(2007) The Pesthouse

by Jim Crace

  'Master,' Joey said.

  'And you, the giant.'

  'Yes, Captain Chief.' The three rustlers found Franklin's answer hilarious. They laughed like teenagers, too easily amused. That name would stick.

  'I could have made a shiny profit out of you,' said Captain Chief, indicating with a flapping hand that Franklin should squat. Franklin was used to being flapped down to the ground by senior but shorter men. 'I could have sold you with your four friends. Strong men like you are precious to the quarry barons and the gang masters, who pull the reins around here at Tidewater. But I've held onto you. Now why is that, do you suppose?' He took a step forward to whisper in his captive's ear, so close that Franklin could smell the familiar skin of Jackson's coat as well as the chewed tobacco on the man's breath. 'We're holding onto you, because, if you're wise as well as strong, if you're sensible, we might decide to let you be a brother in our band. Does that appeal to you, to ride with us when we go out on business? You look as if you could be educated how to snap a man in half if you saw any profit in it.' He raised his voice, so everyone could hear. 'But if you're otherwise as well as strong, then... Well, then, you'll be the one who's snapped in half. You won't be mounted on a horse. We'll have you mounted on a sharpened pole. We'll skin a shield with you. You have the word of Captain Chief on that.'

  Franklin felt oddly hopeful after this whispered conversation. He would cooperate, be wise, be sensible. And then, as soon as he was trusted, he would try to creep away. He could imagine it, a night-time opportunity. He would retrieve his brother's coat. Its theft was a constant insult and a provocation and one that, in his head at least, he could revenge. Wearing it again might make him as valiant and purposeful as Jackson had always been. He'd be as light and silent as a moth when he cut loose the rustlers' biggest horse and stole away with Joey at his back. Then he'd be on board a ship with great white flapping sails and with Margaret at his side (for he could not bear to think that she had already gone ahead of him). And all the Boses would be there, on deck, with wind-pinked cheeks, both Joeys too, the brothers and Marie, the slaughtered dog, the coastline sinking as the waters passed around the hull.

  Franklin considered, too, that he might slit some throats before he fled the encampment or take a chunk of metal to stave in their sleeping heads. Seeing that cruel and pompous Captain Chief dead in his blankets would be a satisfaction. But Franklin could not concentrate on that heavy revenge, because the more he tried to imagine it, the less likely it became. He could never make a convincing murderer. His hand was far too hesitant. He'd never be the sort to 'snap a man in half', or slit a throat, or bludgeon a head, sleeping or not. He could not make that leap. There was too great a gap between his near bank and his far.

  It was not long before the rustlers also realized that, despite their expectations, Franklin would not proceed to be a member of their band, a menacing comrade. He was large and powerful, for sure. And he proved to be a useful beast of burden, willing and easily tamed. But making him menacing and dangerous would be beyond the ingenuity of the Devil himself. The man might be big, but he was hardly daunting. He laughed inexplicably and too loudly every once in a while. He blushed like a girl. He did what he was told too readily. Even on that first day of captivity, after he'd been separated from the plague girl, he'd flinched at the slightest prospect of being touched, even though none of the horsemen had yet done more than lightly kick or slap him. Their horses were treated worse than that and accepted it with a flick of the ear. It wasn't long before they gave up any hope that a crueler, tougher side to Franklin would be beaten to the surface. So they beat him idly, expecting nothing in return.

  Now, on the morning of their visit to the metal soil heaps outside the Ark, it was hard for the labor gang to stay as silent as the horsemen had demanded. Breaking through the frozen topsoil with metal-headed tools was bound to be noisy, whatever efforts the men might make to dull the sound. But once the surface had been breached, the earth there was less solid than most other open ground in the sea-chilled neighborhoods of Tidewater. It was protected from the worst of the ice and the winds by the Ark's trunk palisades and kept soft by the washing and cooking slops that were drained through sluices from the Ark every evening and were too oily to freeze. There was the first spring sun and a little melting snow to soften the ground further and to provide these raiders and their slaves with their first opportunity to do what they had planned to do for months and harvest the crop of confiscated metal. Even the captives had been looking forward to this. They might not prosper personally from what they unearthed for their masters, but the work would be less dull than the usual tearing down or grubbing out of timber, stone and metal salvage in the debris fields beyond the town. They were almost boys again as they embarked upon their work. Every rightly constructed boy has a desire to go somewhere and dig for buried treasure. They set about the task almost cheerfully.

  Much of the earth had been turned and loosened during the previous fall's excavations and burials. The disturbed ground had not yet settled, and so it was easy to spot the trenches where so many tools, valuables and weapons had been 'restituted' by the Baptists. Breaking into these long mounds was not hard work, especially with a strong man such as Franklin wielding the heaviest mattock. Almost at once his efforts were rewarded with the tuneless clang of his blade on earth-deadened metal. One of the masters shouted out that Franklin should be more careful and use his mattock less forcibly. There should be no carelessness, no damage to their booty.

  Once the topsoil had been thoroughly raked away, the labor gang gathered around to clear and search the middens with their bare hands, taking care to check for metals in every palm of soil. The slave masters had laid out three waxed blankets behind their workers: one for swords or knives or for any arrow and spear heads that had been snapped off their shafts and could be mounted and used again; a second for useful objects that might be sold, such as buckets, silverware and platters, and reclaimable parts of saddles and wagons; and a third for trinkets, silver plate and jewelry, the abundant riches that were understood to be buried there and that, together with the weapons, would make the masters even more powerful.

  Much of the confiscated metal that they extracted had already been damaged in its burial by the Baptists and then crushed further by the months of frost and the weight of earth. Buckets that had gone in round and unpunctured came out flattened and split. Clasps and buckles were degraded. Sets of cheap knives and forks had halved their weight but doubled their bulk to rust. Sets of nails and tacks had been welded to each other by the damp. Once polished surfaces had roughened and corroded. Everything had lost its sheen and color. Everything was acne'd. The soil itself was dark with rust and stains.

  Many of the pieces pulled clear by Franklin and his fellows were inspected, found wanting and just thrown back into the cleared trenches, but nevertheless there was plenty worth keeping, enough to arm the horsemen from toe to teeth and make them rich. Within a short time the three blankets were heavy with pickings. They were dragged away, tied corner to corner and lifted onto carts. New blankets were provided. Nothing of any worth could be left behind. By now the men were tired and cold, and no longer excited. The treasure hunt was proving as tedious as any other work. They had filled their blankets three more times before the sun had gained much altitude.

  It was, then, almost a relief when the work was finally interrupted by the arrival of the Baptists. There was a group of fifteen or so, mostly the younger devotees and gatekeepers, distinguished as ever by the devotional white tapes tied at their shoulders. But there were four of the older disciples, too, wearing their calmest of faces, and carrying the very weakest of the Helpless Gentlemen in an invalid chair with long lifting poles. The younger Baptists did their best to seem imposing and imperious without inviting an assault. They were armed only with their pilgrim sticks, good implements for prodding families, perhaps, but no use against metal swords and pikes. They were outnumbered, anyway. Besides the labor gang and the horses, the ma
sters had mustered more than thirty men, all used to conflict, every one of them inclined to be a murderer.

  The Baptists would not offer any short-term violence. Instead, they threatened hellfire and damnation for anyone who soiled their hands and souls with metal. For a while, now that excavations had ceased, the only sounds were the high-pitched, fearful voices of believers, and the clacking of the few winter birds that had come to see what they could find in the freshly turned soil. The Most Helpless Gentleman himself called out: 'This is the Devil's work. Enough,' he said. A very reedy voice. Then there was the laughter of the mounted men, the sound of horses being spurred and turned, the shithering of blades and sheaths. 'The Devil's got some better work for us, I think,' the shortest of the riders said, the Captain Chief. 'Now come on, boys, make meat of them. Prime cuts of Baptist for the crows.' Again his men were laughing, too readily amused.

  The Helpless Gentleman would have shaken his fists in anger, had he had the strength to raise his arms from his lap. He would have used his hands to save himself, despite his vows. He would, at least, have pressed his palms together and said his prayers. But horsemen were already at his back, determined to see him tumble from his chair. The devotee who dared to try to push away a horse was struck three times across his face and head with a heavy steel blade. The first blow cut into his cheek and across his mouth. The second, aimed at his white devotional tape, severed his windpipe and finished him. The final blow, delivered as the body fell, was just for show. It took the Baptist's head clean off. It would have rolled a step or two had not his long nose wedged against a frozen clod of soil.

  Franklin and his fellows — men who'd been added to his group in the last days of fall — were not shocked. This had been a winter of punishments and executions. They'd seen more deaths than they could even remember, including other decapitations. Two over-spirited young men had tried to escape at their first opportunity, been dragged back to the encampment behind horses, feet first, and then brutally dispatched with an ax. It was a lesson to the others, according to the one comedian among the horsemen: 'If you let your legs run, we'll make sure your blood runs, too,' and 'Use your head, or lose your head,' and 'The man who quits is cut in bits. His toes are separated from his nose.' He never tired of rhyming threats.

  Even the elder of the two Joeys, the potman, had succumbed during the winter to the cold, the hunger and the string of beatings he'd received for being too small and weak for heavy work. He was worthless, anyway. The labor gang was not a charity. All its members had to earn their keep tenfold, or they would perish.

  Only the most obedient, the strongest and the fittest could survive such a demanding and relentless regime. Franklin and his forty or so companions who had lasted long enough to serve in that day's metal-raiding party were hardened men, mistreated, underfed but mostly young and muscular. How was it, then, that not one of them so much as raised a hand to save a life that morning? They had only to stretch and help themselves to freshly unearthed weapons from the spoil pile on the waxed blanket. They outnumbered their armed masters and could simply take the horsemen — who were now paying attention only to the group of Baptists — by surprise. Franklin thought of it. He clenched the muscles in his back and neck and thought of it. He thought of pulling free from the pile the heavy ax that he had just taken from the soil. A man could kill with it easily. He would take Captain Chief first, the little fellow who'd stolen and was still wearing his brother Jackson's piebald coat. He'd add another, brighter color to the black and white and brown. And then he'd settle all the scores of winter, cracking the skulls and bloodying the faces of those hard men who'd made his life so bitter. He imagined rolling all the bodies into the trenches among the useless metal and kicking soil to cover them. He imagined kicking them until every bone in their bodies was splintered. But that was just a story that he told himself. He did not free himself. He did not fight. He did not save a life. He did nothing except stay quiet and calm, biting his tongue, watching the carnage as one by one the remaining Baptists were rounded up. How he wished that his brother might appear with his substantial temper to bring this nightmare to an end.

  Franklin and his enslaved comrades had learned enough in the previous few months not to risk for even the highest of rewards the anger of these idle, mounted men, their captors. They'd seen too many beatings over the winter, too many throats cut, too many punishments for crimes no greater than muttering under their breaths and being weary before their work was done, to chance any kind of rebellion. They were not fed well enough to have reserved any courage. They were dispirited and fragile. Who'd be the first to call out for mercy for the Baptists? That one might lose his supper for the night, and be denied the promised fire. Which one would call out to the disciples to run? That man might have his tongue cut out or nailed to a tree. Who'd be the first to dare to reach out for a sword? That one might be the first to die. So all the labor gang did was stand and watch as the devotees who'd come to stop the Devil's metal being disinterred were encircled by the horses. Franklin and his comrades heard the final prayers and the cries. Curses even. But they rubbed their hands against the cold. They stamped their feet and watched the horses' breath sculpt clouds. A hundred heartbeats and the horsemen pulled away again, to leave the Baptists dead or dying in the snow.

  MARGARET HESITATED. TWO opposing instincts fixed her to the spot. The first instinct was to gather up Jackie in her arms and scuttle from the Ark as quickly as she could. She already knew what kind of men these were, even if the only one she recognized was the bandy leader in the stolen and recurring goatskin coat. Their bloody swords and pikes stood for what they had already done that morning and what they would continue doing until the raping and the looting began. After so many quiet and uneventful months, even the sight of these men's perspiring horses, left to graze the paving in the Ark's inner courtyard while their masters went about their trade, was alarming in itself. A horse had never come this far before. But that was nothing compared to the menace of the raiders' cries and the hard set of their faces as they ran across the open space toward the building work and the accommodation sheds looking, first of all, for men. These were the Anti-Baptists that she'd heard about all winter, strong-armed and cruel-handed outlaws beyond redemption, intent on forging the blood and metal of the Devil's work, the subject of so many dinner sermons. She and Jackie should run for the gate as quickly as they could before their moment passed and they were spotted by any of these sinners.

  The second impulse held her by the ankles for the moment. That coat was Franklin in a way, or at least it might be a route to him. Just that glimpse of goatskin brought Margaret's decent, blushing friend alive for her after the months of forgetting. She had lightning images of him, his shoulders working between the shafts of the barrow, his big frame at the Pesthouse door, drenching her in shadow, his fingers between her toes. Franklin Lopez, tall and tender, taking care of her. Franklin Lopez reaching over with his outsized hand to tear the blue scarf from her head. She ought to follow the coat. Her heart demanded it. She was in debt to him. She ought at least to beg the small man for word of Franklin's whereabouts, if he were still alive enough for whereabouts. She ought to drag the coat off that impostor's back and press the goatskin to her nose for any trace of her lost and never lover. The word was lover, yes, the lover she had never even kissed, and never would unless she called out to the coat. This might be her only opportunity for getting close to him again. But this was just a passing impulse. Margaret was wise enough to shake it off. Her first duty was to Jackie. She did what any mother would. She put the child before the man, and ran — with Jackie struggling under her arm — toward the raiders' loose horses and the exit from the Ark.

  As soon as they were among the animals, they were hidden from sight and safe for a moment. Margaret was a town girl, and, although her family had always owned a burden mare, she was still a little nervous of horses in a group, their nipping teeth, their kicks. The last time she had ridden had been that day when she'd been ta
ken up to the Pesthouse, almost unconscious with fever, by her grandfather. But now she recognized her opportunity. As anybody knows, making an escape by horse is nearly always preferable to making an escape on foot. The horse provides the speed and the distance and is also saddled with the tiredness. Only a sailboat is faster than a horse and then only when the wind is in a helpful mood.

  Margaret shielded Jackie from the horses' teeth and hoofs and pushed her way through the animals to one of the smaller mounts at the back of the group. It was equipped for travel, with a heavy striped blanket for a saddle and leather panniers. She tugged it by its reins. It came readily. She wouldn't mount it yet. She wanted first to get outside, beyond the Ark's outer gate. Then she would shelter under the high palisades and consider her options.

  The next few moments would be difficult. If there was anyone in the small outer courtyard between the two gates, she could not escape unnoticed. Perhaps she could use the horse as a shield, or as an excuse. 'I was told to take this horse outside,' she could say. 'The small man with the patterned coat said I should.' But no one was there to challenge her. She'd reached the Ark's great timber gate. And it was unattended, with just a heavy block of sunshine wedging it open.

  They went outside, the three of them, the horse, the woman and the girl, into the thin warmth of the morning. There was a breeze, a shell-blue sky, the earthy smell of winter melting, and a sound that she hadn't heard for months, the clatter of metal tools. Had she closed her eyes, she could have imagined she was back in Ferrytown, with everything and everyone well. But still she did not dare to mount the horse. To sit on it was to declare that she had stolen it, and stealing horses was an act that would earn no mercy. While she was leading it, she could at least maintain the lie that she was being helpful, doing what she was told, making a mistake, that she was muddled, that she had found the horse roaming free — yes, that was best — and that she was only looking for its master in the hope of getting a reward. She even smiled to herself, relieved to have found a story that might save her or, at least, win her time.