Page 119 of The Pirate and the Pagan
Cat smiled back, ready to call a truce. “I’m afraid he’s not finished with me yet. Look, we’re all in this together, so let’s not make it unbearable for each other. I think Nellie should sit down.”
Lardy helped Nellie to the straw and sat beside her. Both women began to crack things between their thumbnails and Summer realized with horror they were fleas which had immediately jumped on them from the straw. Nellie’s face was ashen, her eyes were circled by black rings. She was skeleton thin except for her great belly and her swollen ankles. “It’s an outrage for a pregnant woman to be imprisoned. What will happen when she goes into labor?” asked Cat.
They shrugged. The old woman said, “She’ll ’ave another unwanted kid, won’t she? An’ why am I in ’ere? I botched an abortion as kilt the slut, but she’s better off dead, don’t ye think?”
Cat was almost ready to agree with her. “I don’t think Charles has the vaguest notion how abominably women are treated in these places,”
“Charles who?” asked Sidney.
“The King,” explained Cat. “When I get out of here, I’ll go to him immediately. I won’t rest until something is done about it.”
“When you get out of here you’ll be on the end of a hempen rope,” said Sidney.
“Do you know the King?” asked Gert, wide-eyed.
“Yes, I was at Whitehall two days ago.” Granny and Lardy began to laugh.
“La-de-dah,” mocked Sidney. “What did you do for your bleedin’ hobby, m’lady, stitch embroidery?”
Cat looked off into the distance, remembering some of the unbelievable things that had happened to her. Then she smiled sadly at the women and said, “Actually I collected rubies.”
Gert’s mouth gaped open and Granny made a gesture to indicate that Cat had lost her wits.
“Do you think they’ll feed us?” asked Lardy wistfully.
“Not tonight,” said Sidney. “In London at least we were entitled to a penny loaf and pump water. Here, God only knows.”
Cat had bought stew at the inn so she wasn’t hungry, but how would she be able to face this misery when hunger was added to the other deprivations? One by one the women sat, crouched on the dank floor, their backs against the slimed walls. Cat was glad she was bone tired, for sleep would be a blessed relief from this living nightmare. She crossed her arms above her knees and laid her head down. The women quieted, the tallow candles guttered out, and she was about to drift off to a gentler place when she realized the cell had visitors. Rats! They climbed up the drain hole by the dozen. She screamed and they stood up on their hind legs in cheeky curiosity.
“Put the piss bucket over the hole and go to sleep,” grumbled Sidney.
Cat did the first thing Sidney advised, but she found it impossible to do the last. In the morning, when Cat tried to stand, every bone in her body ached. They were served wooden spoons and bowls containing thin gruel. When Granny found a cockroach in hers and ate it with relish, Cat could not bring herself to eat in spite of the fact that her common sense told her she would need food if she was to survive this ordeal. Cat gave her bowl to Nellie and Lardy looked deeply offended. “She’s eating for two,” Cat said lamely.
Sidney looked at her with contempt. “You’ll never survive if you put others before yourself. They didn’t teach you much at Whitehall.”
Cat gave her a sad half smile. “Believe me, the rules there are precisely the same as here.” Cat could bear the hunger, what she could not bear was being unclean. “Won’t they let us wash?” she asked.
“A few layers of dirt’ll keep you warm.” Lardy laughed. “A few layers of fat, ye mean,” said Sidney.
Cat realized sadly that the women’s gibes, oaths, and shameless talk offered them the only means of defense against a savage, pitiless world that cared nothing whether they lived or died. Cat gathered up the empty bowls and spoons and shoved them through the small hole in the wall through which they’d been served. She kept one of the wooden spoons, and when the other women were busy putting on their damp gray smocks, she showed Sidney. “If we could wedge this against the stones in that small opening they push the food through, it might split in half.”
Sidney eyed her with approval. “It might make us a couple of pig stickers at that, but don’t expect help from me if you have any half-assed ideas of escaping.”
Cat alternated sitting and standing all day long. Her mind escaped to her beautiful Cornwall where her baby was. Her thoughts were pleasant as she pictured how he must be growing. Her mind’s eye saw Mrs. Bishop bathing him and feeding him and she laughed out loud when she thought of Mrs. Bishop’s will coming up against Mr. Burke’s. She rode Ebony along the sands and pictured Ruark riding down to meet her, because he could not bear to have her out of his sight too long. She sighed and dozed a little. It was easier for her to sleep in the daylight.
Supper was watered-down cabbage soup and this time Cat forced herself to swallow the vile stuff. She knew as soon as it began to grow dark that Oswald would come for her.
He threw open the cell door and looked at the women one by one. Cat stepped toward him and said, “Nellie is near her labor time … she shouldn’t be here like this.”
“She shouldn’t have got knocked up, should she? Don’t waste your pity on her, Lady Bitch, save it for yourself. Come with me.”
Sidney threw him a threatening glance, and he challenged, “Do you have something to say, maggot face?”
She curled her lip and said, “Suck my duck till it quacks!”
He smashed her across the bridge of her nose and they all heard the bone crack. Though she fell to her knees, she didn’t let out so much as a whimper. He took Cat’s arm viciously and shoved her out the cell door. He took her up two flights of steps and through a part of the prison which housed men. She never even heard the whistles and bawdy compliments thrown her way, for Oswald filled her head. He opened a door to a room with a fire where Bludwart had just brought a trayful of hot food. “Will ye need any help with ’er?” Bludwart leered.
“None at all, thank you. Women only need be treated like horses.”
