After the storm had abated – when, I do not know, it may have been hours later – my thoughts, too, became calmer, more collected, more cunning. The first thing I recognised as certain, was that I was in Bartlett Greene’s power, assuming he had not already confessed and betrayed me. My fate depended on his silence alone.
I had just come to the decision that I should cautiously try to work on Bartlett Greene to get him to see that he was doomed and therefore had nothing more to lose in keeping silent about my part in the affair, when I was startled by something so unbelievable and terrifying that I forgot all my plans and artifices, even all my hopes: Bartlett Greene had set his huge body swaying from the iron chains, as if he were dancing. As the first light of a May morning filtered into the cell, the crucified outlaw swung higher and higher, and with a lithe gracefulness, as if he were enjoying the motion of a hammock slung between two silver birches. And all the while his joints and sinews crunched and cracked as if he were stretched on the rack.
And then Bartlett Greene began to sing! At first his voice was almost melodious, but it soon took on the screech of the bagpipes as he ground out a hoarse hymn to earthy pleasures:
Heave ho! Heave ho!
The blossom hangs on the bough
After the moult of May.
Heave ho!
Miaow, Tom Kitten, miaow
Sing your roundelay.
Heave ho!
Heave ho! Heave ho!
Tom shall go seeking his Kitty
After the moult of May.
Heave ho!
Come follow me, my pretty,
On the green grass we will play.
Heave ho!
Heave ho! Heave ho!
All night Tom plays on his fiddle
After the moult of May.
Heave ho!
While Kitty sings hey diddle diddle
To the moon and Black Isaye.
Heave ho!
I cannot describe the fit of horror that shook me as I listened to the wild chanting of the leader of the Ravenheads; I thought the torture had suddenly driven him mad. Even today, as I write it down, my blood runs cold.
Then there was a rattle of the bolts of the iron-clad door and a warder came in with two underlings. They released the crucified Greene from the wall and let him tumble to the ground like a toad caught by a harvester’s scythe. “That’s another six hours over Mister Greene,” one of the turnkeys mocked. “I reckon you’ll soon have outswung any other prisoner on that wall. If you’re lucky you might be allowed another go at it; and if Satan turns the pain to pleasure, then there’ll be a fiery chariot calling for you like Elijah; but it won’t take you up to heaven, oh no, I reckon it’ll head straight for St. Patrick’s Purgatory and that’ll be the last we’ll see of you.”
Bartlett Greene gave a satisfied grunt and dragged his stretched limbs to a heap of straw. Then he turned his blasphemous fury on the turnkey:
“Verily, I say unto thee, David, thou holy turd of a goaler, today thou wouldst be with me in paradise – if I had a mind to go there. But I would not raise thy hopes, thou’ll end up in a different place than thou thinkst, papistical scum. Or shall I spit on thy forehead and baptise thee in the name of the Lord, my son?”
I saw the rough soldiers cross themselves in fear. The goaler drew back in superstitous awe and made with his hand the sign the Irish use to ward off the evil eye. He screamed at Greene:
“Look not at me with thy wall-eye, thou first-born of hell! St. David of Wales, that has watched over me ever since I sucked at my mother’s breast, will shield me against thy curses.”
Then he and his henchmen stamped out of the cell, followed by the mocking echo of Bartlett Greene’s laughter. They left a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water.
For a while all was quiet.
As the light grew stronger I could see the features of my fellow prisoner more clearly. His right eye was a pale, milky-white disc which seemed to follow you with a fixed glare of infinite spite. It was the eye of a dead man who had seen some horrible sight as he died. The white eye was blind.
This is the first of a number of pages that have been damaged by fire. The text becomes more and more deficient, but the general sense is clear.
“Water? That’s malmsey, that is,” roared Greene, clamped the pitcher between his wrists – his hands hung down useless – and took such a great swig that I feared my portion, too, would run down his throat, for I was was parched. “To my twisted body it is like wine – glug – I never feel any pain – glug – nor fear! Fear and pain are twin weaknesses. I will tell you something, Master Dee, that none of your scholars know, for all their book-learning – glug – I will be truly free when I have cast off this mortal flesh – glug – I am proof against what they call death until I have completed my thirty-third year. – glug – On the first of May, when the witches dedicate their cats to the Black Mother, my time will be over. O that my mother had kept me one month longer in her belly, my stench would be none the worse for it and I would have time to show the Bloody Bishop, that novice, that bungler, how a real master carries out torture. You will find the Bishop – – –” (scorch marks)
– – – Greene tapped me with his finger below the neck – my jerkin had been torn by the guards and my chest was naked; he touched my collar bone and said, “That is the mystical bone I am talking about. It is called the corvine appendix – the Raven’s tail. It contains the mystical salt of life that
