“Disgusting to think the authorities back then put people in that blasted contraption. It’s evil if you ask me.”
Well, I didn’t. Fanshawe was annoyed. “Yes,” he faltered. “Things must’ve been pretty hard back then, and hard measures were the result,” but he wished the old man would go away. Believe it or not, mister, I saw a woman get raped in this thing just a few hours ago, by men in Colonial clothes. He could imagine the elder’s reaction.
The gentleman uttered a few more gripes, then ticked away on his cane.
An ACLU supporter, I guess. Fanshawe stared back at the pillory, and also recalled all he’d thought he’d seen through the looking-glass. It was all just a bad dream. It HAS to be…
“Eyin’ the ole pillory, are ya, sir?” piped up Mrs. Anstruther’s cockney voice. She’d just turned the corner, on her way to her kiosk.
Damn. “Yes, ma’am. It’s…something, all right.”
“Somethin’, indeed. Would ya fancy a picture?”
“Pardon me?”
“What I mean, sir, is I’d be pleased to take a photo of ya in it.”
Fanshawe’s brow ruffled. “What, the pillory?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” and then she lifted the pillory’s top slat. “Quite a few tourists ’ave their pictures took in it. Makes for good conversation, don’t ya think, sir?”
Fanshawe figured she was angling for a tip—today, he wasn’t in the mood. But it would almost be funny if he did have his picture taken in the archaic device. I could send it to Dr. Tilton. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Anstruther, but thanks for the offer.”
She looked at the pillory as if with fascinated interest. “Perfect punishment these buggers was, sir, for folks who was tarnished, as you might say. Steal a gobbet’a meat from the butcher’s? Well in ya go for a day at least. And ladies caught sellin’ thereselfs”—now she whistled—“well, now, those poor things could get up to a week, and with just bread’n water, sir. And blokes got even more’n that for rabble-rousin’ on a Sunday or cheatin’ on their proper wife or sayin’ untruths to the Sheriff. Late on your land rent? In ya go! Why, they’d put a fella in this here pillory for long as they saw fit, even for takin’ a peek in a bird’s window!”
The last bit of information fogged Fanshawe’s mind.
“Anyways, sir, I must be off to me work, but I hope your day’s a jolly one!” She made to leave, but her frail formed paused. She lowered her voice. “And if you’re in want of exercise today, sir, you might be wise ta stay off’a them trails you’ve grown so fond of amblin’ on. Don’t know if ya’ve ’eard, but”—she leaned over—“there been some dirty-work, I’m afraid. Some poor man was murdered on them trails, he was, just yesterday, sir—a man who was stayin’ in your hotel.”
Karswell, Fanshawe thought. Not just my hotel, but my ROOM. He could have done without the reminder. “Yes, I did hear, ma’am,” he said, avoiding the rest. “What a terrible tragedy.”
“Oh, yes, sir, to be sure. So you’re best to keep your distance”—a thought seemed to perk up her tone—“and if you got your steel up, sir, you know you can anyways have a go at the waxworks,” and then she walked off with a smile.
There she goes again. She seemed to be daring him to investigate the wax museum. Why?
The deadpan stares of the Revolutionary mannequins seemed directed specifically at Fanshawe. A short line of tourists waited at the ticket booth. Maybe it’s pretty good, he considered. It might get my mind off all this bullshit. He got in line, paid for his ticket, then cool darkness invited him to enter a faux-stone hallway with an arched ceiling.
Other patrons with their children appeared to be enthralled by the staged displays of old-time figures: smiling women in sack dresses working spinning-wheels and washboards; motionless toddlers playing with hand-crafted toys; an old crone bent over a hearth oven. One corpulent dummy in tri-cornered hat and buttoned vest displayed a starred badge over his heart. He held a roll of paper, and had a flintlock pistol on his hip. SHERIFF PATTEN read a plaque. The sculptor proved his or her skills by incorporating an all-too-realistic bad complexion on the officer, and a nose like a rotten strawberry. They probably didn’t have Stridex back then, Fanshawe thought and moved to the next stage.
He found the exhibits to be very competent but far less interesting than the slow-moving lines of other patrons seemed to believe. Several varieties of soldiers, clerics, farmers, and wood-workers came next. But Fanshawe’s stiff lack of interest suddenly left him feeling—
Anxious?
Why should he feel like that?
Next, like a carnival horror-house, a short corridor festooned by rubber cobwebs drew him into what could only be—
Ah, the torture chamber…
First, a sign said NO CHILDREN, PLEASE, and all at once—and for some reason he couldn’t guess—Fanshawe’s boredom was transmuted into a dusky thrill. Abbie had said this particular exhibit had given her nightmares; now Fanshawe understood why. The rictus of a slatternly woman in an iron maiden couldn’t have been more realistic, while the expression of the rustic man chained into a chair with a wood fire under the grilled seat made Fanshawe’s innards clench. Several cloaked witches stood in a circle listening to a grim, hooded figure who read from parchment, a pentagram about his neck. Fanshawe felt a chill when he looked closer at the figure’s face and saw that the artisan had blended into the features of a human face some characteristics of a skull. Did the eyes of the witches themselves glow with the faintest traces of scarlet light? Next, a woman in a bustle-dress cringed as inquisitors stretched her on a metal rack; her mouth locked open in a silent scream. A man shackled to a brick wall projected a look of perfect horror as he was approached by a stooped witch-finder bearing an iron rod with its end red-hot. A proverbial shirtless man with considerable muscles grinned as he held a great curve-bladed ax above a headsman’s block; the victim with his neck on the block seemed to have tears in his eyes.
Fanshawe was unnerved by the grueling authenticity of the figures, but what actually stopped him in his tracks was the next presentation: a blond woman hung off a whipping post, her face in absolute turmoil. Her dress-top had been ripped open to reveal her bare back, while the torn material strategically hung to block the sight of her breasts. The voyeur in Fanshawe tempted him to reach over the velvet ropes that bordered the display, to see how detailed her breasts had been rendered, but, of course, he didn’t. Even if he was alone in this section, there might be a security camera; he could picture himself on some World’s Dumbest Criminals show.
Pervert, the thought hissed. When I’m not spying on women in windows, I’m spying of wax dummies. Get a life.
However, the blond victim’s oppressor—a staunch-faced man wearing a buttoned vest and a cross round his neck—stood poised as he lay a cat of nine tails across her back, the lengths of the whip actually frozen in mid-air. Fanshawe blanched at the streaks of bloody scars lain into her flesh.
Good Lord, this is some realistic stuff.
Suddenly he was itching to move on even though the tour of the chamber seemed to be complete. The several patrons who milled about with him seemed visibly shocked by the displays, as if they’d seen enough, but they turned into the next fake-brick-walled corridor. They all stopped at the final exhibit.