Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘That is what leads me to my thinking, Arnaud. I shall be thirty soon.’ Martin chortled. Danforth ignored it. ‘I shall be entering onto my fourth decade. And in the three I have been granted, I have seen evil works. Could the bringers of such evil create something as pure as faith? I think it not possible.’

  Martin fought a yawn. ‘I see I have bored you,’ said Danforth, giving him a tight smile. ‘It is why I was such a poor debater at university, I fancy. Knowing my case was the right one, I would rather have the other fellow silenced for voicing foolish disagreement against me than meet his opinion and lower myself to engage it, and thereby acknowledge its false premise. Daft disagreement only brings me to anger and great passion, I am afraid. Och, I take comfort in that I have the wit to recognise a certain unwillingness to credit opposing arguments as a fault, even if I yet lack the wit to correct it.

  ‘Yet my case, once again, is the right one, and those who deny God are blasphemers, and should have no liberty to speak. The existence of good and evil in men proves that God exists and stands above such errors.’

  ‘But what drives men to it, Simon? What creates a man such as Sharp, who can kill a woman he once took to his bed, and a fellow with whom he did business?’

  ‘Greed. The Devil’s teachings. Turning away from faith. Unclean living. Arnaud, I do not know what creates a Sharp, or a McKenzie, or any of them. I should say that hard living turns a man hard, but then I think on King Henry.’ Martin sighed wearily.

  ‘For someone who proclaims that he wishes no talk of that old monster, your mind certainly turns on him.’

  ‘And with good reason, sir,’ sniffed Danforth. ‘For he yet lives and has had a life of great riches and gifts, and yet he has, as you put it, killed women he once took to his bed, and killed fellows with whom he did business. Therefore, I cannot say it is hard living turns a man bad, but rather turning away from God. Each man is different. Evil will prey on each according to his faults. I looked upon Andrew Boyle, the poor wretch. Why did he turn to a base life? I followed the scars about his head and they led me to a poor life. Some folk cannot manage a little suffering on earth, even with the promise of a greater reward in the life hereafter, and so they turn bad. In Sharp I saw at the last the greed of a tyrant. In McKenzie I saw pride and vengeance unchained.’

  ‘It’s a sobering thought. Do you know, I think I ken what turned my mind against the desire to see McKenzie die – or, at least, what made it clearer to me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye. It was Baillie Morris. When he spoke of it being my right to hang the man. It made my stomach turn, Simon. I have no wish to hang any man, whatever he has done to me. The notion repels me. Perhaps I am weak.’

  ‘Not so, Arnaud. You are a good man. You have been tested and found no great lust for vengeance. I think …’ Danforth paused, suddenly unsure of what he was about to say.

  ‘Please, Simon, go on. Speak.’

  ‘I think,’ plunged on Danforth, ‘that your mother would be pleased with your thinking. Perhaps your father too, if he shared her mind.’ Danforth tumbled out the next words, to mask his timidity at going so far. ‘Tell me, did you speak with that girl?’

  ‘Louisa? Aye. It was but a wasted effort. She wouldn’t leave that place, not for anything.’

  ‘That is sometimes the way of it, Arnaud. She is beyond hope. It is a sad thing, but it happens. Not everyone believes they can be saved.’

  ‘Yet she had hope – she wished that she might live by the sea.’

  ‘She might as well have wished to live upon the moon, with a cloud for her pillow and Adonis for her bedfellow.’ Martin stood up, his temper flaring. Again, the sun peeked beyond a cloud, lighting him up.

  ‘Stay, sir. I do not mean to be cruel. Yet what would you have done for her? Taken her and deposited her in some strange place? Fie! Even a man may chance upon a new home, and be forever thought a stranger, finding distrust everywhere. For a woman, it would be crueller still.’ Martin flopped back down on the bed.

  ‘I don’t wish to speak further of her at present, Simon. Yet I think you speak of yourself. You’re no stranger, not to those of us who welcome you. You fight for Scotland and our faith more than many Scotsmen. Even,’ he said, chancing a nervous glance about the room, before lowering his voice, ‘before some Scotsmen who call themselves magnificent princes, yet would sell us to the south.’

  ‘Thank you, Arnaud.’

  They sat for a while in silence, their bellies full and the intrigues that had been thrust upon them at an end. At length, Martin spoke up again. ‘Do we have to attend upon this hanging on the morrow?’

  ‘I think we must.’

  ‘Yet you can’t enjoy such a sight.’

  ‘No. I do not,’ said Danforth, though a little uncomfortably. Martin seemed to have developed a knack for asking him questions which forced him to dissimulate. ‘Yet I force myself to watch.’

  ‘Wherefore, when you might turn away?’

  ‘I confess I hate the sight. I would scarce be human not to. Yet I put myself through the unpleasant business, because pitying the dying wretches shall make me doubly hate the sin. Let us rest awhile and attend the Holy Rude this evening to pray for their souls, and those they have sent before them.’

  Martin closed his eyes, wondering if Danforth was trying to convince him or himself.

  21

  John McKenzie and Anthony Sharp’s last morning on earth dawned bright, and fair, and sunny. Winter seemed to be relinquishing its grip on Scotland. The streets of Stirling rang with the merry sounds of work: excited chatter and laughter, bustling people, and the hammering and banging of a gibbet.

  Danforth and Martin washed, dressed, and stepped down to the hall of McTavish’s inn. Neither the proprietor or his wife were about; but neither felt like eating, or could be bothered politely declining, their breakfast offerings. They stepped out into the bright sunlight, which did little to combat the cold. All about them people were gathering in knots. Usually, thought Danforth, voices were hushed before an execution, dying down to respectful whispers. Instead there was much shouting and guffawing. Martin set off purposefully towards the market cross.

  Alongside the great stone monument that marked the centre of Stirling, a wooden scaffold had been completed. It was a portable thing – only a short platform supporting a wooden beam, from which protruded, at right angles, two crossbeams. A short ladder lay on the platform, up which the condemned would be forced, whilst a man underneath waited to hold their feet still. One man would have to hold the ladder whilst the hangman stood at its foot, prodding the murderer upwards and helping them into the noose if they proved intractable.

  The voices of the crowd died down when the doors of the Tolbooth opened, and McKenzie was led out by Lyne, Sharp pushed behind him by Morris. Behind them strode the Provost, who crossed around the scaffold and joined the crowd. Martin nudged Danforth’s arm and then nodded. Together they wound their way through people to take up a position near the front. Beside Provost Cunningham stood Walter Furay, in the sober black of a wronged man. Briefly he caught Danforth’s eye, and had the grace to turn away, his gaze fixed on the ground.

  The condemned men mounted the scaffold. They were gagged, their hands tied behind their backs, but they did not wear hoods. At length, the hangman joined them – an aged man in smart doublet and hose, who was similarly untroubled by a hood. At the sight of him, the crowd again became restless, cat-calling and jeering. Danforth saw the old silversmith, Spence, shaking his fist. Mistress Scott and Mr McTavish, in a charade of loving amity, were crying out to God for the men’s forgiveness. Even from a distance, he could hear the old man, Humble, terrorising those around him with belaboured exhortations: ‘One of these be the man who stole my horse, I’ll be bound. A horse thief! Evil creature! It was with my aid that he be brought to his rightful death!’ It was only, thought Danforth, the respected citizens of the town who had stepped out to witness the spectacle.

  The executioner first took McK
enzie by the elbow and guided him up the few short steps of the ladder. He bent his head under and through the loop of the noose, and then stepped off into oblivion before the ladder could be borne away. His feet dangled less than a yard above the scaffold. For a few moments, nothing happened, and then his legs began jerking limply. Danforth turned away, looking at Martin. The younger man was looking at the ground.

  When Danforth looked up again, Sharp was being pushed up the ladder, and Lyne stood close, ready to grasp his feet should he attempt anything. Instead, he aimed his head at the noose, missed, and then managed it on the second try. His face was bruised. He had had a difficult last night. Giggles issued from the crowd at his missed attempt. Once his head was in, the ladder was pulled away, and as the rope began to cut into the soft flesh of his neck, his body thrashed wildly. Unlike McKenzie, Sharp bucked and kicked, causing Lyne to jump aside and drawing more laughter from the crowd. Danforth joined Martin in looking at the ground. He had watched them take their final plunges. That would suffice. The movements thereafter were purely for the benefit of the hard-hearted.

  A strange feeling had descended on Danforth: one that frequently came to him at moments of execution. He knew that it was right and proper to see men pay for the lives they had taken with their own, and yet there always seemed something akin to madness in the doing of it. Some part of him – not easily stifled – always burned to cry out, ‘this is madness; this is wrong; it is for God alone to take life’, to race across and hold the flailing legs and stop life being extinguished. Though he would never have acted upon the strange impulse, he liked to think it was good Christian pity, that could even be felt in the heart for evil men.

  The noises of the crowd – jeering laughter and shouted insults – changed in quality, dying to an unsatisfied murmur. People were never happy with executions; it was always all over too quickly, justice swift and curiously unfulfilling. Danforth looked back up. The bodies swayed in a light breeze, the scaffold itself creaking. The convulsive movements were dying down. The damned souls had departed. Pity disappeared as he looked at Anthony Sharp, his face crimson and his lips a shocking purple amidst the beard growth. Martin was looking at McKenzie, a ruined scarecrow, his eyes open and sad-looking.

  ‘Well, Arnaud,’ he whispered, ‘the queen’s justice is done. Your sister and your mother are avenged, and Madeleine Furay is avenged.’ People started to disperse, as Provost Cunningham turned to address them.

  ‘Good Christian people, you have this day borne witness to justice done in the name of the most high and mighty princess Mary, Queen of Scots, and the magnificent prince, her tutor and governor, James, the Regent of Scotland.’

  Few people were listening. Finally, the expected hush had been achieved, and the bustle of the day would be more muted. Danforth and Martin walked over to the Provost, who had been joined by his baillies and by Walter Furay.

  ‘Good morrow, Master Provost,’ said Danforth.

  ‘Mr Danforth, Mr Martin.’ Cunningham’s voice was cold. Danforth thought it likely that the man had not forgotten his visit, nor ever would. He would hope now only for the two men to depart the burgh. His next words confirmed it. ‘Your business, for which we are all thankful, is now at an end. Shall you be leaving Stirling?’

  ‘I believe so, sir. We have tarried here overlong, when news must await in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Those bodies,’ asked Martin, ‘shall they be allowed to remain there?’

  ‘For today, yes. The people must not feel cheated of their chance to gaze upon the faces of the wicked, nor deprived of the knowledge that all who sin against God and the queen are come to such a sorry end. We’ll have them down before the foul airs can breed disease, of course.’

  ‘It ever seems sudden to have them dead without benefit of trial,’ said Martin.

  ‘What need for the cost of a trial when I know their guilt, sir? What need for a trial for a nothing, and a man who reduced himself to a nothing by his own black acts?’ Martin shrugged, scuffing his feet on the still-frozen groun. ‘Well, you have done good work, gentlemen. I do not wish to keep you. Oh, Mr Furay here shall be joining you in leaving the burgh.’

  Colour drained from Furay’s face at the sound of his name. ‘Aye,’ he said, again looking abashed and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. ‘There’s nothin’ for me in this burgh.’

  ‘It is a pity to leave such a thriving business in spices,’ said Danforth, his lips twisting downwards. ‘Yet I hope that your next adventure, sir, is in something to which you are more fitted. I should not like to hear of you embarking on another failed venture in the same vein.’ Furay said nothing. ‘Well, gentlemen, I take my leave of you and of Stirling.’ Danforth tipped his cap. Martin merely touched his.

  ‘Stay, young Martin,’ said the Provost. ‘Your family, at least, is welcome, should your mother find means to pay for repairs to her house and pay the burgh for tenancy. Have you told her, sir, what she shall do? Or your brothers, perhaps, have guided her?’

  ‘My maman’s affairs are her own,’ said Martin. ‘She will do as she decides, and you will hear of it at a time of her choosing, Provost.’ Martin managed a brief, sarcastic bow, and he and Danforth left the group standing by its platform of swaying corpses.

  They strolled back to the inn but did not go inside. ‘Do you truly wish to leave Stirling, Arnaud?’

  ‘Aye.’ Martin crossed his arms under his cloak. ‘I should like it. I kept away from this place for so long, Simon. Since Christian died I have been here only twice. I left maman to suffer alone, because I could not face that house without my sister cheering it. Yet had I known it would be gone, I should have never kept away.’

  ‘It can be rebuilt, as you have said yourself.’

  ‘Only if maman wishes it, and I do not know that she does. She lived there with papa, with Christian, and now they are gone, and so is it.’

  ‘Good memories, my friend. Not all memory is cruel.’

  ‘Ah, but I cannot say what she shall do. It is for her to decide. In faith, I have lost my love of this burgh.’ Danforth nodded silently. The sun was finally beginning to provide some heat to the day. ‘Still there is something that troubles me, mon ami.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘As I was looking at yon Furay creature, it came to me. I feel that he escapes with freedom, without punishment for the crimes in which he was a chief author.’

  ‘What would you do, Arnaud? Keep your voice low,’ added Danforth, looking around at the few people who were trudging up and down the Hiegait. ‘I would not have us taken up for slander.’

  ‘Slander? The man’s guilty of selling his wife as a common bawd. If he should sue us for saying it, then the whole world would know of it.’

  ‘And this is why we say nothing.’ Shock and something like disgust crossed Martin’s delicate features. ‘Would you have that dead woman declared before the world a whore, her name whispered with scandal? I confess I would not. Her murderer is dealt with, and she might lie in more peace than ever she knew in life.’

  ‘Why did she do it, Simon? What drives a woman into such a life, after she’s escaped it in her youth?’

  ‘I cannot say. Perhaps she knew nothing else. Perhaps she thought there was nothing better. Perhaps the knowledge that the man she thought had saved her wished only to use her robbed her of all hope. At any rate, she will gain nothing by our calling forth her husband’s guilt, nor by naming the senex amators of this burgh.’ Martin raised an eyebrow. ‘Those lustful old brutes who made free with her,’ explained Danforth. ‘In the plays of Plautus, such men were often seen, though more to be laughed at than otherwise. I–’ Martin silenced him with a weary hand.

  ‘I see. Yet you strike upon another reason I would that my mother not return to this place. I no longer feel that any man is true here. Each might be a bawd, a seducer, a knave, and hiding it.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Danforth, ‘but turning from Stirling will not provide a sure remedy for
that. Every man in every burgh has secrets of the heart.’

  ‘Not of this nature.’

  ‘Perhaps not. Some might have worse. Yet abjuring a town because you know that some men in it have succumbed to mortal weakness shall do little good. If one, or two, or five men fell into sin here, then hundreds more have not. Think on those who strove to help your mother in her necessity – good people. Do not forget that. Do not see evil everywhere. Your family has ties yet to this place, to its churchyard.’

  ‘Jesu, can no man escape his past?’

  ‘I did,’ said Danforth softly. ‘Or, at least, I have found that it can be lived alongside, as one may live both alongside an unpleasant neighbour and a pleasant one at the same time. Madeleine Furay,’ he added, ‘brings me to another. Your young friend, the girl in the stew.’

  ‘Louisa?’

  ‘Yes. You would have taken her from that place, deposited her somewhere else like a chattel.’

  ‘I would have given her an opportunity to live as something better.’

  ‘And yet as Mistress Furay showed, a woman might find it hard.’

  ‘You have just said that someone might escape their past, as you have.’

  ‘I said a man might. You know, Arnaud, I sometimes fancy that women have a sorrier lot than men. A young girl in a strange town, or village, or even country, will have but little to recommend her. What might she do? Well, she must find a husband. And a girl such as this Louisa – well, if he knows about her past and takes her still, he might be as sly and wicked as Walter Furay. And if he does not know of her past, then she has deceived him into marriage, and the fault is hers.’

  ‘God’s wounds, Simon, you tell of a bleak world. It is little wonder that the poor creature has lost all hope.’

  ‘I tell of a true world, sir. I did not say I like it. We disdain such women. They become Messalinas. If their deception runs high enough, and is then discovered, they might die for it, as Katherine Howard was killed when King Henry learned of her past and her wicked present.’