Gallows Pole Read online

  Right.

  He could have found some way of barring the door from the outside, but he hadn’t. It came open without a shred of protest when she lifted the latch and pulled. The hangman was either exceedingly foolish or irritatingly confident that his threats would be enough to prevent her flight. Emmat curled her lip at how she’d proved his confidence right.

  The late morning sunlight hit her like a heavy rug being flapped in her face and she squinted, blinking against the glare. When the strain ended and she could tolerate the daylight, Emmat surveyed her surroundings.

  There was the lean-to for the horse, hanging from the side of a hay barn so small it might be more proper to call it a shed. As she’d suspected, the black mare that had borne them here the previous night was absent. When Emmat tried to recall the path along which he’d hustled her in the dark, the memory made it seem much longer than the modest distance she saw now

  Why is everything worse in the dark?

  The crow that had cawed her awake hopped on its black stick legs over a struggling patch of grass. One of its brethren swooped down, as well, flapping glossy wings and cocking its beady eye her way, a lookout while the first of the pair foraged. Did it know a thief when it saw one, as well?

  The yard around the house was about as well maintained as any a travelling man who lived alone could expect to have. Weeds made a fair go of it anywhere water might collect, while legitimate flora had to fight and scrape for space.

  The stone throat of a well rose, crude but sturdy, from a particularly triumphant snarl of weeds some threescore feet from where she stood, at the door of the house. Thoughts of water dashed Emmat with a new kind of urgency.

  She wanted to be clean.

  Her strides had her there in seconds. The bucket went down and came back, full of sloshing absolution. She forgot face and hands, hiking up skirts where none but the crows and ivory daylight could judge her. Any trace of him that was left on her, Emmat scrubbed and rasped from her thighs, her short ginger thatch. Inside. Inside her, that bastard had spilt. There were only so many things she could spin around in helpless circles about at any one time.

  When her breath had calmed, Emmat splashed her face, rubbed the night’s sand from her eyes. Raked wet fingers through her hair, scratching the nails along her scalp.

  It would hardly be enough, but after some minutes of vigorous chafing and a string of healthy swallows to wet her throat again, as well, Emmat stood, chest heaving in the morning air, as prepared as she could be to face the Lord knew what.

  The first thing she could do, while she waited for whatever came next in her trials, was look for something to eat. Surely a man the size of this one had to eat something. It was only a matter of finding where he kept it.

  * * * *

  The salt beef had not been much. Sailors’ food, but Emmat could see why the hangman would want something that kept. It had gone a little way to calming the noises from her stomach and her best hope was that her taking some of it for herself wouldn’t cause quarrel with the man. If he expected her to remain here for any amount of time, he was going to have to feed her, and that was that.

  Now she sat in the house again, slumped in the single chair, her mind enjoying the emptiness a single wavering flame to stare at could provide.

  She was surprised to find he owned an oil lamp. The state of the place had made her assume she’d find a burnt-down candle or two, at best. But no, there had been flint and strike plate, as well, and now Emmat sat transfixed in the yellow light, wondering if boredom would snap her sanity before dread.

  The day had made a bid for the horizon, leaving her at an almost imperceptible pace, not unlike a departing ship. Night strolled up to take its place, of course, but this time it fell on her alone.

  It would probably be just as well if she went to sleep. What else was there for a caged bird to do? Though she wasn’t ready to lay her head down on her folded arms on the table just yet. And taking to the bed seemed like more of an approval of the whole matter than Emmat wanted to give. Whenever the hangman returned, he would just have to—

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Emmat’s heart tried to fly from her chest, and her arse from the chair, an involuntary yip leaping from her lungs into the dimly lit room.

  “Douse the lamp.”

  The voice was unmistakable through the intervening wood of the door. She sat there, knuckles white with her grip on the edges of the seat.

  He’s back. He’s back, what now?

  “If I have to come in there and douse it for you, woman …” His voice sounded closer to the door now, more threatening still, if that were at all possible.

  Bugger!

  She did as he said, and hated it.

  Behind her, hinges and latch reported. Emmat turned in time for moonlight to show her the hangman was not alone. A flustered figure tripped into the room, dull silver light outlining the bell of robes before her warden booted the door shut behind them. She stood up out of the chair, ready to bolt.

  “Really, Vane, this is most unusual,” said the second man, in a voice that had the quaver of age. There were rustling fabric sounds, as though the man were righting himself.

  Vane? Is that his name?

  “You owe this house a favour,” the hangman said. “I’ll have it now.”

  “But we could do this in the chapel,” the older man pled, “where it’s proper. In the daylight. Tomorrow, even! Surely the lady can—”

  “We’ll do it now.”

  The last word came at a growl and Emmat heard a kind of a shuffling struggle and a strained noise from the other man.

  “Now. Now!” the man relented, sounding strangled. “For God’s sake, we’ll do it now. Can you not give us some light?”

  “You need light to speak?” the hangman said. “Be about it.”

  Emmat didn’t want to understand. She took a step back. The steel of a forearm barred her at her lower back and, like the day before, fingers rooted into the laces of her stays for a firm handhold.

  No. It was just words. Just words last night wasn’t it?

  “I…well…” The older man stammered, clearing his throat. “I…ahem:

  “Dearly beloved—”

  Oh god. Oh god, no.

  “—we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of—well. Yes. Ahem. To…to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate…”

  He’d brought the chaplain. The bloody chaplain! This couldn’t be! Not here! Not with him!

  “… and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites—”

  That wretched, wretched man!

  “—like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.”

  The chaplain went on, and Emmat stood there in a daze, her limbs numb while her thoughts whirled with profanities.

  “I, eh, require and charge you both,” he was saying, floundering as he tried to remember the words without being able to read, “as ye will…will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you—”

  “Be on with it.” The hangman’s grip shifted from her stays to the base of her neck, fingers curling in with terrible import. The chaplain coughed.

  “Right. Yes. Well. Bartholomew Vane, wilt thou have this Woman—”

  So Jack Ketch was Bartholomew Vane. The name settled on her like a horrible lead dawn.

  “—to thy wedded Wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

  Comfort and honour. Emmat wanted to retch.

  Vane’s reply rumbled as the hand tightened on her neck: “I w
ill.”

  “And you, eh …”

  The hangman brought himself closer, his breath at her ear and looming presence more effective than words.

  “Emmat.” She bit off her name like an oath.

  “Emmat?” said the chaplain.

  “Bird.” Vane supplied the rest, the word sounding as heavy on his lips as the animal was light.

  “Ah, Emmat Bird,” the chaplain continued, “wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded Husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love—”

  I’ll do no such thing. No such thing at all.

  “—honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

  That mouth was at her ear again. In fact, she could feel the whole bulk of his chest angling in, making her insides clench for no reason that made sense. “Your choice, as always. Red Bird.”

  Emmat sneered in the dark. Her choice, indeed. The great beast. She ground her teeth; did the deed.

  “I will.”

  “Who giveth this woman… Oh. Ah. Well.” The chaplain coughed again, possibly as bewildered as Emmat. “If you’ll repeat the vows?”

  Vane said the words, coiling the invisible chains tighter with that thunderstorm he expected people to believe was a voice.

  “I, Bartholomew Vane, take thee Emmat Bird, to my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse…”

  Oh, it would be worse. She ought to have listened to what the men were saying. Ought to but she couldn’t. Not with the ringing in her ears. Someone was shaking her, telling her she needed to repeat.

  Why, certainly. She could have giggled, as close as she was to hysteria now. You have to repeat things all the time in church, don’t you?

  “I, Emmat Bird, take thee Bartholomew Vane, to my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.”

  Troth. Such a silly word.

  “If you’ll both kneel,” the chaplain was saying.

  “Move it along,” Vane said.

  “But the prayer!”

  The hangman made some low noise of irritation and Emmat heard the older man fuss.

  “Well, then. Um. Let us join your hands.” She felt the man reaching in the ridiculous dark, batting at her arm, before he found her right hand, and presumably, Vane’s.

  The fingers that weren’t making ugly promises at her neck engulfed hers, warm and rough. Her mind decided that this was the most appropriate moment to remind Emmat what they’d felt like between her thighs.

  You made this choice. You.

  “Those whom God hath joined together,” said the chaplain, wavering on what pale credence he could lend to his own words, “let no man put asunder.

  “Forasmuch and as Bartholomew Vane and Emmat Bird have consented—”

  “Enough,” said Vane. “It’s done.”

  The hand left her neck and Emmat nearly sank to the floor. A rectangle of moonlight widened and she saw the hangman herding the chaplain out the door amid a flapping of robes and the old man hurrying to finish the rite over the sweep of the closing door.

  “—I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together!” The rest came shouted through wood. “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost! Amen!”

  Emmat swayed in place. This was not… She had not …

  She could hear him breathing in the darkness. If she didn’t know better, she would say he was trying to calm himself. Whatever the case, it was long, opaque minutes before anyone spoke. The chaplain had to have fled back down the road in terror.

  “There,” he said at last, raking the silence. “Married. Satisfied?”

  Satisfied? Satisfied? She wanted to screech but the absurdity was folding her tongue like an elaborate bit of drapery.

  He snorted in exasperation at her silence. “Of course you’re not.”

  The door banged behind him as his storm cloud blew out into the night. Without thinking, Emmat slipped over to the bed and knelt on it, prising two of the wooden louvers apart on the shutter.

  The cast of moonlight was little, but it was enough to show her his dark form stalking in the direction of the well, grumbling as he went. Aside from something to the effect of “Bloody women,” Emmat could only make out the timbre of male annoyance.

  He’s cross with me? Me?

  But at the rim of the well, she could see the motions of him stripping away his shirt, hauling up the bucket. Scrubbing.

  What is he…

  Oh.

  You reek, Jack Ketch. Her complaint returned, bringing memory, sensation with it.

  And now he was attempting to bathe.

  This. The boots. The blanket. There were little pieces of the whole thing that twisted each on their own, separate and strange. The parts somehow more eerie than their sum. There was a terrible, great sound somewhere: an explanatory chorus, just beyond her hearing, but that made her bones vibrate with an awful truth, all the same. She just didn’t know what it was yet.

  When his body turned and striding steps began to bring him back towards the house, Emmat launched herself up and out of the bed. There was little doubt as to what he wanted, and her sitting there seemed to signify a readiness to supply him with it.

  The door opened and closed again, and she didn’t need light to know his presence in the room.

  There had been an urgency the previous night. The way he’d pushed her onto the bed, yanking up her skirts like he dug for something sinking beneath rushing waves into the sand.

  Now he was quiet, lingering. She could feel the place where he stood in the dark. Waves of something she didn’t care to name complicated the air around him like heat radiating from a forge.

  She could have bolted. A whole day to learn the inside of the place gave her a better sense of where the few furnishings were. She could leap and scrabble and kick, and they could overturn every noisome thing in the room. The outcome would be no different. I might just be worse.

  So when the first footfall sounded, and then the second, Emmat stood up straighter. She would not be undignified. She would not be pathetic.

  Face to face. Or face to chest, as it were. Bartholomew Vane, the hangman, warming the same air as the lawless Lady Red Bird. Then he was behind her, just as quick. She felt a tug at the middle of her back. Another. He was unlacing her stays.

  “What are you doing?” It was a nonsensical thing to blurt. She knew full well what he was about. His actions only seemed odd when he hadn’t bothered with them the first time.

  “You’ve no idea what being a wife entails, have you?” He continued to yank, to loosen the stiff fabric. The question was more rude jest than anything else, and Emmat saw fit to give him cheek in return.

  “No more than you have about being a husband, it would appear.”

  “You may have a point,” he said, whipping the last length of lacing through eyelets. “I haven’t much practice.”

  Her stays went sailing into the black and Vane was already at work on the waist of her skirts before she heard the discarded garment hit the floor.

  For someone who claimed to not have practice, he made a brisk business of having her out of her layers. Skirts, petticoats, shift. Everything she had he jerked over her limbs and discarded without ceremony.

  Somehow, none of this shocked her. None, of course, until he stepped back and she heard the dry slipping of fabric that wasn’t any of her own. It couldn’t be. She was naked. Even stockings and boots, he’d taken. And now he was …

  No. Why? Isn’t it bad enough?

  A second pair of boots thumped, one at a time, abandoned to the floor. The next sound was her own embarrassing squawk as the heel of a hand between her shoulder blades hurtled her towards the bed.

>   Despite knowing it was there this time, Emmat still managed to stumble when the edge took her in the shins. She landed palms first in the tired mattress. A brief and unsuccessful argument of limbs resolved with her body pressed flat, weighted down from shoulder to knees with man.

  Breathing became a hitching chore. Last night there had been room to ignore, to deny certain things. The only place he’d really touched her was her wrists. And, well…of course, but that had been unavoidable. Otherwise clothing made a clear boundary. The well of space between their bodies as he held himself up on his arm. She was Emmat and he was the hangman, and he was doing this thing to her.

  Now there was no such evasion, no merciful gulf separating the event from those it affected. Broad, flat muscle branded her shoulders, her spine. She wanted to arch away, but there was no away. Blunt, immovable knees between hers didn’t spread her in earnest, but neither did they let her deny the heat, the prickle of short hairs that meant a man was there, and she: vulnerable.

  And then, of course, there was cock. Hard, eager, and playing like a violin bow along the inside of her thigh. Somehow it was worse than last night. All worse.

  A cupping hand hooked under her right knee, hoisting the thigh further up the bed. Emmat’s jaw tightened for the expected thrust, but it didn’t come. Instead, there were fingertips.

  The ginger thief and those fingertips both learned something at the very same time: Emmat was wet.

  No!

  He made some low, animal sound she felt through his chest at her back, nudging her bent knee higher with his own and smearing his hand around in the mess of his discovery.

  Not now. Not for him!

  Pinned this way, there was not one single place she could run but headlong into the nightmare. The rough hand spread her slick humiliation around, coating lips, inner thighs. She wanted to squirm under the touch, but it would look to him as if …

  As if he’s affecting you?

  There was a shift of hips. Hot, male need supplanted withdrawing fingers, sluicing down through her soaking furrow. Again, Emmat steeled herself for the plunge. And again, it failed to come.