Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

“There’s much to do,” the little rustler said, inspecting the remaining Joey, now trembling with shock and fear. “I own you now, you two. I have you for eternity. Free servitude. Work hard, and then we’ll see what rations I might offer you. If you continue to devour your ropes, you’ll not be fed, except with rope.” He laughed, quite normally and merrily, his beard and ribbons shaking — the very thought of feeding them on rope! Surely they could see the funny side of that. “You call me Master or you call me Captain or you call me Chief. Those are the names I answer to. Let’s hear the sound of that. You first.”

“Master,” Joey said.

“And you, the giant.”

“Yes, Captain Chief.” The three rustlers found Franklin’s answer hilarious. They laughed like teenagers, too easily amused. That name would stick.

“I could have made a shiny profit out of you,” said Captain Chief, indicating with a flapping hand that Franklin should squat. Franklin was used to being flapped down to the ground by senior but shorter men. “I could have sold you with your four friends. Strong men like you are precious to the quarry barons and the gang masters, who pull the reins around here at Tidewater. But I’ve held on to you. Now why is that, do you suppose?” He took a step forward to whisper in his captive’s ear, so close that Franklin could smell the familiar skin of Jackson’s coat as well as the chewed tobacco on the man’s breath. “We’re holding on to you because if you’re wise as well as strong, if you’re sensible, we might decide to let you be a brother in our band. Does that appeal to you, to ride with us when we go out on business? You look as if you could be educated how to snap a man in half if you saw any profit in it.” He raised his voice, so everyone could hear. “But if you’re other wise as well as strong, then…Well, then, you’ll be the one who’s snapped in half. You won’t be mounted on a horse. We’ll have you mounted on a sharpened pole. We’ll skin a shield with you. You have the word of Captain Chief on that.”

Franklin felt oddly hopeful after this whispered conversation. He would cooperate, be wise, be sensible. And then, as soon as he was trusted, he would try to creep away. He could imagine it, a nighttime opportunity. He would retrieve his brother’s coat. Its theft was a constant insult and a provocation and one that, in his head at least, he could revenge. Wearing it again might make him as valiant and purposeful as Jackson had always been. He’d be as light and silent as a moth when he cut loose the rustlers’ biggest horse and stole away with Joey at his back. Then he’d be on board a ship with great white flapping sails and with Margaret at his side (for he could not bear to think that she had already gone ahead of him). And all the Boses would be there, on deck, with wind-pinked cheeks, both Joeys too, the brothers and Marie, the slaughtered dog, the coastline sinking as the waters passed around the hull.

Franklin considered, too, that he might slit some throats before he fled the encampment, or take a chunk of metal to stave in their sleeping heads. Seeing that cruel and pompous Captain Chief dead in his blankets would be a satisfaction. But Franklin could not concentrate on that heavy revenge, because the more he tried to imagine it, the less likely it became. He could never make a convincing murderer. His hand was far too hesitant. He’d never be the sort to “snap a man in half,” or slit a throat, or bludgeon a head, sleeping or not. He could not make that leap. There was too great a gap between his near bank and his far.

It was not long before the rustlers also realized that despite their expectations, Franklin would not proceed to be a member of their band, a menacing comrade. He was large and powerful, for sure. And he proved to be a useful beast of burden, willing and easily tamed. But making him menacing and dangerous would be beyond the ingenuity of the Devil himself. The man might be big, but he was hardly daunting. He laughed inexplicably and too loudly every once in a while. He blushed like a girl. He did what he was told too readily. Even on that first day of captivity, after he’d been separated from the plague girl, he’d flinched at the slightest prospect of being touched, even though none of the horsemen had yet done more than lightly kick or slap him. Their horses were treated worse than that and accepted it with a flick of the ear. It wasn’t long before they gave up any hope that a crueler, tougher side to Franklin would be beaten to the surface. So they beat him idly, expecting nothing in return.

Now, on the morning of their visit to the metal soil heaps outside the Ark, it was hard for the labor gang to stay as silent as the horsemen had demanded. Breaking through the frozen topsoil with metal-headed tools was bound to be noisy, whatever efforts the men might make to dull the sound. But once the surface had been breached, the earth there was less solid than most other open ground in the sea-chilled neighborhoods of Tidewater. It was protected from the worst of the ice and the winds by the Ark’s trunk palisade and kept soft by the washing and cooking slops that were drained through sluices from the Ark every evening and were too oily to freeze. There were the first spring sun and a little melting snow to soften the ground further and to provide these raiders and their slaves with their first opportunity to do what they had planned to do for months: harvest the crop of confiscated metal. Even the captives had been looking forward to this. They might not prosper personally from what they unearthed for their masters, but the work would be less dull than the usual tearing down or grubbing out of timber, stone, and metal salvage in the debris fields beyond the town. They were almost boys again as they embarked upon their work. Every rightly constructed boy has a desire to go somewhere and dig for buried treasure. They set about the task almost cheerfully.

Much of the earth had been turned and loosened during the previous fall’s excavations and burials. The disturbed ground had not yet settled, and so it was easy to spot the trenches where so many tools, valuables, and weapons had been “restituted” by the Baptists. Breaking into these long mounds was not hard work, especially with a strong man such as Franklin wielding the heaviest mattock. Almost at once his efforts were rewarded with the tuneless clang of his blade on earth-deadened metal. One of the masters shouted out that Franklin should be more careful and use his mattock less forcibly. There should be no carelessness, no damage to their booty.

Once the topsoil had been thoroughly raked away, the labor gang gathered around to clear and search the middens with their bare hands, taking care to check for metals in every palm of soil. The slave masters had laid out three waxed blankets behind their workers: one for swords and knives and any arrow-and spearheads that had been snapped off their shafts and could be mounted and used again; a second for useful objects that might be sold, such as buckets, silverware, and platters, and reclaimable parts of saddles and wagons; and a third for trinkets, silver plate, and jewelry, the abundant riches that were understood to be buried there and that, together with the weapons, would make the masters even more powerful.

Much of the confiscated metal that they extracted had already been damaged in its burial by the Baptists and then crushed further by the months of frost and the weight of earth. Buckets that had gone in round and unpunctured came out flattened and split. Clasps and buckles were degraded. Sets of cheap knives and forks had halved their weight but doubled their bulk to rust. Sets of nails and tacks had been welded to each other by the damp. Once polished surfaces had roughened and corroded. Everything had lost its sheen and color. Everything was acned. The soil itself was dark with rust and stains.