Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

He returned to the felons’ common-room to find Lizzie Lock vigorously defending his box from Isaac Rogers the highwayman.

“Leave her and my belongings alone,” said Richard curtly.

“Make me!” said Rogers with a snarl, shaping up.

“Oh, piss off, do! Ye’re a tub of lard I would eat at one sitting,” said Richard, his tone as weary as it was unintimidated. “Just go away! I am a peaceful man by name of Richard Morgan, and this lady is under my protection.” He put his arm about Lizzie’s waist while she shrank against him gleefully. “There are other women here. Bother one of them.”

Rogers weighed him carefully and decided discretion was the better part of valor. Had Morgan betrayed a trace of fear it would have gone differently, but the bugger had no fear in him. Too calm, too contained. Fellows like that fought like cats, teeth and nails and boots, and they were agile. So he slouched away with a shrug, leaving Richard to sit on his box and perch Lizzie on his knee.

“When do they feed us?” he asked. What a clever female she was! No fear that she would misinterpret his gallantry. It suited Lizzie Lock to have a protector who did not desire her.

“Soon for dinner,” she answered. “It being Sunday, we get new bread, meat, a hunk of cheese, turnips and cabbage. No butter or jam, but there is plenty to eat. Felons got their own kitchen, through there”-she pointed to the far end of the room-“and Cook will issue ye with a wooden trencher and a tin mug. Supper is more bread, small beer and cabbage soup.”

“Is there a taproom?”

“What, in here? Fond of the booze, are ye, Richard my love?”

“No. I drink naught but small beer or water. I wondered.”

“Simmons-his nickname is Happy and he is an under-gaoler-will bring booze in for ye for a penny profit. That is when ye’ll have to watch yon Isaac. He is savage in his cups, is Ike.”

“Drunk men are clumsy, I have dealt with them all my life.”

By theend of February there was nothing that Richard did not know about Gloucester Gaol, including all its felon inmates, whom proximity rendered intimates rather than acquaintances. Fourteen of them were up for trial at the Lent assizes; the rest were already judged and sentenced, mostly to transportation. And of those fourteen, three were women-Mary (known as Maisie) Harding, charged with receiving stolen goods-Betty Mason, charged with stealing a purse containing fifteen guineas from a house in Henbury-and Bess Parker, charged with housebreaking in North Nibley and the theft of two linen garments. Bess Parker had formed a firm relationship with a 1783 felon, Ned Pugh; Betty Mason had bewitched an under-gaoler named Johnny. Both were due to have babies at any moment.

What a fine little world is ours! Richard reflected wryly. A common-room one can hardly stand up in, and, when a gaoler opens the gate, a disgusting men’s dormitory up the steps. He had become quite case-hardened; stripped and bathed at the pump in an airless black cell without regard for the women, washed his bum rags under it with calm unimpaired, and filtered his drinking water through his dripstone under the gaze of more than three dozen pairs of incredulous eyes. A degree of selfishness had crept into him, for he made no attempt to share his purified water with either Lizzie or Willy; the dripstone was slow, taking an hour to produce two pints of filtered water. Nor did he share his soap or rags. What few pence he disbursed from his hoard went to Maisie, the laundress, for washing his underdrawers, shirts and stockings; as for breeches and other outer wear-well, they simply stank of sweat.

Maisie was the only one of the women without a protector and dispensed her favors gratis, whereas two or three of the others could be had for a mug of gin. When the urge visited a couple, they lay down on whatever vacant piece of floor they could find, or, failing that, stood against the wall. Not an erotic business, as clothes stayed on and the most a curious individual could see was a glimpse of a fleshy pole or hairy mound, though usually not even that. What fascinated Richard most was that none of the copulating happened in one of the adjacent cells; everybody seemed terrified of the dark.

Bess Parker and Betty Mason broke their waters on the felons’ common-room floor early in March and were carried off to the female dormitory to finish the birthing process in that foul place. Two other women were nursing babies born in Gloucester Gaol, and Maisie had a toddler she had brought into gaol with her. Most of the babes died at or soon after birth. Toddlers were a miracle.

But there was plenty of work to do, a blessing. Richard was put to carrying limestone blocks from the castle dock to the new prison, which gave him both fresh air and a chance to look around. Gloucester’s tiny port was just north of the castle precinct on the same bank of the Severn, which was navigable to this point for small snows and large barges. One of the town’s two foundries made church bells, whereas the other contented itself with small iron items readily sold in the neighborhood. They gave out smoke, but not nearly enough to foul the air, which Richard found sweet and crisp. Nor did the Severn look fouled, though the endemic gaol fever indicated that the gaol’s water source was contaminated. Or else it was spread by the fleas and lice, which Richard dealt with by scrubbing his filthy pallet with oil of tar and keeping himself and his clothes picked over constantly. Oh, God, to be clean! To live clean! To have a meed of privacy!

The gaolfever broke out scant days after Richard and Willy were admitted, which brought the population of the common-room down from forty to twenty; only a small influx of new faces kept the number due to be tried at fourteen.

Time and shared work had introduced him to all the men, some of whom he found himself able to like well enough to call them friends: William Whiting, James Price and Joseph Long. They were all on the Lent assizes list with him.

Whiting stood accused of stealing a wether sheep at the same place had harbored Richard and Willy amid the straw of the Stars and Plough, Almondsbury.

“Absolute rubbish!” said Whiting, who was a regular wag. No one was quite sure if what he said could be taken seriously. “Why on earth would I steal a sheep? All I wanted to do was fuck it. Would’ve had it back in its pen the next morning and no one the wiser. Except that the shepherd was not asleep.”

“Desperate, Bill?” asked Richard without cracking a smile.

“Not so much desperate as-well, I plain like fucking, and a sheep’s arse feels much the same as a woman’s quim,” said Whiting chirpily. “Smells the same, at any rate, and ’tis a bit tighter. Besides, sheep don’t answer back. See, ye stick its back legs in the tops of your boots and away ye go.”

“Whether it is bestiality or sheep stealing, Bill, ye’re up for the rope. But why Almondsbury? Another eight miles and ye could have found a thousand whores of either sex in Bristol-they do not answer back either.”

“Could not wait, just could not wait. Had the loveliest face-reminded me of a parson I once knew.”

Richard gave up.

Jimmy Price was a Somerset yokel with a poor head for rum. He and a companion had robbed three houses in Westbury-upon-Trim and stolen a large quantity of beef, pork and mutton, three hats, two coats, an embroidered waistcoat, riding boots, a musket and two green silk umbrellas. His confederate, whom he called Peter, had since perished of the gaol fever. He was unrepentant because he considered his conduct blameless. “Didn’t mean to do it-don’t remember doing it,” he explained. “What would I need with two green silk umbrellas? Ain’t nowhere to sell them in Westbury. Wasn’t hungry neither, and none of the clothes fit me or Peter. And never took no powder or shot for the musket.”