Chapter 2
There were ten women in the Nunnery on the day that Thomas Olocher was sentenced to hang, though they had no idea that he was going to be housed amongst them until the cart carrying him pulled up outside in the rain. The Nunnery was in the basement of the Black Dog and there were windows at street level where the women could see outside. Even at the best of times, they had to stand well clear of the barred slots; the contents of the running sewers along the side of the road would seep in through the natural drain the windows provided, leaving the air in the basement dungeon as putrid as any tavern toilet. After the women were granted their freedom, it took a few days to rid the ammonia smell. Today, with the terrible downpours, there was a stream of filth sluicing through, and most of the floor inside the Nunnery was slick with all kinds of street and human waste.
Kate O’Leary, who went by Kitty to some, was huddled amongst the other women at the corner farthest from the windows, on a pile of hay. A sodden barrier of clothes held the dank liquids back from the edge of the hay. Kate was very small and was quite warm between the heavier bodies of the other women around her. Her mousy brown hair was unwashed and greasy, and her pale face looked tired and drawn, her cheekbones very prominent below shrunken eye sockets. She was a pretty girl, but her prettiness was hard to see at this moment. Her deep blue eyes had a terrible sorrow in them as she looked about at her current predicament.
This was her first time in the Black Dog, and she was not here for the owing of debts. The self-righteous Parish Watch had grabbed her from the clutches of a customer in a lane off Fishamble Street a few nights previous and had presented her at the gates for incarceration. The Nunnery was a local name for the basement dungeon where prostitutes were thrown from time to time. They were never arrested but instead were rounded up by puritan or displeased Parish Watchmen, who never had to resort to selling their bodies in exchange for food in their bellies or a place to sleep. They were hypocrites into the bargain; Kate recognised one of the men who’d brought her here as a customer from a few weeks ago.
The women would be housed in the cell for a few days, generally, with no formal charges brought against them, and then they would be cast out as more were shipped in or when someone paid for them to get out (which didn’t happen very often). It was often said that things were much easier back in Gaoler Hawkins’s day, when a quick handy or suck would have you back on the streets that same evening.
The current gaoler, James Brick (known by the ladies as Jimmy the Prick), was a different breed of animal, though, and he was not swayed by such carnal bribes. He made sure that the women who came under his charge did not enjoy their time at this establishment. It was he who had decided that the women could spend their time in the sewer-running dungeon; they were scum, after all, as he reasoned, and the rest of his clientele were just good fellows a little down on their luck and owing a few bob here and there. Earlier in the year, Brick had put fear into the women by saying that they should be careful about accepting the offers of men to pay for them to get out: Thomas Olocher himself had paid for a girl to get out, and they all knew how she had ended up.
Kate drew some measure of satisfaction once she realised why Brick’s face was so ashen that morning. There was a sense of poetic justice that he would have Olocher himself under his guard. The fear in his face was scrawled as plainly as any picture pamphlet. Still, it was no joy for the women to share a building with this hater of their species, and Kate was glad that they all had to huddle in this corner to escape the sewer water and that she could nestle safely in the mass of women.
They heard the cart arrive and the gates opening. There was some chat, and then somebody shouted something, and there was laughter, but still they were not sure what was happening. It was only after the gates were closed that they knew that someone was being escorted to one of the tower cells. Someone in shackles—they could hear the jingling metal and the halted steps and the chains pinging off the smooth stone steps of the stairs.
One of the women asked their own guard at the door who was being brought up the stairs to the good rooms. The guard turned and looked with pity at the women, and it was this look that terrified the girls and told them before he answered who it was. There was immediate uproar.
“He can’t be here in the same place that women are!”
“Oh, Mother of Christ, we’ll all be killed!”
“You have to let us out of here! You have to!”
“Ladies, I’d advise you to be quiet, or there will be trouble,” the guard said in a harsh whisper.
“There’s already trouble—Olocher is here!”
“Be quiet before the gaoler comes back down, for your own sakes, women,” he said to them.
There was no letup in the pleading and cursing, and the gaoler did indeed come down after a time. He went into the cell, and the women drew back from him as he slapped at them to be quiet.
“What’s all the fuckin’ racket in here?” he asked, looking about wildly at them. Kate was afraid to say anything now, but some of the other women didn’t hold back.
“We have to be let out. We can’t be under the same roof as him,” one of them said.
“You’re safe down here” the gaoler said, “and you won’t be going anywhere. You lot are no better than him, anyway.”
At this, the women protested loudly. Kate as well, for she did not appreciate at all being lumped in with a twisted killer such as Olocher. The gaoler didn’t say anything back to them; he just lashed out. He slapped those closest to him across the face and kicked them over in the slime on the floor before turning and leaving the cell with its crying and trembling inhabitants.
“Don’t feed them tonight!” he said to the guard as he walked out.