Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

Many of the pieces pulled clear by Franklin and his fellows were inspected, found wanting, and just thrown back into the cleared trenches, but nevertheless there was plenty worth keeping, enough to arm the horsemen from toe to teeth and make them rich. Within a short time the three blankets were heavy with pickings. They were dragged away, tied corner to corner, and lifted onto carts. New blankets were provided. Nothing of any worth could be left behind. By now the men were tired and cold and no longer excited. The treasure hunt was proving as tedious as any other work. They filled their blankets three more times before the sun gained much altitude.

It was, then, almost a relief when the work was finally interrupted by the arrival of the Baptists, a group of fifteen or so, mostly the younger devotees and gatekeepers, distinguished as ever by the devotional white tapes tied at their shoulders. But there were four of the older disciples, too, wearing their calmest faces and carrying the very weakest of the Helpless Gentlemen in an invalid chair with long lifting poles. The younger Baptists did their best to seem imposing and imperious without inviting an assault. They were armed only with their pilgrim sticks, good implements for prodding families, perhaps, but no use against metal swords and pikes. They were outnumbered, anyway. Besides the labor gang and the horses, the masters had mustered more than thirty men, all used to conflict, every one of them inclined to be a murderer.

The Baptists would not offer any short-term violence. Instead they threatened hellfire and damnation for all who soiled their hands and souls with metal. For a while, now that excavations had ceased, the only sounds were the high-pitched, fearful voices of believers and the clacking of the few winter birds that had come to see what they could find in the freshly turned soil. The Most Helpless Gentleman himself called out: “This is the Devil’s work. Enough.” A very reedy voice. Then there was the laughter of the mounted men, the sound of horses being spurred and turned, the shithering of blades from sheaths. “The Devil’s got some better work for us, I think,” the shortest of the riders, Captain Chief, said. “Now come on, boys, make meat of them. Prime cuts of Baptist for the crows.” Again his men were laughing, too readily amused.

The Helpless Gentleman would have shaken his fists in anger had he had the strength to raise his arms from his lap. He would have used his hands to save himself, despite his vows. He would at least have pressed his palms together and said his prayers. But horsemen were already at his back, determined to see him tumble from his chair. The devotee who dared to try to push away a horse was struck three times across his face and head with a heavy steel blade. The first blow cut into his cheek and across his mouth. The second, aimed at his white devotional tape, severed his windpipe and finished him. The final blow, delivered as the body fell, was just for show. It took the Baptist’s head clean off. It would have rolled a step or two had not his long nose wedged against a frozen clod of soil.

Franklin and his fellows — men who’d been added to his group in the last days of fall — were not shocked. This had been a winter of punishments and executions. They’d seen more deaths than they could even remember, including other decapitations. Two overspirited young men had tried to escape at their first opportunity, been dragged back to the encampment behind horses, feet first, and then brutally dispatched with an ax. It was a lesson to the others, according to the one comedian among the horsemen: “If you let your legs run, then we’ll make sure your blood runs, too,” and “Use your head or lose your head,” and “The man who quits is cut in bits. His toes are separated from his nose.” He never tired of rhyming threats.

The elder of the two Joeys, the potman, had succumbed during the winter to the cold, the hunger, and the string of beatings he’d received for being too small and weak for heavy work. He was worthless, anyway. The labor gang was not a charity. All its members had to earn their keep tenfold or they would perish.

Only the most obedient, the strongest, and the fittest could survive such a demanding and relentless regime. Franklin and his forty or so companions who had lasted long enough to serve in that day’s metal raiding party were hardened men, mistreated, underfed, but mostly young and muscular. How was it, then, that not one of them so much as raised a hand to save a life that morning? They had only to stretch and help themselves to freshly unearthed weapons from the spoils pile on the waxed blanket. They outnumbered their armed masters and could simply take the horsemen, who were now paying attention only to the group of Baptists, by surprise. Franklin thought of it. He clenched the muscles in his back and neck and thought of it. He thought of pulling free from the pile the heavy ax that he had just taken from the soil. A man could kill with it easily. He would take Captain Chief first, the little fellow who’d stolen and was still wearing his brother Jackson’s piebald coat. He’d add another, brighter color to the black and white and brown. And then he’d settle all the scores of winter, cracking the skulls and bloodying the faces of those hard men who’d made his life so bitter. He imagined rolling all the bodies into the trenches among the useless metal and kicking soil to cover them. He imagined kicking them until every bone in their bodies was splintered. But that was just a story that he told himself. He did not free himself. He did not fight. He did not save a life. He did nothing except stay quiet and calm, biting his tongue, watching the carnage as one by one the remaining Baptists were rounded up. How he wished that his brother might appear with his substantial temper to bring this nightmare to an end.

Franklin and his enslaved comrades had learned enough in the previous few months not to risk for even the highest of rewards the anger of these idle, mounted men, their captors. They’d seen too many beatings over the winter, too many throats cut, too many punishments for crimes no greater than muttering under their breaths and being weary before their work was done, to chance any kind of rebellion. They were not fed well enough to have reserved any courage. They were dispirited and fragile. Who’d be the first to call out for mercy for the Baptists? That one might lose his supper for the night, and be denied the promised fire. Which one would call out to the disciples to run? That man might have his tongue cut out or nailed to a tree. Who’d be the first to dare to reach out for a sword? That one might be the first to die. So all the labor gang did was stand and watch as the devotees who’d come to stop the disinterment of the Devil’s metal were encircled by the horses. Franklin and his comrades heard the final prayers and the cries. Curses, even. But they rubbed their hands against the cold. They stamped their feet and watched the horses’ breath sculpt clouds. A hundred heartbeats and the horsemen pulled away again, to leave the Baptists dead or dying in the snow.

Margaret hesitated. Two opposing instincts fixed her to the spot. The first instinct was to gather up Jackie in her arms and scuttle from the Ark as quickly as she could. She already knew what kind of men these were, even if the only one she recognized was the bandy leader in the stolen and recurring goatskin coat. Their bloody swords and pikes stood for what they had already done that morning and what they would continue doing until the raping and the looting began. After so many quiet and uneventful months, even the sight of these men’s perspiring horses, left to graze the paving in the Ark’s inner courtyard while their masters went about their trade, was alarming in itself. A horse had never come this far before. But that was nothing compared to the menace of the raiders’ cries and the hard set of their faces as they ran across the open space toward the building work and the accommodation sheds, looking first of all for men. These were the Anti-Baptists that she’d heard about all winter, strong-armed and cruel-handed outlaws beyond redemption, intent on forging the blood and metal of the Devil’s work, the subject of so many dinner sermons. She and Jackie should run for the gate as quickly as they could, before their moment passed and they were spotted by any of these sinners.