“Beatrice!” I hear John’s furious voice behind me.
“Beatrice!” mocks the crowd, in time with the drumbeat and the clapping. “Bea-trice! Bea-trice!”
I ignore it all and watch the first cart come from the inner compound of the castle. Slowly they come, three primitive rattletraps. They stop because of the crowd, and wait for their escort.
Nothing has prepared me for this. I think others are equally taken aback.
“Nay, just look at them.”
“Don’t look too bright, do they.”
“Course, them dungeons ain’t more than six foot high, seven at most.”
“It was a starvation diet, right and all.”
Some in the crowd are turning away.
“Look at that poor wight.”
“I’m going home.”
“Well you can go, but I’m off up to t’Moor to get a right good place…”
The whole crowd is shifting. I can still hear, behind the wild talk, John shouting at me to get back in the cart. I know that any moment he will get down and drag me back. I look at the condemned men. After the first shock of their appearance I can see at once that Robert is not here. None of these poor, stooped, shivering skeletons bears the slightest resemblance to him. Hardly any have any hair. Some look half blind, their eyes swollen to slits. All seem too destroyed to stand upright, their lips, cheeks, shoulders all hollow and fallen in. An overwhelming stench comes off them. Some of the older ones’ beards seem to have grown huge at some stage, and then to have fallen out in patches.
The woman is not amongst them. Clearly Edward has been persuaded. I look sadly at the condemned men. Their hands are fastened in front of them with short ropes. Their coffins – rough-hewn boxes with the nails not even properly knocked in – are roped on to the carts with them, some on end at the front, some lying flat for the prisoners to sit on.
I lift my veil to see more clearly, standing next to the middle cart and staring in turn at each of the prisoners in each cart, just to be sure. He is not here. No one who looks in the least like my tall, beautiful Robert is here. Thank God, thank God. Clearly he is dead already. His suffering is over and he is safe. What he went through I will never know, but at least it is finished. I can go home and marry John and grieve in peace. I turn to struggle back through the crowd, when one of the skeletons says, “Bea.”
I look round. I do not know who has spoken.
“Bea.”
It is as if the Angel of Death has spoken.
Chapter 23
No one notices at first. I grip the side of the rattletrap, in order not to pass out. I look at this skeleton which is Robert, and I am ashamed of what our civilisation can do.
His voice is cracked, unrecognisable, as he asks, “Were you here in the autumn?”
I try to see the young man I knew, in this broken form. I cannot. What are any of us then? Just illusions?
“Yes, I was here in the autumn.”
“I knew it. I felt it.”
The crowd is pushing round the prisoners’ carts, pushing at my back, laughing and jeering at the prisoners. I see that one Scot in Robert’s cart is smaller and slighter than the others. His bones look unformed and, through a straggle of whiskers, his chin has a babyish bluntness. Before the dungeon made him old, he was probably a restless lad, out adventuring, drinking, living for girls and loud fiddle music. Now he is weeping and wetting himself. Some in the crowd see this, and roar with delight.
There is some sort of violent commotion going on behind me now. As I become aware of it I realise that it has been going on for some time. A shot explodes close by. The smell of gunpowder drifts over. There is screaming, horrified and close. Part of my mind hears it, but I cannot look away from Robert, for fear he should be gone when I look back. I am knocked against the nearest cart wheel by the turmoil of the mob behind me. The cart in front jerks forward.
“Stand back there! Stand back, ladies and gentlemen!” Two soldiers on horseback have followed the carts out and are using their horses’ shoulders to push a way through to the front of the procession. Two more take up position at the rear. There are two horses to pull each cart, grey, black and dun, poor looking creatures in comparison with the soldiers’ fine mounts. The smell of horseflesh is all around, usually so comforting, now the scent of death. The cart drivers slap the reins across their beasts’ bony backs. The coffins wobble and clatter against each other. Robert lowers himself to sit on one of them. He speaks without looking at me. “Go home now, Bea. I am very glad to have seen you again.”
“I’m coming with you.” I raise my hand and stroke his arm. He flinches away.
“Don’t come. It will be far worse for me if you do. I’m comforted now. Just remember how it was.” He looks at me, then away. “I only pray that they will hang me from the north side of the tree, facing home.”
Tears come into my eyes. I swallow and blink to keep them back. The north side of the tree, the side the moss grows, the means by which weary travellers find their way home. Suddenly I am aware of growing hostility all around me.
“Eh, what’s this?”
“What’s he saying? What’s she saying?”
“What’s going on?”
People start to push at me, deliberately.
“She should be up on t’cart too, if you ask me.”
“…spying for them bastard Scots…”
I look round in bewilderment, hardly understanding what is happening. I have to tell Robert about my plan, but people are crowding round me and I cannot see the prisoners’ carts any more, beyond a wall of unfriendly faces. An old man pushes me with both hands. “Traitor! Scottish trollop!”
I gasp and look round for John. There is no sign of him. He should have been visible on the cart, but I can see neither him nor Meadowsweet. The surge of the crowd must have separated us, and carried him back down the hill. I realise that the prisoners’ carts are picking up speed now. I elbow my way through the crush, back to Robert’s side. The crowd shoves and jostles me. Some youths climb briefly on to the backs of the carts to spit at the prisoners. I dare not risk speaking to Robert again. I shall be of no use to him if I am imprisoned myself.
At the edge of the crowd those in carts or on horseback are moving away now, in the direction of Gallows Hill. Where on earth is John? My plan is impossible without transport. I start to ask people if they have seen him, but no one knows what I am talking about. The carts move faster. I run after them, pushing people out of my way. Robert is watching me. Unknowable expressions tremble across his face. As the downward slope grows steeper, the carts jolt along faster. The wheels rattle and the spokes blur. Gradually I am left behind, and the crowd closes in behind the cavalcade. I wrap my arms around myself and let them go.
A young soldier is cleaning his matchlock by the castle gates. He calls to me, “All been a bit much for you, has it, mistress?”
I go to stand near him, looking around now that the crowd has moved on. John is still nowhere to be seen. Can he have been set upon and the cart stolen? Surely I would have heard something, though with my concentration all on Robert, perhaps I would not have. I feel a sort of terror starting in the pit of my stomach. What have I done, leading John into this, into what people might perceive as guilty association with the Scots?
“Did anything happen just now?” I ask the young soldier. “Any incident, or something like that… something concerning a parson on a cart? Though… that is, he wasn’t dressed as a parson…” I falter and stop.
“I only just came on duty, lady,” the soldier answers quite kindly. “So I wouldn’t rightly know.”
There is no more time to wait here. I can see across the valley to the Moor, and the row of twig gibbets on Gallows Hill. How powerless we are, insects to be destroyed by twigs.
I nod to the soldier, then lower my veil again and start to walk the mile to the Moor. I must simply hope and pray that John is all right and will turn up in time. Perhaps he lost sight of me and thought I had already
moved on towards the hanging ground. If not, if all else fails, at least Robert, like the rest of them, will be without his senses by the time they reach the gallows.
I feel very tired. Lack of sleep has made me light-headed. Even going downhill along Saint Mary Street is an effort. I can still hear the sounds of the crowd in the distance. I start to hurry. It will not do for them to get too far ahead. Faintly I can hear someone playing the pipes as well now, fitting in with the drumbeat. I pray that they will indeed stop at Saint Bridgie’s Alehouse. Despite what I heard earlier in the crowd, something might still go amiss. I pray that my little flagon has travelled safely.
At the stone well in the valley I sit down for a moment. Moor Lane lies ahead. I had forgotten how steep it is. I can see the crowd now. They have indeed stopped at the alehouse. I send my fervent blessings to Master Postlethwaite for passing on my gold pieces as I asked.
I look up the long hill to where the trees thin out into wild scrubland beyond. We picked blackberries there once, Mother and I, after visiting Lancaster’s Michaelmas Hiring Fair. I was very young then. Was that the year we took Germaine on? I cannot remember. I remember being allowed to turn the blackberries into a dark, sticky sauce to go with the Michaelmas goose.
I set off again. My mouth is dry and my tongue feels swollen and dusty. There is no air here on this hill. I pull at my collar to loosen it. The sound of the crowd’s frenzy grows.
“May we give you a lift, mistress?”
I look round, startled. I had not noticed the approach of this neat, modern cart with two soldiers up at the front. The back of the cart is full of matchlocks and powder horns. I recognise the passenger as Captain Foreman from the George, but with my veil down, he does not recognise me. I open my mouth to refuse, then change my mind and accept. The captain steps down and gallantly assists me into the back, amongst the weapons, and kisses my hand with a flourish. I sit awkwardly on an oblong box of metal shot.
“Thank you, sir.”
The cart moves forward, drawn by its two black horses. I look at the weapons that surround me – matchlocks like the one carried by John, with the same action as our hagbut at home, though only a quarter the size. Some are half out of their waxed wrappers, and are clearly already loaded, judging by the trickle of gunpowder from their barrels.
It seems we have no sooner started than we stop again. We have reached the alehouse. “Come and I’ll buy you a drink, mistress.” The captain offers me his hand. “Some fool with more money than sense has paid for the Scots to drink their fear away, just as if they were normal, decent criminals.”
“Oh no, how utterly regrettable.” I take his hand and step down, looking around for John and the cart. If he lost sight of me by the castle, he might have come here.
There are carts aplenty, but none of them is ours. I hesitate, and glance at the captain. He might know if something happened earlier. Also, he already knows both John and me from our encounter at the George, when we last visited Lancaster. Yet it is important to keep my veil down, and my identity secret, if I am to rescue Robert without becoming a fugitive from the law myself. I wonder if I am being foolish and naive, if my plan is completely hopeless. Oh just start a little riot, kind sirs, and I’ll get Robert away amid the chaos, I bade the grey-haired chief mummer and the lad who played Guinevere. It sounded perfectly reasonable at the time, there in the parsonage’s guest chamber. I stare at the crowd. It is growing wilder as drinks are handed along from one to the other. I look at the soldiers hefting their weapons. I look at the long hill up to the gallows. It is starting to rain.
I realise that the captain is talking to me. “Do you not have a husband to accompany you, mistress?” He offers me his arm.
“Indeed I do, somewhere, but I cannot find him in the crowd. In fact I am worried about him. Has there been any trouble at all?”
“Nay mistress, none at all, except for a ruffian with a matchlock up by the castle. We soon dealt with him.”
People say their blood runs cold. I had thought it just a saying. I realise in that moment that it is true. An icy shiver travels slowly across my shoulders, down through my body, to my legs, so that they start to tremble. The captain is still talking. “…my lads had trouble with him earlier, so they told me it was good riddance…”
I feel sick. I hear once more in my head the shot which exploded behind me at the castle, and the words of the soldier whom John had earlier threatened with the whip. “We’ll be looking out for you.” Amid the shock of seeing Robert in the state he was, and with the turmoil of the crowd, I failed even to turn to see what was happening.
I throw back my veil. “Sir, do you remember me? We met at the George some months since. I was with my husband. Could it be… could it possibly be that the man with the matchlock was my husband, the parson? And if it is so… can you please tell me what became of him?”
The captain stares at me in amazement. One of his men is trying to attract his attention. “Sir! Sir! There’s a bit of trouble over there in t’crowd!”
“Hush!” The captain flaps a hand at him. “I am speaking to the parson’s wife.”
The soldier reaches us and stares at me. “She don’t look like no parson’s wife to me, sir,” he says.
I am beginning to wonder if I should not have dressed in my old clothes after all. The captain frowns at him. “Nay, she is in truth a parson’s wife. I have met her before. Her husband is a man of most severe countenance. Madame, I did not see the prisoner, but is it likely that your husband would have threatened my men with a matchlock?”
“Perfectly likely, since your men had been highly disrespectful to me earlier. Now please, what happened to him?”
The captain hesitates, and in that moment my brain struggles with the unthinkable, that John might be dead. At last the captain says, “Madame, there seems to be something a little odd going on here. You were in Lancaster enquiring about Scots on a previous occasion, and now that they are to be justly hanged, here you are again, together with your husband, who you say is a parson. Well, I can tell you that he is not dead, though he may be a little bruised. When my soldiers tried to move him along, he refused. There was a struggle, I gather, and the matchlock went off. I think your husband is at present imprisoned in the Well Tower of the castle. Perhaps, madame, you had better come along with me, and we will see about reuniting you with him. In the meantime, you can explain to me why he was disguised as a peasant.” He takes hold of my arm in a firm grip.
“Sir…” The soldier tries again. “The crowd is trying to get into the alehouse, sir, to get at the Scots. They don’t like it that the Scots are drinking in there, whilst they’re shut out.”
I look over to where a fight has broken out in the doorway of Saint Bridgie’s Alehouse. The captain releases my arm. “Madame, please excuse me. I must deal with this. Kindly remain where I can find you. Sergeant!” He pushes his way towards the disturbance, but before he can reach it, a woman sidles up to him and strokes her white hand across his chest. She stands directly in his path, and for the briefest moment, glances in my direction. I smile slightly at the wardrobe mistress.
John is safe, bruised but safe. It is all that matters. By the time I am back at the parsonage, he will be back too. Relief gives me new courage. It will be more difficult to get Robert away without the cart and the bundle it contains, but I shall simply have to find alternative transport. I look at the carts at the edge of the crowd. All of them are occupied. The crowd is becoming very wild now. I am pushed and bumped as others head towards the outbreak of fighting. Titus, the wit from up by the castle, is trying to fight his way into the alehouse. I recognise the chief mummer just before he hits him.
I remember, in the bedchamber of the parsonage, this elegant, grey-haired man who played King Arthur in the masque they performed, asking me, “But exactly how does one start a riot, mistress?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose you hit someone who has a lot of friends, or you steal something that everyone else will want to start
stealing too. Ale, maybe?”
Almost as I think it, I hear the shout go up, “Thief! Thief!”
The air is full of smells of sweat and horse manure. Whiffs of beer and boiled beef come from the alehouse. I start to push my way in the opposite direction from the rest of the crowd, climbing over the mounting block, and then over the rubbish heap, where rotting food releases a vile stink as I stumble over it. I work my way round the side of the alehouse, towards the back. There is a shout behind me. “Out of the way! Out of the way!” The driver of the armaments cart is moving it round towards the back of the alehouse. I watch incredulously. Could this be an astonishing piece of good fortune? I wait for him to pass, and then follow him, my slime-coated boots slipping on the stones of the stableyard.
It is quieter round the back. The cart and horses vanish into one of the stables. I dawdle past a small outbuilding and peer inside. It is full of old saddles and barrels, and there is a dusty workbench. With a jump I realise that there are also two people here, a couple, too involved in kissing one another to notice me. I doubt they would have noticed if the entire riot had gone in one door and out the other. I tiptoe past.
It proves astonishingly easy to walk into the alehouse through the back door. I wonder why the rest of the crowd has not thought of it. I meet Master Guinevere coming out of a side room, rolling a barrel of ale as if he had been doing it all his life.
“Good morrow, mistress. Robert Lacklie is by the back door of the bar. I’ve tried to cut his ropes, but I don’t think I got them right through. There were too many people about to risk sawing away properly. Anyway, he knows something’s up, but the stuff you sent me to put in their barrel of ale has fair knocked them out. Do you want the crowd to come in through the front door yet?”
“Perhaps give it a few minutes. It has all gone wrong, Master Guinevere. I have no disguise for Robert. It was with John, in the cart, and he has been arrested.”
North Side of the Tree Page 16
