Paul Lawrence - The Sweet Smell of Decay

‘I left them there and hurried off to Tyburn. Took me best part of half an hour, the crowds were so thick. No room for a horse or coach. I had to run around the alleys and side roads, but he had a good spot, my cousin, only twenty yards from the gallows. Getting to it was the problem.’

I stopped to take a breath. The crowd had pushed hard onto every tender spot on my body. It felt like I was being beaten up again. I waved away Dowling’s fussy concern. ‘Go on.’

‘The mood was altered by the time they got to Tyburn. Joyce was still in a world of his own, if you ask me. But the other three had lost their nerve. Either they didn’t have enough ale or else had too much. Twitching and scratching, wiping their brows and hair, rubbing themselves, licking their lips. They were looking for salvation by that time, but the guards were roused. Having pushed their way through the mob for three miles, been spat on and thrown at, they were of a wicked, foul temper. The crowd had eyes like foxes staring at chickens. Whichever way you looked there was a sea of heads. God’s eyes, did they get frightened! They started running about the cart, looking to jump off it into the crowd. Course, the crowd thought that was great fun, just kept picking them up and throwing them back in. Great sport it was, until one of the guards climbed up and started thrashing about with his stick. Then the three of them quietened down, just sat there shivering, terrified almost to death they was, poor souls. Must be a lonely feeling. Hearing the big roar, knowing it’s for your own death.’

I felt sick.

‘Packed to the galleries, it was. They had two wooden stands set up and they were full. Must have been six or seven thousand. Hanging from windows, perched on the rooftops, leaning from poles and sills. Anyway, as they come up to the gallows, Joyce stood up. The women screamed, all frightened and excited. But Joyce just stood there grinning, grinning I tell you. I never saw anyone look less afraid. People was throwing things at him, but somehow they all missed. Some poor fool hit one of the soldiers with an orange, soon regretted that. The soldier lets out a bellow louder than the bells of Paul’s and goes running after him with his pike. Then the crowd sets on him, and it’s a right mess. There was almost a riot.’

‘And Joyce was alright?’

‘Oh aye, he was alright, surveying it all like a badly dressed angel. Things quickened up a bit then; I think the soldiers were keen for it all to end. Four of them lifted him right up into the air for everyone to see. That got the crowd roaring again.’ Dowling took a deep breath. ‘Then I think his nerve failed him a moment. His knees buckled and he looked up to the sky with his eyes wide open and his mouth gaping. He said something, I don’t know what, then fell down and the soldiers had to carry him.’

I felt my eyes fill. ‘God have mercy.’

He put an arm around my shoulder. ‘Aye, but then he righted himself. He stood up straight again and looked out at the crowd. I could see the right-hand side of his head clearly. Peaceful, I swear.’

‘You’re pulling my leg.’

‘Well, you may say. But I tell you I never saw a wrinkle of remorse. At peace with himself, he was.’

‘Aye, well hopefully some others saw that too.’

‘People come to a hanging for the show, Harry, they don’t come for sober reflection and philosophy.’

‘So then they hung him.’

‘Aye. The crowd shouted so loud you must of heard it in the Tower. Hangman put the rope round his neck and the crowd went quiet, waiting for him to beg for his life. Holding its breath.’

‘Did he beg then?’

‘No, just looked up at the sky. The other three were crying and wailing like women, but Joyce actually smiled, grinned over the top of the rope that was wrapped around his throat.’

‘You go too far.’

‘I’m telling you he smiled. Once the horse was smacked — well then he shat himself, his tongue popped out and started going black and all those things, but before that, he smiled.’

I looked away. ‘Did they cut him?’

‘Aye, they cut him,’ Dowling growled and scratched at his cheek. ‘One of the soldiers took a blade and cut him from his groin up to his ribs. Three cuts. Did it well.’ A look of respect came into his eyes for just a second. ‘Then he reached inside his gut, pulled out his innards and set them alight in front of his eyes. Though I think he was dead by then. Then they let him down and cut him into pieces, showed the crowd his head and his heart.’

‘I wager the crowd enjoyed that.’

‘The mouths of the wicked devoureth iniquity.’

I really had to sit down, and Dowling saw it too. I persuaded him to come with me to a coffee house close by on Eastcheap. We found ourselves a quiet spot where we sat in silence for some minutes, while we waited for coffee to be poured and while I waited for the worst of the pain to subside. Dowling sat with the top of his head forward, looking into my eyes with his mouth set grim. This was not the self-assured Dowling of a few days ago.

‘So, Davy,’ I managed to speak without my ribs breaking, ‘Mary Bedford is dead and now Richard Joyce. Neither our doing, but I don’t give much credit to our efforts neither. Do we stop here — tell the story that the affair is ended with the hanging of Joyce? You and I both know it wasn’t he that did it.’

‘Aye,’ Dowling nodded gravely, ‘and we have the husband to consider.’

John Giles, of course. The chicken running headless while the fox sits complacently in its lair biding its time. ‘What do we do, then, about Hewitt?’

Dowling wriggled on his seat. ‘I will talk to the Mayor again, but it will not be easy. He will want to know why we concern ourselves with Hewitt now that Joyce is dead.’

He was right. The Mayor would be a waste of time. ‘I will go to Cocksmouth,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I can establish the source of this mystery there. There is some devilry at the root of this which I do not yet comprehend.’

‘Would you have me come with you?’ Dowling asked.

It was kind of him, but he didn’t know what he was volunteering for. I declined the offer and we went our own ways.

Cocksmouth. Cocksmouth was north and west, beyond Buckingham. It was a long journey and I would be gone from London at least three days. Plenty of time for reflection.

My father was not an educated man, a deficiency that I did not hold against him, God knows. Yet I could not fathom why he made such importance of the need for me to study at Cambridge on the one hand, yet behaved with such stubborn disregard for good logic and sense on the other hand — if ever it came from my mouth. Whatever opinion I expressed, observation I made, could be guaranteed to elicit contradiction. The same determination that I should enjoy greater fortune than he appeared to stir a bitter jealousy against me. His head was like a sealed globe within which wild storms continually raged. Whenever he opened his mouth a violent gale blew. My own policy to deal with such contrariness was to remain silent in his presence. The fewer words I spoke, the kinder the climate. So. Tomorrow to Cocksmouth. Birthplace of my mother’s ancestors. A place where pigs foraged before finding themselves strung up with their guts sliced in the front room of my uncle’s house. Godamercy.

I walked south, deep in gloomy thought, pushing through the crowds on Cornhill, heading for the bridge. I walked straight, taking no notice of the tradesmen striding down the streets as if they owned it, shouting out their wares so that all could hear within a half-mile radius.

I hated Shrewsbury and Keeling, and all like them. Before I had never cared, they were the distant purveyors of venerable wisdom. Now they were cold calculating politicians, supreme saviours of their own skin — and hunters of mine. It was mid- afternoon and London’s walls felt oppressive, the crowds pestilent. I strode out onto the Bridge and marched down the middle of the road, avoiding the clamourings and cajolings of the shopkeepers. By the time I reached the wooden drawbridge to the Southbank I was sweaty and my temper had subsided into a mere simmering brew of resentment. As the mists thinned I became more aware of my surroundings. I passed beneath the arch of Nonsuch House. Its copper-covered cupolas shone like blood. I turned to gaze upon the heads that waved stiffly on the end of tall wooden poles, grinning teeth and dull hair coated with a fine layer of freezing frost. A peeling face stared sadly at me from the top of its pole with dull mouldy eyes as it swung over the edge of the archway. The meat on the head was white and torn. I recognised Colonel James Turner, wealthy goldsmith and embezzler. I looked into his eyes, noted the jagged cuts about his neck, the ragged state of his head where the crows had been feeding. He had been loved and respected once. Not any more.