The Pesthouse (20 page)

Margaret could sense the sea beyond the distant dunes, although now that it was close she could not imagine it. The largest stretch of water she had encountered so far had been the lake above Ferrytown. She could stand on its shores and easily see banks in all directions. But an undulating, salty lake without banks? That was not within her dreams. She could press ahead, of course, a half-day's walk, and see the ocean for herself. But her legs would not oblige. She knew that she had reached the point of ultimate tiredness. All she wanted now was rest. The ocean could wait. Every step she took was painful. Bella had not gotten any fatter — how could she? — but it felt as if she had. The baby, well breakfasted, for once, on eggs and milk and sleeping happily, felt as heavy as a stone. Margaret's walk had become semiconscious and mechanical. It was as if just the smell of the ocean or perhaps the crust of salt on her lips was a sleep-inducing drug.

Margaret saw the Ark way before she and Bella reached it. At first it seemed to be little more than a massive palisade made out of cut but unworked tree trunks and arranged in a perfect rectangle, too high and smooth for anyone to climb. But, as they drew closer, the roof planks and roof weights of several long buildings could be seen, and there was a half-constructed stone tower at their center, with scaffolding and men at work. It did not look entirely welcoming. The palisades were defensive and discouraging.

And this was odd: in the approaches to the Ark, great trenches had been dug and mostly filled in again, as if there had been an epidemic and a thousand bodies were being buried, had been buried, there. The trenches were not graves but dumping grounds as far as Margaret could tell, for objects that these Finger Baptists, evidently, did not want. In the one open trench within sight, she could see some harnesses, a beaten copper tray and some cans, as well as something small and silvery. Such waste was unnerving. Had she been less tired and dispirited, she might have turned away and gone elsewhere. But she walked on. 'It's not long now,' she said to Bella. 'Then we'll be safe.' What could they hope to find inside, she wondered, apart from not being touched. Free food, at least. The goose man had said there'd be free food. A bed? A winter roof? A place out of the wind, that was for sure. And time, finally, to teach the girl to walk.

THERE WAS a single entry to the Ark, a great timber gate, closed but with a smaller door set into it. Anybody sporting the loop of white tape came and went as they pleased, but Margaret and Bella had to get in line. They joined about thirty other travelers who were seeking shelter until the spring and, not daring to sit and sleep, waited their turn.

Two keepers moved among the hopefuls, turning away anybody wearing jewelry who would not agree to throw it out or any man wearing a sword or knife or hoping to enter the Ark with any kind of vehicle. A family with a short barrow, hung with tools and implements salvaged from their abandoned cart, chose to press on and find other winter quarters rather than sacrifice their forage tines, a drag chain, an ax, a kettle, a shovel, clouts and linchpins, as well as sufficient nails and hames to equip another cart if only they had horses. Another who had hoped to bring his horse into the Ark for stabling was told he either had to stay outside or lose his metaled saddle, the horse's shoes, and his bit and bridle, which had been handed on to him through generations of riders. He chose to stay outside.

The determined survivors — fewer than twenty in number — were allowed through the smaller door into a courtyard between the inner and the outer palisades. There they had to form another line, which passed between two long, timber tables minded by devotees with the now familiar white tape around their shoulders and carefully expressionless faces. Were these the Finger Baptists, Margaret wondered.

'Nothing metal, nothing metal,' one of them was commanding, walking up and down the line, repeating his instructions and devotions to every group. 'Remove all metal from your hair, no antique combs, no knives at all, no silverware, no ear or finger rings, no pans. Metal is the Devil's work. Metal is the cause of greed and war. In here we are, like air and water, without which none of us can live, the enemies of metal. Check your pockets. Shake out all your rust. Remove your shoes. Unlace your bags.'

Margaret watched as one of the two families ahead of her in line was frisked by devotees in gloves and then required to empty out their bags, every single item, and put their shoes and belts onto the tables. A spoon and a bracelet, wrapped in felt, clearly valuable and probably loved, were thrown into woven baskets under the tables. The father of the family shook his head, hardly able to control his mounting anger when the buckle was snapped off his belt. A coat whose buckle would not tear free from its cloth was thrown out entirely. Their shoes were inspected, and any brass eyelets or clips were either pulled free and jettisoned or, if they would not loosen readily, the whole shoe was thrown out and replaced by a pair of stitched moccasins. Metal buttons were snapped off their coats and pants by expert gloved hands. Seams and hems were checked for hidden metal valuables. The children had to part with toys that they had made from found scrap, and the family dog — a cousin, in looks at least, to Becky, Margaret's missing terrier — was stripped of its studded collar.

The father, though, was keen to preserve at least a little of his dignity. He was not prepared, he said, to lose the short sword that he had hidden among his blankets and that had been discovered by the sorters with a look of disapproval and triumph. Losing it and any ability to defend his family in the future was too great a price to pay, he argued. It was wrong of them to insist, even though there'd be winter feed and accommodation as recompense. 'We've already given up our few valuables. Enough's enough.'

'It's your decision,' he was told. 'If you don't like us, you can go.'

'I like you well enough. But you're robbing us. What you're doing isn't much different from stopping us on the road and holding knives to our throats—'

'We never have knives.'

'I know that, yes...' The father was getting exasperated. 'A wooden stick, then, if you held that to our throats,' he added hastily, trying to be sarcastic, and then realized how foolish he must have sounded. 'Well, something sharp at least, for heck's sake!' He glanced at his short sword, still lying on the table and within easy reach. His wife put her hand on his arm, a gesture of both solidarity and restraint. She could see how tempted he was — and not for the first time — to support his indignation with a blade. She could also see that these Baptists were fit young men who seemed ready to defend their high principles with their fists and feet.

The white-taped man who had been walking up the line listing forbidden objects and giving instructions to the applicants and who had seemed to be the most senior of the devotees now approached the family at the table, clapping his hands for silence. 'Enough's enough, indeed,' he said, spreading his arms to show that the way ahead was now barred to them. 'Please gather your possessions and leave. We have no place for you.'

'Who'll sew the buckles back? You've damaged everything. Who'll mend the shoes?' the father asked.

The man shook his head, entirely calm. 'No one,' he said, making his meaning very clear — their metal already in the baskets would not be returned.

'Hand me back my mother's bracelet, then.' The emigrant's wife hoped to salvage what she could. 'And let us have the silver spoon. That's all the currency we have.'

'And give me back my sword.'

The calm man shook his head again. 'Metals equal weapons equal death,' he said.

Now the wife was heated, too. 'Then you're thieves, for all your piety.'

'We don't
steal
from anyone. We put the metal back into the soil. We bury it. That's not theft. That's restitution. We require our winter residents to observe our practices. Neither your sword nor your arguments are welcome in the Ark.' He took the father's sword from the table and dropped it into a basket with as much ceremony and measured finality as he could. 'You should leave now. The inner door is closed to all of you.'

The next family were careful to cooperate and not argue. A much loved, battered cooking pot and their leather-working needles plus their wrap of bone-handled tools — scissors, cutters, blades — which might have provided them with a livelihood on the far side of the ocean, all ended up among 'the stones of hell' in the wastebaskets with every other scrap of pewter, copper, battered steel or rusty iron, gold or silver, lead or tin. They had made their minds up swiftly. On the whole their sacrifice was worth it. They'd not survive the winter on the cold side of the palisades. They could survive without their tools.

Margaret offered Franklin's bag. She could not think that there was any metal inside. Her comb and hairbrush passed inspection. They were wood and bone. They checked the pot of died-back mint for staples, too, but found none, though for a moment Margaret feared that they intended to tip out the earth and check for hidden scraps, but clearly soil was something that these devotees approved of. Nothing grew in metal, but any soil was natural and sanctified.

Perhaps it was just as well that the Boses had stolen Franklin's knife and that she had lost or left her cedar box in Ferrytown. It would have been heartbreaking for her to see two of her lucky things, the coins and the necklace, flicked away as if they were as worthless and unpleasant as ticks. Now the devotees checked her body and the clothes she was wearing, her hems, her seams, her tucks, her folds. It was a humiliation that was only partly eased by the fact that the checker closed his eyes while doing so and repeated his apologies. He felt her head through her blue scarf but did not require her to remove it, nor did he seem to detect the shortness of her hair. He then examined Bella, though he smiled and stood back as soon as she grasped his little finger in her wet fist.

'These two are untarnished,' he said finally.

Margaret, then, had nothing to declare, not even a brass button. She was, they let her understand, the perfect applicant for entry to the Ark. She and 'her son, Jackson' registered their names and birthplace (Ferrytown), and were allocated lodgings in the Kindred Barn for Women and given a wooden token to exchange for food.

Now they were free to go ahead as residents through a second wooden gate into the inner courtyard. Inside there was another long, timber table on a roofed terrace loaded with bedding, towels, bone spoons and water jugs, and black head scarves for any woman whose hair was still on immodest display. An older devotee gave one of each to Margaret, his hands arthritic and trembling, his voice constricted. Bella was too small and young to warrant a set of her own, he explained, and then examined the signage on their token, before directing Margaret across the open ground toward the sleeping sheds. 'The farthest to the right is yours. Take any bed and crib that's not in use,' he said. 'These are the rules. Exchange the token for your meal. Reclaim the token when you have completed your tasks tomorrow evening. You will not be able to eat again without handing over a token. You will not be able to depart from the Ark without presenting a token. You will not receive a token unless we are satisfied. We will not be satisfied unless you work well. You will not work well unless you eat.' He waited while the logic and neatness of her new regime sank in, and then he added, 'Yes, we have devised a circle of effort and reward. And if you provide good service within the circle, you may be asked to help the Helpless Gentlemen themselves.'

Margaret was too exhausted to inquire further. Her daily tasks? The Helpless Gentlemen? The Finger Baptists? She would find out in due course. At least, for the first time since the onset of her flux, she was not even vaguely fearful.
You will be safe
, the goose man had said. And she believed that to be true. Here was an odd but organized community. She could smell roasting meat. She could not see anybody running. There were no raised voices. The wind and, therefore, much of the winter cold, was blocked out by the palisades. The loss of metal was no great sacrifice to those who did not mind cooking without pans or sleeping without a knife at their side.

Margaret walked across the great paved courtyard, soothing the now fretful and always hungry Bella, toward the place where they would spend the winter. Now that she could see the Ark's inner courtyard in detail, she could only stare open-mouthed at the half-completed, low stone building at its center. Never in her dreams had she seen a place more decorated or more beautiful. The finished stone itself was grained and worked as intricately as a wood carving, with images of animals and plants and the round faces of people who looked as wide-eyed, calm and expressionless as the devotees. The wooden window frames were glazed with pieces of colored glass, stained with the reds, greens and blues of blood, sky and moss. The entry was an archway with a capstone that seemed too heavy to be so far from the ground. At least ten masons and carpenters, all with the white tapes of devotees, were working on the buttresses and doors, and a dozen or so other men and boys, evidently winter guests like Margaret, were earning their keep, helping with the unskilled labor or holding the timbers steady while artisans fixed them into place with trunnels instead of metal nails. She raised a hand in greeting and, though no one called out in reply, she was responded to with several honest smiles. Now she relaxed. The Ark, whatever its purpose might be, would rescue her and Bella. It would be their first home together.

The women's sleeping shed was cobble floored and timber sided, with loose roof planks protected from the mischief of the wind by stone weights. It creaked as she entered, a sort of greeting to the newcomers but a nailless greeting, as, once again, the building was pegged and framed with wooden joints and hinges. There were no windows. The only light came from the open door and through gaps in the timber. There was no fire or grate, but it was warmer inside than outside, and certainly drier. She recognized the homely smells of women, washing, tobacco and hog-fat candles.