by Jim Crace
In this dream, all his “friends and neighbors”—meaning us—no longer need to labor long and hard throughout the year and with no certainty that what we sow will ever come to grain. We have good years; we have bad, he reminds us. We share contentments, but we also share the suffering. The sun is not reliable. And nor is rain. A squalling wind can flatten all our crops. Mildew reduces it to mush. Our cattle might be ravaged by the murrain fever. Our harvest can be taken off by crows. (“And doves,” a small voice says. My own.) But wool is more predictable. A fleece of wool does not require the sun. Indeed, a fleece of wool will grow and thicken in the dark. A fleece is not affected by the wind or by the changing seasons, he says, warming to the task—for it is a task, a labor of persuasion. And, as far as he’s aware, crows do not have a taste for wool, despite—he smiles, to alert us to his coming jest—their appetite for flocking.
No, Master Kent has had a dream which makes us rich and leisurely. Every day becomes a day of rest for us. We walk about our fenced-in fields with crooks. We sit on tussocks and we merely watch. We are not plowing; we are shepherding. We are not reaping; we are shearing. We are not freezing to the bone on damp and heavy winter days picking stones out of the soil, wringing the necks of furrow weeds, or tugging out twine roots and couch until our backs are stiffer than a yoke. No, we are sitting at our fires at home and weaving fortunes for ourselves from yarn. Our only industry is shooting shuttles to and fro as if it were a game, child’s play. Our only toil is easy toil—a gentle firming at the heddles, attending to the warp and weft with just our fingertips, untying snags and loosening. Instead of oxen there’ll be looms. Instead of praying for the stems of crops to stay straight and tall against the odds, against the efforts of the elements, and for their ears of corn to thicken and to ripen, we will be closing the sheds on broadcloth, fustian, worsted and twill. “A stirring prospect, isn’t it?” he says. Somewhere too far away to name, in places we can never see, a man is putting on a coat that we have shepherded and then made up with our own hands, a woman pulls a scarf across her head and smells our hearths and country odors in its weave. We start off with the oily wool on the back of our own livestock, our Golden Hoofs, and end up with garments on the backs of noble folk. It is a dream that, surely, none of us find vile. And still he has not said it: Sheep. Am I the only one to recognize what the dream is trying to disguise? The sheaf is giving way to sheep.
Master Kent has timed his revelation well. The veal is his. The ale is his too. We are no longer hungry. We’re certainly not sober. We’re in his debt this evening and know him well enough to want to trust his word, at least for now. His plans might be five years away. Or ten. Tonight’s what matters, and tonight he’s satisfied us with his feast. He only has to raise a hand to wave away anxieties and allow the drinking to continue. We have become like animals in our individual ways, precisely as the brewer’s ballad says: goat drunk and lecherous; dog drunk and barking mad; bull drunk and looking for a brawl; pig drunk and obdurate. But mostly we are as drunk as post-horses—their thirsts are never satisfied—and so, for this evening at least, beyond anxiety.
We are, though, in the mood for music and for dancing. Young Thomas Rogers is our only piper, and our nightingale. He needs no persuading to pick up his instrument. At any chance, he fills his lungs, and empties them for us. He first drums up an uncourtly reaping rhythm with his foot and then commences with his holes and fingertips. We’ve heard his efforts many times before. When Thomas sits at night and practices, we can’t escape his failings and his strains no matter how hard we try to sleep. But then we cherish him. Without him we would never dance. So we egg him on tonight. What we do not expect is this second voice that’s joining him, that’s joining in with greater mastery behind our backs. It’s Mr. Quill, Mr. Earle. We’ll have to call him Mr. Fiddle now. He pushes forward with his ungainly walk, leading with his shoulder, not his chest. He finds a place to sit at Thomas Rogers’s side, lays the instrument across his knees and applies his bow to the strings. He first echoes, then ornaments, then commandeers what the piper tries to play.
Thomas Rogers does not look as pleased as Mr. Quill at the warmth of our applause. The piper loses confidence and face. But the fiddle’s voice—at least, when our visitor has settled himself on his backstool—asks both for our laughter and our tears at once. His tune is both glad to be unhappy and sad to be so gay. Quite soon the children come away from playing loggats, throw their last sticks at the staff, and take to the barn floor to slide around on the loose straw to the music. Now the few remaining wild-heads of the village—the Derby twins, of course, but other stewards of misrule as well—start the dancing, taking their younger sisters and their nieces by the hands and swirling them. It is the married couples next. And finally our handful of unmarried girls step up, with great solemnity at first, but soon their cheeks are red with effort and not blushes. One of them, the one whose piety and prettiness is judged most spirited, will be our Lady of the Harvest. She’ll be our Gleaning Queen. We will choose her when the music has concluded, if that moment ever comes, if we allow it to. Tomorrow she will be the first to step into the vanquished barley field, to walk across the stub, to bend and find and save a grain against the colder times ahead.
Mr. Quill the fiddler is shaping us again, making us as congruous and geometrical with his melodies as he has done with his charts and ink. His dance is circular, then it is square; it’s forth-and-twenty, swing and stump; it’s reels and sets and thundering. The revelers are being asked to go beyond their normal selves, to be more liquid, actually. I am tempted to join in myself, though I’m a widower. But I dare not chance my smarting fingertips and palms amid such taking hold and hand gripping. I stand and watch with Master Kent, that other recent widower, swaying at my side. The women skirmish with the men, stamping feet and swirling kerchiefs. The mopsies and the lads are far too close. They’re holding wrists. They’re touching waists. It’s possible, in such a ducking light and with such happy havoc in command, that kisses are exchanged, and promises. We are a heathen company, more devoted to the customs and the Holy days than to the Holiness itself. We find more pleasure in the song and dance of God than in the piety. Thank heavens that we do not have a priest to witness it.
We should have guessed the spitting woman would arrive just at the moment we were merriest. This is for me first sight of her. She’s standing at the gate of the barn, beyond the reach of our lights and keeping so still that she also seems beyond the reach of pipe and fiddle. But there is no doubting who she is, unless we have a ghostly visitor, one of our wives or daughters resurrected from her grave, left thin by death. She’s tinier than I expected, imposing in a smaller way than usual. But there’s the heavy velvet shawl I’ve heard about, and there’s the tufted, rudely shaven head. She looks as drenched as a pond-ducked witch or scold. “It’s Mistress Beldam,” Master Kent mutters to me, giving her a name I know will stick. Beldam, the sorceress. Belle Dame, the beautiful. The dancers have not seen her, though. It’s only when our fiddler sets aside his bow, drops his tune and rises from his stool to look across my neighbors’ heads toward our stubbled visitor that everybody stops and turns. She’s hardly visible. She’s little more than dark on dark, a body shape. We cannot see her eyes or face as yet, or make out the bloody scar across her naked head. She does not speak—perhaps we have imagined her; she is a specter summoned up by ale and dance. The mood has changed. It’s heavier. We were liquid; now we’re stones. The night is closing on a broken note.
We know we ought to make amends for shearing her. That’s why she’s standing there, awaiting us. She’s asking us to witness what we’ve done. I have a sense that some men in the throng might any moment offer her their hand, some women too, and lead her to our circles and our squares to swirl with us. For a moment, the temper of the barn is not that she has shamed our evening but that we’ve found our Gleaning Queen. We only need to bring her to the light and crown her there and then, and all is well. Another dream. In this, her hair is lo
ng and black again; her men are walking free, uncollared and uncuffed; our wooden cross is restored to holiness and draped in rosaries; and, no, we weren’t surprised by twists of smoke at dawn today; and there are doves. Yes, there are doves. They’re circling, white consciences on wing. At first the sight of them is heart-lifting. But still they’re circling. They cannot find a place to feed. This is their hereafter. They’re searching for the gleaning fields, but there are none.
At the movement of the dancers, their lifting hands, the woman backs away, still facing us, not trusting us perhaps. She must know that if she hesitates the men will swarm round her like a cloud of gnats. It is only when she draws level with the gate that she turns toward it and the dark and goes forward, steps outside, and we are left to exchange, well, sheepish glances. We know the pipe and fiddle cannot play again. We cannot dance. We bid one another uncomfortable good nights, and hurry home to sleep the evening off, or lay awake, or worse.
I hope—like everyone—to find the woman when I leave. But I have better cause than them. Master Kent has asked me to. He says that I should bring her back, bring Mistress Beldam to the barn and let her pass the night with his straw bales as her mattress and a velvet shawl as coverlet. He does not count it proper that a woman, any woman, no matter what her felonies might be, should spend a night alone and unprotected from its dangers. I see him hesitate. He wants to specify what dangers there might be but does not think it seemly. There are no longer wolves to fear. We have not seen the traces of a wolf in living times. There are no bears or dragoncats. And Master Kent is not the superstitious sort that dreads the deeds of devils or spirits, of firedrakes or wood demons. There isn’t frost or snow, of course. It won’t be uncommonly cold tonight. What summer chill we can expect when the hours are small and the night is deep will not prove a danger to anybody sleeping wild and rough but only an inconvenience. Yet, having now seen the woman for myself and then observed the wisting in my master’s eye, I understand what outcome he must fear for her; what he admits to in himself, indeed; what I have felt and still am feeling; what every man among us—even brave and bloodless Mr. Quill—will be dreaming of tonight.
“Do what you can to make her safe,” he instructs me finally.
First I go to keep a promise at the pillory and cross. I will not be surprised to find Mistress Beldam there, attending to her men. Indeed, I pray that she is there. Among other things, I want her as a witness to my kindness. I leave the barn enlivened by my task, but my ardor is dampened straightaway. While we have been at the feast and dancing, deafened to the weather by the fiddle and the pipe, a greater Steward than Master Kent has noticed that our barley has been safely cut and stacked and told the heavens it is safe to rain. It’s midnight rain, the sort that in the darkness has no form until it reaches you, until it strikes with the cold and keen insistence of a silver-worker’s mallet.
It takes several steps before I realize how heavily it’s raining. My neighbors have already scurried to their cottages, so far as I can tell. I do not see the outlines of another human soul. I ought to scurry home myself and save my tasks and promises until it is more dry. But the rain is pleasurable. It’s washing out impurities. My fingers and my chin are soon rid of veal grease. My mouth is washed by water more pure and rewarding to the taste than anything our ponds and our obliging brook have to offer. Even my damaged hand becomes less painful in the salving of the rain. I run my tongue across my upper lip and savor the downpour. It’s not quite sweet and not quite flavorless. It’s sobering but, then, my drinking has been more moderate and tame than most.
Tonight, there is no moon in view, of course. The low clouds as I imagine them are a heavy blanket, woven out of black and gray. As yet, there’s not the slightest trace of wind to take the rain away and irrigate our distant neighbors’ lands instead of ours. We can expect this storm to settle in and persevere till dawn. Tomorrow will provide a motley of pools and puddles in our lanes and fields. Our ponds and cisterns will be full, and we’ll be glad of that. Although it may not feel so now for anyone that’s caught in it, we are the beneficiaries of Nature’s dowry. Nevertheless, I doubt that Mistress Beldam will take much persuading that the barn is where she should seek safe haven from the weather.
I take the mud-caked lane away from my master’s buildings, past his orchard gardens and his byres, toward the dreamed-of spire. I would benefit from light, though no lantern in the world, no matter how enclosed, could survive the volume of this rain for long. I have to trust the scratchings and the marks that my dozen years of being here and working here and walking here have etched in me. The storm has robbed us of all colors—the usual blues and mauves that finesse the night. But I make out silhouettes; that crouching oak, its swishing sleeves of ivy, that little dusty elm that should be taken down and logged before it blocks the path. I recognize the billows and the swells of the hedges, either side, where there are gaps and gates, where there are peaks and branching pinnacles, where damsons can be scrumped. I pick up smells that I can name. The master’s byres, of course. The sweating of his silage heaps. But other gentler odors too. The acrid smell—exaggerated by the rain—of elder trees. The bread-and-biscuit smell of rotting wood. The piss-and-honey tang of apple trees. I navigate my midnight village as a blind man would, by nose and ears and touch and by the vaguest, blackest forms.
I see the men before they hear or notice me, or that’s to say I see the outline of their wide-winged cross and how bulked and heavy it’s become, draped as it is with sodden prisoners. I stand and watch, not daring for a while to make my presence known but still enjoying what must be a further penalty for them, the unrelenting rain. They cannot harm me, that is certain. Their arms are pinioned and their necks are caught. My only risk can be a backward kicking. I’ll have to treat them like a pair of tethered horses and not inspect their tails or rumps. I am holding my breath, not to be discovered. How silent it has become,beyond the pelting of the rain. I fear there’s no one living anywhere. The night is ponderous. No owl or fox is keen to interrupt the darkness. It seems that even the trees have stopped their stretching and their creaking, their making wishes in the wind, to hold their breaths and stare like me toward the pillory.
If I could, if I had the powers of a wizard or a god, I’d build that church gate right away. I’d make it arch above the pillory. I’d build it with a canopy to keep these two men dry. Now that my eyes are more accustomed to the dark, I see them more clearly. This morning I persuaded myself that probably it’s wise for all of us to hold our tongues for the time being and let these newcomers soak up the blame. But now, beneath these weighty clouds, I recognize my foolishness; no, let us name it as it is, my lack of courage and of honesty. Soak up is not a happy phrase, I think. This rain is pleasurable only for those not fixed in it, those who can look forward to a square of drying cloth, a roof, a bed, sweet dreams. Tonight’s beneficiaries of Nature’s dowry do not include Mistress Beldam’s family.
So I approach them, and I speak. “My name is Walter Thirsk … It’s Walt.” There’s no response. “I was not there, this morning, when you drew your bows,” I say. They need to understand at once, I should not be numbered among their accusers. I did not shake my stick at them. I did not help to shave their heads. I did not march them to the pillory. They cannot know I failed to speak on their behalf. Indeed, I am the only one among the villagers against whom they shouldn’t harbor any grudge. Still, they do not offer a response. They are like cattle feeding; their faces strain toward the ground. The rain drops unabated on their shoulders and their necks, channels down their spines. They each have a ropy tail of rain. The younger lifts his chin and looks at me, then drops his head again. He is exhausted by the weight of his own head, it seems. The shorter shuffles on his stretching toes.
Of course, I cannot find a log for the father to stand on, not in this darkness or this weather. The nearest fallen timber is a walk away, beyond our fields. I don’t intend to go foraging so late at night. I should have planned this earlier. I cou
ld have sent a pair of boys out of the barn to fetch a log. I forgot. But I know there is a pile of large, roughly prepared stones intended for the church only a score of paces from the pillory. It isn’t hard to pull one loose and lift it that short distance—at least, it isn’t hard at first. Then my weeping hand, which for the moment I have not remembered, starts to hurt again. I’ve treated it too roughly, tested it too much tonight. Any crust that has been forming over it must now have torn again. I cannot see the damage, but I certainly can feel it. I drop the stone and try to roll it forward with my one good hand. The ground is far too rough and the stone is far too square for that. I tip and topple it once or twice but it has a mind of its own and none of the progress I induce in it is quite in the direction of the pillory.
I cannot think of anything at home that could serve as the older man’s perch. I have a bench outside my cottage, but that is oak and heavy too. It takes two sets of hands to carry it. I have a chest and a smaller coffer, but not iron-bound and so too flimsy to support a man, even a short one. And both my kegs are full and too heavy to be moved about. Short of laying on the sodden ground myself and having him stand on my back, there’s nothing I can do for him before tomorrow. I have to take care of my hand, if I ever hope to work again. Anyway, this problem at the pillory is not mine alone—and probably it’s not as urgent as I thought. The older man has already endured the most part of the day on tiptoe. Surely he can tolerate the night. Then at first light I will call on John Carr and we can either share the burden of the stone or take, one-handed, an end each of the bench. Better, I can find those boys and send them log hunting. For now I have to guard my wound. I am suddenly embarrassed. I walk again into the downpour and the dark. Those men have not exchanged a word with me.
