The Bartholomew Fair Murders Page 7

  Joan paused to observe this pleasant view of youthful court-

  ship. If there was ever love written upon a face, love was written upon the girl’s. The young man’s handsome features seemed equally affected. Joan was at too great a distance to hear their conversation, but she guessed its import. What a handsome couple they made! He with his shock of blond hair and well-formed shoulders; she with her fresh cheeks, slender form, and innocent gaze. The faces of both were bright with blushing.

  Joan was in the midst of these happy reflections when suddenly a raving creature of immense girth and slovenly appearance came rushing from the booth and snatched the girl by the hair, jerking her head back with a snap. She started to beat the girl with her fists, pounding her on the shoulders and back, cursing loudly.

  The bearward’s helper tried to separate the two but failed. He was struck himself by the terrible woman and was sent sprawling in the dirt. Another man appeared from a neighboring booth and said something that appeased the large woman’s wrath; while she scolded the girl, the boy limped off sorrowfully, nursing his jaw.

  Joan felt profoundly sorry for the girl, who she now realized must be the servant of the terrible fat woman. By law, employers were allowed to beat their servants. Custom also sanctioned it. Masters could beat their servants, their apprentices, their children, even their wives. As long as the damage was within limits, no blame was attached to the beater. But Joan had her own ideas about that; she had never laid a hand on a servant of hers, no, nor on an apprentice or a child (although there were more than a handful of scoundrels of both sexes in Chelmsford she would have gladly pummelled, yes, and felt no guilt at it either!).

  The young man came toward Joan, passing without remark. Joan thought to catch his eye, to offer some cheerful word of encouragement or consolation, but the young man’s head was down, his stare fixed on the trace of muck in the wheelbarrow as though he were studying some awful revenge upon the vicious slattern who had assaulted him. And who could blame him? Joan thought, as the bearward’s helper hobbled past her.

  . 59 .

  • 6 •

  Still shaken from the violent scene she had witnessed, Joan wandered down a lane of half-erected booths, latecomers to Smithfield, steering clear of the bustle of construction. She stopped to watch a juggler keep five balls aloft while he pranced around in a circle. Paused again to survey the goods of a toy seller, wondering if her little grandson would like a toy dog or cat, a rattle or drum? The heat of noon had lived up to the promise of the morning. The aroma of roasting pork mixed with less savory smells. She felt woozy and her throat was dry. She would resist the temptation of Bartholomew pig as greasy and fattening, but how she needed something cool to drink.

  “A bottle of ale to quench you in these dog days?” cried a voice at hand. A little man, as ugly as a toad, thrust the bottle at her, grinning from ear to ear.

  She paid for the bottle, opened the stopple, and drank. The ale was tepid and tasteless and she would have complained of it, but when she turned around the tapster had disappeared.

  Realizing that last night’s sleeplessness was beginning to tell on her, she resolved to go to the inn without further delay. She looked around her to get her bearings, and was about to proceed in what she hoped was the correct direction when she saw at the end of the lane a small round tent decorated in a curious fashion. The tent was set off by itself and on its sides were painted crude representations of moon, stars, and sun. A placard set up beside the tent displayed a large open palm with short, stubby fingers, such as a child might draw. The lines of the palm were dark and wide and there were strange symbols imprinted on the fingers, the ball of the thumb, and the flat of the hand.

  Joan was sure this was the habitation of an astrologer or for' tune'teller. She knew that there were many in London, most Gypsies living in Cowdane and many famous for their prog-nostications, horoscopes, and palm readings. Of these practL tioners of hidden arts (not witches; they were another matter), Joan had no settled conviction. Her mind was open, for did not the Queen of England herself consult her own private sorcerer and astrologer, the illustrious Doctor Dee? And did not many lesser lights, men of breeding and education too, regard their prophesies with respect? Joan had known many a cunning' woman in her own town. Gifted women, making profit by their gifts. But she had never consulted them. She herself had gifts, glimmerings, as she called them, visions that came unbidden, visions that warned, consoled, informed as her need was and that she did not construe as incompatible with true religion or common sense and that had more than once saved her life— and Matthew’s too. As for the influence heavenly bodies might exert on the destiny of men, who knew how some vaguely per' ceived constellation, twinkling weakly in the night, might mir' ror an inherent quality in man, disposing him to one fate rather than another?

  Her curiosity was strong, and it drew her even closer to the tent. She forgot the heat and her wooziness. The tent flap was closed; and the tent seemed unoccupied. Now she observed that beneath the crudely depicted palm a word was written. Esmera. What did it mean? A name perhaps? She tried to imag' ine what manner of person Esmera might be and was still doing so when she became aware of a stirring inside the tent.

  She started to move away, but then heard a voice.

  “Stay, mistress, I pray you!”

  The tent flap was still closed, but Joan was sure the appeal was addressed to her, and even if it had not been she would have obeyed for the words were spoken with such urgency and in such a strange voice that she felt compelled to stand where she was.

  The tent flap was suddenly swept aside by a dark, bejeweled hand, and the owner of the beckoning voice showed herself.

  The woman’s appearance, for woman it was, was striking. She was either the homeliest woman Joan had ever seen or the most beautiful. Tall and regally thin, garbed in a long scarlet robe that stretched from shoulder to feet, Esmera had a high forehead crowned with long, straight black hair that fell to her shoulders, dark, moist eyes, the nose of a Roman empress, and very full pale lips in odd contrast to her skin color. If beauty, hers was not the English beauty of which poets had sung and courtiers raved—the damask cheeks, rosy lips, and clear blue eyes of flattering sonnets. Esmera’s was an exotic beauty, born of some remote clime. Her skin was as dark as a Moor’s, and for all Joan knew she might have hailed from the dark continent. She was really too tall for a woman, at least six feet, Joan esti-mated. And above the full upper lip was a thin patch of dark downy hair, like a little moustache. As to age, the woman was neither girl nor matron, but something in between.

  Joan was utterly and helplessly fascinated.

  “I am Esmera,” the woman herself confirmed in a thickly accented but mellifluous voice of surprising deepness. Joan thought the accent was as strange as the woman herself.

  “So you have come to speak with Esmera,” said the woman. Esmera smiled and displayed perfectly formed white teeth.

  “I came to look ... at your tent,” said Joan, nervously. “The signs caught my eye—as I walked abroad in the fair.”

  “Ah, the signs,” Esmera said. “They are not without their meanings.” She turned slightly to face the tent wall and with a graceful motion of her arm pointed to the symbols. “These are the governors of men’s destiny,” she said, indicating the heavenly bodies—the moon, sun, and stars—that surrounded the hand. “To observe their times and seasons, their positions and relations, is to know the secrets of the universe—and the destiny of man and woman.”

  Esmera began to speak of eclipses and constellations, planets and the signs of Zodiac, and a dozen other notions of her occult science. All these, she said, were related to another branch of knowledge, that of the human hand, which knowledge she called cheirognomy and cheiromancy. This was wisdom derived from the Chaldeans and Egyptians and other ancient peoples, and it was in this knowledge that Esmera was especially adept. “There are seven types of hands,” she continued, “determined by the shape of the fingers, the smoothness of
the flesh, and the proportion of fingers to palm. Hands with short, thick fingers, short thumbs, and large, thick, and hard palms betoken crass and sluggard brains. Hands that are knotty, with large thumbs and phalanges of similar length, show an equal measure of will and common sense—a philosopher’s bent.”

  The palms of the hands were surrounded by various upraised areas Esmera called Mounts, named after the planets—of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, Mercury, Mars, and the moon. The center of the palm was occupied by the Plain or Triangle of Mars and was comprised of three distinct lines, the Line of Life, the Line of Head, and the Line of Heart. These various signs, along with their waviness, forked terminations, ascending and descending branches, breaks, and capillaries, were also indica^ tions of destiny.

  Esmera paused in her discourse and turned to face Joan again. She asked her if she would like to have her own palm inter' preted. “I see you are a woman of good sense,” Esmera said, regarding Joan with interest. “Won’t you come inside?”

  Joan was hesitant, and yet more curious than ever. During Esmera’s lecture she had gradually moved her own hands out of the cunning'woman’s sight, from a kind of painful self' consciousness. She knew her own hands were small and deli' cate, her fingers pointed and the flesh smooth. But of this type of hand Esmera had not spoken, and now Joan wondered what these familiar mechanisms at the end of each arm might speak of her own character and destiny.

  “Only for a while,” Joan said.

  Esmera led her inside.

  The tent interior was close and redolent with an unfamiliar

  but not unpleasant scent. The only furnishings were a small, round table without covering and two simple stools set on an earthen floor watered to keep the dust down. Esmera settled onto one of the stools and directed Joan to sit on the other.

  “Let me have your hand, child,” said Esmera in a calm, per-suasive voice.

  Joan did as she was told. Esmera turned Joan’s hand so that the palm was turned upward. And then taking the hand firmly in her own two hands, Esmera began to look at Joan’s palm with a steady gaze, as though her vision was penetrating beyond the pink flesh to the bones beneath. “A goodly temperature of the flesh,” Esmera said, after a long period of silence during which Joan’s self-consciousness intensified and her hand felt warm and moist. “Neither cold nor hot but in between. The color is good too. Your hand is small and delicate, a thin palm and smooth fingers, long and shapely. The joints show but a slight swelling ... a pretty little thumb. You are a dreamer, impulsive. You desire the beautiful things of life, whether mun-dane or celestial. You are ruled by heart and soul.”

  Esmera’s voice was dreamy and smooth, like syrup. Joan listened intently, much too intrigued and flattered by this concen-trated attention to her own person to interrupt, for Esmera’s description came very close to her own assessment. While Joan thought herself a woman of great practicality, she was aware of the other side of her personality, a side often hidden from oth-ers: airy, elusive, rooted in the world of dreams and visions, the intangible and unseen.

  “But now I must turn to the lines of the palm,” Esmera said decisively when her portrait of Joan’s character had been drawn to its fullness and Joan’s silence had implied agreement with all Esmera had spoken. “First, the line of life.”

  Esmera traced the well-defined crevice setting the region of the thumb off from the central plain of Joan’s palm. “The Mount of Venus is very prominent. You admire beauty and melody in music and dance. You desire to please. You are a great lover of society, with a talent for friendship and loyalty. The

  line rising from the base of the hand is a sign of good luck. As for the life line itself, it is long and completely encircles the ball of the thumb and ...”

  Esmera paused and her eyes widened. For a long time she studied Joan’s hand in silence, and Joan became nervous with expectation. Was something wrong? Was something written in the line that betokened ill?

  “What is it you see?” Joan finally asked when the cunning-woman’s silence was no longer bearable.

  Esmera did not respond at once. She took Joan’s other hand and seemed to compare the two. Then she said: “There is a break in the line of life. See, it is here.” Esmera pointed to an interruption in the otherwise distinct crevice in the pale flesh. “Fortunately for you, lady, such a break appears only in the left hand, not in the right.”

  “What does that mean?” Joan asked urgently, her voice trembling a little. She studied her own outstretched hand and saw that the line of life was indeed broken. It ceased abruptly with a few parallel lines intersecting while the lower branch of the break turned upward toward the ball of the thumb, the wrinkled swelling of flesh Esmera had referred to as the Mount of Venus.

  Esmera said: “If the break occurs in both palms, it is a sign of death. The veer of the broken line toward Venus’s Mount is a warning of sudden death. Since it is only one hand that shows such a sign, however, you need fear only the danger. And soon.”

  “The danger of death? Soon? When?”

  Joan’s heart was racing now; her heart lodged in her throat so that she could hardly get the questions out.

  “How old are you, lady?”

  “Mrs. Stock. My name is Mrs. Stock. I will be thirty-eight come November.”

  Esmera bent over Joan’s hand, tracing the line of life again. “The danger will be soon. This very year and season,” Esmera said.

  “What else do you see in my hand?” Joan asked.

  Esmera shut her eyes. She seemed to go into a trance and said nothing for several minutes. Then she opened her eyes and stared at Joan’s palm again. “You have a husband,” Esmera said.

  “I do,” Joan answered.

  “He makes a good living for you. A tradesman, I think.”

  “Yes,” Joan murmured, half mesmerized by Esmera’s husky drawl.

  “He is also an alderman of the town.”

  “No,” Joan corrected. “A constable.”

  “A man of position, of authority,” Esmera went on, undaunted by the error. “I see a man of middle years, of pleasant countenance and gentle manner. A good husband for you, yes?”

  “A most excellent husband,” Joan said, not without pride.

  Esmera’s brow furrowed. She retraced the line of life. “I see misfortune, sorrow in your past.”

  “Oh.”

  “Loss, death of children.”

  “Only one of my children lived,” Joan said, her voice trembling. “The rest were not brought alive from my womb. After a while I thought myself unable to bear living children, then—”

  “Nay, let me tell you,” Esmera said with quiet urgency. “Then you gave birth successfully. The child lived. And grew. She’s a young woman now.”

  “Yes, it was a girl.”

  “And married,” Esmera continued, with an expression of triumph playing around her pale full lips. “Who has children of her own.”

  “One child. So far. A son,” Joan agreed.

  “I was about to say as much. Oh, it is all written in your palm, lady. All this past sadness and joy—but also the danger I warned you of. Your daughter’s name is Mary . . . Susan . . . perhaps Elizabeth?”

  “It is Elizabeth,” said Joan, marveling at the woman’s insight. Was her daughter’s very name written on the palm? Joan looked at her own hand with a kind of wonder, trying to make her own sense of the maze of wrinkles and crevices near two score in the making. But now Esmera’s eyes were no longer focused on Joan’s outstretched hand; again she seemed to retreat into some vision not wholly dependent upon physical contact. Esmera swayed a little on her stool and made a low crooning noise. Joan asked if she were well and received no reply. The crooning and swaying continued and Joan felt afraid again. Was some new warning at hand? She waited.

  “I see grave danger for you, Mrs. Stock,” Esmera said, her eyelids beginning to flutter a little while she continued to sway on the stool. “And your husband. Here in Smithfield . . . dan-ger close at hand.”

&nbs
p; “What manner of danger?” Joan cried, excitedly.

  “I see a beast.”

  “A beast?”

  “Teeth dripping with blood, cruel fangs. Claws. Raw, bloody flesh. The odor of death.” Esmera began to ramble incoherently; her eyes now opened wide and rolled up into her head. Joan dared not speak and was horrified both at Esmera’s vision and her present appearance, which had twisted her countenance into that of a mad woman’s. Yet she had no choice but to wait until Esmera’s fit passed, which it presently did, the cunning-woman’s shoulders slumping and her head falling so that her chin rested heavily on her chest and Joan could no longer see the moist dark eyes. Esmera seemed totally exhausted by her vision. But, looking up, she appeared normal now, and Joan was not frightened as before.

  “Are you well, Esmera?” Joan ventured again.

  “I am well,” Esmera replied in a voice both deeper and weaker than before. “Don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Stock. You will come close to death but it shall miss you—with good fortune and . . . the proper precautions. I cannot say the same for your husband, however.”

  “My husband! You mean he faces the same danger—from the beast you have seen in your vision?”

  Esmera nodded her head as if to say yes, it was all to be, fated, as certain as the tracery of Joan’s palm.

  “And these precautions you mention—what are they?” Joan thought to ask.

  Esmera frowned and shook her head. She released Joan’s hand and laid it on the round tabletop as if to signal that their interview was over. “I can see no more. Not at this time. You must come again to see Esmera.”

  Joan rose; the wooziness that she had experienced earlier now returned to intensify the anxiety the cunning-woman’s warning had inspired. She looked down at Esmera. “I don’t know if I can,” Joan said. “My husband and I are in London only for the fair. In three days’ time we will return to Chelmsford.”