The Flesh Market

by Richard Wright

  Knox opened his eyes; saw the strange fervour with which Syme regarded him. "I have rarely seen you so driven. You wish to play saviour?"

  Syme paused, and there was something in his hesitation that belied his ready agreement. "Is that wrong? Do you not seek the same? What more notable glory than that which brings the greatest salvation? That, Robert, is what immortality means!"

  Knox gave a careful smile. Syme was right about him, but only to a certain extent. While he craved immortality, it was mere happenstance that the best way to do so was to bring salvation upon the city. Knowledge was its own end. "You have yet to declare what it is you seek from me."

  "Simply not to give up. To continue making your arguments in public until they listen. One day, they must, and until then you have my wholehearted support. I shall stand behind you, echo you, until they give in to the inevitable."

  "And then?"

  "Then the race will resume, and we can hurl our words at each other across the square once more, until there is a victor."

  Knox paused, as though giving it thought, but he had already decided. "I agree."

  Syme clapped his hands, delighted. "Then it is on! I will tell the others, and ensure you have their support too. We shall be waiting for the moment, Robert. Until then." He extended his hand and Knox shook it, disliking the man's limpness but smothering his desire to show it.

  Watching Syme go, he considered. It was on, indeed, and he would give a public effort in line with Syme's thinking.

  But in private ...

  "Paterson!" Purpose renewed, he sought out his servant, letting the fire burn fresh in his belly.

  Chapter 7

  Helen "Nelly" M'Dougal

  Thursday, November 22nd, 1827

  Nelly stood with her back to the wall of a small bookshop, looking up and down Wester Portsburgh, feeling fretful. Compared to Falkirk, where she was raised, Edinburgh was a monstrous place, so brash and loud. There were too many people, too much shouting, banging, and whistling. Although she had not told Bill, she had suffered with a near constant headache since arriving three days earlier, as though the city's incessant energy had punched a hole in her skull, clambered inside, and was rattling around her brain with every bit the fury it demonstrated on the streets around her. She felt as though she had been swallowed, and the vast canyons formed by the towering grey tenements were the guts of some gargantuan determined to digest her. She didn't hate the place, not yet, but she sensed that such strength of feeling would not be long in swamping her.

  Falkirk had been quite big enough for her tastes, and even then the move to Peebles had been welcome. The smaller town had felt like a community, a home. It couldn't be possible that anyone ever felt that way about Edinburgh. Wherever you went, there were strangers. As she pressed her back to the cold stone, wishing she could push through it to get away from all of the harried faces sweeping past her, she wondered if it was different for Bill. He told her once that two Irishmen meeting away from home, though they may never before have met, became family in that moment. What was West Port, if not a little Ireland? While the many neighbours Bill had introduced her to extended a sliver of that kinship to her, and she had tried to accept it graciously, she knew she would never feel it the way it was intended. Whether or not they viewed her as such, she would always feel like an outsider in this strange place.

  When Bill first proposed that they relocate she had understood how she was going to feel, but kept it from him. It was Bill who needed this move, this second chance to aspire to something, and she loved him too much to dampen his hopes with her own misgivings. If he succeeded in his goals then she would make the best of it by his side. If he failed, she hoped they might move on to somewhere that better suited her, perhaps even back to Peebles, which not too long ago she had decided might be a fine place to raise a family. She hoped that might be the Lord's will, unguessable though she knew God's plan to be. That the Saviour had one, she never doubted. Since the day that Bill had swept her from the horror of her marriage, rescuing her like some faerie story princess, she had held faith.

  She felt the first touch of an icy drizzle moisten her face. It was a welcome sensation, the cold smurr easing the crush of the world upon her. She stepped forward to the edge of the road, raising her face. Bill would be along soon, and they would walk arm in arm up to the castle above. It had been his idea, as though he sensed that she had not embraced their new home as he had, and wanted to seduce her with the city's splendour. She loved him for his intuition and the little efforts he made to act on it, and didn't want to spoil things by allowing her misgivings to leak out.

  Lost in her thoughts and the refreshing cool of the rain on her face and throat, wondering if the same waters might easily be falling in Peebles, she tried to drift away.

  Where others might have been able to let the cavorting city vanish into the background, her anxieties gave her no such grace, and she was aware of almost everything around her. Even standing there, head tilted back, she saw the man crossing the road towards her from the other side. Paying him little heed, not thinking for a second that she was his focus, she nevertheless noted his disjointed movements. It was as though he was unaffected by Edinburgh's pulse, able to ignore it and beat his own rhythm. The traffic on the road was lighter than she had seen it on previous days, but only at night did it ever trickle to nothing. A smartly dressed man on horseback, passing through West Port on route to somewhere more salubrious, approached from the other direction; the thud of hooves on the cobbles, like the rain, allowed her to pretend for a moment that she was somewhere more to her liking.

  Somebody in too great a hurry to navigate the crowds with any tact or gentleness squeezed by, an arm catching Nelly's shoulder and sending her stumbling onto the road. The horse was yet a few yards back, and at first it did not react at all to her presence. She was not in its way, and it would have no difficulty in navigating past her. Nelly was about to turn, if only to put a face to the person who favoured his own passage over basic courtesy, when the beast's demeanour changed.

  To the evident surprise of the rider, its legs stiffened, refusing to take it further. It stamped, whinnying panic, and then reared back with a terrified cry. Nelly froze, hands clasped to her breast, sure that the beast had for some reason taken offence at her presence. Fighting for control, the rider refused to give the horse its head, but could not encourage it to cease rearing or crying out. Passers-by paused, the display holding their attention beyond the demands of whatever errands they were on, but nobody stepped forward to help.

  Certain she was about to be trampled, Nelly tried to step out of the way, but could not. Somehow, she had never noticed how vast and powerful horses were. From beneath one, all she could see was a tower of muscle enough to leave her broken in the dirt.

  Finally somebody stepped in. It was the slow stranger, still unperturbed. For the first time she noticed the black dirt marking his otherwise new wool suit, and the shocking disarray of his dark hair. Unworried by the horse, he concentrated on her, his arms reaching as though to push her back from harm's way.

  Somebody screamed a word, but she could not make it out. Others joined the cry, a cacophony of panic, and finally the horse could take no more. Slamming its hooves down, it twisted its neck against its owner, skittering around on the spot. It met only token resistance, for the rider's attention, like so many in the increasingly animated crowd, was fixed squarely on her and the man who was almost close enough to perform his belated rescue. The horse bolted back the way it had come, the rider clinging on in desperation, barely able to stay in the saddle.

  Too late, her rescuer was with her, his intention unaffected by the departure of the rogue horse. The screaming and shouting increased in pitch as she saw the grey of his skin, the way his mouth lolled open.

  She had time to think of plagues and infection, and then he grabbed her forearm with one hand and yanked. His skin cold and slimy. A new tension pulsed into his neck and jaws as he prepared to bite.


  A second man, little more than a boy but heavy with labourer's muscle, grabbed her shoulders, tearing her backwards. Unprepared, her attacker loosened his grip enough for her to be jerked free, though not before his too-long fingernails gouged furrows in her arm. The boy pulled her back as others took his place, putting themselves between Nelly and the slow man. Some were armed with improvised weapons, brooms and bricks, while a few held blades.

  She looked up to thank the man who had grabbed her, still not certain what she had been saved from, and he shook his head in shock. "You just stood there," he said, as though talking to a child.

  Tears filled her eyes, and she didn't know why. "Sorry," she managed. "Thank you."

  He nodded. "Go home, missie. Get your arm tended to. We'll deal with that thing."

  Leaving her, he joined the shouting mob. Nelly could no longer see her attacker, only the rise and fall of weapons, the swinging of legs, the wild shoving to deliver a desperate retribution that she did not understand. It was as though all of Edinburgh had stopped in order that these men might explode with violence.

  Not knowing whether she was more shocked by the attack or the horrific example of mob justice it had caused, she clutched her arm, tears mixing with increasingly heavy rain on her cheeks, and pushed against the crowd for freedom.

  #

  Nelly sobbed against Maggie's shoulder, the shock having caught up with her along with the pain of the scratches in her flesh. Maggie had bandaged those, crudely and effectively, but there was nothing to be done for the hurt, or the curious sense of violation that it created in her.

  "There lass," Maggie said. "It's done now. The worst is done." When Nelly had staggered through the door of the lodging house Maggie was making up the fire, and when she saw her newest tenant stumble through the door she let the wood and bark spill from her arms. Taking Nelly quickly to the room she had given to Bill, she had sat her on the bed, holding her and stroking her back long enough to soothe her. Only when the tears stopped did the older woman leave to boil some rags.

  On her return she bandaged the arm, letting Nelly tell what had happened at her own pace, and in the telling the sobs began afresh. Not once did Maggie interrupt the story, although Nelly was not blind to the subtle signs of horror on her face as she described her dirt-smeared assailant and the wanton ferocity of the mob.

  "I don't know what he wanted, Maggie," she said, as the energy to keep crying left her, "but Lord, the way they fell on him ... it was horrible. If I had just stepped back, even said something, he might not have chosen that course."

  "Don't be foolish. You know what it was." Nelly looked at her landlady, at the coldness that had spread over her face. She shook her head, and Maggie's eyes widened. "Really? You don't know?"

  "I ... a drunkard? Maybe a beggar, from the state of his clothes."

  "Mercy take me, you really don't know? You must have heard of the Cadaver Riots last year? Peebles isn't so distant that news like that wouldn't reach it."

  The Cadaver Riots, when the dead rose up. She had half-believed it to be a myth, so incredible were the tales told of the revenants that had swept through the city and left death in their wake. A chill passed through her as she remembered the cold touch of the man's hand on her arm, the terrified violence of the crowd. "No," she was shaking now, and could barely find her voice. This was not the world she had thought she was here to embrace. This was Hell. Why would her God put her in such a place?

  "Aye, Nelly. They're still here. Barely a week goes by without an attack or a sighting. Old dead, and new too. Nobody knows what to make of it, but when they're found, they're destroyed."

  "No." She refused to believe it. Perhaps the city folk did, which would explain how they had reacted to the wretch, but they lived their lives divorced from nature and its rules and laws. "No. God would not allow it."

  "There's some as say these are the end times, like in the Bible, and the dead are rising up because the world is stopping." Maggie spoke in a hush, and Nelly suddenly wanted the woman to leave and take her insanity with her.

  "Bill. I want Bill."

  "He'll be here soon enough. I sent William looking."

  Nelly nodded, helpless. Images flicked by in her head--the horse rearing up as the man approached, moist dirt on clothes, the hanging jaw and the knowledge that if she had not been pulled away he would have sank teeth into her. It was true. Her attacker had been a dead thing, a revenant, and it would have devoured her. She started to shake.

  "Shh, there, it's all right." Maggie tried to smile, but it was a clumsy attempt, failing to mask her own unease. "It's usually safe enough when the sun's up. First I've heard of one of them about in public during the day. It's at night you have to watch out. Too many people have mistaken them for drunks in passing, and only found they were wrong when they felt rotted hands take them down."

  Despite herself, Nelly laughed. "Live to tell the tale, did they?"

  Frowning, Maggie shook her head. "Now that you come to say it, they usually don't. Makes you wonder that anybody hears of it."

  Nelly smiled. "Aye, it's a miracle."

  Maggie chuckled, seeing how ridiculous it was. "At least now you know there's something behind the tales though. You'll know to keep your wits about you."

  Nelly nodded. "What of you, Maggie? Have you ever seen one?"

  Maggie looked down at her hands, as though embarrassed. Nelly heard the front door open and almost leaped to her feet, expecting it to be Bill. When she realised there were no footsteps, she knew William had returned alone. The man moved like a ghost, as though he had something to hide. She had not taken to him when they were introduced, though he seemed to make an effort for Bill's sake.

  "Go on," Nelly said, keen to hear another's tale to distract her from her own.

  Maggie sighed. "The night of the riot. They were here. Would have got in too, if it weren't for my William. You should have seen him, Nelly. He was strong that night. Fierce. Without him, I wouldn't be here."

  Nelly reached out, placing her own still trembling hand on Maggie's clasped ones, and the women shared a glance. "He fought them?"

  "He was like a whirlwind, keeping them out until the soldiers came through. I don't know how he found the energy for it. They never gave up all night, trying again and again, knowing we were trapped inside, but he met them every time. It was terrifying."

  Something about that rang false. Not knowing why, Nelly asked a question that sounded strange even to her. "The revenants were terrifying?"

  "Aye, they were that, right enough. So was William. William was terrifying. I didn't know whether I was safer inside with him, or whether I should take my chances on the street."

  Nelly didn't know what to say, so simply nodded.

  The door opened and there he was, as though the saying of his name had been a summoning. He took his hat off and tried to smile. "Better?"

  Maggie stood, letting Nelly's hand fall as though holding it had been a guilty act. "Aye, but William, it was one of them that nearly got her. A revenant."

  William didn't flinch, though he looked at Nelly with sour respect. "Lucky. Not many meet them without getting more than scratches."

  Nelly nodded. "Did you find Bill?"

  "Nowhere I looked. He'll be back soon enough. Stopped off for a jar, most like."

  Nelly nodded, knowing the truth of it. Bill had always shown a fondness for the drink, but while he had been alone in Edinburgh without her he seemed to have enjoyed it more than she would have liked. He'd be along soon, full of guilt and apologies. At least this time, having left her at the mercy of the dead, he had something to be guilty about.

  "Anyway," William said to Maggie. "New problem. Upstairs. Old Donald's dead."

  Both women stared, and finally Maggie slapped her husband reproachfully on the arm. "Idiot! Why didn't you say something sooner?"

  William shrugged, amused. "You seemed cosy, and he's not getting any deader."

  Maggie bustled past him, and William followed. Old Don
ald was a long time guest, an old man with a military pension that just about covered the cost of his food and lodging. For some time he had been suffering from dropsy, an overabundance of fluids in his limbs, and to avoid scaring away any other potential lodgers William had insisted on moving him upstairs to their spare room.

  Not getting any deader. Nelly started shaking all over again. It seemed to her that Edinburgh was a world where the truth of that statement was in constant flux. Dropping to her knees beside the bed, she prayed to God that He might change his mind and set she and Bill on some different course.

  Chapter 8

  Burke & Hare

  Saturday, November 24th, 1827

  Closing the lodging house door behind him, Bill dropped the sack of shoes he had collected for repair. He was greeted by the hacking coughs of Maggie's most recent tenant, who had introduced himself as Joseph when they were introduced a couple of days before, and who sat hunched over on a bed at the far end of the room.

  "Easy does it there. She won't thank you for leaving your innards on her swept floor."

  Joseph raised a hand in acknowledgement as he his coughing fit subsided. "Not a woman I'd seek to displease. It's a fair warning."

  Bill smiled. "I thought you were bound for the docks this morning, see if there's work to be had." There was something about Joseph that spoke of a life turned badly around at some point. Though not a gambling man, Bill would have been prepared to place a few pennies on Joseph having once been monied. The man was barely older than he was, but grey streaked through his hair like ploughed snow, and the deep lines of his face were carved by tragedy instead of time. Despite this he was always clean-shaven, and made efforts to keep his only suit in good order. At some point Bill would find time to tell him that this was why he was struggling to find work. A labourer should look the part, if he wanted to be plucked from the crowd of a morning and put to work. Though Joseph seemed a man of character, willing to put in a day's work for a day's pay, his suit made him appear to have ideas above his station.