They had come up now to the pleasant mount, and in the neighbouring fields the beasts of the village were still grazing on the stubble. The wheat and the rye had been sown, and a large wooden statue of the Virgin placed in the fields in order to invoke a good harvest. Coke Bateman, the miller, was kneeling before it. “Tell me,” said Magga, “of the strange folk of the earth.”
He was distracted for a moment by a bend in the river, which now turned north-westward towards the woods. “The men of Caffolos hang their friends, when they be dying, upon trees. They say that it is better that the birds, who are the angels of God, should eat them rather than the foul worms of the earth.” Magga was listening intently. “On another island, Tracoda by name, the men eat the flesh of serpents. They live in caves and do not speak, but hiss as serpents do.”
“Is it possible?”
“All things are possible under the moon.”
“As Hendyng says.”
They laughed at this. The phrase “as Hendyng says” or “quoth Hendyng” was current in London, as a way of concluding some line of wit or wisdom. “Friendless are the dead, quoth Hendyng” was a favourite expression, together with “Never tell your foe that your foot aches, quod Hendyng” and “Hendyng says, better to give an apple than to eat an apple.” Magga had been trailing her hand in the water. “Do you know how to catch a fish in your fingers?” the shipman asked her. She took out her hand quickly, as if she had been caught in some act of trespass. “You take saffron and frankincense, and mix them together. Then put the powder on your finger which has the gold ring.”
“This one?”
“Yus. Wash your finger beside both banks of the river. Then the fishes will come into your hand.”
“Is that so, Gilbert?”
“Who learns when young never forgets.”
“Quoth Hendyng.”
The shipman began to sing, as the barge passed under a wooden bridge that seemed to be of ancient construction:
“I am an hare, I am no hart,
Once I flee I let a fart.
You can see by my hood
My heart is naught, my head is wood.”
He stopped singing, and began humming the tune. They passed another windmill, on the western bank; a small pond had been created there, and the bright beaks of the ducks were darting in and out of the water. Drago, the canon’s yeoman, was lying there asleep. Gilbert began to tell Magga of the men without heads, whose eyes and mouths grew from their backs; he told her of a race of people with ears so big that they brushed the ground. There was a tribe of dwarves in Africa who gathered all their nourishment from the smell of wild apples; if they travel, and lose the smell of them, they die. In the land of Prester John there was a sea of gravel and of salt without any drop of water; it ebbs and flows in great waves, as other seas do, and it is never still. There was a faraway land entirely shrouded in darkness; its neighbours dare not enter it, for fear of its night, but they can hear from within this shadowland the voices of men as well as the sound of bells pealing and of horses neighing. “But they do not know what kind of folk they may be who dwell within it.”
“London folk. If it be dark enough. There was a mist yesternight which I could not see through.”
They had come up to the holy well of Chad; various pilgrims were going in and out of the little stone chapel, and Gilbert waved to them. Some of them waved back, and one young woman raised her crutch in greeting. Jolland, the monk of Bermondsey, was reciting his rosary behind her. “It is a hard road to Paradise,” Gilbert said.
“It marvels me that you have not sailed there.”
“Oh no. No man that is mortal can approach it, although many have tried. Its rivers run so rudely and so sharply, and come down from such high places, that no ship may row or sail against them. The water roars so and makes such a huge noise that no man can be heard, even if he is in the same ship. Many men have died for weariness of rowing against the strong waves. Many have become deaf from the noise of the water. Some have been lost overboard and have perished.”
“A good life will bear them there the quicker.”
“So it is said, Magga. But who can be good upon this troubled earth?”
They were passing the church of St. Pancras, where the altar of Augustine had been laid, and were coming close to the remains of the ancient woodland of the region; wild service, herb paris and wood anemone grew in abundance. The citizens of London still came for timber here, where areas of wood survived in the northern heights. There seemed to be a log floating in the water but, as the shipman drew close to it, he let out a loud “Halloo!” It was a man floating two or three yards from the barge. With his pole he steered it closer, and then bent down to haul the body on to the deck. The boy at the stern jumped quickly over the sacks of coal to view this unexpected find. Magga and Gilbert peered closely at the face. Then she crossed herself and began to pray, “We beg thee, O Lord, to receive the soul of your servant.”
Earlier that day, just as dawn had washed the woods of Kentystone in red, Thomas Gunter had ridden among the trees. He was curious about the letter which had suggested so much without stating any particular thing. Could it have been sent by Miles Vavasour himself? Or was it Bogo the summoner, ready to divulge more? Gunter ducked beneath the spreading branches as the hooves of his horse made a hollow sound upon the earthen floor. It had begun to rain, and the drops pattered down upon the leaves and fern as he rode beneath the canopy of sequestered light. There were patches of mist, in the groves and glades within this great wood, and the liquid notes of the birds created for Gunter what his favourite poet called “the bower of bliss.” William Exmewe was waiting for him, huddled beside an ancient oak. He had his dagger beneath his cloak. He had grasped its handle tightly as soon as he heard the horse approaching. Just as it was about to pass he sprang out, shrieking “Ho!” The horse reared, and threw Gunter to the ground. Exmewe stabbed its flank, and with a bellow it galloped away.
“When you see me you know me,” Exmewe shouted.
Gunter was too shaken to reply; he had bruised his left thigh, and injured his wrist, in the fall.
“Do you know me?” Exmewe shouted again.
“I have never seen you in life.” Gunter wept for pain in the green shade.
“Oh I have seen you. Or I have smelled you. I know your devices, leech.”
“What have I done to you, man?”
“What is that you leeches say? Cure or kill? Make or mar? Heal or harm? Well, you were close to harming all.”
“I cannot –”
“I am with Henry, soon to be highest of all. In his name Dominus has done its work.”
“Work?”
“You jangled about the churches. You jangled about the circles. You did not make. You marred.”
Gunter now understood. “Bogo saw the circles.”
“Do you not know from Holy Scripture that chaos must come before creation?” Exmewe laughed out loud. “With Richard gone, we can begin anew.” He leant over Gunter with his dagger. “And yet, for some, the day of doom is close at hand. This is for your curiosity, leech.” With one movement he slit Gunter’s throat. He wiped the dagger upon his cloak, and put it back in its scabbard. Then he dragged the body of the little physician through the moss and the bracken towards the Fleet which, in this place, was deep and fast-running.18 He rolled it down the bank. Very gently, it slipped into the water. When Magga and Gilbert found Thomas Gunter, a few hours later, his features were still fresh.
Chapter Twenty-one
The Parson’s Tale
John Ferrour was telling his beads in the chapel of Westminster Palace. He was a devout man, now grave in middle age, who for eighteen years had been Henry Bolingbroke’s priest and private confessor. He had been a priest of the Tower in 1381, at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt, and had then saved young Henry’s life.
The fifteen-year-old Bolingbroke had taken refuge in the Beauchamp Tower, in one of the stone “apartments” which were generally given to noble prison
ers, and Ferrour had been asked to comfort and advise him. “And David thereof bears witness,” he told him, “where he says, Laqueum paraverunt pedibus meis. They have delivered a snare for my feet. You must walk carefully through this trouble. David also says, I am turned in my anguish while the thorn is fastened in me. But the thorn can be plucked out.”
“Why all this talk of David when you see before you suffering Henry?”
From the narrow windows, no more than slits for arrows, priest and fugitive could see the rebels running up to the Tower. Some clandestine elements within the fortress were even then drawing down the bridge, but many of the rioters were so eager to enter the building that they swam across its moat. There were cries of alarm within, and then screams for help. The boy king, Richard, had already ridden out to Mile End in order to parley with the main company of rebels; in his absence from the Tower, the disaffected mob had come to plunder and kill those who remained. Ferrour could hear heavy footsteps mounting the circular stairway of the Beauchamp Tower. He took off Bolingbroke’s richly embroidered doublet, and with his knife ripped it to shreds. Then with a piece of charcoal he made dirty marks upon the boy’s throat and arms. Bolingbroke wailed and put his hands across his face as if he might blot out his own image. There was a straw mattress on the floor of the cell; Ferrour asked him to lie upon it and pray. “Rely upon the bounty of God,” was all he said, before opening the thick wooden door and stepping out on to the stone landing. From the stairway came the sound of roaring, with no distinguishable words, and within a few seconds there appeared a tall man in a threadbare doublet wielding a sword.
Ferrour put out his arms. “Christ keep you in His holy keeping. We look for deliverance.”
“Who do you hold in there?” Two other rioters had joined him, and peered at Bolingbroke lying very still upon the mattress. “What little mouse is this?”
“The son of a poor prisoner immured on the orders of the king himself. The father is but lately fled, leaving behind his child who is sick. Come closer. Look at the tokens of that sickness.”
They did not move. “The death?”
“The very same. The pestilence.”
“To kill him would be to cure him.”
“Oh, my masters –” This was a happy choice of phrase, which seemed to cheer the ragged men. “Consider well. Reflect what horrible peril there is in the sin of murder, what an abominable sin it is in the sight of heaven. It is the very full forsaking of God. Come.” The priest put out his hand, but they stepped back. “Approach the bed. Kill the lamb. Heap up in your hearts a dunghill of sin. Then kill me, for I will not shrive you. The blood will be too hot upon your hands. And remember this. You may send your soul out naked to Him no man can tell how soon.”
His eloquence disturbed them. They spat upon the floor, looked at one another, and then retreated down the stairway.
Thus John Ferrour entered the service of young Bolingbroke as his confessor.
He had listened to the voice of Henry’s conscience through intrigue and rebellion, peace and war. He had heard him whispering of avarice and of lust, of pride and of envy. He had raped a young girl; he had stabbed in anger a bedfellow. Nothing, however, had prepared Ferrour for this moment. Only two hours before, his master had been acclaimed king of England in the parliament house.
He had heard the cheering as Henry left Westminster Hall. At that moment Ferrour had clutched his rosary to his chest, pinching the wooden beads until the tips of his fingers burned. Henry had acquired his throne by rebellion and conquest, not through divine right. He had not confessed as much, but had murmured to the parson about the realm’s undoing and Richard’s bad laws. He had told his confessor about his duty, but he had never once mentioned the promptings of avarice or ambition. But Ferrour could see into his heart. He knew the depths of sinfulness to be found there. Would he himself be caught in the snares of mortal sin, if he remained silent about these matters? Was he giving the new king his tacit blessing, and blinding them both to God’s law?
Someone knelt down beside him. He sensed unease and sin. What man was this, for whom Henry’s guards had made way? He turned, and recognised Miles Vavasour; the sergeant-at-law had worked on behalf of Bolingbroke in several pressing matters of feoffment and jointure.
“I am in great heaviness, father. I am alone as I was born.”
“Do you wish to give me words in secreta confessione?”
“Yes. May my last hour be my best hour.”
“Benedicite fili mi Domine.” Before he heard his confession, he pulled his hood over his eyes. “Is your repentance unfeigned?”
“It is, father.”
“Are you consumed with sorrowfulness that you are such a damnable sinner?”
“I am.”
“Do you believe that Christ will forgive you and receive you into mercy?”
“I do.”
“And furthermore do you promise to offer satisfaction and make amends by doing holy works unto God?”
“Yes, father.”
“Then confess, my son, with contrite heart.”
“Oh most holy and devout father,” Vavasour bowed his head, “I have been homely and familiar with evil men.” The sergeant then told the parson about the activities of the predestined men. He told him of their leader, William Exmewe, the sub-prior of St. Bartholomew. He claimed that he had previously said nothing, for the sake of his friendship with Exmewe. He made no allusion, however, to the assembly known as Dominus, which had stirred up unrest and sacrilege to snatch the new king’s victory.
When he had travelled to Westminster Hall that morning, to take part in the debate, Vavasour had no intention of confessing. But he had been stopped outside the chapter-house by the clerk, Emnot Hallyng, who had run beside his horse and shouted to him, “You are taken with enemies you cannot see.”
He reined in his horse. “How is this?”
“I swear that the matter of this information is true, Sir Miles. One man is casting a plot against you.”
“Are you in earnest or in game?”
“In deathly earnest.”
“Which man is it you speak of?”
“William Exmewe.”
“Exmewe? He is –”
“One of your confederacy? I suspected so.”
As the sergeant dismounted, Emnot Hallyng silently made the connection between Exmewe and the men who met in the round tower.
“Companionship is no vice,” Vavasour was saying. “And in every proof there must be two witnesses at the least.”
“You are deep in law, I know, but the truth is deeper. Exmewe has asked me to encompass your death with poison. He does not trust you to keep his secreta secretorum.”
“The lion always sits in ambush.”
“He is no lion. He is the smiler with the knife under his cloak. He has dark imaginings. I know him.”
“Tell me this. Are you one of the foreknown men?”
“Do you know about us?” The sergeant-at-law nodded very quickly. “This is all Exmewe’s contriving. He has played both the hands.”
Emnot Hallyng now knew what he had before suspected: Exmewe had been leading the predestined men into a trap, at the behest of certain high men, and he would very soon betray them. The clerk feared for himself, too. Exmewe was no doubt planning to have him taken up after the murder of Vavasour. Exmewe himself would play checkmate.
“Answer me another question.” Vavasour was very grim. “Why does Exmewe contrive my death?”
“He suspects some bond between you and one Gunter, a leech and a gabbler.”
“But the leech is dead.”
“What? How so?”
“He was found within the Fleet. Stabbed foully.”
“His spirit has changed house?”
“Is that what your new men say?” The sergeant did not wait for an answer. “The one who maimed him has fled. There is no trace.”
“Believe me, sir, this is Exmewe’s doing. He will try to attach this stabbing to you. You have five wits. Us
e them. He plans to destroy you, and this death will continue his purpose marvellously.”
It was then that the sergeant, fearful for his life, decided to betray Exmewe to Henry Bolingbroke’s confessor.
He could not expect an audience with Henry himself, so soon after his seizure of power; but Ferrour could be asked to pass on his report by word of mouth. William Exmewe would then be arrested, with the other predestined men. Vavasour might even earn merit from the new king by uncovering the confederacy of the foreknown; thus Dominus would remain hidden under the leaf, in which secure place the king would no doubt prefer it to be kept.
“Wherefore I pray you as heartily as I can,” the sergeant murmured to Ferrour, who had just heard his confession, “that you will diligently take heed of my words, and send to our good lord Henry my plain sayings. I trust to God in the great confusion and shame of all these false judging and miscreant persons.”
“I shall share your information with my good lord, and with God’s grace he will so deal with them that they shall not all be well pleased. At such a time a king must know his friends and his foes asunder.”
“Surely.”
“These things I will to no man utter but to him. But what of you, Miles Vavasour?”
“I end it thus, since I can do no more. I give it up for now and evermore.”
“And do you repent?”
“I repent me heartily that in times past I have groped after a wrong way, dark, crooked, hard and endless.”
“Do you speak as a true and faithful man?”
“You may hang me by the heels if it be not so.”
“So may you still reach the everlasting bliss of heaven.”
“That is worth more than a penny.” The sergeant was greatly relieved, and with some difficulty rose from his knees.
“Yet it may well be likened to a penny for the roundness that betokens everlastingness, and for the blessed sight of the king’s face that is upon the penny.” He stopped for a moment. “Our coming king, at the least.”
The Clerkenwell Tales Page 19