Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [169]
The crowd seemed to part for a second and there was a black man, but not like any Abi had ever known. His face had the sheen that came from eating fresh butter, and above it sat a wig as big and glossy as a cloud. His white velvet jacket stretched across his shoulders, and his smooth stockinged calves were massive. He was an emperor among men. It seemed anything was possible in this topsy-turvy city.
Abi smiled straight at him; she couldn't help herself. But his eyes slid past her, as if she were no more than a stone in the road. She remembered that she was not young and not handsome. As the black man walked on by, she saw what made his coat flare over his hip: stuck through his belt, a knife big enough to chop off her head.
Stepping sideways, she almost tripped into the gutter. She staggered, but regained her balance. Strangers barely turned their heads. She wondered whether her skin had turned white overnight, or become quite invisible. This place would do, she thought with a sudden surge of hope; no one would ever find her here.
All at once the bells of St. Giles began to ring, deafening her. The sound ricocheted off the buildings; Abi thought it would never stop till the end of the world.
***
So many eyes on Mary Saunders in the Market Square, greedy for details. Fame at last! So this was the moment she had so often dreamed of, when a crowd gathered to watch her ride past. Mary stared down at her foul and ragged skirt, which was hardly what she used to imagine she'd be wearing. For bracelets, two narrow rusty chains, locking her wrists together. For a necklace, the noose the hangman had just dropped over her head. The rough rope rested against her collarbone. So ordinary, a simple O, an idly open mouth to swallow her up. The long tail of hemp pooled in the cart at her feet.
Dai Carpenter was still working on the scaffold, hammering in the last nails. Beside him stood the red-haired hangman, scratching behind his mask. In her drunken haze, Mary felt a wash of pity for the man. When she'd done her own killing, the cleaver had moved in her hand so quickly that she'd hardly had time to feel its weight. But this man had to carry his tools with him; his work was marked by an awful decorum. The night before a killing, he knew exactly what would be demanded of him the next day—and without any rage or madness to help him, either. And the night after, he had to pull off his mask, scrub his hands, and sleep.
Her thoughts moved turgidly. What would the hangman do with her afterwards, she wondered. All bodies were worth something, in the end. In London they were sent to Surgeon's Hall for dissection, she remembered, as a further punishment. Would a young surgeon of Monmouth pay half a crown for Mary's body, to learn his trade on? Would he lay her on his slab tonight, this last hasty cully of hers? And what would he find inside? Would there be some mark, a smear, a little knot of evil?
But no, the drink was making her forgetful: they were going to burn her afterwards. If she craned her neck sideways, she could just see the enormous pile of wood. Now her heart began to hammer. Her body was going to make a bigger glow than Midsummer Night on Kymin Hill where the family from Inch Lane had had their last dance. The women to whom Mary had served tea for a year would warm their bony fingers at her bonfire tonight. They'd say good riddance to her, and whisper darkly about poor Mrs. Jones: It could have happened to any of us!
Mary looked away from the stack of splintered wood. Her eye fell on Daffy Cadwaladyr. He was too far away for her to tell if he was looking at her. But then, why else was he here if not to watch her be punished? It occurred to her then that if she'd married him, she might have had someone to mourn for her. She might have had an existence worth mourning. After all, how else was the value of a life to be measured but in the tears shed at its close? Daffy had been her best chance, she saw now, and she'd thrown him away like a scrap of paper.
And then she saw his head bend towards