by Robert Irwin
As they continue to walk together in the direction of Cornhill, Anthony’s next fear is that the Abbot will ask him if he has seen any more ghosts and then will start to cross-question him about Hellequin. But the Abbot, who has brought his Chronicler with him, has other things on his mind. The two of them have been working on a universal chronology based upon the Bible, but supplemented by certain writings of the Greeks and Egyptians. The matter is certainly complex and ancient calendars are hard to understand. Even so, the Abbot has established that the world is almost 4,000 years old.
‘Think of it, 4,000 years! The mind grows dizzy contemplating such a vast stretch of time! Imagine, 4,000 years before our mothers conceived us! I feel the horror in my stomach when I think of a world without me and I feel sick and close to vomiting when I contemplate my not having existed for so many centuries and I marvel that there have been so many generations of men and women who have trod this earth and who never even dreamed that one day I would be born.’
The Abbot has also calculated that the Great Flood happened roughly 3,500 years ago.
‘We read in Genesis that before the Flood there were giants on this earth. The first race of giants was known as the Nephilim, “the fallen ones”. They were said to be the sons of God and they mated with human women in Canaan. “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children unto them…” We ordinary humans were like grasshoppers in their sight.’
Oh to be so learned! But the Abbot’s discourse is halted halfway along Westcheap, for by now the scaffolding work has been completed and the street is completely blocked by a stage. Suddenly there is shouting behind them, ‘Make way! Make way for the King’s fool!’
It is an ancient tradition that before the King of England can be crowned, the coronation of the King of Fools must first take place and it is this ceremony that now prevents their advance. Anthony’s party find themselves part of a great throng of beggars, cripples, tumblers, pickpockets, bawdy baskets and Abraham men, as well as some ordinary people. Anthony turns to look on the progress of the King’s fool through the crowd and to his dismay sees that it is Scoggin. The man is hardly recognisable, for he has had his hair cut and he now wears a padded jerkin of brocaded silk decorated with white and blue lozenges, and besides he is smiling, not whining, but it is Scoggin. He does not see Anthony as he makes his way to the stage, where his throne, a chamber pot set upon a rickety stool, is ready for him. There he is joined by Mother Folly, a man in a woman’s dress who is to be his consort. Attendant lords of misrule stand respectfully behind the throne. One of these calls out that, if anyone dares question Will Scoggin’s right to be crowned King of Fools, then he must sustain his challenge by force of arms and of course there is such a challenge in which two lords of misrule, mounted on hobby horses, joust and belabour one another with pillows. His champion having won, Scoggin is then anointed with the white and yolk of an egg, before he is crowned with the three-horned cap and bells. Then he must make a speech. In order to do so, he steps forward from the throne, turns his back on his audience, lowers his trousers and proceeds to issue forth a rhythmic series of farts. The crowd goes wild with cheering.
Then Scoggin, having resumed his throne, proceeds to mimic the speech and pious postures of the deposed Henry of Lancaster and sets to alternately reading from a Psalter and using its pages to wipe his bum. Revolted, Anthony turns away and is about to lead Beth by some other route to the Woodville townhouse, when Scoggin sees and recognises him and his father.
‘What? Going so soon my lords? I thank God I am a London man, for now in the countryside, the woods are so vile. They have a rotten fishy smell.’
And, pointing at Anthony, ‘Here is a Scaly fish indeed! Ha! Ha! But all is in jest, my lord, and no harm is meant.’
Now everybody is looking at them. The Abbot and his Chronicler have already departed for Westminster. As the Woodvilles elbow their way back through the crowd, Scoggin shouts after them, ‘How do rivers run? Why, Rivers always runs away! Ah ha ha!’
As they enter the family house, Richard says, ‘I wonder if that zany may not be better acquainted with a river in the days to come.’
Jacquetta de St Pol waits for them upstairs in the solar. She sits by the fireplace and Beth goes to kneel to kiss her hand. Though they have met on the day of the wedding, hitherto Anthony’s wife and his mother have had no conversation of any length. Now that he sees them together again, Anthony sees how alike they are. Beth is arrogant, wealthy and nobly born. Jacquetta is all of these things and in all respects to a greater degree. As Margaret of Anjou’s friend and confidante, she had wielded great influence until the fortunes of Lancaster foundered at the Battle of Palm Sunday, but she knows that she will soon be powerful once more. As widow of John Duke of Bedford, she has inherited great estates in England and France. As daughter of Pierre of Luxemburg, she is of the noblest lineage – one that goes back to Guy of Lusignan and Melusine. There may even be a sense that Jacquetta outranks Beth physically, for, being plump, her curves are larger than those of her daughter-in-law.
Though Jacquetta makes most men afraid, it is not her pride, her rank or wealth that they fear. It is that she has looked upon things that men have not dreamt of and now she tries to explain to Beth how it is that the living and the dead can consort with one another.
Because of the recent slaughterings, the Kingdom of the Dead is full and overflowing. Time is needed to build more halls for the slain warriors to train and feast in. Then, since Anthony has died but returned from death, the veil between the living and dead has thinned and wherever he is it is especially thin and the dead seek him out because they hold him to be one of them and they want him as their companion to eat with them. The gerfalcon was a sign of that, perhaps a lure, though messages from the other side rarely make sense. Only Jacquetta’s amulet which Anthony has hanging from his neck keeps him among the living. Beth must realise that it is all very strange on the other side. Some that are dead want vengeance for their bloody wounds, though they do not know how to achieve this, but most are very confused and have no definite aim. It is all so different over there. We cannot imagine how different and frightening it is. Perhaps Wiltshire is malicious and obstinate and he will not accept that he cannot bed women as he used to, but the greater number of the newly dead are lost creatures and for the most part they do not want to frighten anyone. Pitiful creatures, they shuffle behind us. They only seek the warmth and comfort of the living and the familiar.
Jacquetta believes herself to be an expert on the world of the dead and talks for over an hour on the subject. (Her other favourite topic is Tir Nan Og, the fairy realm to the west where no one ever ages or dies and the grass is always green. She has spent years seeking a way into it.) In the past Anthony had regarded her accounts of the world of the dead as mad. Recent encounters have changed his mind. Is it even possible that she has the power to turn her fantasies into reality? Suddenly Jacquetta looks hard at Beth and says, ‘I want a grandchild! I must have one! Anthony has told me how Wiltshire sought out your bed and I have read the letter you wrote afterwards. You two will have to face off Wiltshire and any of his gory friends should they appear around your bed. You will just have to be brave and shameless in the nights to come.’
Beth’s eyes widen, but nothing else shows on her face.
Jacquetta is impatient, ‘Anthony, you must bed her as soon as possible.’
He nods. He dare not say no.
The following morning, which is that of the 28th of June, Earl Rivers leaves the house early, for as High Constable of England he has much to oversee and in a few hours’ time he will ride in procession with Edward and the senior peers from St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey. But Anthony, Beth, Jacquetta and other members of the Woodville household make their way directly to the Abbey. Outside Anthony re-encounters the Abbot and his Chronicler. The Chronicler has been brought down from Crowland so that he may set down a r
ecord of the royal ceremony and he talks to himself as he seeks to commit all the rituals to memory. As for the Abbot, he has had an exciting new idea. The earth, as all educated people know, is a rotating sphere, but it would not roll evenly if almost all the landmass, all of Europe, Asia and most of Africa, were in the northern hemisphere and there was nothing weightier than water in the southern hemisphere, for then our planet would be top-heavy. After much thought, the Abbot has decided that Mount Purgatory must be located in the south and he thinks that he will petition the King to send an expedition to find it. Though the Abbot has many proofs for the placing of Purgatory in the southern seas, happily there is no time for Anthony to hear them before the coronation ritual begins. They all sit together and Beth’s thigh presses against Anthony’s leg. Edward’s entry under a canopy of silk borne on four lances is preceded by that of the Kings of arms and the junior heralds, all in brightly blazoned costumes. King Edward wears a robe of cloth of gold and purple and he is followed by the great lords who all wear cloaks of scarlet furred with miniver. Standing before the throne Edward takes the coronation oath and then once he is seated he is anointed with Thomas Becket’s coronation oil, before having the crown of Edward the Confessor lowered onto his head and being handed the orb and sword of justice. Beth’s skin is white as marble.
The Chronicler is excited by the ceremony. Anthony is also excited, though not by the coronation. He is thinking that flesh is the stuff of a real man’s life, for he eats flesh, rides flesh and rubs up against flesh. This ostentatious and extravagant flummery that is now being paraded before him is tedious. He judges Edward’s coronation oath to be as worthless as the one that he previously swore to the effect that he would ever be Henry’s loyal subject. There was more life and truth in Scoggin’s parody than in all today’s time-worn pageantry. Anthony longs for the rituals to be over and, with Beth pressed close beside him in the Abbey, he is thinking of another holy place, for he has fixed upon the Church of St Bartholomew for their coupling on the following night, which will be that of the feast of St Peter and St Paul and he imagines the sexual act taking place under the winged eye of God. The coronation rituals being concluded, they rise to leave, but by now Anthony can hardly walk, for the pain between his legs is so great.
The coronation feast is held in the Great Hall of West-minster. Before it starts, Earl Rivers reads out the list of new appointments. The King’s brothers are given dukedoms, so that George becomes Duke of Clarence and Richard is named Duke of Gloucester. Warwick is made Lieutenant of the North. Fauconberg is named Earl of Kent and Keeper of the King’s Falcons. The list goes on, but there is nothing for Anthony. Then Sir John Dymoke, the King’s Champion, rides into the hall and issues the traditional challenge to anyone who may dare to question the rightful rule of the King. He is followed by the serving men who are also on horseback and who ride around the tables, dishing out food from great brass platters. The King, but only the King, dines on lampreys, for that is the royal prerogative. His steward passes him his drinking horn at frequent intervals. The common ruck of the nobility are served with capons, beef pie and St John’s rice.
Though Beth sits with Anthony, the place is too noisy for conversation and with the servants riding around and the clatter of dishes, the dinner makes Anthony think of a melée in a tournament. Then Scoggin, the malignant zany, is seen weaving his way among the tables and mounted men. Anthony and Elizabeth rise to leave, but not fast enough.
‘Lord Scales, I see that you never laugh at my merry pranks.’ Scoggin has to shout and his face is red with the effort. ‘Indeed I do not think that you ever laugh. Your face is grave and I wonder if not all of you is also of the grave? Ah ha ha!’
Now Anthony and Beth are in a hurry to get out of the hall. But at its threshold they pause in mingled terror and astonishment. For outside they behold thunder and lightning and golden serpents that spit fire as they travel along the ground and then there is a shower of scarlet rain. It is Ripley, smiling broadly, who presides over this pandemonium. He tells Anthony how since the Earl of Warwick has presented him with a quantity of gunpowder, he has been experimenting by mixing it with sodium, copper, sulphur, phosphorus and other ingredients.
‘God has sent me to turn England once more into a land of marvels!’ Ripley declares grandiloquently.
Anthony resolves to pay the alchemist a visit in the near future.
The following evening Anthony and Beth present themselves at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, just outside the city walls by Smithfield. Anthony wears a red tunic and cloak, black stockings and a white belt, the colours signifying respectively warlike courage, awareness of mortality and purity. Beth is in a doublet and hose and has a broad-brimmed hat in the Burgundian style pressed low over her brow. Anthony is renting the church for the night and he has told the verger that, since he will be knighted on the morrow, he wishes to spend the intervening hours in pious vigil with his page in attendance. If the verger has any suspicions he keeps them to himself, for he has been well paid.
Once inside Beth is in a rush to strip and then, naked, she stands in front of the altarpiece in the Lady Chapel with her feet together and her arms outstretched in parody of the crucified Christ behind her.
‘Dear husband, how like you this?’
Anthony had imagined his taking of a woman as something like the siege of a strongly defended town, but it is nothing like that, for Beth is the experienced one and she undresses him and leads him to the altar where Anthony enters her as she lies on top of a red cloak. Outside a dog howls. At least, Anthony hopes that it is a dog. Towards morning, at Anthony’s insistence, they kneel and offer a prayer in thanksgiving, before dressing and hurrying out of the church. Anthony had thought that Beth would balk at the idea of coupling in a church, but he now understands that she regards Christian piety as something that is only appropriate for the lower orders.
The house of the Augustinian canons is located just within the city wall, up beyond Broad Street, but Ripley has been given lodgings inside the palace and that is where Anthony finds him when, two days later, he pays him a visit. Ripley is busy shelving books and whistling as he does so. The laboratory is a cheerful place. Sun streams through the window and catches on glass flasks and silver instruments. A padded wooden chair has been placed close by the furnace. Shelves are crowded with stoppered jars, albarellos, alembics, retorts and sieves. Two lecterns bear open books, displaying brightly painted designs. On a table there is an owl in a cage, an enormous hourglass and a gashed skull. It is all quite pleasant, only there is a faint smell of sulphur.
Ripley is pleased to see him.
‘It is as if you have just walked into my head, for my brain is shaped just like this room. You can imagine that the window over there is my solitary eye through which I look out on the world and my head is crowded, as this room is crowded, with books as well as with the earths, metals and volatile fluids that I use to think with.’
Then pointing at the skull, Ripley continues, ‘That is Wiltshire’s head. I got the moss off it and now have it sealed in a jar.’
A lecture follows:
‘Skull moss is brown and it grows in the rot of the skull. It is the chief ingredient in unguentum armarium, which is to say the weapon salve for the magnetic cure of wounds. The best, most potent skull moss comes from a man who has been murdered, executed or died in battle, since the vital force of a man who has died violently lingers on longer than that of one who has died of natural causes. The physician applies the compound, of which the other ingredients are honey and pork fat, to the weapon which has caused the wound and he then presses the weapon against the wound which will infallibly heal quickly and cleanly. We call this method of treatment hoplochrisma. If the original weapon cannot be obtained, then one of the same shape will do. You may have need of skull moss one of these days,’ Ripley concludes.
Then he draws Anthony’s attention to one of the books displayed on a lectern, The Compound of Alchemy, which is open on a comp
lex design which is called Ripley’s wheel. At the centre of a series of concentric circles, all of which carry inscriptions, Anthony reads the words ‘Here is the red man to his white wife. Married to the spirit of life – Here to purgatory they must go – thereto be purged of pain and woe – Here they have passed their pains all – And made resplendent as is crystal – Here to paradise they go having won – Brighter made than is the sun’.
‘I write in code, lest others in reading may understand,’ says Ripley cryptically.
Then he turns the pages to show pictures of a red man and a black man dismembering a trussed dragon, the sun and the moon jousting at the wedding of mercury and sulphur, and finally a man and a woman copulating in an enormous glass flask. This last is known as the Perfect Solution. Love draws the necessary ingredients together, just as it moves the sun and the stars.
‘The Abbot was here yesterday, for he wanted to see how I make gold,’ says Ripley. ‘I have to pretend that that is what I do. Otherwise folk would wonder what I really did. The Abbot told me that he expects great things from you, for, having risen Christ-like from the grave, you are the virgin knight who one day will be vouchsafed an unveiled vision of the Holy Grail.’
‘Then the Abbot is mistaken,’ replies Anthony, ‘for I am no virgin.’
Ripley is not troubled by this.
‘That is no matter,’ he says. ‘I will have it put about that you are indeed a virgin knight and that, though you share a bed with your wife, you do so in perfect continence and you sleep with a sword between you and her. In this way you put your virtue to a nightly test. Now I think about it, I will also have it rumoured that you always wear a hair shirt under your other garments. Also you scourge yourself before retiring at night. I shall see to it that you shall have a great future. You are to become a hero. You only have to let yourself be guided by me.’