They’ve kept you fed and paid and seen you right.
They’ve given me piss but no pot to put it in. That’s all.
You’re part of something. This is the brotherhood of the valley.
James Broadbent took a big drink. He drained his cup and felt his head hanging heavy.
Brotherhood bollocks.
They’ll come after you.
I’m here.
Not just you either. They’ll fix your old man too.
A rogue’s move they call it, said James Broadbent. The blackmail.
What do you mean?
The exciseman. He has tricked me and my father, an ill man with the reaper’s scythe flashing in his eyes, with threats and promises and lies. But I too can string out a line of lies like a baited wire in the pike pond. Yes. I too can feed ligs to the ligger. You all think I am short on thinking, but I am not.
You swore a statement to the law man though?
A trough of pig-swill is what that was.
But why? asked James Stansfield.
Fetch me a drink.
I will not.
James Broadbent’s head lolled to his chest for a moment as if he were falling asleep.
Fetch me a drink, he said.
Again I will not, said James Stansfield. I do not buy for turncoats. Tell me why you did it.
There was a moment’s silence and then James Broadbent raised his head and spoke quickly, as if to beat the sleep that was settling behind his eyes.
You want to know why I fed that devil-cunt Deighton a mouthful of lies about the bitch-born Hartley?
Yes, said James Stansfield.
James Broadbent’s head began to dip again. It reminded James Stansfield of a fell shepherd’s dog nodding off in front of a roaring fire.
For my freedom. And for money. And because he had threatened to put me over a barrel. It’s simple.
I still don’t understand.
James Broadbent hiccupped and then sighed and then hiccupped again.
And people say it is I that is dim like a fading candle. Listen doylem: I gave the man what he thought he wanted to hear, but as you say it is of no consequence.
You have done wrong, Broadbent.
We have all done wrong.
You do not strike me as someone with a conscience.
I’m the one they laugh at. I’m the one whose cupboard is empty while the Hartleys get fat.
You must make amends, said James Stansfield. That is what you must do. Reparations.
All is broken.
You must take back your words. Scrap this statement. You must tell Deighton that it was all lies – if that’s what it was.
Big hairy bull bollocks to that.
James Broadbent spoke this in a loud voice that caused the turnpike navvies to look over.
You say that now but wait until you’re upright and the froth has blown, said James Stansfield.
I’ll stay drunk then.
You need to speak to Deighton.
I’ll stay in ale forever.
You need to take those words back.
But then he’ll have me. He’ll have me and the old man.
For what?
For coining.
Has he seen you at it?
No, said James Broadbent. Because I’ve never wielded a hammer. I’ve never owned one. Who needs a hammer when you’ve got these?
He lifted his large hands up and looked at their knotted knuckles and crooked fingers as if they were strange foreign objects.
Well then, said Stansfield. Has he found the spoils of this forging business of ours?
No. I have nothing but the clothes I sleep in.
Well. So. William Deighton has nothing to link you and the Coiners but your own admittance.
James Broadbent shrugged.
Get me a drink, he said. Fetch me a finger of gin.
We need to get you to the Duke of York.
Isaac Hartley?
Of course Isaac Hartley, said James Stansfield. Is there anyone else with that nickname? Listen, there is still time to straighten out these crooked actions of yours. Isaac will know what to do. If your statement is pig swill then this case cannot stand. If it’s a choice between the exciseman and Hartley I know whose side I would want to be on. It’s about choosing the better of two enemies now, for you will surely have no friends left.
It’s too late for that. It’s too late for any of that.
Think with your brain-pan, man. Coining we might be guilty of but neither King David Hartley nor James Jagger will kick the wind because of the greedy foolishness of some born-backwards sot that’s been on the rant since he first tasted ale.
Who’s this sot? said James Broadbent.
You are.
James Broadbent pushed his chair back and made to stand but his legs gave and he stumbled sideways. James Stansfield grabbed at the larger man and guided him back onto his seat. James Broadbent slumped back and then reached for his cup but only managed to knock it over. It was empty. It rolled to the floor and broke. His chin sank to his chest.
I should slit your throat right now and be the hero of every Coiner for what you’ve done said James Stansfield. But what good would that do when our king is rotting in a York cell and you’re the only hope for his freedom? So listen to me and I might just save a life.
James Broadbent lifted his head.
Is mine a life worth saving though?
James Stansfield stared back at him with disdain.
It’s not your life I’m thinking on.
They corls it hangin in chaynes but really it is not chains at orl but summat more like a rort iyun cayge that they rivet on to the body of the poor hanged man like bones of metal worn on the outside with his head held fassed and his legs held fassed and the arms held fassed And the only acksool chayne is that which dangles the poor godforsaykun bastid in this most fearful and barbrus suit from the gibberd mast And what happens is they leeve the dead man dangling this way for all the four seesuns long Aye for all the valley fowk to see and thur chillum to see too and what happens is the rain it does sile down and the wynde it does blowe strong and the frossed it does frees and the birds they do come a-pecken for a nip and twist of flesh and insex too Great big insex in the summer layern thur eggs in the drippy woonds though they says it is the eye borls that do go first been as they offer the tastiest morsulls to scavengers And then in thyme what was wans a man becomes something else He becomes a dark shadder on the hill as the chayne rusts with the rains and his boddee feeds the beasts of the air and oh how it creaks and oh how it mones laike you wuddent no.
As the brees does turn the cayge and that mans head lolls on his snapped neck and all the crowes and rayvuns and jackodaws gather thicker still and that mans meat it does become a meal for menny more still and they leeve him hangin until the sky is black with clows of screechin birds and that hanged man is carryun now and his flesh is stript away as the birds sit on the mettle bars of his rort iron suit And down the hill at nite the folk of the town can heer the chayne and then there is meet no more and we are down to the corr of it now Down to the bones what first were red and then browne and then grey in culler then after that yeller and then finally they are boans of pure wite and there is nothing left to hold that man together but the idear of him But still the rort iron cayge in whose mettul bayse his parts gather and in time they will be nout but dussed and the cayge it will further rust and the plump birds swollen will sing sweetlee and hope against hope that another hangd man will be brung up and strung up and suspended like a grate gift to the skye Gods if you go in for all that godly preechin shyte wich as it goes I dunt but still But still I moan his nayme.
o God.
O god.
Sequestered in their square stone cell, James Jagger finished noisily urinating in the sluice channel that ran
down one side of the space then he shook himself off and dropped down into the straw that covered the floor.
It burns when I piss he said, then he took off one of his clogs and removed a sock. He began to pick at his big toe-nail. He took a piece of straw and scraped a layer of grime that looked like a millipede out from beneath it. He flicked it away.
Stop that, said David Hartley.
What?
That.
This?
James Jagger held the stem of straw aloft.
Aye. Cleaning your fucking wagglers. Stop it.
But it’s ailing us. It’s sore.
I don’t give a tinker’s tit for your toe.
I fear it has turned septic. There was juice coming out of it in the night. Yellow water, brother.
David Hartley stared at James Jagger until the latter looked away.
A full minute passed before they spoke again.
This stonejug is full of queans, said James Jagger.
They say gaols can make a man that way.
Not me but. Yesterday in the courtyard some big lump tried to touch me down there. Grabbed at it while passing. I gave him short shrift, don’t you worry about that. Like an angry bull I kicked him hard right between the left toe and the right toe. Clang went his sweetbreads. He fell like a flour sack from a cart just like that time you told us about when you were away down there in the forges of the midlands.
What time? said David Hartley wearily.
I mean fancy trying that with a Cragg Vale Coiner. He must be bent in the head to do that. Well, anyroad. He’s limping now.
I do believe I’ve not met anyone who talks as much as you Jimmy Jagger, said David Hartley.
I thank you.
It wasn’t meant in kindness. I never noticed how much you rabbit before.
Our lass says I am a sunny person.
Does she.
She says nothing gets us down.
Not even the hangman’s shadow?
No. I have faith.
What faith? said David Hartley. No-one told me you were a bible man.
Give over. I have faith in you, King David. You’ve steered us to success and now I believe you’ll steer us out of these dangerous waters too. Deighton is just a worm in the apple barrel. He can’t get at us all. Someone’ll burst him first.
A face appeared at the cell door. It was the turnkey Charles Claxton and one of his aides. They unlocked the door and the two men slowly stood.
Bread day, said Charles Claxton as his aide passed David Hartley and James Jagger a six shilling loaf each. They were hard and weighted in their hands. Uniform in size. James Jagger rapped at his with his knuckles and then sniffed it.
What’s this made from – wood shavings?
Charles Claxton turned away.
Is that it? said James Jagger.
Until Tuesday.
What happens on Tuesday?
You get another loaf. If you’re paid up.
Paid up?
Aye. You didn’t reckon on getting owt for nowt did you?
Well, what fucking day is it now?
Friday.
Incredulous, James Jagger glared back.
What I am supposed to scran in the meanwhile?
The Turnkey shrugged.
Your socks? he said.
James Jagger raised his voice.
We’re the fucking mighty Coiners of Cragg Vale.
Not my concern.
The gaoler’s aide spooned water into the empty jug on the floor.
Oh, what I would do for a bowl of something hot, said James Jagger. A dollop of sweetened furmenty would do for me.
Them that pays get fed, said Charles Claxton, dropping his ladle back into his bucket.
I’ll be wasting away, said James Jagger again.
Charles Claxton said nothing. Charles Claxton shut the door.
James Broadbent did not wonder what Isaac Hartley was doing in the sodden parrock that lay behind Elphaborough Hall in the fading light of day; instead he accepted only that he was there and that his fate lay in the man’s hands.
Already the courage that ale gave him was ebbing away and when he saw the shape of Isaac Hartley in the far corner with his back turned to them he slowed his pace and he said in a low voice this not a good idea but James Stansfield, feeling a reversal of roles, and recognising that his part in the saving of King David Hartley would not go unnoticed or rewarded, replied: this is the only choice that you have now James Broadbent.
They trudged across the field that had been churned by horses, and the mud clung to their boots. It added another sole and made the walking heavy.
When they reached somewhere near the centre James Stansfield said: you better wait a while. James Broadbent said what – wait here, in the mud like a bloody donkey? and James Stansfield replied: yes, exactly that – like a donkey, and he strode off across the field.
Again James Broadbent wished he had a clay pipe to clean and fill, to ignite and inhale while he waited in the softening evening light, if only to give purpose to hands that he put in and out of his pockets and then ran through his hair and used to adjust his clothes on his frame. He wanted another drink and he could smell himself as he watched James Stansfield, a queer sot if ever there was – a man that he would never otherwise have call to socialise with, had not the yellow trade brought them together through greed and geography and circumstance – call out to Isaac Hartley.
They walked to one another and conferred for some time. Aware that he suddenly needed to urinate James Broadbent walked to the edge of the field and pissed against the wall and then walked back to the centre. James Stansfield and Isaac Hartley were deep in conversation and the latter kept looking over at him. He could see anger.
They continued talking and then there was a sudden raised voice and Isaac Hartley pushed James Stansfield aside and walked across the field with purpose. He strode across the ruined furrows and quickened his pace as he approached James Broadbent, who saw the rage on the man’s face, yet still nullified from a day’s drinking he did not think to move out of the way but merely watched on impassively as Isaac Hartley, the smaller of the two, threw a heavy right hand to his nose, which cracked beneath his fist, nor did he dodge the short, tight jab that dug deep into the soft space beneath his arm-pit. When this second punch landed he felt all the breath being drawn from his body in one swift exhalation; his lungs felt flattened and his stomach lurched with nausea. A howl of distress rang through his entire system as he struggled to take in air. Isaac Hartley ended him with a third button-punch straight through the centre of the man’s waistcoat.
James Broadbent bent double and could hear himself wheeze but a well-aimed knee to his temple sent him slipping sideways into the dirt. Pain did battle in three different parts of his body and his pride ached too. He had not been beaten this way since he was a child.
He thought of all the men he had punched and kicked and stamped, and wondered if it had felt like this for them – or worse?
What hurt more was that he knew he could fight this man. On any given day he could mince him but he could not do that now, for that would bring about a whole more trouble and trouble he had plenty of as it was.
Get up, said Isaac Hartley.
James Broadbent felt the soft mud beneath them. He saw the old tree at one end of the field, and he saw the rookery of nests that had been constructed in the fork of its branches, and he heard the birds too. The hoarse mocking chorus of them was like cruel laughter; the very sound of autumn itself.
Get up, said Isaac Hartley again, and he grabbed James Broadbent beneath one arm. James Broadbent touched his hand to his broken nose and though there was no blood he could feel his eyes swelling in sympathy on either side of it.
That’s for what you’ve done, he said, and he took a large knife from his pocket and sai
d and this is for what you have yet to do.
He moved towards James Broadbent and said: turncoat, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.
James Stansfield stepped forward and laid a hand on Isaac Hartley’s arm.
Now just one moment Isaac, just one moment he said, putting his body between the two of them. This man has already confessed to me his wrong doings but also confessed that his words are worthless. It was not your brother that he wanted to see arrested, but his own skin that he was saving. You see, this bastard William Deighton is cunning and we all know that Broadbent here is more like the blind poxed rabbit that sits in the sun all day long, and yet wonders why he gets his neck snapped. He has been had by Deighton, that is all. He is a drunkard and a ligger too, and he has filled the man’s papers with nothing but lies about the business of the Coiners. I do truly believe that there is nothing in there that can be proven and that this man and this man only is the one who can get your brother, our king, freed. And after that – well, then it is up to you and yours to decide what to do next. Cut his tongue out then if you see fit but I imagine by then James here will have made amends and will surely be indebted for life.
Isaac Hartley looked from James Stansfield to James Broadbent.
Well? he said. What say you, turncoat?
James Broadbent dropped his eyes.
I will do whatever it takes to get him freed.
And Jagger?
Yes, Jagger too.
I will cut your tongue and cock off and feed them to my guffies if you do not do this.
I will speak to the man that has wronged me said James Broadbent quietly. I will speak to the cunt Deighton. I will spend my time in that cell instead of your brother, if that is what must be done.
Aye, not a bad thought, said James Stansfield. You’d be safer there than here.
And you’ll swear before the magistrate? said Isaac Hartley.
Yes.
I don’t believe you, turncoat.
You have my word.
Your word isn’t worth a tagnut on a sheep’s scut, said Isaac Hartley.
You have it all the same.
James Broadbent felt the bridge of his nose again.
The Gallows Pole Page 20