Free Til Death Do Us Part by Sara Fraser

bloody Joe Cashmore!’ Porky Hicks spat out angrily. ‘I lost count o’ the times he banged me inside, and I had to pay him not to lay charges against me. Same for you, warn’t it, Dummy?’
    The third of the trio, a dumb mute, bared his teeth in a snarl and nodded emphatic agreement.
    â€˜Where shall we go next, Ezekiel?’ Hicks asked.
    â€˜You two go and clear the Horse and Jockey, and then deliver all the load straight to Bordesley Farm. I’ll go back home and do them dogs. The sooner I gets ’um skinned and scraped the sooner we can have a decent piss-up for a change.’
    The isolated cluster of buildings on the eastern edge of the town centre comprised a large cobbled yard containing a towering, stinking rubbish heap enclosed by festering hovels. Polite members of local society called it by its traditional name of ‘The Old Laystall’, the archaic name for a dung heap. The impolite members of society called it ‘Shit Court’. But both the polite and impolite of the town were united in their low opinion of its inhabitants. Even the roughest, scruffiest slum dwellers in the rest of the parish regarded those unfortunates who lived in Shit Court as being far beneath them in social standing.
    Ezekiel Rimmer had been born and bred in the Old Laystall, and had risen to become its undisputed ruler. Now as he entered his domain, his subjects hastened to greet him. He graciously returned the salutations of those who were currently high in his favour. Those who were not he scowled at, or ignored completely.
    Rimmer’s present dwelling place reflected his status here. Standing twice the height of the adjoining hovels, it was stone-built and was once the lay brothers’ living quarters of a grange farm belonging to the nearby Cistercian Abbey of Bordesley. The un-partitioned ground floor was strewn with assorted rubbish, noisy with the voices of the women and children busily pawing through that rubbish, and the mewling cries of rag-swaddled infants. The air was fetid with assorted odours and thick with smoke from the smouldering fire in the huge inglenook set into one wall.
    â€˜What brings you back, Master Rimmer?’ his corpulent, raggedly dressed, toothless wife questioned.
    â€˜Just shurrup and get on wi’ your work! Or I’ll be giving you a dose o’ this.’ He growled and lifted his fist, and she cowered back, shielding her face with handfuls of rags. Rimmer hawked up a gob of phlegm and spat it on to her bowed head, then went out of the back door to unlock the padlocked bar on the door of the big windowless wooden shanty at the rear of the house.
    As the shanty door opened the mingled reeks of nauseous excretions and rotting flesh swirled out from the dark interior.
    Rimmer stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Reaching above his head he pulled a lever which opened a shutter in the roof. Daylight spilled through to disclose the row of cages along one wall, and several wooden frames of varying sizes, some with animal pelts stretched flesh side up across them.
    The light also bathed the thick roof beam from which four large dead dogs hung by nooses around their necks. Rimmer closely examined each in turn, carefully checking the elasticity of their hides. Then he made his selection, lifted a sharp knife from a stretching frame, lowered the chosen beast to a convenient height and began to expertly skin it.
    The subject of dogs was paramount in Tom’s mind as he completed his morning ablutions at the pump in the rear yard, and dried his head and upper body on rough towelling. Then he brushed his teeth with fine-powdered wood ash, swilled out his mouth and chewed a fresh sprig of parsley to freshen his breath.
    â€˜The Newfoundland breed is becoming fashionable, and no doubt a good young bitch might find a ready sale. But Bernese Mountain dogs? They’re a different matter altogether, and I doubt there’s a ready market for them.