the shop.

  ‘Now,’ Bolton said, ‘I hope you will join me in some refreshment.’

  From somewhere upstairs he carried down cold meats and a fresh loaf, as well as some cold pickled turnips and soft cheese. From the side table he brought wine and glasses, and we drank to the success of our collaboration. When the carter arrived to convey me back to Gray’s Inn, I was still feeling somewhat stunned. Bolton had put me through my paces with the wooden leg, which was not at all easy to control, although I did manage to walk across the room once using only a single crutch.

  ‘Now you must practise every day,’ he instructed, as he saw me into the cart. ‘You will need to strengthen the muscles of the left leg in order to use the mechanical device.’ He gave me suddenly a smile of great sweetness, and struck his chest and head again. ‘Remember. Our legs are merely machines for carrying us about. The real man is within.’

  When Anthony arrived back in chambers that evening, I was sitting at my desk in the office working at an imaginary case Bencher Whittaker had set me. I was to write out the arguments on both sides, as if the case were being debated in a court of law. It was difficult to be even handed about it and not favour one side or the other. It reminded me of trying to play chess against oneself, as I had spent long hours doing when I was recovering from the amputation. I had taught Kitty to play, but she rarely had time to sit down with me. It was the time last summer when Mercy was under trial with the witchfinders in Lincoln, and later lying ill with a fever upstairs. Playing chess against myself, I often found I was favouring one side or the other, so that the outcome was easy to predict.

  ‘Good even to you,’ Anthony said, coming into the office and dropping his satchel together with an armload of books on his desk. ‘And how did it go with the sawbones?’

  ‘That is not a name I particularly enjoy hearing,’ I said.

  ‘I apologise.’ Anthony looked contrite. ‘That was thoughtless of me. How did you find the maker of artificial limbs?’

  ‘Quite extraordinary,’ I said. ‘A man of great enthusiasm and equally great talent. He also makes clocks and automata. Very clever ones.’

  Then I rose carefully from my desk, propped one crutch under my left arm, and proceeded to hop my way across to the parlour, the wooden prop making a loud tapping on the floor. I was beginning to understand the way of it, but I found it tiring.

  ‘God’s bones!’ Anthony said. ‘Only one crutch!’

  ‘Aye. Though I am not sure how far I could walk at present. I used two crutches to get myself from the gatehouse to here. Bolton said the muscles in the upper part of my left leg are somewhat wasted from lack of use and I must build up their strength again. Indeed, I find my leg is beginning to shake with the effort.’

  I lowered myself thankfully into a chair.

  ‘Well, we must drink to your new device. You may not be dancing a jig yet, but you will surely be able to move about more easily.’

  He fetched us both a beer and sat down opposite me.

  ‘So did you see any of these remarkable moveable limbs?’

  ‘I did. And a great volume in French with detailed drawings of the mechanical parts. And got a lecture, too, not only on mechanical limbs but on the wickedness of cauterising amputations and the thick headedness of most surgeons.’

  ‘He sounds an interesting character, your Master Bolton.’

  ‘Indeed he is.’

  ‘And I suppose the mechanical legs cost a king’s ransom and are only to be purchased by noblemen and their like.’

  ‘We did not discuss their cost, and he has loaned me this wooden leg for nothing. I am now to take part in the advancement of medical experiments.’

  He raised his eyebrows, looking at me over the top of his cup, so I explained how Bolton and I were to collaborate in the development of a leg made partly of metal and partly of leather.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘Has he explained how it will work? I do not understand how you can make it move, bend the knee or ankle, for example.’

  ‘Nay, he has not told me yet. I expect it will be easier to demonstrate once the leg is constructed. I am to go back Monday sennight for a first fitting. I shall ask then. From the drawings I saw, the joints look very complex, like the mechanics of a clock, but there must be some way to move them, or they would have abandoned these mechanical limbs by this. It was a Frenchman who invented them, about a hundred years ago. One Ambroise Paré.’

  ‘I have never heard of him.’

  ‘Neither had I, but it seems that is merely our ignorance. Master Bolton considers him to have been the greatest master of surgery who ever lived.’

  ‘Well, I hope your experiments prove successful. These studies of mechanics and natural philosophy are the very height of fashion, it seems.’

  ‘I would not say Master Bolton cares a fig for fashion. He is one of those true inventors, always wanting to devise something new and strange.’ I smiled. ‘He is also a kind man, which is perhaps even better.’

  ‘And when this experimental leg is perfected, will you be allowed to keep it?’

  ‘I did not like to ask,’ I said.

  I spent the next few days growing accustomed to the wooden leg, and it was something of a trial. The remaining upper part of my left leg grew very tired, the muscles aching with the strain of lifting the thing each step, although my right shoulder benefited from no longer pressing down on a crutch. The wooden leg could also prove embarrassing. When I entered the Inn chapel for service on Sunday morning, the loud tap of the wood on the stone flags of the floor caused everyone to turn round and look at me, to my chagrin. They had grown used to my maimed state, now I drew attention to myself all over again.

  The fragile skin which had healed over my stump began to grow sore with the chafing of the prop. Bolton had warned me of this, and given me a pot of salve to rub into it, not so much to sooth it as to toughen the skin. By the fourth or fifth day I was ready to abandon the wretched leg and one morning even threw it across my chamber in fury. Then I retrieved it, ashamed of my weakness and lack of determination. I remembered Bolton’s words. I must rely
on brains and courage to carry me through this painful period.

  Toward the end of the week I received a note from Bolton, saying that he would need a little longer before the first model of the leg would be ready. I had told him that I was not free on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Instead of the Monday I was to go to Bucklersbury on the Friday following. And at the end of that first week learning to manage the wooden leg, I received an answer to the letter I had sent Mercy, asking her to discover, if she could, the name of the Dillingworths’ lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn.

  My dear Brother,

  As you must understand, it would have been difficult for me to visit the manor myself to make enquiries as to the name of the lawyer. However, as you know, Jack sells some of his sheep to a farmer in Crowthorne who, thank God, is not such a purse mouthed Puritan as many in that village. This man (his name is Joshua) has had some dealings with Sir John over a disputed piece of woodland and has received letters from a lawyer in London. Jack believes it may be the same man, as he is a Member of Lincoln’s Inn. His name is James Blakiston.

  Here she went on to tell me of all that was being done on the farm, the number of lambs and calves born, the crops planted.

  Gideon and I are to be wed on the first day of May. I wish you might be here, but know that you cannot. I beg that you will think of us then, and pray for our future together.

  Your loving sister,

  Mercy Bennington.

  So my young sister was to be married. When I left home, Gideon and Mercy had found no clergyman to perform the service, so something must have been contrived. Mercy was wise to give no hint as to who the man would be, for if her letter had fallen into the wrong hands, it would have been dangerous for him. Any clergyman performing the traditional wedding ceremony using the Prayer Book was liable for prosecution or even imprisonment. I wished I could be there to see them wed, but circumstances divided us now.

  And although she wrote quite cheerfully about the farm, the number of new lambs seemed smaller than usual, yet we had not lost any of our ewes. They had been settled safe in the glebe lands as usual during the winter, well before the flood came. It also seemed that the spring sowing was somewhat late, but that might have been due to the waterlogged state of the fields after the flood. I must not worry and question her decisions. The farm was hers now, to manage as she thought best. She would make her judgements knowing the state of the land. How could I try to outguess her, from faraway London? My mind should be on my studies, not on Turbary Holm.