The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  But she was too clever for him, too astute and too well travelled to be fooled by his pretty face and light-hearted manner. Merriment had a wisdom and certainty and what had he? A misspent life pitted with failings. He had left a trail of disaster after him, and now he had fixed his longing on the finest woman he had ever met. Should anything happen between them it would fail, as sure as every other relationship had failed. It was bound to. He was contaminated by misfortune.

  Solomon clenched his jaw, biting back his despondency, and summoned up the strength to do the right thing.

  ‘I see,’ he nodded, patting his hat against his thigh. ‘You’re right, I should go.’

  And before she could reconsider Solomon strode away and up the stairs to pack his bags.

  *

  It’s for the best, Merriment thought. He was going to leave one way or the other. Eventually.

  She sank into a chair and rested her head back, staring up at the ceiling. She knew this feeling. She had said goodbye before. She knew the process of shutting down, of retreating inwards, of cauterising all hope and lopping off future dreams. She was familiar with the cool, shrinking feeling of self-reliance. She understood that Solomon was an indulgence, a peculiar whimsy, some kind of fascination that sprang from her loneliness. She entwined her hands, folding one thumb above the other. She had let herself become interested, watching him move and talk, enjoying his company. It was her own fault. She shut her eyes, remembering Johnny Barden, remembering the moment she gazed out on the Aegean Sea and realised he was never going to return to her. That was the moment she learned to turn her back, to let go, to stand alone and face the world unaided. That was the day she learned to be strong. This was a feeling she was familiar with, the sensation of making a decision that moved like a blade, slicing off all ties. She could turn away again. Who was Solomon to her anyway? A fleeting encounter in her busy life.

  She listened; she could hear him moving about upstairs. Outside, the bells of Christ Church Cathedral chimed in the crisp, clear air.

  It’s the right thing to do, she told herself as she slowly got up and fetched the hammer. She moved into the shop and began to prise the nails from the door and the window frames.

  It’s the right thing to do.

  19

  Malleus Maleficarium

  Skinner’s Row was chock-a-block. Shopkeepers were out scrubbing away the blood from last night’s slaughter and cautioning passers-by to watch out as they flung buckets of soapy water over the pavement. The whole city buzzed with the latest news. The Dolocher had caused the swine to disappear; somehow its diabolical power was increasing. Solomon barged through the crowd, his brain boiling, his carpet bag bulging with belongings. Corker quietly trotted by his side, searching his face, certain that something had gone bad.

  ‘Is it the office first, boss?’ Corker ventured, desperate to break the ice.

  Solomon didn’t answer. He’d stay in the Turk’s Head, he thought. He ploughed swiftly up Skinner’s Row. At the fringes of his consciousness he wondered if the Dolocher was following him, disconcerted by the fact that the demon had crept into Merriment’s backyard. He clicked his tongue, trying to shake off the possibility, pushed open the door into Pue’s Occurrences and took the stairs two steps at a time. He halted halfway up when the door to Chesterfield Grierson’s office opened and Lord Beresford came out.

  Beresford turned his good eye quizzically on Solomon.

  ‘You poached him,’ he laughed, genuinely amused. ‘I’ll tell you this much, Chesterfield, he does turn a gothic phrase. We howled with laughter at the club.’

  Solomon arched his brows, piqued by the comment.

  ‘Glad to amuse,’ he grinned, disguising his annoyance. ‘You should look at the gothic horror that is currently unfolding in the Black Dog,’ Solomon suggested archly. ‘Aren’t you on the Board there?’

  Corker sped into the office, wincing as he looked back and slicing his index finger along his throat, encouraging Solomon to stop talking. Solomon was eager to fight: he’d had a bad morning.

  ‘And since you’ve the ear of parliament members you should inspect the tenements on New Row over near Corn Market House, they’re a fine symbol of a thriving city. I mean that sarcastically, of course. Those slums are a resounding statement of disinterest from the ascendency. How the nobler classes distain to grubby themselves with charitable duties. I suppose you are of the ilk that propose that the poor enjoy living in squalor, that they relish slopping about in foul conditions, with no doors to shut out the wind, while their landlords employ cruel agents to extract exorbitant rents.’

  ‘Dear God, you’ve employed a zealot,’ Beresford guffawed. ‘I couldn’t be more pleased for you, Chesterfield, the two of you can bore the breeches off each other day in, day out. I’m sure to walk in here of an afternoon and find you both on your knees praying like Catholics and wearing sackcloth.’

  Solomon pressed his teeth together, furious that Beresford was right – he did sound self-righteous and pious. There was something about Beresford’s height and hawkish handsomeness that made Solomon suddenly want to take him down a peg, something about his knowing manner that made Solomon feel his own ineptitude keenly. The truth was that Beresford had all the self-confidence and unshakable self-belief that was required in a sea captain who would have well over five hundred souls under his command at any one time. Had it been a better day and had Solomon been in a better place, he might have enjoyed Beresford’s company. But today was a bad day, so Solomon glared, his face flush with frustration, his heart crushed by rejection, his manhood diminished by his own feeble character.

  Beresford pulled on a glove.

  ‘Well, while you two puritans are whipping the city into a religious frenzy, you leave the inquiring work to me.’ He smiled.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Solomon asked, looking for a chink in Beresford’s implacable armour.

  ‘Who ordered the cull?’ Beresford’s eye glinted with a scalpel-like sharpness. The man possessed the kind of keen precision that could deftly extract the potency of a brooding problem, long before it developed into a situation. Solomon sensed that Beresford was extremely shrewd and so, with enough wit to outpace his own black mood, he stopped looking to contradict and paid attention.

  ‘There was no official order given by the town elders.’ Beresford raised a brow. ‘No aldermen or beadles, no one from the Sheriff’s office involved. The populace cannot take the law into their own hands: someone needs to be prosecuted. The city is practically lawless as it is. The amount of robberies the courts have had to handle. And now the slaughtering of livestock. It’s abominable, utterly unacceptable. I’m instigating a curfew and sending men out to investigate who organised the killing.’

  Then, patting his perfectly coiffed wig, he rolled his eye. ‘I blame that ridiculous preacher. He went from church to church yesterday, calling on people to repent.’ He smacked Chesterfield’s back and teased, ‘You’d have liked him.’ Then winking at his friend, he needled him softly. ‘Peggy says she looks forward to seeing you.’

  The barest spots of red appeared on Chesterfield Grierson’s cheeks. He coughed softly in an effort to conceal his discomfort.

  ‘Sol.’ Corker reappeared on the landing dressed in his fine breeches and jacket and wearing battered shoes on his bare feet. He had thirty copies of Pue’s Occurrences under his arms.

  ‘Yes?’ Solomon asked.

  ‘Why don’t I leave a few copies in Merriment’s? She can put them on the counter, sell them to her customers.’

  Solomon smarted. He shook his head quickly, averting his eyes.

  Beresford’s brows raised, his eyepatch moving slightly upwards.

  ‘Merriment O’Grady?’ he asked.

  ‘A past dalliance of yours?’ Chesterfield’s mouth barely grinned, but his eyes danced, glad to be able to sting Beresford a little for his previous remark.

  Solomon’s heart tumbled, his chest contracted. He watched Beresford smile, his jaw sharp and pronou
nced.

  ‘Ye know her?’ Corker innocently asked. ‘She wears breeches, carries a pistol.’

  ‘I taught her how to shoot it, lad,’ Beresford announced proudly. ‘She’s a damn fine creature. If I wasn’t married . . .’ He tugged his pristine collar higher up his throat, patting the emerald-studded pin fastened to the bulge of gleaming white silk about his neck. ‘Those lips,’ he smiled. ‘Nothing more fascinating than a headstrong woman, eh, Chesterfield?’

  Chesterfield grumbled, pulled his ornate pipe out of his top pocket and lit it, making little sucking sounds. Solomon looked away and clamped his jaw tight. Of course, Merriment had chosen a fine lover, a capable sea captain. He was everything Solomon was not. A warrior, a gentleman, a married man. The last fact spun like a blade in the pit of Solomon’s stomach. Was she still seeing him?

  ‘Come over to the club later,’ Beresford said to Chesterfield. ‘We’ll talk about things then.’

  Tapping the tip of his walking cane to his forehead, he bowed quickly and headed down the stairs, whistling lightly. Impervious to the general mood in the city, he flung the door open and marched down Skinner’s Row, breathing in the crisp air and soaking up the flattering glances he received from passing ladies.

  Solomon’s mind reeled as he imagined the handsome sea captain teaching Merriment to shoot. Had Beresford taught her anything else? Solomon winced at the idea. Stung by the discovery and wounded by his departure from her lodgings, Solomon tried to pull himself together. He pointed at the papers under Corker’s arm and asked Chesterfield how much money there was for a second edition.

  ‘In one week?’ Chesterfield’s incredulous face lit up.

  ‘We need further instalments. Let’s go for a second print run, include the taking of the pigs,’ Solomon told him.

  Chesterfield nodded then shrewdly enquired, ‘Will you be carrying the loss of the first-edition papers that haven’t sold?’

  Solomon grinned. ‘All right then, let’s sell a supplement to accompany the first edition. An insert.’

  ‘A broadsheet you mean?’ Chesterfield entwined his long fingers and left his pipe dangling from the side of his mouth as he waited.

  ‘Exactly. Only it will be called Pue’s News and can be purchased for an extra penny with the first edition, or for three pennies unaccompanied.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Chesterfield Grierson clapped his hands together, took out his pipe and entered his office, shutting the door with a click, leaving Solomon and Corker standing on the top of the stairs looking at one another.

  Solomon waved his hand. ‘Right, let’s get started.’

  He tried to muster up enthusiasm for the day as he followed Corker into his office. Truth was, Solomon Fish felt full of holes.

  *

  Merriment had no time to sit and regret the departure of Solomon. The shop was so busy that when Anne popped in to buy hand cream for the widow Byrne, she ended up helping out.

  ‘Where’s Janey?’

  ‘The little mite fell asleep and I hadn’t the heart to wake her,’ Merriment told her.

  Anne followed Merriment’s instructions carefully, writing names and addresses and ailments in the ledger and organising appointments. Merriment gave quick examinations, aware that most of those who had come to the shop were suffering from intense bouts of fear, presenting all the symptoms usually associated with acute anxiety. The customers came thick and fast, and the queues were three lines deep behind the counter when the door was flung open. The bell rang so arduously that the entire shop turned to look, and there, standing panting and surrounded by a dour-looking set of companions, was a righteous man waving a Bible.

  ‘You heathens,’ he shouted, his large face purple with passion and contorted with frenzy. His companions stood mute, their sour faces blinking disapprovingly while their enthusiastic leader swept into the centre of the floor and began shouting accusations and pointing wildly at the sheepish throng before him.

  ‘She is a witch.’

  His voice was shrill and loud.

  ‘A succubus that calls the devil to us and you are supplying her with a ways and means to stay among us.’

  Merriment tapped the holster by her side. Dolly Shelbourne’s husband was taller than she had imagined.

  ‘She is issuing potions and bitter drops to incapacitate the men of this city, to make us weak in body, to take our power so she can fulfil her devil’s work.’

  A woman sneaked away, nervously creeping out the front door and scurrying off.

  ‘And all of you are courting her business. It is her foul spirit that has conjured up the Dolocher. Her foul practices that have attracted him to this God-fearing city.’ His eyes bulged, popping wide in his head. A mist of spittle sprayed from his mouth with every word he hollered.

  ‘Did you hear me? She is poisoning fine healthy men, reducing them to babbling idiots!’

  ‘Sir—’ Merriment began.

  ‘Do not speak to me. “For out of their falsehoods . . . ”’ He rattled out a series of Bible quotes and those who could escape slinked off and disappeared.

  Merriment produced the Answerer, much to the shock of everyone present. The pistol had a very sobering effect on her accuser.

  ‘Excuse me for interrupting,’ she said firmly, ‘but I am not a witch. I administer healing tinctures and salves. Now’ – she cocked the hammer – ‘I do have a treatment for hysteria.’ Everyone wondered if her cure for hysterical religiosity was a musket ball to the head and they stepped back, keeping out of the firing line.

  Merriment’s voice was cool, her hands were hot, she could feel the blood rushing to her face, the pound of her pulse throbbing in her ears, but she was practiced enough to disguise her nervousness, had enough experience of conflict and aggression to project a very poised and self-assured exterior. To everyone there she looked level-headed and unflappable.

  Her brows arched mildly. ‘May I suggest that you leave quietly, sir, and I will do no more about it; otherwise I will have to defend my property and my reputation with a writ from the assizes forbidding you to ever step foot in here again, or . . .’ She tipped the pistol in her hand up slightly, indicating that she just might shoot him as an alternative if he didn’t leave.

  Her imperturbable demeanour and confident handling of her weapon unnerved the man before her. His cohorts grumbled that he should leave her be, that there were other tacks to take. Desperate not to lose face, Mister Shelbourne stared at Merriment and smirked.

  ‘Look at you. You are an aberration of femininity, a deviation from all that is encased in the very term “woman”, with your breeches and your pistol. You are a repulsive rejection of all that is ladylike, demure, soft and compassionate. You are a viper, a blight on the face of God’s will, an abhorrent distortion of true nature. A hermaphrodite suckling on the teat of a devil.’

  Merriment waved her pistol, indicating that he either get out or she would shoot.

  ‘You have won for now, you succubus bitch, but all is not over.’ And turning on his heel, he marched out the door, his four companions quickly stepping after him.

  ‘Jesus,’ somebody sighed, relieved that he had gone.

  Merriment carefully uncocked the hammer and returned the Answerer to its holster, the blood draining to her feet, thoroughly shaken by the confrontation. Her knees buckled and she sank down onto the high stool, her head spinning. Anne fetched her water, while one by one the customers made their excuses and filed out of the shop, taking their business elsewhere. Anne stood behind the counter blinking uncomfortably.

  ‘He’s put the wind up them,’ she tutted and then, seeing that Merriment was worried, she added, ‘He’ll not take it further. The likes of him is all bluster and blast.’

  But in her heart Merriment knew to never underestimate the conviction of a fundamentalist.

  Anne took the widow Byrne’s ointment and smiled pitifully at Merriment, trying to sound flippant and untroubled by what had occurred as she said her goodbyes.

  ‘I’ll p
op in tomorrow.’ She grinned, her eyes pained as she tried to disguise her discomfort. Merriment nodded and patted Anne’s back with a ‘thank you’. She wanted to pay Anne for her help; instead they came to an agreement that she’d knock down the price of Stella’s perfume. She latched the door when Anne left, flipped the sign and pulled over the shutters. She retired to the anteroom, stoked up a bright fire and lit as many candles as she could, to drive away the shadows and dispel the sense of impending doom. Perhaps she should pack up and go, take Janey Mack, seek refuge somewhere. Then she thought of her hurried note to Beresford and, wondering if he had received it, apprehensively mused over how he could help. Not for the first time, she wished she was back at sea.

  As she sat wondering what to do, her eyes drifted to a pile of books cast on a low shelf in one corner. Among her books on surgery and herbs she saw a thin volume she had picked up in a marketplace in the Baltic. She had bought the book because it was written in Latin and contained curious woodcuts. She plucked the narrow volume from the pile and flicked it open, the image on the flyleaf enough to make her blood run cold. Emblazoned on the page were the words Malleus Maleficarium. Merriment remembered smiling at the title years ago, amused by the folksy terror that had driven two Alpine monks to write a book that translated as The Hammer of Witches. The opening quote was from Exodus: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Merriment shivered recollecting Mister Shelbourne’s livid fervour. The tone of what she was reading curiously mirrored his convictions and she knew how awful the consequences of such conviction could be. The image of the old sailor with a deformed arm swinging from the rigging was a brutal reminder of a dark desire living in all communities to purge. She turned the thin pages over; her mouth went dry as she swallowed back her fear, looking at the woodcuts of women accompanied by familiars and riding brooms. She could feel her heart constricting, the strange images working provocatively on her mind. She stopped at one page, her curiosity piqued by an etching of a demon drawn by Durer. This demon was squat, its body covered with lizard scales, thick talons sprouting from its feet, black bat wings swooping from its back. It had a long protruding, hairy face with a single horn bursting from its goatish skull. It was emerging from a hole in the ground, ready to attack an innocent passer-by.