by H C Turk
Then began a mutual persecution, for these sects of anti-witch, pro-victim began a pushing to accompany their shouts, followed by smacks of fist on face. A third type of fanatic, Eric gained a salvation that situated him in his future world. As though enlightened by God Himself, Eric found the power to proceed in life, all his remorse and confusion replaced by anger. As the secular confrontations continued, Eric implemented their ending.
Elsie had long before gone running for the constables. The other servants, being elder and intelligent, well hid themselves lest they suffer from a witch scarcely seen. Proving himself father to Edward, Lord Andrew pressed forcefully through the crowd as best he could, demanding folk leave as he pulled them away; but Grand was too elderly for great success, his efforts absorbed by the mass. So were Eric’s, but poorly; for with the beginning violence, he moved from the corridor into a bedchamber that had once been ours though never again slept in by the husband, removing that loose bedpost and presenting it to the crowd with concise, controlled swings to the nearest backs and shoulders, poking the wood toward faces and bellies; and what mad humor for him to be praying with a stick not crossed in its middle. The congregation, large for a hallway, became small for all of Eric’s anger, which passed like a sea wave over the audience members, its medium of transference pain. Then all who could stand ran from the house, not a crowd now but individuals with no religious affiliation beyond sole survival, each running for salvation, though not through Jesus.
When constables came in carriages with Naylor and Elsie, recuperating Eric was found with his grandfather cleaning the mess, these two weakened men sufficiently strong to drag the wounded intruders from their home with scant regard for injuries; for Eric had begun to rearrange his life, and would not end until only family members remained.
The trial in which Eric had failed to see the wife had been his last failure, the congregation she had indirectly sent delivering this message. Though exhausted and sickened by his exertion, Eric had fully recuperated, if not in the body, then in his heart. Eric had come to understand that his health and profession were insignificant, for he would spend the remainder of his days not working nor healing, but loving Alba. In an instantaneous, completing view of his future, Eric accepted that he would not pass his life pining over this ultimate love vanished as though a crowd of evil haters praying via trespass too late to change the court’s adjudications. This decision was not only for Alba, but from her, Eric recalling the instances wherein she had refused in anger his lax, useless feelings, yet with a most subtle and special love accepted his best emotions, whether she agreed with them or not. And, yes, he knew it to be love, a type of love, an enhancing and fulfilling and desirable love that the wife had felt for him, this the very force allowing her to remain with an alien in an alien land. For this man and woman were together not merely in England’s registers, but also in their hearts, a bond now obvious to the husband aware of his wife’s emotion through her own peculiar manner that was no longer unique, for Eric had learned. The husband understood only when the wife was gone that they were truly wed.
The correct position of his personal witch was not in Eric’s heart, but in his home. She should not be lodged in his emotions, but should live along with him. Separating them, however, was no bridgeable distance, but the space of English law, Eric coming to feel for the situation a complex emotional state the wife had often displayed. Within him seethed a demeanor that issued an intent of equal strength, one not to be quenched by love, but only fulfilled by achievement. Only with an act as intense and absolute as those initiated by the wife for her own survival would Eric save himself from the sinners’ morality that had split his family. As though suffering from mad humor, Eric came to understand that since English law would not release his wife, he would have to take her.
Chapter 39
Vanquished A Dream
“I shall now determine the size of your heart.”
“And I’m begging your pardon, sir?”
“The size of your soul, miss, and the substance thereof.”
“Ah, sir, but you’re saying what I cannot understand.”
“Miss, I will soon explain how the life of my family shall proceed, and will know your part therein. My family consists of myself, Randolph, yourself, and your mistress, Alba.”
“Oh, and Master Eric, and Alba is enjailed now, like a tomb, and not to be released, and my fear has always been that you would be keeping her there if given the choice.”
“No choice am I allowed by English law; therefore, I shall force upon society the selection of my family’s ways. My choice, then, is to have the wife returned to her family with whom she belongs. And I ask you now if you can live and cooperate with the fact that I shall have my wife’s release, even if criminality is required on my part.”
“Oh, great Jesus, Master Eric, why should I be living free if Mistress Alba is not? No more injustice I can’t be thinking than Alba not living as best a person can. God knows I’ve oft prayed to put me in her place and be releasing the girl if only you would accept her again.”
“I think we both understand that a person in my reduced condition cannot be expected to desire such a woman beside him ever again. Nevertheless, despite how she has pained me, Alba is my life’s continuing love. Herein I have no choice, though perhaps I would select no other, for Alba’s life has surely been more distraught than mine. Therefore, I will have her returned despite the legalities that retain her. But from you I ask no criminality, Elsie, only your cooperation in spirit.”
“But if I’m only praying for you, sir, then I’m doing not enough, for I can be praying in me sleep. If you’re having Mistress Alba removed from the prison, then you’re dealing with something beyond me, sir. But I would learn. I would learn in order to remain in this family.”
“Thus are we conjoined in ignorance,” Eric told her, and took Elsie’s hand as though clasping a man to consummate a business venture. But Eric’s exuded confidence made the servant no less fearful, for here the master had the force of anger, not cunning, a reversed demeanor fit the inverted wife, the lost companion.
• • •
He was certain no legal venue would release the wife. Too satisfied was the magistrate with his new expert to relinquish her, an impossible dismissal considering her confessions of satanic murder. And dangerous her freedom would be, for though the parading of pious folk seeking her neck had subsided, alive in London during the following months were stories of the witch living in Montclaire Prison as though a hosteled queen. And Eric knew better than to draw further attention to the witch’s husband, his secretive plans thus to be surmised by curious, clever sinners.
Though innocent of prison ways, sufficiently familiar was Eric with the greater realm of British society for him to deduce his task’s beginning: finance. Not seeking employment in that payment for his talents would not support his needs, Eric approached kindly Grand with prevarication, portraying himself as a man requiring funds to provide his wife with legal defense. Moved by Eric’s forgiveness and fidelity, Lord Andrew allowed his grandson access to a sinners’ bank, generous accounts therein to afford Eric that unparalleled power of ready currency, if only he could determine how to apply his new wealth.
Solicitors reinforced Eric’s idea that the wife would not be legally released. The expertise Eric thereafter considered was not in English law, but appropriately its invert, the realm of crime. But what professionals could be sought on this subject? Constables were expert in felony, even moreso than barristers, who were insulated from criminal locales by the architecture of the courthouse. But obtaining the services of a constable willing to reject his profession for superior funding seemed unlikely to Eric as well as dangerous. Doubtless he would find honest lawmen before those corrupt, and therefore never gain the latter due to his being incarcerated by the former.
Thoughtful Eric adjudged he was best to proceed by seeking established, not potential, criminals. No great enthusiasm enveloped him with this decision, but hi
s life beyond the upcoming corruption would not be endured without his spouse. And who could be more fitting for him than the sex witch who hated sex? With no gender limb on the husband to require satisfaction, the married pair would likely live more comfortably than during that initial, raw-arsed time of marriage. Comfort, however, was not Eric’s prime concern. That anger within him was both guide and torment, an emotion he would follow to its end.
• • •
Even a sinner could smell the difference. The bodily wastes and food remains tossed at the street’s edges formed a sensual ambience, and that burned background was natural for no city. Surely, the buildings themselves housed worse elements than their peripheral artifacts. Therefore, Eric traversed this street by remaining paces away from the buildings, away from the dogs whose bared teeth and low growlings threatened the interloper walking with no goal, his oldest clothes too good for this society.
Long he walked without seeing any person, though from the buildings’ depths came anonymous threats to have his goddamned kidney cut out and et cetera. His first response was relief for having brought no money along, for at least he would not be robbed. One epithet was shouted so near Eric that he seemed to smell its source. Leaping sideways with a start, Eric saw but a hint of a man in the shadows, a man with no intent of retreating though his position be revealed. Here was a person to meet, perhaps, in that he neither attacked nor fled. But since he had also shouted obscenities worse than any of the wife’s when most upset, Eric felt that some superior example of semi-humanity must lay ahead.
Moving a few alleys north—as though seeking certain mosses—Eric came to a broader street with equal squalor and more human noise. Espying children playing with ungrowling dogs, Eric presumed greater safety here, and a greater opportunity for success, in that the base of people for his communicating was increased. Thus, he walked several minutes before two men assaulted him with saps, in a flurry of activity clubbing the manless man to the ground, searching every portion of his attire for purses and watches; then, finding nothing, off with his boots to run away like playing children.
Foolish he felt to be sprawled on the street in no gentlemanly pose. No elite Londoners, however, were about for embarrassment. Even the former populace had departed, as though refusing to be seen with a man so uncouth as to lie in the dirt and spit blood. But Eric was not concerned with etiquette, for he was seeking pain. His balance poor, he stood with difficulty; but with his left eye swollen shut and his jaws stiff and inoperable, why did he feel only numbness?
So pervasive was his dullness that Eric had no shame in shoeless walking. In fact, he was virtually pleased at the people staring in better London, for they would not harm him. And once in a coach and before Lord Andrew’s house, he well felt at home. If this be so, however, why the delay in leaving the cab, as though he had adhered to the seat? But no surprise had Eric here, for danger had been his expectation, though he was displeased to lose those boots; and what a fool to wear an ancient waistcoat but excellent footwear. Having never learned mad humor despite long exposure to Alba, Miss Elsie had no understanding of Eric’s stumbling into the house chuckling, mumbling about returning to Penstone with no shoes, but then they would steal his trousers. And no explanation had he for that blood sputtering down his chin with the chortling, though Elsie guessed the source to be other than criminals, perhaps a witch.
• • •
“And, sir, I did notice you in our area before, and wonder if you come for the selling. It may be some cooking wares you mean to peddle.”
After recuperating from his latest damage, Eric returned to a similar section of Penstone Place. Two days of questing found him approached by a surprisingly young man with excellent teeth and perhaps the clothes he was given at birth, such was their age.
“I’ve a proposition for a genuine man, but not a coward nor a fool.”
“Well, sir, and if you pay me to be aiding you, I can do all you wish, after a decent meal to get me thinking straight, which I’ve not had in some time.”
“Your lack of straight thinking is readily seen. Therefore your difficulty in recalling my initial speaking wherein I rejected those foolish, a category likely to include you amongst its members.”
“Well, sir, you did seem less than the gent that day without your boots, and with lumps yet showing on your nut.”
Eric stepped nearer the man to immediately state, “Sir, this day again I wear fine boots. Would you alone care to examine their fit?”
Not so foolish as to measure the emotion guiding Eric, the young man answered, “Perhaps not, sir, but perhaps I am not alone here.”
“Then bring your mother out to aid you, child,” Eric replied with mild, perhaps mad, laughter.
“She was in an English prison at my birth, sir, and scarcely has been out since. But she reared me to the business of this place, and so might I aid you here, for Jesus can see you’re not doing well on your own.”
“Aid me then, youth, by finding for me a man expert enough to enter Montclaire Prison and not leave alone.”
Laughing himself, the young man returned, “And, sir, if you think to rob London’s best prison, have in waiting a fee so generous you can’t carry it, for you would set men toward death or an endless stay there.”
“A business I do know is paying a man well for his arduous tasks. If you’ve familiarity with the sort of man I seek, send him to me, tomorrow, on the corner of Harborough Street near the museum. Attend and you shall have your fee. If you’ve no capacity for this chore or know less of this region than you maintain, visit your mother instead.”
Eric then turned to leave, the youth watching his initial steps, staring at those boots.
• • •
The typical London bustle at this corner was heartening to Eric in its security. What a change of mien the people around him displayed, moving and speaking as though having nothing to conceal or to hide from. Common here were courteous gents bending toward Eric to wish him a fine good day, Eric replying by tipping his hat, always with a deeper bow and broader smile.
A peer of that young Penstone man soon approached Eric, alone. Not only his simplified clothing—no waistcoat or jacket, only a jerkin and poor hat—but also the containment of his personality as he looked around without moving his head described him as not fitting this locale. No felicitous greetings had he for passing folks, only a cold query to a waiting man.
“You’re of the prisons?”
He had stopped near Eric, not quite within view. Turning, Eric saw a heavy, not youthful man whose head’s hair was as short as his beard was long. What of his countenance made this man seem a criminal and not merely baseborn? Standing beside a gentleman, a commoner would present his front at a reasonable distance; whereas this man was askew and too near, as though to conceal himself.
“I am,” Eric stated, viewing the stranger’s thick ear. “And what man are you?”
“I am one who knows you.”
“How are you familiar with me?”
“I know the business you seek. I know you would have your wife away from Montclaire. I know she is called a witch by all of London.”
Remaining calm though this man seemed to read his mind, Eric thought that somehow his plan had been made known to general London, so that any moment would find him confronted by constables, not criminals. But this rapid thinking was more guilt’s concern than good idea, and was ignored by Eric, who continued with his business.
“I would know the source of your notions,” he urged.
“No matter. What I know is true, and you need know no more.”
“As long as I am the subject of your familiarity and the source of cash to support my plans, I will either learn of your knowledge or retain my finances for one more cooperative.”
After a pause for irritation, not cogitation, the hirsute man replied.
“I was at this Rathel’s trial and did see you. That you would have your wife away from Montclaire is easy thinking. I doubt you’d want this Rath
el instead when I have seen both.”
“My wife was not at any trial. How, then, do you maintain to have seen her?”
“I was in the same prison and saw her walking past.”
This clear description was no ending to his speech, the man yet to overcome his irritation. Therefore he added, “Will you hear this, or hear the truth?”
“Regardless of your difficulty in producing true speech, I would have us continue in an honest vein. Tell, then, of your seeing my wife.”
“In that she came to Penstone and found me for business.”
“What business was hers and when?”
“Years before, when with Rathel she did live. Her business was for me to kill that woman.”
Eric could not retain his surprise, though it was only revealed by a stark stillness and too long a pause before his response.
“Your only appropriate idea is the mention of Montclaire. If in fact I had payment for a person’s release from this building, how might you manifest this notion, and how in advance could you convince me of a success not to place us all within the bounds of prison?”
“This jail I’ve been in, long and recent. A good plan I could make and have it succeed with the work of others known me. The plan’s good job I could convince you of, but you would have to pay for it, and for these other persons to do their parts.”
“Now we arrive at your most expert aspect, which is accepting money.”
“What money do you offer?”
“What sum would you accept?”
The criminal stated a price. Eric laughed and cut two-thirds away. This sum the criminal doubled, which Eric somewhat reduced. After this mutual tutoring for a doctorate in pawning, the men had the beginnings of a figure. Apart from an understanding of funds, a broader agreement was yet to come.