Chapter 8
Alderman James sat in the lspacious dining room at his home on Henrietta Street. He was alone at the table now, his guests having gone back to work or home, and he picked absentmindedly at the now-cold neck of mutton that had formed part of dinner. He was in a foul temper and was glad that his guests were gone; once again they had brought up his “heroics” at one of the weavers’ riots up in the Liberties. That event held nothing but regret for him now and had earned him the sobriquet of “Alderman Level Low.”
It was no secret in the city what had happened. Dublin’s weavers had fallen on hard times (it was actually weavers from all over the country as well, who flocked to Dublin and made the crisis there worse than it already was). There had been a collapse in the wool market, and the new fashion for Indian-made garments and flashy French silk had put countless numbers out of work. Things had become so bad that the underemployed weavers began to engage in riotous behaviour. They would accost people in the streets and tear their clothes if they were made of foreign materials; they would even stop the carriages of the upper classes, and many women had exquisite, fine dresses torn and shredded. The result was often violence, and soon the weavers were attacking the very shops who sold the evil materials or sold goods manufactured with them.
On the particular day of Alderman James’s “heroics,” the agitated weavers had gone further than before in the rioting, and many people were injured and scarred by their liberal blade strokes. A gentleman of the upper classes was pulled from his carriage and dragged through the grime at the side of the road by a group of these men. He was brought to the Liberties, where they stripped him naked, painted his body with warm tar, and took turns applying feathers to him.
When Alderman James arrived with the soldiers, the man was in a delirious state and was wandering around as though insane. The weavers were nearby, fighting with other business owners, and James ordered the soldiers to fire a volley of powder at the group in the hope of ending the violence. But this behaviour was perceived as leniency and an unwillingness to shoot at them for real, and the weavers began to hurl stones at the soldiers. James ordered live shot to be used for a second volley, but the soldiers fired above the heads of the rioters and were again met with boos and a barrage of stones. James ordered another live-shot volley, and this time, as the men aimed above the heads of the rioters, he used his staff to lower the barrels of the soldiers, who then discharged into the crowd, killing some and wounding others. This had the desired effect, and the rioters fled in all directions to escape.
James knew why he had done what he did that day. There had been no other choice; he’d had to maintain order, and that was the only recourse left to him that day. But he felt terrible about it even as he was lowering the barrel of the first soldier’s musket. And it had gotten worse every day since then. His friends and peers thought of his actions as heroic and ones that saved much worse rioting in the long run, and they never seemed to fail to remind him of it, no matter how many years had passed since that day.
Ever since, Alderman James had wanted to make amends for what he had done. It was only when it was pointed out to him by the mayor himself that James had become very lenient in his disbursement of punishments for crimes in his district that he had, for the sake of his career, started harsher punishments in line with the other aldermen and magistrates. Now the only visible symbol of regret he showed was that he had all his clothes (as much practicable) made from wool by local weavers, but he alone was not going to revive that dying industry.
There was a knock of the door.
“Enter,” he said without enthusiasm. A man of about five feet ten inches entered, in fine clothes, with a glistening scabbard holding his sword, the handle of which was adorned with some jewels of azure colour.
“Mr. Edwards!” James said in surprise.
“Something has happened in the Liberties,” Edwards said seriously. James stood up; he was about the same height as this man, but he was a much meatier figure, with thick shoulders and neck against Edwards’s more refined, thin shape. Both had the same almost-black hair. James poured a drink and handed it to Edwards without asking if he wanted one and beckoned for him to sit down.
“What is it, Mr. Edwards?”
“Two nights ago, there was an attack on one of the guards over at Newgate,” Edwards said.
“Yes. I know. Some men roughed him up trying to secure the release of their friend. Drunken idiots,” James said.
“That is what I had heard originally myself, Alderman,” Edwards said with a sly smile on his face.
“And now you have heard something different?”
“Very different.” There was a silence.
“Don’t go quiet on me Mr. Edwards! What did you hear?” the alderman said in exasperation. Edwards smiled still more, and James knew that it was something good he had. He paused and studied the man’s face for clues to what he wanted. “What will it cost me this time?”
“Not a thing,” Edwards replied, practically beaming now.
“Then what?”
“Well, maybe you can make sure that there are no soldiers in the vicinity of Hell on Sunday night next,” Edwards said nonchalantly.
“Why?”
“Nothing illegal as such, but you know the soldiers. They just get involved with everything they see and cause trouble where there really isn’t any.”
“Are the Pinking Dindies planning to burn down another brothel?” James asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I couldn’t tell you what they are up to, but my reason has nothing to do with them,” Edwards said. “And to be fair, Darkey Kelly was a murderess, after all,” he added.
“How do I know what you have is worth my turning a blind eye to whatever it is you have planned?”
“It is, I can assure you of that. If what I have heard is true, it is exactly what you have been looking for.” James could sense Edward had him over a barrel. “Listen, what’s going to happen on Sunday is the settling of a bet. It will be rambunctious and noisy for a little, but that is the true extent of it.”
James mulled this over before answering. “Fine. Now tell me what you have heard.”
“That a guard of the debtor’s prison was attacked, and savagely I might add, is true, but he was not attacked by drunken louts trying to free a friend.”
“Then who attacked him?” James was getting annoyed at the playing around the issue.
“Not who, Alderman, but what attacked him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have it on good authority from three different eyewitnesses that the guard was attacked by some wild beast that did ferocious damage to the man.”
“What beast and what good authority?”
“One of the other guards of the prison, one of the people who was incarcerated there that evening, and the victim himself.”
“The victim said he was attacked by a wild beast?”
“Yes, and I am afraid it was the last thing he said.”
“He died today?”
“This morning, first thing, just after I spoke to him.”
“And what animal are we talking about? A feral dog?”
“It doesn’t sound like a dog from his description, but then it doesn’t sound like any animal I know by his description,” Edwards said, sighing and sipping from his tumbler.
“What did the witnesses say?”
“The guard says he saw something very big and black on top of the man, but he also could name no animal.”
“And the other?”
“I am afraid that person only heard the attack, and they couldn’t put a name to animal they heard either.”
“So what do you think it was?”
“I don’t know, to be honest but it did remind me of something ghastly I heard years ago.”
“Which was what?”
“I once heard that a pack of wolves driven mad by hunger got inside the city walls of Paris; this was back in the 1400s, I think.”
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p; “And?”
“Well, they were starving, and naturally, they killed people and ate them.” There was a glint in Edwards’s eyes that was almost lupine, and it sent a shiver through James. Edwards was the man to go to for information about anything that was unseemly or morbid, but how much he knew and how much he told were probably two very different things, James mused as he looked at this almost evil, mocking face.
“So you think it’s a wolf?” he asked bluntly, not willing to engage in ghost stories or mystical talk.
“As I say, I don’t know, but the doctor who examined the man said the marks from large teeth on the body, face, and neck of the man that would indicate a large animal like a wolf.”
“Did the doctor say anything else about what it could have been?”
“Yes, actually.” Again that smile. “He said that it looked like there were hoofmarks on his chest.”
“Hoofmarks?”
“Yes. That doesn't add up with the teeth, though”—and at this Edwards stood—“unless the Devil has large, sharp teeth. And in that case, he’s our man!” At this, he laughed out loud.
“I wish you wouldn’t speak so flippantly of the Devil,” James said, also standing up.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mind it.”
“I wasn’t saying for his sake.”
“Well, Alderman James, until we meet again,” Edwards said, holding out a hand, which James took. “If there is an animal out there, it may well do this again. Even if it doesn’t, if you are the one to find it and capture it, you may get a new name that better fits your sensibilities.”
“Keep me posted on anything else you find out, Mr. Edwards.”
“I will, and don’t forget: no soldiers in Hell from about nine o’clock on Sunday night.”
“I won’t forget.”
Edwards went to leave, but he stopped at the door and turned back to James.
“Seriously though, Alderman, be careful. I know, I speak lightly of these things, but the fact is, an animal of some description has killed a man, and there is no reason why it wouldn’t be able to do the same to you.”
“Yes, it would be a shame if you had to get into the secrets and fears of a new alderman altogether and learn how to bribe him.” James smiled, though there was nothing friendly in it.
“Don’t be silly, Alderman. If you were gone, I’d just see to it that whoever I wanted would become your successor.” And he laughed out loud again, nodding as he left the room; James could hear him laughing all the way down the hallway to the front door.
When he was finally gone, James went to the window and looked out into the dark of the evening. He could feel the cold from outside through the glass pane, and he wondered what had happened a few nights ago at the debtor’s prison. He imagined himself at Cornmarket with the body of a wolf dead at his feet and the gratitude of the people of the Liberties. What would they call him then? Something humorous, no doubt, but also just as likely to incorporate his current nickname as his real name. He never understood where the wit of these people came from, and he could predict nothing of what might be said in jest about any event that transpired.
If he could get to the bottom of what killed that poor man, he would go some ways towards redeeming himself. But even as he thought these fantastic thoughts, he felt that he was destined to be Alderman Level Low for life.
Alderman Lupine Low, he mused, and this brought a smile to his face. He stepped back from the window and filled his drink again.