The King's Bounty

by Sara Fraser

  She poured out a torrent of Welsh to the shepherd who, at Turpin Wright’s words had begun to look at the Englishmen with awed fear. The convict raised his voice in seeming impatience.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Taffy,’ he went to the shepherd and prodded him in his smocked chest with a forefinger. ‘You tell the old woman that the Welsh Sin-Eater couldn’t come . . . Tell her that he had a bad fall yesterday and ’e’s alaying in his bed wi’ a broken leg . . .’

  While the man tried to comply with these instructions, Turpin said in an aside to Jethro. ‘God rot my balls! Doon’t stand theer wi’ your mouth gaping like the village loony. Try and look as if you knows what’s agoin’ on . . . Just leave it all to me, and say nothing. But for Christ’s sake! Close your chops up!’

  Jethro collected his wits and tried to hide his hopeless puzzlement at what was taking place.

  ‘Rwan, rwan, Nain, tawelwch eich hyn.’ The shepherd tried to soothe the old woman’s uneasiness. ‘There there, grandmother, calm yourself.’ He turned apologetically to Turpin Wright. ‘It is the first time my old Nain has effer met a Saeson who eats the sins, do you see . . . It is a bit upset she is . . . But neffer mind, I’ve told her that it’s not too late . . . She will be quiet in a minute, look you. Please would be good enouff to come down, shentlemen.’

  The shepherd took the still chattering old woman by her arm and led her towards the turf bothies, leaving the Englishmen to follow.

  ‘Will you tell me what in hell’s name is happening?’ Jethro demanded in a whisper.

  ‘We’se struck lucky, matey,’ Turpin whispered back, and his eyes twinkled in wicked glee. ‘These buggers be up ’ere to get their sheep collected in for the winter. They’s got a stiff ’un down theer, might be man, woman or babby, I doon’t know yet.’

  ‘Well, what’s that to us?’ Jethro hissed.

  ‘It’s a full belly, a warm fire, and rhino in our pockets,’ Wright told him happily.

  Jethro was still mystified. ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean by telling them you’re a sin-eater? Whatever is that?’

  ‘It’s like this,’ the older man took pity on his ignorance. ‘If these buggers dies wi’out having their priests give ’um pardon for their sins, then they believes they’ll goo into hell’s fires because their souls am black wi’ sin. Well, there’s coves who goes around these mountains, atakin’ the sins o’ the dead on to their own souls, so that the buggers who croaks it wi’out a priest or suchlike to give ’um pardon needn’t goo to hell at all, but goo’s straight up t’other way into bleedin’ heaven.’

  ‘And you . . .?’ It suddenly all became clear to the young man.

  The convict nodded, and his leathery face lit up with delight . . . ‘That’s it, cully. You’se got it in one go. I’m agoing to ate this dead bugger’s sins. It’s money for old rope, arn’t it!’

  Jethro felt a quick stab of superstitious horror and his expressive features mirrored his feelings.

  Turpin Wright stared at him for some seconds, his lips jerking, apparently in paroxysms of agony. Then he stopped in his tracks and, burying his face in his hands, gave vent to a series of muffled groans.

  Jethro felt an instant concern. ‘Look, Turpin, don’t upset yourself so. There’s no need for you to do this awful thing. We’ll find some other way of getting food and money.’

  ‘Upset?’ Wright’s voice was strangled. ‘Bugger off ahead o’ me, you barmy young bugger, afore I busts out laughin’, and spoils the whole thing.’

  Kicking himself for being so taken in by the hardened old sinner, Jethro walked on. Turpin could never feel apprehensive before God or devil. By the time the pair had reached the bothies, Turpin Wright had composed himself and wore an expression of pious gloom. Jethro suppressed a smile at his companion’s brazen deceit. He also composed his features to appear suitably sombre and grave.

  The old crone went into the largest of the bothies and the shepherd followed her. There was a sound of voices raised in argument, and the old crone cackled angrily.

  ‘Yr hen cythrel Saesneg! Yr hen cythrel Saesneg!’

  Turpin chuckled aloud. ‘The old bat’s calling us dirty English bastards.’

  ‘She’s none so clean herself, judging by the smell of her,’ Jethro answered.

  The shepherd pulled back the canvas cover to one side and stuck his head out, beckoning for the Englishmen to enter.

  The thick smell of the interior was almost a tangible substance. Jethro felt its hot, sickly reek filling his nose and mouth and as he swallowed, his throat threatened to choke upon it. The bothy was dark and close, its only light coming from a smouldering, spitting peat fire in the corner hearth and two tall wax candles, one at the head and one at the feet of the dead man lying on the dirt floor in the centre of the room. The corpse was naked, its arms stretched by its sides, while two gold sovereigns glinted upon the closed eyes. The protuberant bones of the ribs and hips caused shadows to fall across the sunken gut. When the candle flames wavered, the shadows moved, and it looked to Jethro’s queasy gaze that the belly was rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths.

  In a wide circle around the grimy, pale cadaver, crouched or seated on the earth, were the men, women, and child mourners, and the white fleeces of the sheepskin coats that many of them wore caused Jethro to remember the stories of the spirits who came to guide the dying to the next world. He jumped nervously when a terrible scream cracked the murmurous silence.

  It was the old crone. She fell to her knees, her gnarled fingers tearing at her wispy hairs and rocked backwards and forwards in manifestation of her grief.

  ‘Fy mab! . . . Fy mab! . . . Fy mab! . . . My son! . . . My son!’ She crooned the words over and over again

  The women among the mourners started to keen and wail in unison, their shrieks rising and falling in ever more strident echoes and several of the babies and smaller children squalled and sobbed in fear. A giant of a man beat his shaggy head upon the dirt with skull-jarring thuds, then lifted both arms above his head and roared, ‘O Fy nuw dal Arbed ni oil . . . Oh my good God! Save us all!’

  ‘Fy mab! Fy mab! Fy mab!’ the old crone screamed, and the women tore at their hair and necks and breasts, and chorused, ‘Bachgen druan! Bachgen druan! Bachgen druan! Poor boy! Poor boy! Poor boy!’

  The shepherd pushed his way through the crowd and knelt by the side of the corpse. In one cupped hand he held a small heap of salt, in the other a lump of bread. He let the salt dribble through his funnelled fingers and form a cross on the bony, sparse-haired chest. Then, taking the bread, he broke it into five separate pieces and carefully placed one piece at each point of the salt cross, and the final piece in the centre of the cross itself.

  ‘Let the sin-eater come forward,’ he called out in his own tongue, and the mourners vented a concerted howl of apprehension which charged the air with tormented noise and made the candle flames shiver violently.

  Then all became hushed. Turpin Wright moved forward. He took the candles from their mounts and holding one in each hand he knelt above the corpse’s head, staring fixedly at the bread and salt.

  ‘Oh God and Satan both . . . pay heed to me!’ The deep tones of his voice trembled with strain and Jethro looked at his friend to see with astonishment, rivulets of sweat streaming down his face and the flickerings of fear in his eyes. The atmosphere tensed as the mourners waited for this dread-inspiring sin-eater to take the blackness from their kinsman’s soul and release it from its purgatory.

  ‘Oh God and Satan both . . . pay heed to me!’ Turpin Wright intoned once more. ‘I, the eater of sins, have come to take the sins from this soul.’ In a sudden swift motion he bent, and with his lips and tongue he took the bread from one point of the cross, gulped it down, then licked the salt of the arm of the cross from the clammy flesh beneath his bowed head . . . ‘Oh God and Satan both . . . pay heed to me. One fifth of this soul’s sins are now mine own. As I took the bread and took the salt, so took I the sin.’

  The convict�
�s face was a harrowed mask of suffering, and his breath rasped audibly in his lungs. Three more times he repeated the words and the actions, until only the one piece of bread remained in the centre of the cross. In the light of the candle’s flames, Turpin’s skin glistened with sweat and his head twisted from side to side as he battled with some nameless inner agony.

  The mourners sat silent, transfixed with frightened awe by the spectacle of this man damning his own soul for eternity, even the smallest babies had hushed into stillness. Dragging the words from his dry throat, Turpin Wright repeated the formula for the final time, then shouted:

  ‘And now Satan, King of Hell! To seal my bargain with thee, I take the thrice-cursed payment for my newly gotten sins.’

  He bent and again using only lips and tongue he lifted each gold coin in turn from the corpse’s eyelids and held the coins in his mouth. As the weight left the lids they slowly opened and the dead eyes stared into his. The mourners moaned softly and a single sob forced itself from Turpin Wright’s throat. Then he appeared to clamp a rigid control over his emotions, and said slowly in a peculiar tone, as if it were not himself speaking. ‘See how the dead man wishes to recognize the benefactor who has set him free from torment.’

  A gasp of utter relief gusted through the room and the tension fell away. Wright, as if in a dream, placed the candles at each side of the corpse’s head and rose to his feet. His body began to shake uncontrollably and he stumbled from the room and out to the freshness of the open air. Jethro went after him and found the convict lying flat on the bank of the stream, frenziedly dashing his head beneath the icy rushing torrent again and again and again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Loud hammering on the rickety door woke Henri Chanteur. He opened his eyes reluctantly and stared upwards. The room was dark and freezing cold, and beside him in their shared truckle bed the sheriff’s officer stirred restlessly, muttering unintelligibly in his dreams. The flimsy panels resounded again.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ Chanteur called.

  ‘It’s three o’ the clock, zur . . . The horses be coming out for the Portsmouth coach shortly.’

  ‘Very well . . . thank you.’ Henri sat up and tugged at the fetter chain which secured his ankle to that of his companion. Grumbling and scratching, the man also sat up. ‘It’s time to rise,’ Henri told him. ‘Will you unlock the chain?’

  When they had arrived at the Bush coaching inn, Bristol, the previous night, the sheriff’s man had insisted on locking them together before they slept, in spite of Henri’s assurances that he would not attempt to escape. Their bedroom was in the main part of the inn and Henri’s lavish distribution of the money his friends had given him ensured that the room was reserved for them only, which avoided the continual disturbances of travellers coming and going from their beds. Henri’s money had also enabled the journey to be made in the comparative comfort of an inside berth on a crack Royal Mail coach, instead of being perched on top of a lumbering stage-wagon exposed to all the vagaries of the suddenly worsened weather.

  The porter bustled into the room, carrying a jug of hot water and an open razor, and shaved both men by the wavering light of a smoking, floating-wick oil lamp. He caught the shilling Henri tossed to him and bit it sharply before slipping it into the pocket of his leather waistcoat. ‘Thank you, your honour. The ordinary’s being served now.’

  Together with his escort, Henri went down to the ground floor dining-room. The number of people sat at the long table in the dimly lighted room was small. Two or three civilians, merchants by their prosperous appearance, a blue-coated naval officer, several officers of the Militia and two officers of the Royal Marines. Henri regarded the latter’s headgear with interest. They both wore the distinctive girdled and cockaded top hats of their famous corps, which were only worn by some Norwegian and Belgian troops in the Emperor’s army.

  Served grudgingly by a sleepy-eyed slovenly maid, the shared breakfast dishes were not appetizing to the Frenchman’s taste. The rest of the party, however, set to voraciously and soon made great inroads into the roast leg of mutton, the broiled pigeons, the meat pies and fish, the cold cuts of tongue, brawn and ham, and the pile of potatoes boiled in their skins which dominated the centre of the greasy-topped table in their huge earthenware dish.

  Henri contented himself with toasted buns and a dish of milky coffee, then paid the reckoning for both himself and his companion and went into the courtyard to watch the bustle of preparation for the journey.

  As always he was forced to smile at the self-important airs of the English coach driver. This one was short and stout, wielding a long-stemmed, long-lashed whip and dressed in the very height of coaching elegance. A many-caped greatcoat was slung across his shoulders, opened to show off a brilliantly brocaded pair of waistcoats worn one over the other, and the most enormous frilled cravat Henri had ever seen. The whole ensemble was set off by a feathered, three-cornerd hat, far too small, perched on the bullet head, and a pair of embroidered white silk gloves.

  ‘What a fine dandy you are, my Jehu!’ the Frenchman murmured to himself.

  The four matched horses were now in harness and were having the final brush applied to their glossy coats by a swarm of ostlers, while the coach guard was busily checking the priming of his blunderbuss, and the pair of long horse-pistols he carried slung from a sash hanging from his shoulder. He too was elegant, uniformed like a soldier in a gold-laced scarlet coat with blue lapels, and a blue waistcoat topped off by a beaver hat with a gold lace band around its base.

  With surprising nimbleness, the stout little driver swarmed up the side of the yellow-painted coach, seated himself on the high box in front, and nodded to the guard. The man blew a long blast on his copper horn and shouted, ‘Now, gennulmen, if you please! The Celerity is ready to leave for the Blue Posts Inn at Portsmouth Point. Travellin’ by way o’ Bath, Warminster, Salisbury, and Southampton. The Celerity leaves in three minutes exact, gennulmen, and we carries ’Is Majesty’s mails . . . No delay can be tolerated . . .’

  Joined by his escort, Henri surrendered their tickets to the guard and took his seat inside the coach. The leather seats were damp and cold to the touch and he was grateful when the other four seats were filled by the three merchants and the elder of the two marine officers. Their close-sat bodies would help to warm the air. The other marine officer joined three of the militiamen on top of the coach. As the elder marine took his seat, his dark blue boat cloak fell back from his shoulder and disclosed an empty sleeve pinned to the chest of his scarlet tunic, half-concealing its blue facings. The solitary star on each of his fringed golden epaulets denoted his rank to be that of major. Once settled he stared hard at the young Frenchman. The only light inside the coach came from a small horn lantern carried by one of the merchants, and the marine leaned across to ask the man,

  ‘By your leave, sir. I’ll take the glim for a moment.’

  Without waiting for assent he took the lantern and held it so that its light fell fully across the young man. Henri opened his own cloak.

  ‘Let me satisfy your curiosity, Major,’ he said quietly. ‘I am a French officer.’

  The marine’s stare did not waver. ‘I know that already, monsieur,’ he barked the words gruffly. ‘But I wanted a good look at your face.’

  ‘Why?’ Henri was puzzled.

  ‘Because I wanted to know who it was who as a prisoner-of-war has the gall to ride in comfort inside the coach at the Government’s expense, while officers of His Majesty’s forces must ride on top of the damned thing, and pay their own fares to boot!’

  ‘The fare has been paid with my own money,’ Henri replied quietly. ‘So I suggest, Major, that if it offends you to travel in the company of a French soldier, who has had the misfortune to be captured when wounded, then you get out and wait for another coach.’

  The major’s wine-red face mirrored his surprise, then, unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed heartily.

  ‘God blast my eyes! But I like that
reply, monsieur. I perceive that you’re a regular Gallic cock, who crows bravely even when he’s on his way to have his feathers plucked and his neck wrung.’ He tapped Henri on the knee and told him jovially, ‘I admire your spirit, sir, for if I’m not mistaken, you’ll be on your way to the hulks, will you not?’

  ‘You are correct, sir,’ Henri told him curtly.

  The marine nodded his satisfaction. ‘I thought so. Well, my young Gallic cock, allow me to tell you who I am. My name is King . . . Major Harry King of His Majesty’s Corps of Royal Marines. At present, I command the garrisons of the hulks Fortune and Ceres. They lie moored in Langstone Harbour under the guns of Fort Cumberland. You may well, one fine day, find yourself sent to one of those magnificent vessels. Yes indeed . . .’

  The young Frenchman smelt the reek of brandy fumes on the other’s breath, and realized that the man was drunk. To avoid getting into a pointless dispute with someone not in his senses, he contented himself by merely nodding in answer. Closing his eyes he leant back his head on the seat and shammed sleep.

  The time of departure had come and the driver cracked his whip to signal the ostlers to release the lead horses’ heads and jump aside. Plumes of smoke-like breath jetted from the nostrils of the team as they took the strain and the coach lurched into motion. The whip cracked again, one, two, three, four times. The guard blew an ear-splitting blast on his horn and the driver deftly steered the heaving team through the archway of the inn courtyard, and out of the tangle of winding streets and half-timbered houses to the broad, newly gravelled turnpike highway which stretched, like a white ribbon in the moonlight, towards the city of Bath. The horses settled into an easy stride and at a good nine miles an hour the coach swayed along to the creaking of wood and leather, the jingle of metal, and the rhythmic drumming of ironshod hooves.

  It was on the wide, fertile plains of Wiltshire after the change of teams at the market town of Warminster, that conversation started inside the coach. The leather curtains had been fastened up from the side windows and the crisp morning air brought a bracing cold freshness into the fusty interior.