Stand and Be Eaten

Chapter 6

When at last the militia men had located the man that had been seen stumbling about the Great North Road, they expected to find one of the usual local vagrants, and at first glance this seemed to be the case. The morning was unusually foggy, which had made them doubt the reports altogether; it was only when no less than three respectable persons, including a vicar, had all made the same claims that the lieutenant had sighed and dispatched four men to investigate.

What they expected to find was a drunkard, stumbling about and slurring his words. Instead, what they found was a humbly-dressed man, who could very easily pass for one of the local farmers. He did not stumble, but he did walk in strangely short, stilted steps as if he had been walking for hours without rest. His eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking, even as the quartet of militia men approached on snorting, stamping horses.

Not once did he respond to their greetings, nor to their commands for him to halt; he simply continued on his shambling march southwards. It was only when they got closer that they realised that he was ceaselessly murmuring, repeating an inaudible phrase like a kind of litany.

With a strange sort of strength, the man resisted when the soldiers dismounted and attempted to bodily detain him; it was only after repeated attempts that they were able to secure him long enough for a cart to be appropriated from a local farm in order to transport him to Kentish Town proper.

A doctor was hastily summoned, who ordered the man restrained in a bed at a convenient inn. The doctor, a wizened man with white hair that stood out in clumps all about his head and face, quickly administered a draught, which put the wanderer in a kind of stupefied state. Still, the man kept repeating the same string of words. When the doctor leaned over the man and pressed his ear quite close to the man's lips, he rose in bewilderment shortly after.

"Well?" the lieutenant demanded, an impatient young man of about twenty years and hair that was neither blonde nor brown. "What does he say?" He stood in the doorway to the tiny room, with the inn-keeper, his wife, several militia men, and at least three other curious on-lookers crowded into the hall behind him.

The doctor shook his head in confusion. "I cannae make head nor tails of it. 'Aconitum. Keep the silver close. Tearing. Tearing. London.'" After some effort, the stranger's boots were pulled off his feet, revealing stockings that were torn and stained with blood.

The doctor rocked back on his heels, and shook his head again. "I dinnae rightly understand it, m'self; seems he's been walking through the night, and has had some kind of shock. His mind's gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" the lieutenant demanded.

"There's naught for him but to be put in Bedlam, if this turn persists," the doctor said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

The lieutenant of the local garrison was an ambitious young buck, eager to make a name for himself and perpetually disappointed at his provincial post. This was the first real bit of excitement beyond the occasional drunken row that had happened in the twelve-month he and his men had been billeted here, so the doctor forgave him any rudeness. "Might be the draught will shock his mind out of it, but like as not he'll end his days chained in a madhouse cell," the doctor continued.

The lieutenant pursed his lips, brow furrowed. "What could have caused this?"

The doctor shrugged, straightening as much as his old spine would allow and shuffling down the bed to inspect the man's feet. Gingerly, with a sickening kind of squelching sound, he began peeling the bloodied stockings away. "Ye see it in soldiers every now and again, or ladies that have seen something shocking to their systems."

"That's old Claxton!" a voice called from the hallway.

"Surely not," the lieutenant said and peered closer. He was familiar with the name, having it seen posted on broadsheets advertising rewards for the capture of highwaymen.

The inn-keeper's wife, a red-faced woman in a white cotton cap and worn bedjacket bustled forward, bodily shoving her way through the crowd to make her way to the man's bedside. A plump woman, she considered herself a kind of local establishment all on her own, and thus it was only natural that she should be consulted. "That's Claxton, sure as Sunday," she pronounced with great authority. "I'd know 'im anywhere– 'is mum's me da's cousin."

The lieutenant turned to stare at the woman, taking in her red-tipped nose and gap-toothed smile, then looking to her husband who only shrugged. "You're certain?"

"Are ye doubting me?" she replied sharply. "Tha's 'im."

"He was supposed to be a man of only thirty years," the lieutenant said doubtfully, casting an eye over the man held fast to the bed. Indeed, the man, Claxton if it were him, was grey-faced and sallow, with eyes that looked sunken into his skull. His hands, which clutched something tightly, trembled like an old man's.

"What's 'e got there?" the inn-keeper's wife asked, peering closer. "'Ere now Claxton, it's Bessie–ye can let me see, can't ye?"

Together, the lieutenant and the doctor pried at his hands, but Claxton grew mutinous again, and began making distressed sounds. He twisted violently on the bed, trying to keep them from seizing whatever it was that he held. It was only after the lieutenant had ordered two strong men to hold Claxton down that they had any luck in opening his fingers.

To everyone's surprise, when his hand was at last opened, a small pin fell out with a dull clank onto the wooden floor. The lieutenant bent and picked it up, holding it up to the sunlight that streamed in through the window. The silver gleamed brightly, highly polished and beautiful. Held fast in the pin were a few limp stems, crushed from Claxton's tight grip; their yellowish hue spoke to them not being fresh blooms. By contrast, a couple bright purple petals clung to the stems, their colour bright and shocking compared to the drab browns and greys of Claxton's clothing.

"This is a fine lady's pin," the lieutenant said slowly, uncomprehending.

"Oh! Yer poor hands, Claxton!" Bessie cried, having kneeled beside the bed and taken his hands in comfort. She had meant to rub them for warmth when she felt the chill in them, but the state of his palms halted her. She leapt up, the wooden floor creaking as she did so.

Grasping Claxton's wrists, the doctor leaned over and turned them this way and that so that the entire assemblage could view them. Though they were work-roughened and should have been fairly resistant to damage, they were raw and bloody. The distinct outline of the pin showed on his palms, and it appeared that he had been clutching something tightly that had been ripped violently from him, like a rope or a bunch of straw. His nails were ragged, with at least one being torn clean off, as if he had scratched desperately against something until his fingers bled.

Caked into the lines of his palms and knuckles alike was blood, old and darkly crusted. The doctor gently put Claxton's hands down, and leaned in closer to the lieutenant, turning their backs subtly to the others that pressed in to try and hear. "I'd be advising you to call the magistrate, laddie. That's a quantity of blood, and I'd wager it's not from skinning poached rabbits."

"Take it, Bessie," Claxton said in a hoarse, gurgling tone as if he had been strangled, breaking into the hushed atmosphere in the small room. They all turned to look at him in surprise, for it was the first semi-coherent thing he had said all morning. "Ye were always kind to me, dear Bessie," he said. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated almost to the point of swallowing up the iris completely, his right eye showing a bloody spot in the outer corner. He rose up as much as he could, fighting against the men that still pinned his arms down. "Keep it close; when the beast comes, it devours everything, everything. Aconitum. London. Keep your silver close. We did not see it, but it was among us. Slaughtered, like pigs. Keep it! Do not drop it!"

And with that, Claxton fell back against the pillows, his mouth slack. The lieutenant looked to the doctor, who shook his head in dismay, then down at the small silver object held tightly between his fingers. It was only now that he noticed a small scrap of fabric caught in the pin, creased and grimy from Claxton's sweating palms, but likely once a cheerful pink colour. The pin had clearly been torn from its owner's bodice. Though it was fine and delicate, it suddenly felt as if it weighed far more than any lady's jewel ought to. The lieutenant could not help but turn it again, catching the light across the beautiful silver bar and wondering how a prize so small could drive a man to madness.