The keeper beckoned me through an arched door and removed an iron key from her pinny.
‘Go on. Get yourself in there, Chandler. It’s dark, but secure. No one is coming in. No one is going out. And the river rats are not too bad at this time of year, since they’re too busy weaning their young to bother with the likes of you.’
I remembered the day Meg brought Gyb and told us about rats carrying the plague. Oh, Gyb, what would I give to have you here with me?
* * *
I’d pressed myself against the corner nearest to the door, and had barely managed to close my eyes when the door to my cell opened.
‘Get up, you lazy slattern. You’re needed.’
My eyes opened to see Mistress Avice’s big face looming over me. The night had not improved her breath, and I turned my face from its foulness.
‘Up. Now. Peggy Greaves has started her travails early.’
I checked a sigh and climbed up off the floor. The keeper scowled at my belly and then left my cell. I hurried after her into the room where I’d been stripped and sheared. Lying on the floor was a girl, perhaps younger than me. Her face was purple, she was drenched in her own sweat and she clutched at her stomach.
I turned to the keeper. ‘How long has she been this way?’
The woman shrugged. ‘Not long. She started while I was busy seeing to you and that mane of yours.’
I knelt at Peggy’s side and felt her brow. She was burning and her breathing was very shallow. ‘Mistress Avice, this girl needs a proper midwife. I’ve never delivered a child without my mother’s assistance.’
But the keeper was unmoved. ‘No need to waste money on the likes of Peggy Greaves while you’re here. You’ve seen plenty of births. You know what to do. Now get on with it.’
The girl’s belly was rigid and then it went slack. I closed my eyes and counted, but it was barely a count of a hundred before her belly went rigid again.
‘Peggy, I need to check inside you and see what’s happening.’
But the poor girl was beyond hearing me and only whimpered at the contraction wracking her body. The keeper held the candle nearby so I could make my examination. Peggy’s body was ready to give birth, but something was wrong. I prayed it wasn’t a footling breech, otherwise neither the girl nor the baby would survive the night.
‘Mistress, there’s something wrong. This is not something I can do on my own. We need someone with more experience – like my mother – or another midwife.’
The keeper frowned. ‘There’s no time now. You’ll have to manage as best you can.’
The floor beneath Peggy was soiled, and I put my hand into the warm wetness between her legs, then lifted it to the candle light. There was blood in the water. Peggy’s belly tightened, and she clenched her teeth as the pain went through her. The pains were coming one on top of the other now and she cried out, her face contorted with pain.
‘There, there, Peggy. Your labour has started in earnest. Mistress Avice, do you have a birthing chair?’
The keeper snorted at me. ‘Birthing chair, for the likes of Greaves? She no doubt got the child like a beast in the field, so she can birth it the same way.’
I waited for the pain to subside while Peggy came back to normality. ‘Peggy. Peggy. I need you to get on your knees. It will help the baby to come out. Can you do that?’
She nodded, and I tried to support her as she turned her body. But she was heavy, and we were both tired. She made it onto her knees and braced herself against the wall. I bent between her thighs and pressed a hand into her birth canal. The girl stiffened until I withdrew my hand.
‘Peggy, you must be strong, so very strong. The baby’s head is coming now, and you will want to push hard, but you must not. So try to hold back. Can you do that?’
By way of reply, the girl grunted. But I could feel her body straining to bear down and push out the child.
‘Good. Now, I must work quickly, Peggy.’
She moaned deeply, then howled, as the head crowned. I supported the baby as Mam had taught me. Finally, and with a great gush, the child was free. Peggy screamed with pain. When she turned to face me, I was smiling and rubbing the baby vigorously.
‘You have a little boy, Peggy. Here, hold him tightly while I cut the cord and deliver this placenta. Mistress Avice, your shears please.’
The keeper handed them over reluctantly. Once I’d cut the cord, I pushed one hand into Peggy, and pressed her abdomen with the other. ‘Oh, you’re badly mangled, Peggy. I fear there will be no further issue from you.’
Mistress Avice looked up at the ceiling. ‘Then that will be a blessing for all concerned. You, Chandler, if your work is done, get back to your sleep.’
I opened my mouth to object, but Mistress Avice did not let me speak. ‘You’d better obey me since you won’t be excused your shift in the morning.’
With a glance at the new mother and her child, Mistress Avice walked me back through the dark passages to my cell. I had never felt so tired in all of my life. Without Tom to save me, my child must rely on the mercy of Mistress Avice, who had none.
* * *
Four days had passed, and each night, I was so tired and hungry that I barely noticed or cared about the rats that shared my cell. There had been no word from my mother or the Reverend. I had never felt so alone.
Mistress Avice came to dole out our bread. I looked past the other girls and women on the bench next to me. Peggy Greaves tucked her baby beneath her shawl and nursed him, tears coursing down her face.
‘Mistress, the suckling is sore and the pains are moving the length and breadth of me body.’
The keeper stood over the nursing girl, arms akimbo. ‘Well, Greaves, the feeding pains might take your mind off your hunger pains.’
‘But, mistress, I’m famished all the time. There wasn’t enough to eat before the bairn came and now there’s no filling me. Please, can I have some more bread?’
The keeper grimaced. ‘Only if you can earn more. And I doubt you’re in a position to do that.’
Peggy blinked back her tears. ‘I try so hard not to resent him, for he’s such a small bundle. But the flesh is falling away from me every day. Since the bairn was born, me insides feel as though they’re clagging together. And it’s not even as if he’s taking anything from me. He must be starving.’
How could that woman have no sympathy for the weeping girl and her grey infant? The child looked as though he wouldn’t see the week out. When Mistress Avice turned her back, I’d share my meagre ration with Peggy, and I’d try to work a little longer each day to make it up. By the looks of Peggy, she’d never had any flesh on her. At least I’d never known hunger before coming here. But I’d have to feed my own child very soon and where would it all end?
* * *
Yesterday, Peggy’s child died. He hadn’t been named, and he hadn’t been christened. Peggy wept during the whole working day and all of the girls with her. But not Mistress Avice, whose only aim was to see that we met our daily hemp-beating requirements. I had not slept all night, gripped with fear. And my child had not moved once during the night. I wondered at its stillness. For a second, I felt a fleeting joy. My child would be spared birth in this hellish place. But the strange feeling of joy was quickly extinguished by guilt. It was wrong to wish a child dead, for I’d seen many children born still. I clutched my still belly and wondered whether I’d wished away my child. Tom’s child. What would he think of me? I’d been in the house of correction for less than a week, and already I was exhausted. And no doubt worse was yet to come.
My cell door opened. It was Mistress Avice, with a smirk on her face. ‘You’ve a visitor. It confounds me how the sergeants have allowed it, but they have, so be quick about it and do not be late for your shift.’
My lip trembled. It must be Mam and the Reverend. It was barely light, so they must have walked through the night. I knew they wouldn’t leave me here. I tried not to smile as I followed the keeper out of my cell. They would fin
d a way to set me free. My child would be spared the fate of Peggy Greaves’ child.
In the shearing room stood Andrew Driver. My heart sank at the sight of him. His eyes widened, and he took a step back.
‘Andrew? Where’s Mam and the Reverend?’
‘They’re outside. They’re not allowed in. The sergeants said only me.’
‘Oh!’ I had to put my hand to my mouth to stop myself crying out their names. It was unbearable to think they stood only a few feet away, and yet I couldn’t see them or speak to them.
‘We’re all agreed, though, this is the best way, Jane.’
‘What? What’s the best way? What do you mean, Andrew?’ But I knew what he meant. And I knew now why he was here.
He looked down at his feet for a second and moved his hat from one hand to the other. ‘Jane, you know fine well why I’m here. To save you. Say yes to me, and the sergeants say I can take you with me now. With your mam and the Reverend. We can all be on our way. Your child will have a father. You will have a husband. And you will be free from this prison.’
My eyes glazed with tears. ‘But I don’t love you, Andrew, and I don’t think I ever could.’ Something about him made me not trust him. ‘And how can I betray Tom’s memory?’
His eyes darkened for a second, and then he shook his head firmly. ‘You’re betraying no one. Would Tom really want you to risk his child’s life in this place?’
I thought of Tom’s dear face. His lovely green eyes and his kind smile. And then I thought of Peggy Greaves and her little boy. His grey little face and her weeping all day yesterday. And no doubt all day today, and for many more days to come.
23
John
Purge
Although it had taken me a good week to return home, I was still hot-blooded from the ease of my victory – fancy a big, clever man like George Campbell being so easy to take in. My feet flew the last few miles and fetched me home at speed. Although dark, I couldn’t wait until morning to examine the pricker at leisure. All night, I manhandled the novel device and practised flourishing it and presenting it as Campbell had done. Carefully, I pressed its point to my own flesh, judging how much pressure was required to blanch the skin and send my terrified blood fleeing from the point of the bodkin. How much pressure was necessary to create a glistening blister of blood? How much to cause a great gout?
I pressed myself all through the night, mining those parts of the body apt to give up their blood at the slightest prick and those that refused to let one drop even under great provocation. Satisfied with this progress, I recited my prayers, promising to seek justice for my mother, my wife and my son, and to save others suffering at the hands of malevolent midwives. Then I put my wounded and bleeding body to bed. I was sore all over, but savoured the pain as an investment in the future. Although my father’s fearsome temper had finally found its nest in my heart, I’d transmute its energy and vent it on the hunting, pricking and execution of witches.
When the midday sun woke me, my head pulsed and my tongue was thick and dry. Sweat haled from me, yet I was freezing cold. It mystified me why I was still lying in bed when good Christians had been about their business for hours. Still, it might serve me well to keep the witches’ dark hours. My cuts bothered me and I was still sore all over. The queer excitement that had occupied me in the night had gone, but it left me feeling unclean. God would help me, so I got onto my knees and began to pray for His intervention and mercy.
But although I prayed until my knees ached, I did not feel any better. And now it was possible that I’d placed myself beyond God’s help. Worry flowed through me and I wondered at my own simplicity. How innocent I was of witches’ magic. I’d pierced my hide with a blade designed to root out evil by plunging into the insensate flesh of the devil’s own coven. In the same way a knife drawn across a beast’s throat retained the stain and stench of the slaughter, this blade would surely be tainted with the stain and stench of devilment. Damn that pricker! He was not so green after all. What foul succubus had I introduced into my pure body? Why had I not the sense to practise on a beast – a swine would have sufficed? In my fever, I fancied a fiendish revolt rising within. I must be purged of this evil. My uncle would know what to do.
* * *
Uncle James was hardly satisfactory, eyeing me silently while I explained how I’d become possessed. The man seemed reluctant to touch me – his own flesh and blood.
‘John, are you quite well? Inside your head, I mean? You seem … well, I hardly know what name to give it. Perhaps the grief of your recent loss has taken hold of you. We should pray together. Come, it will help you.’
He touched my arm and looked at me, his eyes searching my face. As if I’d let him pray over me like he had over the convulsing Cummins woman all those years ago. But I wouldn’t be unkind, as he’d treated me gently over the years and he meant well.
‘No, Uncle, this isn’t grief. I’ve been awash with grief for so long, it’s like a friend to me. This is far greater than grief.’
‘Then you must seek help from the barber-surgeon. He might know what to do in a strange case like this. Only, say your prayers before and after you go to him. I’m certain he carries a taint of something quite unholy of late.’
Disgruntled, I left him and took myself to see MacBain.
* * *
The barber’s face darkened and he listened to my tale of woe with considerably less interest than had my uncle. After a cursory examination of my lacerated carcass, he tugged his beard and mused.
‘It’s a bleed of sixty-five ounces you’ll need, Sharpe. And a purge – a mercury clyster is what I’d recommend.’
‘Sixty-five ounces? I want curing, not killing, MacBain!’
‘Aye, it’s always a risk with large lettings, but I could put you to the leech instead if you prefer. It’ll take longer and you’ll need to bide here for some time. And the sorry buggers must be burnt after – they being full of your ungodly blood – so it’ll cost more. Then there’s the mercury. And I’ll need to put slippery elm on you – that’s from the New World, so that won’t come cheap.’
‘All right, MacBain, whatever you deem necessary.’ The thought of leeching filled me with horror, but it must be safer than bloodletting. ‘How long will it take?’
The barber eyed me up and down. ‘Say two days by the time I catch them and put them on you. Then you’ll need to sleep off the fever.’
‘Two days!’ Clearly, the man thought I’d nothing better to do with my time. Still, he wasn’t to know that I was on God’s errand.
MacBain shrugged. ‘It gives me no cause to rejoice either, as you’ll be breathing my air and festering the place with your unholy wastes. Maybe your uncle–’
‘No! I’ll stay.’ Sweat haled from my brow and ran into my eyes. This big bastard was going to leech me in more ways than one, but there was no alternative. I watched him prepare the cure. The clyster had a very long spout.
‘It’s ready, Sharpe. Go and find a tree to brace against and then bend over.’
Outside, I looked about in case of an audience, then I dropped my breeches and bent over. My eyes watered as the barber inserted the clyster spout into my rectum.
‘Clench, man, and hold the mercury inside as long as you might.’
But my innards writhed and cramped – the mercury and the evil succubus doing battle – and my flesh was too weak to hold back the vile conflagration.
The barber stepped back just in time to avoid being sprayed with the noxious contents of my bowels. After this purging, the barber threw a bucket of pond water over my head and then I was wrapped in a rug and taken back inside. I rested on a pallet while MacBain cooked a paste from powdered bark, which he then painted onto each incision. The paste was too hot to bear, but it brought a strange comfort.
‘Listen, Sharpe, these poultices of slippery elm will draw out any badness that might be festering within. I must leave you awhile and go fishing for leeches, since I can’t bear to put my own to th
e fire.’
Lying on the pallet, covered in fiery paste, I imagined the barber removing his breeks and wading thigh-deep in the pond, waiting for the slithering creatures to clamp their jaws to his bloodrich veins. The man was so big and sanguine, I fretted in case the leeches drank their fill before they ever kissed my own flesh. Before long, I fell asleep, dreaming that the cuts pinching my legs were leeches clamping onto me.
The barber woke me when he came striding back in, his white legs spotted with dozens of shining brown worms. Through half-closed eyes, I watched as the barber sighed, perched on a stool and began the laborious process of removing the leeches from his legs, dropping each into a jug of pond water. As he peeled each sucker from his skin, the man’s blood ran freely.
My eyes widened. ‘Good God, man. You’ll bleed to death in front of me! What are you doing?’
The barber laughed, took a crock from his shelves and began dabbing the wounds with thin, brown liquid.
‘Acorn tea will soon stop the bleeding. You’re very womanish in your ways, aren’t you, Sharpe?’
The barber donned his breeks and brandished the pitcher of leeches. ‘I’ll set these little beauties on you and let them feed. Although it might be a task to find enough clear skin for them all, as you’ve left yourself like a pincushion.’
‘Just get on with it, MacBain, I don’t have all week.’
The barber scooped a slithery leech from the jug with a long-handled spoon and nudged it into position on my bare flesh, near to the visible veins. I cringed as each creature latched on and began suckling.
‘Don’t overreact, man, their bite has a numbing quality, so you shouldn’t feel their efforts after the first bite.’
‘I feel faint at the thought of the hideous creatures and can’t bear to look at them swelling their vile bellies on my blood.’ I shuddered, but hated myself for it.
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