Circle of Shadows

V.4

The contrast between Mittelbach and Oberbach was stark. Turning off the road back to Ulrichsberg seemed to drop Michaels back into another age. One would have thought this country had been crossed by warring troops only months ago rather than twenty years in the past. It seemed a land whose people had been torn from it, and not returned. Though the rising ground to the north of the track showed signs of having been cultivated in the past, the terracing was only visible as ripples in the undergrowth. A few ancient, struggling vines curled up the remains of the poles. Near Oberbach they flourished, here they were broken and wild. The first house he saw was a ghost, the door hanging off and the garden all brambles. It was like the enchanted villages in the stories his mother used to tell him and he approached the huddle of dwellings expecting a witch.

No witch. Instead he saw chained to the flogging post in the mean village square a boy, not more than ten years old. A woman was crouching by his side, weeping and trying to wash the child’s wounds. The punishment was fresh; across the boy’s back Michaels could see the open wounds of whip blows. Six of them, and deep enough to scar. The boy was unconscious, his weight hanging from his wrists. The manacles looked too large for him. He was like a child in his father’s coat.

Michaels dismounted and led his horse to one of the buildings. There were two men standing outside with pint pots in their hands. They were watching the woman trying to support the child’s weight so the manacles would cut into her son no more, their faces blank.

‘What’s the offence?’ Michaels said quietly.

The man nearest turned and looked him up and down. He was shorter than Michaels by a head and his shape reminded Michaels of the snowmen his children had made in the churchyard that winter. They had lined the path to the church door, annoying the vicar and amusing the gentry. He had beaten them for the impertinence, but not hard. The snowman removed his pipe from his mouth and spat on the ground.

‘Whelp was caught stealing.’

‘Will no one help her?’

‘And risk a whipping themselves? No fear. Let her look to him. He is to be let down at dusk anyhow.’ Michaels looked up; the sun was not yet near its heights.

‘What did he steal?’

‘Water from the river, maybe. Headman asked the widow to keep house for him, but she’s too proud to fulfil all her duties.’

The other man laughed quietly to himself, then caught the expression on Michaels’s face and stopped.

‘What’s your business here?’ the first man asked.

‘Looking for someone. Woman, perhaps came through here two year ago, maybe stopped near here a while. Black hair, she wore down.’

‘She ain’t here no more. Never saw anyone like her.’ His answer was a bit quick and Michaels saw the other man’s eyes flick right and left.

‘Is that so? Who does the whipping?’

The man nodded towards the forge. Michaels set a coin on the table. ‘See that someone feeds and waters my horse.’

He stood for a while considering the woman and child. To intervene might prevent him making any further search for Beatrice. He remembered his offer to Mrs Westerman to kill Manzerotti and disappear into the forests and make his own way home. He thought of his wife and children in Hartswood. He didn’t want to make the life of Mr and Mrs Clode more difficult, but he couldn’t unsee this, and there’d be no real point in going home at all if he couldn’t look his family in the eye. He realised in truth the decision had been made before he even started to think on it. He crossed the square and walked into the smithy the man had nodded at. He found hammer and chisel on the work-bench and turned to go, when a shout stopped him.

‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ A man his own height and wider by some margin came lumbering out of the back of the building, pulling his breeches closed. A young thin-looking woman followed him, smoothing her skirt. She slipped past Michaels and turned the corner without looking back. Michaels considered the man. His head was shaven and there were veins pulsing round his neck. His flab hung in bags at his waist, but his shoulders were broad, his arms long and his hands heavy-looking. Again Michaels thought of his mother’s fairytales.

‘Just borrowing these,’ he said, and walked out of the house. He heard the man shouting behind him. He sounded confused. Michaels lifted the hammer and chisel as he walked; he saw the woman’s face, frightened and tear-streaked. She held up a hand as if to ward him away, but before she could move further he placed the chisel on the chain and struck it. It split apart and the ends ran free of the ringbolt with a satisfying clatter. The woman took the boy’s falling weight and Michaels heard the child groan. He had just enough time to turn and duck under the hammer blow aimed at his head. The blacksmith staggered.

Michaels stepped away from him, and the blacksmith charged again. Michaels waited, then again danced away from the blow. The blacksmith was panting.

‘There now, you’re just wearing yourself out, fella,’ Michaels said. ‘Not used to hitting people who ain’t been tied up first, are you?’

In reply, the blacksmith dropped the hammer and charged at him head down, but this time he was ready for Michaels’s dodge and twisted enough to grab him round the waist. Michaels went down, but managed to squirm out from under the blacksmith’s falling body and scramble to his feet. The blacksmith’s left hand shot out, caught Michaels on the ankle and pulled him down again. Michaels kicked out hard with his right leg, bringing his heel down on the blacksmith’s face, and felt the nose break. The man roared with pain and let go of his ankle. Michaels threw himself across his back, got his arm around the man’s throat and pulled. The blacksmith’s arms paddled in the dirt and his eyes bulged.

‘Which arm do you use for your whipping?’ Michaels spoke through clenched teeth.

‘Get him off me, you bastards! Get him off!’

‘No one’s coming, fella.’

‘I’ll kill every bastard one of you for this! Fuck you all, fuck you all to hell!’

There were people watching from all sides now, silent, expressionless.

‘Which arm?’ Michaels punched him sharply in the kidneys so the blacksmith yelled and writhed.

‘Left! Left, you motherfucking son of a bitch.’

Michaels paused for a second, remembering the hammer blow. ‘Nice try.’ He stood and dragged him through the dirt to the stone steps leading up to the flogging post, then knelt on his back and yanked the blacksmith’s right arm out so the forearm rested between the two lowest raises. The blacksmith yelled out again but Michaels drove down with his open palm and felt the bone snap. The blacksmith screamed. Michaels stood, spat onto the dirt and watched for a moment. Then knocked some of the dust off his coat and turned to go.

‘Murderer …’ the blacksmith managed. Michaels paused.

‘What’s that, fella?’

‘You heard.’ The words came out between sharp pants. The blacksmith’s face was yellowish-white, like milk on the turn.

‘Bollocks. It’s a clean break. You’ll mend.’

‘You’ve murdered me, I tell you! If you go now, they’ll kill me,’ he hissed.

Michaels looked about him. A couple of sour-looking youths had emerged from the buildings around them to watch the fun. One had a shovel in his hand. His face was pinched and he carried his head forward and his shoulders high. There was a glittering in the air and Michaels knew the taste of it. Normally when a fight was done, tension fell away, it was the same lightness that came after a thunderstorm. This air, this sense of heaviness, meant violence to come. He cursed under his breath and crouched down. The blacksmith’s cheek was pressed into the dirt, the fat of his face forcing his right eye closed.

‘You got any friends here willing to shelter you?’

His left eye glittered with hope and he spoke quickly, his words flickered with spit and fear. ‘The pastor’s — Pastor Huber … His house is down the track past the forge.’

Michaels looked at him. The man was worth nothing, and to take him would rob the growing crowd of its revenge for all the beatings he’d given out. He thought of his wife again, remembering an argument they had had about some business in Hartswood. ‘You’re not God, Michaels!’ she had said.

‘We’re going now.’ He got the man’s good arm over his shoulder and hauled him up, thanking God he hadn’t broken the bastard’s legs. He felt the crowd watching him, jealous, angry, but it was leaderless now. If one man had stepped forward and claimed the blacksmith, the rest would have followed, but no one did. ‘We don’t run, we don’t dawdle,’ Michaels said, and taking as much weight as he could, half-dragged the blacksmith from the square.