Paul Lawrence - The Sweet Smell of Decay

I sat there for hours, staring into the darkness. The yeoman peered through the bars of the window at me. I could sense his curiosity, wondering why I was sat there, unmoving. He came by every ten or fifteen minutes, until eventually, with great caution, he opened the door to ask me if I was all right. I wondered if Joyce was enjoying the same human consideration.

I reflected on Jane’s advice, advice I hadn’t found time to impart to Dowling. Joyce was to be freed from prison tomorrow, though not in the way Jane meant. Mary Bedford had been found, though again not in the way that Jane meant. I had gone to see Hewitt despite her warning. That meant I had the brain of an old hog. The only thing I hadn’t done wrong was to spend more time with John Giles. Time to rectify that later.

I felt very lonely that night. For the first time in my life I felt I had no real friends. It was an awful feeling, an unrelenting tug at the pit of my stomach.

A few hours later I contemplated the birth of a new grey winter’s day, long and cold.

They let me out very early. The cobbled walkways and courtyards were empty as I walked beneath the blanket grey sky. Birds sang frantically, no doubt trying to keep warm. Through the fog I saw the outline of a large man the size of a wine barrel waiting outside the Bulwark Gate. It could only be Dowling. What words of wisdom would he have prepared for me?

When he saw me he hurried over, took my hand as if to shake it, but instead gripped it hard and squeezed it, whilst peering into my swollen eye. In truth I must have looked terrible. I hadn’t slept well, the eye throbbed — as did most of my ribs and both my thighs, and I felt like my head was floating two feet above my neck.

‘I’m well enough. Tell me what happened while we walk.’ We made our way slowly up Great Tower Street up towards the City.

‘I was allowed to see him in the morning.’ He walked with his shoulders scrunched, hands in pockets, looking at the dirt beneath his feet. ‘I stayed awhile, waited for them to come and collect him.’

‘How was he?’

‘Calm. He told me of the trial. They made him stand before the Lord Chief Justice with his back to the court. The Lord Chief Justice said that he would not look into the face of Satan. Various fellows, one after the other, all appeared before the court and told the same story, that they had seen Joyce running from Bride’s with blood on his hands, screaming like a devil, with black spirits clambering about his back, attacking him with their talons. He was there two hours listening to the same tales. At the end of it the Lord Chief Justice asked him if he had anything to say. He said, “I think the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not a voice to put himself under.”’

‘Fine words,’ I noted, dubiously.

‘They were Rainsborough’s words at the Putney Debates.’

‘Of course.’ The Putney Debates took place twenty years ago, at a time when the army still pretended to rule in place of the King. Rainsborough was a Leveller.

‘Aye, but the Lord Chief Justice flew into a frenzy according to Joyce. Jumped to his feet and started shouting and screaming. He had to be becalmed, while Joyce just stood there wondering what he’d said.’

‘Odd fish.’

‘Aye. Anyhow, Joyce had a better perspective than we did on the certainty of his fate. He was resigned to it.’ Dowling laid a meat plate on my shoulder once more. ‘He bore you no malice, Harry.’

I didn’t need Joyce’s perspective to establish the futility of my efforts. ‘What next?’

‘The old cleric from St Andrew Hubbard came, the fiery fellow with wild white hair. He had been drinking beforetimes to give himself strength methinks. It was he that hung the cross round Joyce’s neck. Then they bound him tight. They were all in there, pushing him, prodding him, waiting for him to struggle so they could give him a good beating, but he didn’t protest at all. But then, just as they’re leading him out, he turned round, and spake out clear as you like, ‘Villains!’ I thought they would beat him then, but he stared right into their eyes, standing to attention like an old soldier. He looked like a soldier too, even with the cuffs of his jacket halfway up his elbows and his trousers halfway up his knees.’

We walked on past the Custom House, towards the Bridge. At the crossroads with Fish Street Hill we had to stop and wait in a crowd of pedestrians, carriages and sedans. As more traffic arrived from behind we found ourselves jostled and cramped.

‘What’s going on?’ Dowling shouted to a coachman a few yards ahead, up on his seat.

‘Turkeys,’ the coachman shouted back, shrugging, ‘thousands of them.’

Dowling strained his neck above the melee and fidgeted a while, then apparently resigned himself to the delay. ‘He stood there like the King himself, looking down on them like they was brutes, which of course they was. You could see they saw it too, didn’t know how to respond. Then he looked at one of them and said, “Thou art dull indeed.” Thou art dull indeed! As God’s my witness, it was the funniest thing I ever saw! The cleric called them to order, told them to stop their growlings and get him to the cart.’

Didn’t sound funny to me. There was a clearing in the crowd just ahead of us. Two men ran frantically in circles chasing the birds. ‘Did you go with the cart?’

‘They allowed me as far as Sepulchras. After that I made my own way to Tyburn. My cousin set his own cart up there. There was a big crowd outside Newgate blocking the gate and stopping the cart from setting off. There were four that went, Joyce and three others, but the crowd was there for Joyce. They threw apples, some old cabbage, but it just bounced off his head. The throwing soon stopped because the guards were having it worse than Joyce. Two of them went into the crowds with their sticks.’

‘Who were the other three?’

He pulled me by my jacket, stepping nimbly between a sedan and a woman carrying a pail on her shoulder. I tried to keep up with him so he wouldn’t stretch the cloth. ‘I don’t know, none was interested, it was our Joyce they talked about. But they were all three of them drunk as lords. They started to sing as soon as the cart began to roll. Only Joyce wouldn’t take a drink. Like I told you, I went with them as far as Sepulchras. The mob was quiet there, wanting to hear what the clerk had to say, listen to the prayers. He gave each one a small bunch of winter flowers. The drunkards took them and made fun of him, which made the crowd angry. They were angry at Joyce besides, for he just ignored the flowers. The clerk tossed them into his lap in the end, had done with it.’

‘He was bound, though, you said?’

‘Well aye, he was, that’s true, and the only one bound. Reckon they thought they’d keep him tied for his own protection. The other three wasn’t. They all three took the ale keenly enough, sat around telling each other stories. Like an alehouse on wheels it was, but with Joyce sitting in the corner like Death.’

The crowds pressed in, squeezing me up against the wheel of a coach. Dowling eased me forwards and off it with one trunk-like forearm. People started to shout, complaining at the squash. Just as I thought my ribs might break, the pressure was relieved and the crowd surged forward. We were carried with it, Dowling as helpless as I, over the crossroads, turkeys running in a panic about our feet, feathers everywhere. At the first opportunity we stepped off the main thoroughfare and into narrow Candlewick Lane. A turkey followed us, gobbling and grumbling.