John the Posthumous by Jason Schwartz Page B

if not the goats—was a lesser concern.
    There they were, in bleak attire.
    A flaying blade appears as ornament in certain doc uments, and also as the sign of Saint Bartholomew—flayed alive, by all accounts, and now drawn without a face.
    In some later cases, furthermore, the murderer would engrave the blade with a particular figure. A spire meant the left eye, and a lance the right. A pitchfork or an orphan pin—one of these, I believe, meant the heart. Organ knives were designed for the windpipe, the lungs, the intestines, and so on. While the bed knife—sometimes called a pale or a picket, after the fashion of the more lavish axes—was an indication of shame, in every case. Hold it this way, at night, and it resembles the neck. Have the shadows as you prefer them. The maul sword, for the cleaving of limbs, was said to die as we do. A strange notion, that, given the location of the gouge—rather green from across the room—and given the hilt in the light.
    The ridge is blue, like the wound—but easy to mistake for a stain. A black emblem, to the left of the fault, shows the town’s arms and, in the background, a pattern of animals. The spine reflects a portion of flesh.
    The man stands at the window, the woman at the bed.
    A knife box of the period—in locust or elm—might display the family name. Calfskin would conceal the nails. Hinges of the spike type—shot copper instead of low brass—were believed to carry plague. Is ours without a proper lock? It might sit atop a red table, near the Queen Anne chairs. Open, it might resemble an urn. There were usually two, in those days, side by side—unhappy as that sounds. The wrought-iron rings were another great regret. While battle-scabbards were often missing from the narratives altogether—despite the matter of the beadle and the chambermaid, stabbed at last in a church tower.
    T he family is far away. Ornament, according to one argument, portends death. And bedposts of this kind, I suspect, are better suited to other rooms. Do you approve of the birds in the bureau drawer? The wool presents a flaw all its own. The bedsheet is embroidered with hornets—or spotted with blood. The gown is torn. Does the knife hide politely? Brown ants cover the hands, the outline traced with dye.

THREE
     
    C onveyance of the remains: in coffins.
    These are adorned with various forms. The likeness of a child—most notably—or an overturned rowboat. The hanging features a three-legged mare, which gives way, in later examples, to a simpler figure.
    The drop, at Newgate, 1783.
    Two posts and a crossbeam, a five-foot trap, and a scaffold covered with haircloth or drill. The veil always acquits itself quite well. Ox-carts travel hither and yon.
    A balcony gallows may help dignify things a bit, despite the maulings in the courtyard.
    A roadside gibbet, for its part, makes little accom modation for the sounds in a house.
    The long drop, at Lincoln, 1872.
    This effects a broken neck, yes. Or, as in the hangings of—among others—Mr. Adams and Mrs. Brown, decapitation. Shrikes may imply a later occasion in a summer month.
    But to retrieve ourselves from distraction, please.
    The coffins: four across.
    Blue is appropriate for a battle or a strangling, though a fire is more likely. A drowning, in this case, requires clouts at the partition. A betrayal requires an elm floor, rotted through.
    The Murder Act of 1752 excludes the carriage and the roofline.
    Mr. Twitchell—having stabbed to death Mrs. Twitchell—hangs at Penton in June. The hood is a white cap, in fact, with three defects. The dissection is performed at Surgeons’ Hall.
    There follows a quiet fall on a gravel walk.
    The Anatomy Act of 1830 excludes the attendants, two and two.
    The steps—at Bristol, at Vickers, at Westgate—are painted red. At Hackett, the sexton stands at a rail. A ladder, by contrast, would imply a schoolroom or a barracks.
    A winding-sheet would imply contagion, despite the burlap sacks at the