“Welcome, I must say,” which was a step in the right direction, but she went pretty frigid when we got to the woods. Just peeps and shivers at this the target of her visions, this the torment of her dreams.
“Down by here,” I said, patting grass.
“O, my,” said she.
“Come on, come on,” I said.
“And what will happen then, Jethro Mortymer?”
“One guess is as good as another, girl.”
“You heard about Beth Shenkins?”
“No,” I replied.
“Little Beth Shenkins sat on grass and she hasn’t been the same girl since.”
I eyed her.
“Down by here came poor little Beth – courting that Ianto Powell from Cefn, thought it was for kissing, see? But she came home at midnight short of a garment, was in child by that Ianto three months later, beaten by her mam, cast out by her dad, all in under a week.” She stopped for breath.
“Go on,” I said.
“Ended in the workhouse, caught a chill scrubbing, child died at birth and her dead three days later, poor Beth Shenkins. Just thinking the same thing could happen to me. That likely?”
“More than likely,” I said.
Skirts up and running, with looks over her shoulder to see if I was following.
Pretty good spring so far, but probably for the best, for I couldn’t help thinking of Dilly.
Black Boar tavern now, leaning over a quart. All the men were strangers save Ezekiel Marner who eyed me, blue-faced, red-eyed, cranked over his mug. I grinned at my thoughts. Could be that special punishments were being handed out for spring fulfilments. And up came Sixpenny Jane, smiling, and leaned her arms on the counter opposite.
“What is your pleasure, Jethro Mortymer?”
“A mug,” I said, looking away.
“Eh, hoity-toity tonight, is it?”
“No, just drinking.”
“You seen Justin Slaughterer?”
I shook my head.
“Looking for you, mind,” she said. She pushed the ale towards me and I blew off the froth and drank.
“Aye?”
“Breathing fire and brimstone, too. Drunk as a coot on ice, he is. Squaring accounts, he said. You mind.”
Didn’t really hear her. Strange is ale with strong light above it, the image of the face: the bulbous nose, the slits of eyes, the heaped cheekbones; all refracting and shimmering in the amber haze; the hop-flecked mouth, the mad dog froth of the lips, the sabre teeth of the tiger, all is flung back, warping the vision as it warps the wits.
“You listening, Jethro. Raging is Justin, out for blood.”
“O, aye?”
And ale is like life, I thought, the gentry froth at the top, puffed up and pompous, the dregs of beggars at the bottom. Lower the mug and leave the dregs. Fighting, fighting, I thought, and for what? For another master, a dreg of a master; beggar or gentry they are tuned to greed. One pig in exchange for another one uneducated. I looked past Jane, thinking.
“Gone down to your house just now, you see him?”
“Who, now?” I asked.
“Justin Slaughterer. What the devil is wrong with you tonight?”
“Morfydd’s back home. She will give him slaughterer. Another mug.” I tossed her a penny. “One for you,” I said.
“You’ll be drinking in good company,” said Jane. “You heard about Betsi?”
“No.”
“Courting strong, Waldo Bailiff.”
“Good match,” I said.
“Turned over a new leaf, has Betsi, mind. And when Betsi turns we both turn, Gipsy May and me. A house of virgins this, all we lack is lamps. Taking the cloth, the three of us, sackcloth and ashes henceforth. Respectable now, says Betsi, convents don’t come into it. But my time is my own after closing, of course.” She dimpled and smirked and fluffed her hair. “You free tonight, Jethro Mortymer?”
I looked at her. The youth of her was reaching over the counter; skidding over the wet teak between us as a clarion sail on a sea of ale. I blinked away the fumes, unused to drinking. She smiled, head on one side.
“Have to make your mind up quick,” she said. “Here comes Justin.”
The shouting of the room died to silence as I turned. The door slammed as Justin heeled it. Men muttered, their eyes switching from Justin to me. North country colliers, mostly; massive men, hardened to iron by the tools of their trade, sensing the vendetta.
“Away,” whispered Jane, gripping the counter.
I turned on my elbow and faced him.
I knew Justin Slaughterer in this mood; the trash of manhood, this one – six fights a week and a woman thrown in. I may have had an inch on him but he was a full two stone the heavier, deep-chested, with black hair sprouting round the ring of his collar. He smiled then, his white teeth showing in the tan of his face. Handsome devil.
“Right you, Mortymer,” he said, and slipped off his coat.
“Better outside, Justin.”
“Outside last time, boy. Better in here.” Hands on hips he wandered towards me. Thought he was drunk at first, but his feet were steady; as sober as me. Jane came round the counter, elbowing aside the audience.
“This is Betsi’s night off, Justin,” said she. “Outside now, we want no fighting in here.”
Justin swept her behind him with one arm, grinning.
“Rebecca, is it, Mortymer? Handy enough with fifty behind you.”
“You fool, shut your mouth,” I said.
“I am here to shut yours,” said Justin, and leaped.
I got him with the ale as he blundered past me, worth the price of the quart, and he tripped in his plunge and went over a table, smashing it to matchwood. A man laughed, the men lined the walls. Justin knelt, wiped the beer from his eyes, and rose.
It was strange that I knew no fear. Not a nerve moved in me as he planted his feet for swinging. Calmness is the key to it when handling bruisers, my father had taught me; the watchful eye more important than the fist: left knee turned in to ward off kicks, up on tiptoe and ready to drop, never stand square to the swing. The eye switches to the handy bottle, to the broken table where the wooden spears stick up white; the eye sticks on
