The Sea Beggars

by Holland, Cecelia;

  The beer wagon was rounding the corner into the street. He straightened up a little, and his hands slipped around in front of him; he hooked his thumbs in his belt.

  It was noontime. The bells would ring within a few minutes all over Antwerp. The streets were crowded with people. Through the dense moving mass of bodies the two roan horses in their belled harness dragged the heavy wagon toward him over the cobblestones. The brasses on their harness glinted. Jan narrowed his eyes. The wagon rumbled past him; he took three steps away from the wall and grabbed the tailgate.

  The driver did not see him. He vaulted up lightly into the back of the wagon, yanked the cotter pins out of the tailgate, threw open the back of the wagon, and began heaving the barrels out into the street.

  The first one was empty and bounced, and someone in the street yelled. The driver wheeled around in time to see Jan fling the second barrel out after the first. With a screech he leapt up in the seat and uncurled his whip, and Jan ducked and pushed another barrel over, and it rolled off the wagon and hit the street and burst.

  The crowd was yelling and laughing now, chasing the wagon, the first few stooping to scoop up the spilled beer with their hands. The driver cracked his whip and Jan jumped away from the lash, seized another barrel, and leapt off the wagon with it.

  “Thief! Stop—”

  He landed in the middle of the crowd, which surged around him like a friendly sea, enclosing him as they fought to get to the beer in the street. At least one of the first barrels he had tossed out had not broken, and someone was cracking it open and the mob was fighting to get to it to drink. The driver shrieked and waved his whip from the back of his wagon, helpless; his horses, used to their route, plodded on down the street. Jan hoisted up the barrel he had gotten for himself and went off down the alley.

  In the evening Hanneke helped Vrouw Kelman prune her rosebushes; the housewife liked to gossip and wanted an ear to aim at, even if Hanneke knew none of the people she gossiped about. They went around the garden in front of the Kelmans’ house and trimmed back the branches of the heavy-thorned shrubs, and Vrouw Kelman talked about people’s babies and bad manners and follies.

  “Of course,” said Vrouw Kelman, in the twilight, as she bent over a bush with the clippers in her hand, “no one’s free from folly. Had I known about these soldiers they are sending to us, I should not have rented you the room, dear.”

  “What soldiers?” Hanneke asked. She gathered up the fallen rose branches and laid them carefully into a basket, to be taken out and burned.

  “Oh, this new army. They say all of us will have to take in at least one, and if I had not rented you that room, why, he could move in there. As it is—

  “Who?” Hanneke said, startled.

  Vrouw Kelman looked over her shoulder at her. “The soldier I shall be expected to quarter, dear. Do pay heed when I speak to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hanneke said.

  “Of course I shall not turn you and your dear mother out, not now. And anyway with another mouth to feed, your guilder will come in very nicely.”

  Hanneke picked up a rose branch and stabbed herself on the thorn. “When will this soldier come?”

  “I don’t know. It’s only rumor, anyway. Don’t worry about you and your dear mother. Although I think you ought to see your dear mother stays indoors, or at least inside the garden.”

  “What?” Hanneke said, stupidly. “Has she been going out often?”

  “I wondered if you knew about that. Yes, she’s been going off into the street. She’s not a happy woman, your mother.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “The children tease her.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  A whistle from the street brought Hanneke upright, her head turning in that direction. The darkness was almost complete; she could just make out the figure standing by the gate.

  “I beg your pardon, Vrouw Kelman, my brother is here.”

  “Yes, I see that.”

  Hanneke put down the bundle of clippings and went over to the gate. Jan waited, silent in the darkness, his face masked in the darkness; uncertainly, she said his name.

  “Yes,” he said. “Here, I brought you some money.”

  He put out his hand, and she cupped her palm under it and felt the coins drop into her grasp, the metal still warm from his hand.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Why don’t you come inside? We have some beer.”

  He laughed at that, and she wondered crossly if he were drunk. But he did not seem drunk. He said, “I’ll stay out here, just the same, thank you.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose you’re right. Have you heard anything about an army coming to Antwerp? That they will quarter a whole army on us?”

  “I’ve heard that, yes,” he said. “That’s only to be expected. Why, does that bother you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You remember what they said, when they took Father, that you would be next. If they’re bringing an army here, then they must mean to arrest more people.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I have to go, Hanneke. Tell Mother—”

  “No.” Her hand shot out and clutched at his sleeve. “Listen to me. You have to leave—get away—before they take you too.”

  He moved, in the dark; his hand closed over hers. “What about you and Mother?”

  “I’ll find work,” she said. “I went by the silk factory this morning—they are opening it up again, now that it belongs to the King. They will give me work there.”

  “Hanneke, what can you do? You are no weaver.”

  “I’ll sweep,” she said. “Scrub floors. Anything.” She leaned across the fence to put her arms around him. “Oh, Jan, what if they take you too?” Suddenly she began to weep.

  “Hanneke,” he said, and pushed the gate open and drew her out to the street. Gratefully she went into his warm embrace.

  “Keep the gate closed,” called Vrouw Kelman. “You will let out the dog.”

  Hanneke fumbled behind her to shut the gate. She leaned her head against her brother’s shoulder, thinking of the tower, of her father, of the jailer pawing her arm. Of the soldiers who would live in the same house as she did, Spanish soldiers, watching her. Tears flooded into her eyes.

  “Don’t worry about me,” her brother said, and hugged her. “It’s you I’m concerned for. You can’t work in a silk factory.”

  “I can,” she said, and sniffed, to keep her nose from dripping.

  “Who will stay with Mother?”

  “I can’t stay with her,” Hanneke said. “She’s driving me crazy.”

  Now she could not keep from crying, and she turned her face against his shoulder and wept bitterly. He patted her back and murmured to her, and she rubbed her fingers against his sleeve and cried until she was empty.

  “Oh, well,” he said, and stroked her back. “I’m not leaving, not yet, anyway. Where would I go, after all?”

  She had not thought of that. She leaned her face against him and thought.

  “There’s Uncle Pieter, I guess,” Jan said.

  “Pieter!” She pulled away and stared up at him. “He’s a pirate.”

  “He’s Father’s brother. He’d have to take me in.”

  “But—Father always said he was worthless.”

  “Father’s always said I’m worthless,” Jan said mildly. “And there’s really no one else, except Mother’s family, and they’re all Catholics.”

  That was true. Hanneke wiped her face on her sleeve. “Well,” she said, “maybe you ought to stay a while longer.”

  He laughed; he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Be good, Hanneke. Say my regards to Mother.”

  He was going; he was walking away. She opened her mouth to call him back. She felt cold and small without him. Already he was halfway down the street, half lost in the darkness, a shadow moving through the shadows. She turned and went back into the Kelmans’ garden.

  Mies startled out of a half sleep, banged awake by the sudden invasion
of the tower room by a horde of people, clanking in their chains and wailing in their despair, stumbling over his legs and falling against the wall near him. He thrust up his arms, to ward them off, and drew his cramped throbbing legs up close to his body.

  “Peace,” a man said, in Dutch, and sank down beside him. “Oh, my God.”

  A dozen feet shuffled through the filthy straw past them, going deeper into the room, and there stirred the other prisoners into calling and cursing and shifting around in the dark. Mies twitched himself from side to side, trying to find a way to sit that did not hurt. He had been here so long—how long, he had no notion—that sores were opening up on the places where he rested against the stone floors and walls. His wrists hurt under the iron manacles; his arms had begun to swell, so that the wristbands that when first put on had hung down over his hands now cut deeply into his taut stinking skin.

  He licked his lips, waiting for the hubbub to settle, and when the noise lessened a little he turned to the man beside him.

  “My name is Mies.”

  “Willem.”

  Through the dark came a hand, which he shook, heartened by this simple amenity.

  “Do you know the day?”

  “Aye, yes, curse it forever—the day after All Saints.”

  “All Saints. Are you then a Catholic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Everyone will be here eventually,” said Willem.

  Mies stared through the dark at him, wondering at that; he wished he could make out the man’s face. Did he know him? The voice was unfamiliar. But he knew many people only by face.

  “Have you heard anything about the trials?”

  Willem said, “No.”

  The door banged open again, and the warders came in, shouting for quiet. “Keep your teeth together!” A whip cracked. Mies pulled his arms up close to his body and lowered his head to protect himself. It was impossible to see the lash coming in the dark and he had caught the whip more than once across his cheek and arm. The warders tramped around the room frightening the people into silence. There were many more here than before, so many the jailers kept treading on them. The whips cracked again. Their boots heavy on the rotten straw, the warders marched out the door, and it shut with a boom.

  “Well,” Mies said, “they can’t put many more in without taking some of us out. They’ll have to hold trials soon.”

  “Trials,” Willem said, in a voice as harsh as the warder’s. “We’ll be lucky if we ever leave here again. If they take us out to hang us we’ll be better off. Odds are they’ll leave us here to starve.”

  “They’ve got to try us. That’s the law.”

  Only a rough burst of laughter answered that. Mies reached out and grabbed the man’s arm in the dark.

  “They have to try us!”

  “Leave me alone. I’ll call the guard.”

  Mies let go of Willem’s sleeve; the cloth slid away from his fingers and he was left holding the air. His hand dropped again to his lap. He opened his mouth to speak but shut it again without voicing anything more. His body felt as if it were crawling all over with vermin, or cold, or just the understanding he had been holding himself stiff against, all these days and weeks.

  There would be no trials. Willem was right. They would leave here to go to their deaths.

  He lifted his hands, the heavy chain hanging between them in the dark, and the urge to lay about him with the chain, to pulp the flesh and blood around him, was so strong he nearly got to his feet, although chained to the wall as he was he could have gone nowhere.

  He flung himself back against the wall. Banged his head against the wall and moaned. There had to be a way to die. To cheat them of his death. If he had nothing left but to die, let death come now, here, at his own hand. He thrust himself back against the wall again and groaned and sobbed and thrashed his legs. Curse God and die. There was nothing left but that. When would it come, oh, God, when?

  “Shut up,” Willem said, and moved away from him.

  Mies swore at him. His arms hurt. He could feel the poisons seeping up along his arms into his body, needles of venom running under the skin. Racing toward his brain, his heart; would they kill him, or the Spanish gallows? Or would he burn, or be drowned, or be buried under rocks? Curse God and die.

  The doors opened again and the warders came in with chains and hammers, to fasten the newly come prisoners up against the wall. They had a little lantern, to show their work. Mies’ eyes followed it, starved for light, fascinated.

  They bent to hammer shut the iron ring that bound Willem’s chain to the ring in the wall. The light shone on the Catholic’s face. Unknown. Mies turned his eyes away, although a moment later the light drew his gaze back like a balm.

  The phrase ran back and forth through his mind like a rat in a trap. Curse God and die. Curse God and die. He had never admired Job. There seemed nothing stoic in Job at all, no fortitude, no heart. Now bitterly he knew there was nothing much at all in himself, just a bitter despair that could not wait for death.

  He groaned, and the warder nearest him struck out with his whip and clubbed him over the face with the butt end. Mies bit his lips together, tasting blood.

  Even Christ had despaired on the Cross. Mies leaned his head against the wall. Why did this happen to me—what did I do to deserve this? He picked through all his sins, his boyish defiance of his father, his marriage to Griet above the objections of both families. His greed, his cold charity. He had done nothing that hundreds of other men had not done, and did yet, in freedom still. Curse God—

  The light went off, deeper into the room. He saw glowing patches of people, squatting in the filth, their clothes like shreds of skin that hung from them. Sores on their arms and bodies and faces. Like his. His back itched where the wall had worn it open. Vermin in it probably. Eating away his flesh. Not worth anything anyway. Just a pile of meat. God deserted me.

  Even Christ despaired.

  At least, crucified, He had died swiftly. Relatively swiftly. He thought of hanging from nails through his hands and the swollen infected flesh of his arms and hands throbbed painfully against the manacles. I don’t deserve this. I’m innocent.

  No one is innocent. He thought of the times he had cheated in his business and thought himself clever. Of beating his son out of bad temper when the boy was too slow to do something probably no child would have done well anyway.

  God, forgive me, he thought, and suddenly, from nowhere, a light unlike the dirty light of the lantern came on inside his skull. God had forgiven him. That was why Christ died on the Cross.

  He shivered; some enormous force swept through him, too strong for his flesh to bear, and nearly made him weep. He lifted his weighted hands to his face. Oh, God, he thought. It is true.

  Down there at the end of the room, someone moaned, and the whip cracked. The lantern shifted through the filth and darkness, and the hammers rang on iron, chaining up someone else. Mies bent forward, his face against his knees.

  All his life he had heard it, that Christ died for him, that Christ had won him life eternal, and never understood, but now he understood. When he needed Christ, all he had to do was turn toward Him and He was there.

  He sobbed. The manner of his death to come seemed trivial now. He had found something else. The wild rush of gratitude to God Who had saved him, and Who would take him through that death into Paradise, warmed his body and lit up his mind like the coming of daybreak. The animal sounds of his prison, the stench, the hunger, nothing mattered now. He wept for gratitude; in the first white heat of his understanding he saw that everything was worth this. Falling into prison, losing his life, all this suffering was well worth the understanding that now he had: that God had saved him. He pressed his face against his knees and prayed to God in thanks for having sent him to this place.

  Hanneke was gone. Everybody was gone.

  Griet opened the door a little and looked out. The steps that led down to the backyar
d of this strange house shone yellow in the sunlight. Nobody was there. She could get away now.

  She pulled her housedress around her and held it fast with one hand. Carefully, because her feet were bare, she went out step by step down into the yard. It was cold. No matter. In a little while she would find her own home, where it was always warm, and Mies would bring her her slippers and a foot-warmer. Mies was so kind to her, always; if only she could find him again, everything would be all right.

  She crept through the yard to the gate and went out to the street. No one had seen her. If Vrouw Kelman saw her she would shout and call for help to get her back into the attic room, but she did not belong there. She belonged somewhere in a tall house with painted shutters and a stork on the chimney. She set off up the street to find it.

  Before she had gone very far, two little boys ran out of a yard by the street and shouted at her and threw clods of earth at her. Griet hurried away from them. A dog chased after her, barking.

  At the corner, where the little foundry shop was, she picked up a broken iron pot out of the street. She had seen the Spanish soldiers wear pots on their heads, to protect them, and she put the iron pot on her head, in case the children threw stones.

  That was a good idea, because now there were more children, and they were throwing stones. She walked off as fast as she could, turned into the next street, and began searching for her house. A volley of pebbles pelted her back and shoulders and she wheeled around, furious, and yelled and made faces and waved her arms.

  The children laughed. She did not frighten them enough. When she turned to go on in her search, they rushed after her again, and more stones came, more bits of dirt and even dog turds, horrible smelly things. She broke into a run to get away from them and they ran after her, streaming after her, laughing and yelling. People were looking out their windows at her now. Humiliated, she stopped and turned again to face them, and the children skidded to a stop, a dozen or more of them, ten feet behind her.

  “Yeeaaw!” She waved her arms at them. They laughed. A stone whizzed past her shoulder.