Rough Music Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Previous Titles by Robin Blake

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  A Selection of Previous Titles by Robin Blake

  Novels

  FAT MAN’S SHADOW

  THE GWAILO

  The Cragg & Fidelis Mysteries

  A DARK ANATOMY

  DARK WATERS

  THE HIDDEN MAN

  aka THE SCRIVENER

  SKIN AND BONE

  ROUGH MUSIC *

  * available from Severn House

  ROUGH MUSIC

  Robin Blake

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  First published in the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Robin Blake.

  The right of Robin Blake to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8851-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-975-7 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0191-1 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  In memory of Janet Waugh 1923-2018

  PROLOGUE

  At the beginning there were just three conspirators, but like a wine spill on a tablecloth the disturbance spread and soon most of the village had caught the stain. Two of the three were brothers – Simon and Charlie Stirk – and the third was Harry Hawk, a discharged soldier who had returned from the French wars. It seems to have started when they were drinking together one Friday evening at the Black Bull Inn. Billy Whist, the blind fiddler, had been sawing away at his instrument and singing obscene ditties to amuse the company, but now he had stopped. In the relative quiet that followed, the three companions found they were overhearing the talk at the next table, where John Gargrave was complaining vehemently at his wife’s domineering ways.

  Gargrave was a small tub of a fellow, fifty years old with a round stomach and a fringe of wispy ginger hair around the back of his bald pate. Anne, his thin and wiry wife, was certainly a forthright woman with a tart tongue. She made no secret of her views, not just on her husband and his shortcomings, but on any theme of village life and in a voice that could be heard on most days of the week. Listening to the latest list of Gargrave’s grievances, it seems that the Stirks and Hawk were moved not to pity Gargrave but to despise him.

  Billy Whist was feeling his way from room to room and from table to table, soliciting coins in payment for his concert. As he approached the Stirks, one of them called him to come and sit down. They poured ale for Billy and began questioning him closely. It was out of this conversation that an enterprise was shaped, to be put into effect during the following Sunday.

  On Saturday morning, then, the Stirks went down to see the carpenter Peter Castleford and obtained from him a stang, a stout beam eight-feet long that looked something between a thick plank and a gatepost. The brothers carried this stang to a place where they met Harry Hawk, who tested its size and weight and helped with nailing the seat of an old stool to it halfway along.

  By now it was Saturday afternoon. They put the stang away in a place where no one would disturb it, and went around the village speaking quietly with every young apprentice, servant and farm labourer they met, explaining what would come to pass the next day following Divine Service, and what each man and girl should do to ready themselves to take part.

  The next day, when it was past noon, the Gargraves heard a cats’ chorus of hooting, hollering and whooping from the street outside their house, accompanied by birdscarers’ rattles, bull bells, wooden spoons drumming on pots and pans, and farting sounds blown through pie funnels. Amidst the cacophony there was one real musical instrument, the fiddle of Billy Whist, who sawed away with demonic and discordant fury. Charlie Stirk conducted this performance, waving his arms and jumping up and down to the rhythm of the clattering, and from time to time he would stop, cup the side of his mouth with his hand, and give out a wolfish howl.

  All at once, as Gargrave appeared at the window, the lads took up a rhythmical chant:

  What’s to do? What’s to do?

  Find the shrew!

  Bang-bang! Bang-bang!

  Bring out your wife to ride the stang!

  Gargrave opened the window. ‘What’s this fooling, boys? Don’t you know it’s the Sabbath? Leave us in peace, won’t you?’

  The chanting stopped and Simon Stirk stepped forward.

  ‘We will not leave you in peace, John Gargrave,’ he said. ‘Not until you tell your shrew wife to come out and listen with those flapping ears of hers. She must listen and take what’s coming.’

  The crowd at his back cheered.

  ‘My wife? What possible business can you have with my wife? Be off with you, I say.’

  He began to close the window, but Simon Stirk – the elder of the brothers – stepped up and grasped it by the frame. At the same time, his brother and one or two others rushed forward and lunged at Gargrave, catching hold of his clothes, and without ceremony hauled him out through the aperture and into the air. Dragging the protesting Gargrave back to the road, they threw him down into a water-filled wheel rut – it had stormed and rained heavily in the night – then clustered around
and gave him a kicking in the ribs, arms, legs and back, and even planted a few well-aimed blows in his face and on his bald head, while the rut water splashed and sprayed around him. Then they hauled him up and supported him on his legs.

  ‘What do you say now, Gargrave?’ Stirk challenged him, thrusting his face towards his victim’s and pointing at the house’s front door. ‘Do you bring out your wife to the threshold or take another kicking? We’ve heard you whining of how you are pecked by Mistress Gargrave’s sharp beak. We heard you on Friday night at the Black Bull, wishing you could stand up to her. We’re here to help and you cannot change horses now.’

  Muddy water dripped from Gargrave’s clothing and blood ran from his nose and lip. Dazed and bewildered at the force of the assault, he tried to assemble his wits. He looked back at his house, and saw the form of Anne Gargrave peering down from an upper window.

  ‘I, ah, didn’t mean it, you know. I mean to say, I couldn’t let you abuse my wife, not in any way. Besides, you have bruised me, you know, and, well, my wife is indoors and means to stay there, but perhaps she would hear you from the window, if you have anything to say. Indeed, she surely will hear you.’

  Stirk looked at Gargrave with what the latter would call mad eyes, and scoffed at him.

  ‘From the window? Don’t be so soft, man. The old bitch must come outside. She must sweep her threshold. If you do not produce her, we must go inside and fetch her out.’

  He pointed to the front door and, taking the hint, his brother stepped up and tried the handle. No one within had thought to turn the key, and the door opened easily. Moments later, a few of the company went into Gargrave’s hall and up the stairs. A shriek was heard from above as they seized Anne Gargrave, who they found on a ladder trying to climb into the attic. They grasped her ankles and mercilessly pulled her down, and then bundled her into the hall and out to the road. When they released her, she spun round to face them spitting defiance and disdain.

  ‘You blackguards! How dare you lay hands on me! In what way have I ever offended you?’

  The elder Stirk took up a position in front of her, legs apart and thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and addressed her in a mock-judicial voice, though at the same time barely containing his laughter.

  ‘Mistress, you are hereby charged with keeping a sharp tongue and meddling in other folks’ affairs. And of beating your husband, which you must not do, you know, even if he is as weak as an old man’s stream of piss. It follows that if John Gargrave cannot rule you, then it must be done by us, his and your kindly neighbours.’

  The company laughed. Their numbers were growing now as news of the disturbance spread around the village, with women as well as men coming out of their houses to join the to-do. While her tormentors were still guffawing, Anne Gargrave took advantage of her guards’ inattention and broke away and began to run. She had not gone twenty yards when easily and almost lazily they caught up with her and brought her back by the ears to stand opposite her own threshold – the place where her punishment would begin.

  ‘Get that skirt off her – and the bodice,’ said Simon Stirk.

  ‘No, no!’ Mrs Gargrave screamed, turning towards the lookers-on. ‘Husband! Friends! Will no one put a stop to this filthiness? Call yourself men? Have you not the stomachs and spines to aid a defenceless woman? Help me! Help me!’

  But no one stirred as the boys laid hands on her. They stripped off her outer clothing and tore away her cap, so that she stood in her shift with her grey-streaked brown hair hanging down to her shoulders. Then the stang was brought forward and the victim’s wrists were tied. She struggled briefly and then suddenly abandoned all resistance, allowing herself to be sat astride the stool that was nailed to the beam. As they hoisted her up high, a cabbage stalk arced through the air and hit the side of her face. As if this were the signal, the chant ‘Ride the stang! Ride the stang! Ride the stang!’ now went up.

  So they started up the street, led along by Billy Whist and his guide. This was a boy who held a pair of leather-covered batons, which operated partly as the shafts of a cart and partly as steering reins, one being attached to each side of Billy’s belt. Barking instructions to this boy and playing his whining unharmonious tunes incessantly, Billy pranced and capered ahead of the mob, followed by the band of five or six men banging their pots and pans and dancing in jig-like patterns around the puddles and ruts. The beam carrying Anne Gargrave came next, shouldered by four strong youths, and just behind it stumbled the bleeding John Gargrave between the Stirk brothers, who made sure he kept up by whacking him from time to time around the buttocks.

  The chanting and jeering mob followed them down the street, still growing in number until they reached the village pump, which stood in its round of grass in the middle of the street. Vegetable missiles, as well as wet clods and cowpats, were flying around, many striking Anne Gargrave with full force, so that by the time they reached the well she was streaked with mud and manure about her shift and face. A bucket was produced and water pumped into it, whereupon it was hung from the stang.

  Up the street they went, past the narrow alleyway that led to St James’s Church and then the manor house, where Squire Thomas Turvey looked out at the scene in dismay through the leaded glass of his windows.

  ‘Oh dear! Those poor people. I should go out there. I should try to put a stop to this.’

  ‘No, father, no! I forbid it.’

  His daughter sat beside him in the chair mounted on truckle wheels that Peter Castleford had fettled up for her. He had pushed the chair up to the window so that she too could see what was going on.

  ‘Is that Harry Hawk amongst them?’ she said.

  ‘Aye, so it is. I don’t like to see one of my men engaging in such rowdiness. I really ought to go out and remonstrate with those lads.’

  ‘You’ll never stop them by yourself. And what if you’re attacked and killed? What will happen to me, left on my own?’

  He told himself she was right. This was near a riot. To quell it would require a magistrate with the militia at his back, and the militia could hardly be obtained at less than three days’ notice.

  ‘Very well, my dear,’ said Turvey.

  He sighed to express his powerlessness (and his relief) and stepped back from the window. ‘Better to stay out of sight for the time being, I think, for fear that our looking-on might signal approval.’

  The mob by now had carried Mrs Gargrave to near the end of the village, where a brook that crossed the street was traversed by a line of stout stepping stones. They wheeled around an oak tree that stood nearby and paraded her back past the manor house, then past the well and back to her home again. Here Charlie Stirk held a brief whispered consultation with Whist, then ordered the victim to be dragged down from the stang. Her eyes were shocked and her mouth was a round O as she was pulled to the threshold and forced down on her knees, receiving a few solid kicks in the process.

  ‘You shall scrub your threshold now, Mistress, or suffer the consequences,’ Stirk told her.

  The bucket of water was placed at her side and someone handed the woman a scrubbing brush. But though she held the brush in her hand, Anne Gargrave did not move. All understanding had been knocked out of her. Simon Stirk came and knelt beside her, and grasped the hand holding the brush.

  ‘You must do it, Mistress. You must scrub, like this.’

  He forced her hand down until the brush landed on the doorstep, and began to force it around in the circular motion of scrubbing. The assembled company, gathering round to watch, began a new chant.

  ‘Scrub-a-dub and empty the tub!’

  But after less than a minute, Charlie stepped forward and pulled his brother out of the way.

  ‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘It’s time for this shrew to ride the stang again.’

  Abruptly picking up the bucket, he voided it without ceremony over Anne Gargrave’s head. She flinched and squealed like a porker as the cold water soused her. Then he led her back to the waiting stang.

/>   ‘No, boys, no!’ cried John Gargrave. ‘You’ll not make her do it again.’

  ‘We’ll make the two of you do it,’ shouted Charlie Stirk in glee, and with several others laid hands on Gargrave and mounted him on the stang. There not being room on the stool seat for the two of them, he sat planted painfully on the beam itself back to back with Anne, but would have rolled off it had they not been bound together with several turns of rope around their chests and bellies.

  So the ‘music’ began again and the whole performance was repeated, only now the crowd’s excitement had risen to a new pitch as they followed the stang carrying both husband and wife down the street and around the oak tree once more. They bayed and cheered as every egg, rotten vegetable and clod of earth found its mark, in particular when the woman was hit. Anne’s shift now clung wetly to her bony frame, translucent enough where not covered in filth to show patches of bare pink skin beneath the wet cloth. Now one of the older village women came out of her house and stood in their path with arms wide.

  ‘Will you not stop this foolishness?’ she shouted. ‘Haven’t you had enough of tormenting this man and woman?’

  Two lads ran forward, lifted her by the armpits, and removed her to the side of the street.

  On their second return to the Gargraves’ house, both husband and wife were tumbled from the stang, untied and dragged to the doorstep. This time, while Anne was set to scrubbing the stone, several of the young men opened their breeches and pissed into the waiting bucket, which was then emptied over her head as before. A minute later, she and her husband had been remounted on the stang and were being paraded yet again the length of the street, while the discordant orchestra marched ahead of them banging and rattling. Far from tiring at the repetition, the mob was more frenzied than ever.

  The whole procedure was repeated twice more, but at last it ended. The Gargraves were tumbled one final time from the stang, having had to be supported for the last stretch by lads running alongside and holding them, or they would have fallen off into the street. Now, as the crowd began to disperse, their victims lay together face down in the street unmoving, for three minutes or more. Finally, John Gargrave stirred, getting himself to his hands and knees, and started to crawl towards his door. The servant, who had been watching in terror from a window, saw him moving and came out to assist his master, hauling him to his feet and in through the front door.