There was Noah’s wife see-sawing on the merry-totter, with one of her female “gossips” rising and falling on the other end. It was a comic moment devised by the pageant master, and their lower smocks now billowed up to reveal their dirty undergarments; both of them were holding flasks, and were miming the words of a violent quarrel. Noah’s wife slid from the see-saw and began scratching the face of her gossip, to general laughter. When she saw Noah coming towards her with slow step, she hitched up her smock as if preparing herself for combat.
Oswald Koo, the reeve, had retreated to the cart-house before the mystery had begun; one of the carters had complained about the quality of the nails, and Koo wished to weigh and measure them for himself. There were also the instructions of Dame Agnes to be followed. He had cleared away the damaged straw and, just as Noah and his wife began to fight, he had walked carefully and quietly around the back of the stage. He did not wish to disturb the players, but he was convinced that the workmen had stolen some of his wood for the construction of their ark. He was searching for the mark of the convent, a hind outlined in red ink, on the edge of the planks. He had found nothing and, keeping out of sight of both players and audience, he crossed the end of the green and walked a little way down Turnmill Street. At which point he glimpsed something in Black Man Alley; it was leaning against the wall, but now it rose to its full height and turned to face him. It was more horrible than any dragon. It had the feet of a lizard, the wings of a bird, and the face of a young girl; it put its claws up to its face and, with a shriek, fled from him down the alley. The noise of the crowd on Clerkenwell Green could distinctly be heard, as it passed the fishpond and the bowling alley. What monster was this? It had not yet occurred to Oswald Koo that it might be some player in costume, perhaps in the part of one of Lucifer’s demons. Instead he had instantly recognised an image of damnation and judgement. He believed that the face he had glimpsed was that of Sister Clarice.
Eight months earlier he had followed her into the fields; he had been watching for her there, and waiting for her. When he saw Clarice leaving the mill, bearing two sacks, he asked if he might assist her. He gazed earnestly at her as he spoke and, refusing his help, she lowered her eyes.
“Well, sister, how do you?”
“Pretty good, God be thanked.”
“You like this life well enough?”
“I have known no other, Master Koo.”
“True enough. Ever since you were a child –” He stopped, fearing to speak. The years of silence then broke around him; he could keep quiet no longer. “I knew your mother, Clarice.”
“No one knew her.” She crossed herself, and stared down at the muddy earth of the field. As a child she had been told by Agnes de Mordaunt that she had been found, abandoned, upon the steps of the chapter-house.
“That is not true,” he said as gently as he dared. “She was once among us.”
“What is it that you mean? Among us?”
“She was of the order.”
“How do you know this, Oswald Koo?”
“I was under-bailiff to the convent then. I was a young man. With the heat of a young man. Her name was Alison.” He hesitated. “She was the chantress. She died in the travails of birth.” He walked away from her, and then returned out of breath. “Do you by any chance remember the tunnels?”
The story of the tunnels had reached her, even as a child, and she had often wondered why the other nuns treated her as if she were some unregarded piece of the convent itself. She did indeed recall some place of stone that seemed to her to be secret. It was full of wailing and of anger. She associated stone with tears and iniquity.
“I was a young man, as I said. Your mother and I – well, it was error. Accident.” He had copulated with Alison by the Fleet river. He could still recall with horror that moment when his thin leather yard-case, or prick sheath, had split and his seed had tumbled into the queynte of the young nun.
“I was the fruit of her womb?” Clarice remained very calm.
“I was your seed.”
“But you did not claim me. Or recognise me.”
“How could I? I was a servant here.”
“You did not love me then.” She still betrayed no feeling at all.
“Love you, Clarice? I did not know you. But I watched you grow up within the walls. The nuns were often harsh with you.”
“I know it. I was the token of sinfulness.”
“I suffered with you when you were beaten with candles. Yet I was uplifted when I heard you sing ‘O altitudo’ at vespers. I was proud of you then. No one knew that I was your father. Your birth was blamed on a monk hospitaller. So I never ceased praising you to Dame Agnes. I still pray each night for your soul to God and to the congregation of saints.”
“You may save your prayers for yourself. I have no need of them.” With a sigh Clarice put down the sacks of wheat. “Will you carry them to the cook-house?” was all she said.
She walked away across the field until she was out of his sight. Then she lay down upon the grass, and beat her fists against the earth. She was whispering, “Dear mother, let me in. Let me in.” It was the next day that she experienced the first of her visions.
When Oswald Koo saw the serpent with the child’s face, he feared it as some phantasm of the evil he had committed. He determined to follow its path even if, as he believed, it had no true outward form.
The reeve passed the fishpond, in which he saw his own guilty image hastening across the surface, and walked over the empty bowling green. The noise of the audience, a few yards to the north, was growing louder. He turned a corner – and stopped short. Sister Clarice and her monk, Brank Mongorray, were in earnest conversation. The monk stepped back in order to remonstrate with her, and the nun raised her hands as if in prayer. The only words he heard were “Ireland” and “bounty,” but he could not construe their sense. He had not talked to his daughter since his revelation in the field, and she had averted her eyes whenever they passed each other. It sometimes seemed to him that her voices and her prophesying were means of not talking to him. She gazed at him now and he heard her say, as if in a dream, “Noli me tangere.” He stepped out of sight, and retraced his steps to Turnmill Street.
When he returned to the green, two of Noah’s sons, Ham and Shem, were holding out painted images of the animals that were supposed to be entering the ark. There were two unicorns, two monkeys and two wolves as well as other creatures which seemed to have no name. Then Noah and Japhet entered with pairs of real beasts – two cows, two sheep, two oxen, two donkeys, two horses, which passed through a gap in the wooden front of the ark. The reeve observed them carefully, in case they were part of the convent’s stock. The ark was then rocked to and fro by several carpenters while painted cloths, depicting great seas and waves, were raised and shaken behind it. Eventually a great ribbon glued with painted feathers was held up, in token of the rainbow, and God once more walked out upon his stilts.
He was about to speak when a sudden movement within the crowd was followed by whistling and jeering. Some members of the audience ran out, screaming “Idols!” and “The devil’s images!” One of them rushed up to God and, to the crowd’s horror, knocked him off his stilts. Another took the gilded mask from God’s face and crushed it beneath his foot, crying out “Whoreson false face!” It seemed to the reeve that, at this point, the crowd became one living creature with a single purpose. It hurled itself against the assailants of the mystery. There were cries of “Loller!” and “Antichrist!” as the offenders were set upon and beaten. One man was hit with a hammer between the shoulders, and then struck in the face with the butt of a sword; another was stabbed with a long dagger known as a “misericord,” and died instantly.
The rage ended as soon as it had begun, but only two Lollards were left alive; their bones were broken, and their bodies bloody, but they still breathed. They were speedily committed to prison, where they soon died of their wounds. It was the only occasion, in this fearful year, when the Lol
lards were seen.
Chapter Ten
The Physician’s Tale
The prioress had fallen into a fever, or an ague, or a rheum, or she knew not what. She was sore sick, as she told everyone around her. She felt sorry and heavy. She sent her water in a flask to the physician of the convent so that he might, in her words, “understand his conceit upon it” and discover whether “I shall mend or mar.” By the same porter, who bore the urine, he sent back the message that she would prosper in this world if only she would eat shrimps. Shrimps recovered sickly and consumed persons because they were the most nimble, witty and skipping creatures; they also possessed the best juice for cures, although she should be sure to unscale them in order to vent their windiness from which lust and venery arise. The allusion to venery was taken by her as a personal insult.
On the recommendation of the nun’s priest, then, she consulted Thomas Gunter, a famous leech whose shop was in Bucklersbury. She sent him a letter listing her symptoms, among which were heaviness of stomach and mistiness of sight. He wrote back in a very elaborate hand. “Do you have marigolds? Only to look on marigolds, dear sister in God, is to strengthen the eyesight. Yet they must be picked when the moon is in the sign of the Virgin.” He added that “the juice of the marigold is very useful for the inflammation of the breasts,” but the prioress let her eye pass over that sentence. He was much discomfited by her heaviness of stomach, but suggested that she mix the grease of a boar and the grease of a rat, the grease of a horse and the grease of a badger, souse the concoction in vinegar, add sage, and then put it upon her belly. “I can write no more to you at this time, ma dame, but the Holy Ghost have you in his keeping. Written at London the Monday after Corpus Christi.” He added, in a postscript, that he did in fact possess a pot of the said stomach ointment if the dear sisters were unable to procure the necessary greases.
The wind changed in the night. It now came from the north, and was deemed to purge all evil vapours. Thus Dame Agnes had read in Cantica canticorum, “Rise up, north wind, and perfect my garden.” But the new air did not refresh her. She sent a message to Master Gunter asking whether he would be so courteous and so gentle as to visit the convent “where you will find a suffering body.” He arrived on horseback three hours later.
Thomas Gunter was a small man, who seemed physically overwhelmed by the furred hood and robe of his profession. He moved quickly – as if he were on wheels, Dame Agnes said later – and his bright eyes quickly took in all the details of her gestures and appearance. The prioress was sitting in a high-backed chair when he was escorted by Idonea into her chamber. He kissed her ring, and glanced at the plate beside her. “Shrimps? What are shrimps doing here, ma dame?” He had a quick and lively voice, like that of a bird in a cage. “A fish with this flesh hurts sick people excessively. It nourishes bitter humours.”
“I was advised –”
“Do you not know that a tame beast is better for sick people than a wild one? You need a carp from your pond, dear lady, not a shrimp from the sea-shore.” The prioress’s monkey was fingering Gunter’s leather satchel, in which he kept all the tools of his craft. “Have patience, dear Adam,” he whispered to it. “All shall be revealed. Tell me somewhat about your humours, my lady.”
“Melancolius.” The prioress gave a little burp, and covered her mouth. “A portion phlegmaticus.”
“Then I shall not cup you.”
“I wish you would purge me, Master Gunter. I feel some noisome matter sitting within me. I cannot sleep.”
“I have pills which can provoke sleep. Tell your nuns to go to the dove-house. The dung of doves is a soporific when it is applied to the soles of the feet.”
“Do you have that ointment which you wrote me of?”
“I have considered further, and I am not sure that its natural virtue fits your case. Give me room and space to wonder.” He opened the satchel. “The prison of your melancholy lies in your spleen.” He brought out an earthenware jar. “This medicine is good, since it purges the humour of those night places. Do you drink much milk?”
“I have that weakness.”
“It is good. Excellent. Milk is very good for melancholy. Abstain from hazelnuts. They discomfort the brain. But eat green ginger. It quickens the memory, and may yet make you gay.”
“My memory is not of gay things, Master Gunter. I have my burdens.”
“Nevertheless, good prioress, I heartily recommend it to you. Indulge in eggs also. Poached eggs are best at night. New roasted eggs are good in the morning, with a little salt and sugar. This is not a hard diet, you see. It is full easy. And remember this, my lady. If you be unobedient or unpatient to my commandings, you may fall into a full great peril. May I?” He put his hand upon the tips of her fingers. “Rose oil is needed to heat you here.” He took from his satchel a little glass vase. “Before you lie down to sleep, you must lay this stuff upon your stomach with as even a stroke as you can.”
“What is it?”
“It is a mixture of my devising. There is horse dung here, that is called lutum sapien. Together with the powder of burnt hen’s feathers and the fur of a hare. It is dry to the fourth degree.” He held up the vase for her inspection. “As it comes from diverse bodies, so it works in diverse complexions.”
The prioress sighed. “Do your cunning on me. All is mixed beneath the moon.”
“Then beware of pissing in draughts.”
“I never thought of pissing in draughts.”
A short while after this exchange, Thomas Gunter rode out of the convent. He was indeed glad to be gone, since his healing would be affected if he were in the company of menstruating women. He had not seen the young nun, about whom so many scandalous reports had circulated, but he feared the taint of her blood. He had wanted to question the prioress about her, but her melancholy and evident exhaustion had persuaded him to remain silent on what must have been an unhappy subject. He turned his horse towards Smithfield, and within a few minutes had arrived in his neighbourhood; he crossed the Walbrook at St. Stephen’s Bridge, and turned down Bucklersbury. He lived among other druggists and herbalists, and in the shop next to his own he noticed a display of the dried flower known as “Hallelujah”; it was so named because it blossomed in the period between Easter and Whitsuntide, when the one hundred and seventeenth psalm was sung, but Thomas Gunter was more interested in its curative properties. It was known as a sure antidote to cramps and seizures, and the physician made frequent use of it. The druggist was watching him from his doorway as he dismounted. “God be with you and his cross comfort you, Thomas.”
“You are pious this morning.”
“I have been proclaiming. Hallelujah!” Robert Skeat, the druggist, was well known for his somewhat ironic attitude towards the Church’s devotions. “I trust to be saved.”
“In God’s time, I hope. What do you have for me at present?”
“I can give you spurge laurel for the flux. And the ground ivy to stop bleeding.” Skeat was smiling as he spoke, almost as if he did not credit his own words. “Here is corncockle, Thomas –”
“Agrostemma.”
“If you say so, leech. For those who will not shit, I believe. And here is mayweed.”
“Which smells like shit. I gave some to Goodwife Kello only last evening.”
“All her matter comes out of one hole. Lord, is she a chattermouth.”
“There is no cure for that, alas.” Thomas Gunter was about to enter his house – his hall and solar were built above his shop – when a tall man dressed in a grey cloak approached him. “Is it you, Lambert? Why muffle yourself on the edge of summer? Excessive heat will provoke the piles.”
“It is not so warm in the pits, sir.” Lambert was one of the gaolers in the Poultry Street compter; he had a wide hat, which he took off as he entered Gunter’s shop. “You know why I have come.”
“Is it fresh?”
“It died yesterday night. A Loller. It was taken at the Clerkenwell rumble. It has yellow hair.”
/> “The more hot a man is, the more hair he will have.”
“I will have five shillings.”
“So much? For a body that none will wish to bury?”
“Five shillings. Yellow hair.”
It was well known to Gunter, and to others, that a corpse with yellow hair was of enormous efficacy. The body must have been killed, however, and not died from some disease. The flesh was then cut to pieces and placed in a powder of myrrh and aloes; it was imbibed for twenty-four hours in the spirit of wine and turpentine, and then hung in a shadowy place where it would dry and would not stink. The flesh then became an excellent adjunct to Thomas Gunter’s surgery, since it congealed flowing blood and helped to close wounds. It also helped to assuage the stinging of serpents and the biting of mad dogs. “When can you bring it to me?”
“After curfew.”
The body was indeed that of a Lollard who had been taken as a result of the riot during the Clerkenwell mystery; he had died in the gaol in Poultry Street, from a wound delivered to him by the parish clerk of St. Benet Fink with the aid of a wooden staff tipped with iron. He had not died in mercy, since no priest was willing to shrive him. No one would care what happened to the body of a heretic; Lambert need only say that, for fear of infection, he had tipped him into the lime-pit outside the walls.
That evening, two men could be seen carrying a sack across the Walbrook. It was not heavy work, and Lambert refused Gunter’s offer of wine. He looked angrily at his companion, Nicholay, who on principle accepted a drink of any description. They stood uneasily in the leech’s shop, their burden thrust on a bench in the corner, among bottles and phials, boxes and flasks, parchments and skulls of small beasts. They had little to say to one another.
“That wart is ripe for cutting.” Gunter was looking at Nicholay’s neck.
“Now, Master Gunter?” Nicholay seemed suddenly anxious.
“No. Not now. It is not the month for the neck. Taurus is the sign for neck and throat. A surgeon, Nicholay, may not cut any member of a man’s body until the moon is in its proper sign. Take your head.” Nicholay did not know how to accede to this request. “Aries, which is a fiery sign, moderately dry, governs the head with all its contents.”
The Clerkenwell Tales Page 9