by Robert Irwin
Because he has drunk so much of the hippocras, a wine that is spiced with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and pepper, Anthony is a little dizzy and he promptly replies, ‘A horse.’
Whereupon the conversation is suddenly at an end. He is about to add ‘a very handsome horse’, when he becomes aware that there is a sudden hush in the hall.
A man has brushed past the attendants at the door and he advances on the King. His face is very dark and he is dressed from head to foot in white; from the hat trimmed in white ermine to the white leather boots. Only his falconer’s gauntlet is thick with dried blood.
Without ceremony he says, ‘I have come for the falcon.’
And he walks round Edward’s table and proceeds to hood the gerfalcon and then unties the jesses on the perch. The company at the royal table are silent, fascinated and perhaps a little afraid. With the gerfalcon on his wrist the strange intruder marches towards the door. He is almost there when Edward calls out, ‘Stop! Who are you? Give me your name.’
Though the man stops, he does not trouble to turn round, but his booming voice can be clearly heard. It is as if he speaks not with his tongue but from within his innards as if from a large empty jar.
‘I am Hellequin.’
Edward looks puzzled.
‘What business do you have with my falcon?’
‘The bird was sent to Lord Scales as a sign, but now I am taking it back to its true master.’
And with that Hellequin is gone. The room erupts with applause and much thumping on the tables. The diners are delighted with the strange and original tableau that the King has arranged for them, yet Edward looks dismayed. The Lords Rivers and Fauconberg rise from their tables and go to confer in low voices with Edward. Then Anthony is summoned before the royal table.
Edward whispers without preamble,
‘I thought I recognised that man, though I was so young when I last saw him, but your father here and Fauconberg both confirm my guess. That Hellequin was my father’s Master of the Hunt. But yet he has been dead these twelve years.’ And, turning to Rivers, Edward continues, ‘Your son has brought an accursed thing into my palace. Hellequin was his name and this is a hellish business, which we must dress up as best we may.’ Then Edward whispers angrily to Anthony, ‘Come Scales and stand beside me while I speak to our company and smile as I smile.’
And Edward drains his goblet and puts on a smile before rising to speak and the diners once again fall silent.
‘We have heard from our good chaplain that Pentecost is a day of marvels and so it is and it will be again from this year on.’ He puts his arm round Anthony’s shoulder, before continuing, ‘This evening it is Lord Scale’s adventure and it shall be his quest to reclaim that bird for me. And now I recall that it was at such a Pentecostal feast as this in the days of Arthur that the Grail was last seen in England. It entered Arthur’s hall with a cracking and crying of thunder and every knight was struck dumb when he saw it veiled and lit by the grace of the Holy Ghost and then it was suddenly gone and never seen again in our lands. But on each Pentecost that is to come from now on there shall be a challenge and a quest as it was in the days of Arthur and as it was in those days there shall be a brotherhood of arms and chivalry. Our adventures and deeds of arms shall be written down for later generations to marvel at. In Arthur’s day there was the Brotherhood of the Round Table, but in these modern times the Order of the Garter shall be refashioned to serve the same purpose. I believe that it is fully thirty years since there was last a joust at Smithfield and the art of managing a lance and a destrier have been all but forgotten, so that now we only read about these things in books. This must change and I will make them change. Things in England have not been right since the rebellion of Mordred, but I propose with your loyal help to establish a new Camelot. England, which is most prosperous when at war, shall be great again and reclaim the lands that are rightfully English in France and Ireland. And… I have said enough and now I will have another drink.’
Edward sits down abruptly and dismisses Anthony who returns to his table.
Towards noon on the following day Anthony sits on the ground at the edge of Sergeant Raker’s tiltyard that is just to the south of Charing Cross. This morning he has practised briefly against the quintain, a wooden figure in the shape of a Turk bearing a sword, which, if the jouster’s lance hits it at the wrong angle, will revolve to whack the jouster on the back. Then, after Black Saladin has been led away, Anthony has spent hours plunging his sword again and again into a large heap of wet clay and then drawing it out. So now he is weary and aches all over and the sun is high. He has thrown off his sweat-drenched shirt. A shadow falls over him and he looks up to find William Lord Hastings standing in front of him. Hastings is accompanied by a young man in the robe of an Augustinian canon.
The young man crouches down to be on a level with Anthony and plucks at the figurine that hangs from a chain round Anthony’s neck, and, when he speaks, it is with a strong northern accent, so that Anthony struggles to follow what he is saying.
‘Lead. I thought that it would be lead’, the young man says. ‘Lustreless prime matter, under Saturn the ruler of the dead. This metal offers limitation, restraint, protection. But you probably know that. I am so very glad to have met you. You will do very well.’
Then abruptly the man stands erect again and Anthony staggers to his feet and he and Hastings engage in a kind of mock embrace, Hastings being careful not to get any of Anthony’s sweat on his doublet.
‘My dear Lord Scales, your father told us that we would find you here,’ says Hastings. ‘I am come from the King. But we cannot talk here, for there are too many curious ears.’
Many of the knights in the tiltyard have paused in their training and look on, curious to know what could have brought the King’s Lord High Chamberlain to this rundown establishment. Anthony leads Hastings and his companion up the ramshackle stairs to an inner gallery from where they may look down on the other knights riding against the quintain, hefting lances, fencing with batons, doing press-ups and other exercises.
Hastings resumes, ‘My dear Lord Scales, I am come from the King. I am sorry that what I have to say will not please you. I am truly sorry. It is this. The quest that everyone now supposes that you will be on, it must not succeed. The King does not want the accursed bird back and he fears lest his future feasts may be attended by dead men who want to lay claim to what they say is theirs. So the King commands you that next Pentecost you will attend the feast and there you will have to confess your failure. I am heartily sorry for this. We must see if we can find some other way for you to prove yourself. That is all my message and I now have business elsewhere. But you must be aware that there are questions concerning you. The King asks what have you to do with the dead man who was once a Master of the Hunt? Also there are rumours that the ghost of the Earl of Wiltshire has been seen at Scales Hall.’
Hastings smiles reassuringly, before concluding, ‘But I give these rumours little credence for I have no belief in ghosts.’
Though Anthony says nothing, he is not surprised by the King’s message. He had expected something like this. And besides he had no wish to seek out a gerfalcon in some realm of the dead. Still he is saddened that he does not enjoy Edward’s favour.
Now Hastings gestures to the Augustinian canon, ‘This is George Ripley. He has become the royal alchemist, since Edward met him on the field of Towton. We all have to listen to what he says.’
Hastings raises his eyebrows, before continuing, ‘After a battle, apart from the common looters crawling over the field to see what they can steal from the slain, there are usually also a few alchemists who move among the corpses and pop out their eyeballs to bottle them for their elixirs. So of course Ripley was there with his bottles. I ask myself what does the King need an alchemist for? It is all stinks, explosions, snake oil and glass bottles containing dead babies… Euurrgh!’
And Hastings shakes himself like a dog, before smiling at Ripley to show th
at he is not serious and that he does not mean to be offensive and Ripley smiles back, for he is not offended.
‘Anyway I leave you with him. He insisted on coming with me. I have no idea why, but he knows about these things.’
These things?
Anthony and Ripley nod to one another and then they watch Hastings moving among the knights below embracing some and laughing with others. Everyone loves Hastings. He is young, smiles easily and is almost always polite. Once he is gone, the master of the tiltyard, a certain Sergeant Raker resumes his bellowing at the young men who are in training. Ripley looks on fascinated. At length he turns reluctantly to Anthony.
‘I am interested in seeing how men fight, since I have little knowledge of this activity. The clash of opposites is always interesting. I like to see how enemies are drawn together in their urge to kill one another. It is true that I wanted to see how men train to fight, but I really came here because I wanted to meet Jacquetta de St Pol’s son. And now that I see you, I see that you are downcast. But you need not be so. Hastings is mistaken and your quest does not have to be seen to fail.’
‘But we have just heard that the King will be angry if I present him with a bird from the Kingdom of the Dead.’
‘Oh, there is no need to go to the Kingdom of the Dead. We shall send to the Queen of Lapland and purchase a gerfalcon from her. There is plenty of time for that and the drunken feasters next Pentecost will never be able to tell the difference and it will make a good impression, for it will seem that the days of Arthur have indeed returned – days when royal paladins went on successful quests and returned with trophies and exciting stories to tell. I will arrange the procurement of the bird. It is your task to decide what exciting adventures you shall have had. So it is that the goal of your quest will be to determine what has been your quest.’
‘But… but the King will never agree to this!’
‘He will, if I advise it and I will also get Hastings to change his mind.’
‘So Edward does what his alchemists tell him to do?’ Anthony cannot keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Ripley smiles.
‘Ah, forgive me. You share the common folk’s simple and mistaken view of alchemy. It is true that I have a laboratory equipped with furnaces, alembics and pelican flasks. The King has been very generous and I find metals and volatile fluids good to think with. Making gold from lead would be merely vulgar. There is enough gold in the Kingdom as it is. No, my primary task is to distil base ambition and intrigue into high policy. Also I seek a cordial which will cure the ferment in the north where Margaret’s army is making trouble. Also I publish prophecies which, because I have published them, come to be fulfilled. As I say, metals are good to think with and the court is a kitchen of elements. Gold of course represents the King. Mercury is a messenger, like Hastings. Lead is low born. Sulphur is dangerously volatile. And so on. I work with symbolic forms. Hastings is one of the managers of outward politics, while I descry the inwardness of political things. But this is not the place or time for a lesson in elementary alchemy. And I see that you want to ask me something.’
‘Yes, you said that you came here because you wanted to see Jacquetta de St Pol’s son?’
‘Indeed. She interests me. The dragon lady, Melusine features largely in my writings. I suppose you know that people are saying that it was your mother that had you brought back from the dead.’
‘But it seems that others of the dead have followed me back into the land of the living.’
‘Yes, that makes difficulties.’ Ripley pauses for such a long time that Anthony wonders if their strange conversation is at an end.
At length Ripley speaks again, ‘There is a saying that when Hell is full, the dead shall walk amongst us.’
‘But Hellequin looked as alive as you or me and so did Wiltshire, except for his bloody wounds. Wiltshire looked so alive that, even though I knew for certain that he had been beheaded after Palm Sunday, I went to London Bridge to see his head on a spike and there it was, a grisly thing with the eyes gone and all covered with brown lichen. So I know that he really is dead, but…’
But now Ripley is excited, ‘Brown lichen! Why, that is skull moss! How did I miss this? I shall go straightaway to the King to ask for the head before it is too late.’
And he turns to go, but Anthony grabs at his robes to stop him from leaving, ‘What do you want the skull for? And I have other questions…’
Ripley smiles joyously back at him, but he will not stay.
‘You must unhand me. I must hurry and have the head! How lovely life is! Skull moss! All this and heaven too! And besides I have many things to prepare for the coronation. But come to my laboratory tomorrow and I shall answer all your questions and show you marvels. I swear that in the future you shall relate many strange adventures to the King. And whatever happens, always remember that it is love that moves the sun and the other stars. Now let me go.’
And Anthony does.
Chapter Four: Coronation
Centuries ago Guy de Lusignan, Count of Poitou, went hunting in a forest. He became separated from his companions and while still lost, he came to a river on the banks of which he encountered a barefoot woman with long nut-brown hair and the look of an elf about her. She offered to show him the way out of the forest. Her name was Melusine, but she would not say what her ancestry was, nor would she answer any further questions. Once they were out of the forest, he proposed marriage to her. She agreed, but on one condition – that he promise not to enter her chamber when she birthed or bathed. She gave him three children, but he was curious about what he had been made to promise. You are curious too. You do not want him to break his promise, for you know that something bad will happen if he does so and you do not like bad things happening in stories, but yet you do want him to break his promise, for if he does not there will be no story and what would be the point of that? Stop reading this story! But no, you must carry on reading this story! Do not look through the keyhole, but, oh yes, do look through the keyhole! Guy’s life had to be a story and so, while she was bathing, he spied upon her through a keyhole and he saw that she was washing her reptilian legs. When she discovered what he had done, she was angry but forgave him, but then months later, when quarrelling at a banquet, he publicly called her a dragon, at which point she gave a terrible shriek and indeed became a dragon with wings and scaly legs and, having flown out of one of the windows of the banqueting hall, she lashed out with her tail and demolished one of the towers of the Castle of Lusignan before flying off. Her husband and children never saw her again.
Anthony has grown up with this story, for it is the story of Jacquetta de St Pol’s grandmother thirteen times removed. He is with his mother when a harbinger arrives. The Abbot of Crowland, having been invited to the coronation, is now only a few hours away from London. In his company are many of the lords and gentry of Norfolk also on their way to the coronation, as well as Lady Elizabeth de Scales. Earl Rivers and Anthony promptly saddle up and ride out in the direction of Bishopsgate which will be where the Abbot and his company must enter the city.
When they have ridden just a little way from the Woodville townhouse, they overtake a cart on which a man and a woman are being paraded in chains. Then Earl Rivers rides back to enquire of their guards who the couple are and what was their offence.
‘They are adherents of the Brothers and Sisters of the Blessed Vespers,’ his father reports to Anthony. ‘They will be burnt at the stake on Friday.’
‘What are the Brothers and Sisters of the Blessed Vespers?’ Anthony had never heard of such a group before.
‘They profess an evil heresy. They are almost as bad as Lollards, though not quite so evil. The adherents of the Blessed Vespers are dedicated to coupling in churches.’
‘What do they do that for?’
‘It is not one thing. As far as I can understand it, some do it in hope that such a blasphemous act will put them beyond any hope of redemption in the afterlife and thus thereafter they may worship God
without any expectation of reward and that is the purest form of worship there is, for they envisage themselves still offering up prayers and thanks to God from the flaming pits of Hell. Some, on the other hand, believe that having sex in a church confers a blessing both on the act and on any children that may be born as a result. Then it is well known that demons and ghosts cannot interrupt couplings in churches and there are yet others who go to church to fornicate in the summer months because it is cooler there. There is no one body of doctrine among these awful heretics.’
The way to Bishopsgate is slow for the streets are already crowded with people here to see Edward’s state entry into London and then his crowning. Already there are carpets and cloths hanging out of the windows. Scaffolding is going up in Westcheap. Richard and Anthony Woodville have to wait almost two hours before they see the approach of the Abbot’s company to the city’s gate.
The Abbot John Littlington and most of his company dismount when they see the Woodvilles waiting for them and Anthony and Beth embrace, before they all proceed on into the city. Anthony, who sees that Beth is no longer in widow’s weeds, mutters to her that he will take her to Woodville townhouse, for there his mother’s power should ensure that Beth may be safe from unwelcome visitants. The Abbot looks worried when he sees their embrace and Anthony fears that they are about to receive a homily about the virtue of continence in marriage, but the Abbot contents himself with reciting, as if to no one in particular, a verse from Matthew:
‘For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.’