Thus I walked the streets of the Rules, in the shadow of St. Paul ’s Cathedral, and listened to the cries of the boys in employ of priests-every one of them impecunious, defrocked, or false. “Marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage!” called out a young fellow from under a shop sign. Another tugged at my pant leg with dirty hands. “Get married, sir?”
I laughed. “To whom? I have no lady with me.”
“We can answer that, for we’ve no shortage, sir.”
Was marriage now like a good meal, something a man must pursue when he felt the need, and if only indifferent offerings were available, he must make do? I told the boy I searched for Mr. Pike’s marriage house and he brightened prodigiously.
“I work for him, I do. Come on, then.”
I could not help but feel equal amounts of amusement and sadness at this mode of commerce, but such is the nature of marriage in our kingdom. Indeed, it is said that fully one third of all marriages that take place are of a clandestine nature; that being the case, it is surely cause to wonder if the rules governing the institution require some revision when so many people are unwilling to comply. Granted, many such marriages were of a kind that no just law could endorse-those between siblings or other near relatives, those between parties already married, those between children or, worse yet, adult and child. And yet the greater part of these secret marriages stood between young people who simply cared not for the lengthy process required of them by canon law.
In light of this demand, it is hardly surprising that officiating over marriages should become a popular means of generating income among indebted priests and, indeed, indebted men who are capable of performing a tolerable impersonation of a priest.
I could not say into which category Mortimer Pike might have fallen, but he clearly operated a profitable business at the Queen’s Fan, a tavern close enough to the Fleet Ditch to be permeated with the stench of that river of offal.
When I walked inside, I observed that the building was no place in which to make one of the most solemn decisions in the life of a man. Here was a poor sort of tavern, an old wooden structure with a low roof, smoky, crowded, and all surfaces sticky. The clock on the wall read shortly before nine, for by law a marriage must take place between 8 A.M. and noon, so here the world was always frozen between those hours.
A goodly number of prospective spouses drank while preparing themselves to enter Hymen’s temple; toward the back, the good priest performed his services in a little alcove decorated with tarnished church vestments. I heard his words before clearly observing the wedding party, noticing he hurried through the service in a haphazard manner, and though I am no expert in Church doctrine, I could not but suspect he read the text unexactly. This little confusion was made clear when I noted a distinctive drunken slur to his voice and saw that the book he held was not precisely ecclesiastical but rather a collection of the plays of John Dryden, and held upside down too.
This little impropriety did not long hold my attention, however, for I noted something far more amiss. The bride was dressed in a most exquisite blue silk gown with a gold bodice and ivory stomacher. She wore about her graceful neck a chain of gold and had all the appearances of a lady of some worth. The groom, however, was dressed in plain undyed wools, was possessed of many scars upon his face, and had the general appearance of a rude fellow. Indeed, the clandestine marriage had been invented in large part to facilitate the unions of those unequal in rank, but something of far greater import transpired here. The bride, elegant in dress though somewhat unlovely in her face, could not stand of her own accord and was held in place by two fellows as rude as the groom. These men laughed to each other and made a great joke of attempting to hold the bride’s head upward, because it was clear to me that she was entirely disordered with drink or some other potion.
Drunkenness at these affairs is to be expected, though not always for the clergyman, and I might not have been alarmed had not, when the good priest asked the lady if she willing accepted her vows, one of the rude witnesses took her head and puppeted a nod, which produced general laughter among the men.
“I shall accept that,” the priest announced, and then turned to the groom.
Perhaps the priest could accept it, but I could not. Hardly taking the time to consider the prudence or consequences of my actions, I lunged forward, drawing my hanger as I did so. In an instant I stood among the wedding party, but I differed from the others in the gathering in that I had a blade pressed to the groom’s throat.
“Speak a word,” I told him, “and it will be your last.”
“By Mary’s cunny, who are you?” he demanded, in violation of my orders, though not significant enough a violation for me to follow through with my threat. I had, after all, only intended that the ceremony not be completed.
“I am a stranger who has happened upon what appears to me an abduction and forced marriage,” I said. Such crimes, sadly, were another consequence of the ease with which clandestine marriages were carried out. Young women of considerable portions might be abducted and made insensible one way or another, so that they would awaken to discover themselves wedded, their bodies violated, and their new husbands demanding dowry.
“A forced marriage!” the priest cried, in a poor imitation of alarm. “Sirs, you scandalize me!”
“Give us a moment to make this spark mind his own affairs,” one of the witnesses said, and the two men put the bride down upon the floor as though she were a sack of flour. They turned toward me, indicating with raffish grins that they were more than ready to answer what I should demand. I turned from the groom and quickly struck with my blade. It had ever been a maxim of mine that the removal of an eye is the fastest way to discourage a villain from further mischief, and here I found it a means by which two men could be dispatched. No sooner had I slit one of the fellow’s eyes, and he cried out and dropped, than his companion fled the premises without further complaint.
Allow me to say, lest I be accused of excessive cruelty, that I reserve such tactics for when I believe my life to be at risk-which was not precisely the case here-or when I deal with men I think deserving of more than a sound beating. Anyone who would say I am cruel must consider that here was a man who would take a young lady from her family, ply her with drink, force her to marry a monster she knows not, subject her to rape, and then demand that she ask her family for her marriage portion. If he does not deserve the loss of an eye, I am hard-pressed to consider who might.
The rascal was now on the floor, rolling and shouting most pitiably, so I turned to the groom. “He was only the assistant, so I believe one eye sufficient. You are the perpetrator, and so you shall lose both. Alas, my code of honor demands that you threaten me before I can, in good conscience, deprive you of your vision.”
His unwashed face had gone white, and I understood he meant to make no fight of it. He backed up and away and then around me, collected his friend from the floor, and dragged him from the marriage house with all the dispatch at his disposal.
I, the priest, and those awaiting marriages watched the slow exodus in silence. When it was over, the priest turned to the boy. “It is well we ask for payment in advance,” he said. Then, to the crowd. “Who is next?”
By now I had picked up the unconscious bride and held her by keeping one of my hands under her armpit-not the most gentlemanly means in the world, but the best at my disposal. I was grateful she was slight of build.
“I am next,” I growled to the priest. “You will deal with me.”