Wonders Will Never Cease

by Robert Irwin

  ‘At least Jesus avoided the indignity of growing old,’ he says.

  Then something strange happens. A bearded man comes up to Anthony.

  ‘My lord, do you not recognise me?’

  Anthony looks carefully at the man, but no.

  ‘I am Piers. You stayed with me in my hermitage and I tended to your eyes when you had gone blind. When you stayed with me, I saw that you did not approve of the hermit’s way of life and then I thought that I was beginning to weary of it too. So now I am in London and have much business here. But it has been good to see you so well and with no problems with your eyes.’

  And with that, the man who says that he is Piers bustles off.

  ‘He had the look of an old soldier,’ says Raker.

  Fauconberg lingers at Blackheath for a few days more, but it is now certain that Edward’s army is returning to London and everyone knows that the Lancastrian cause is forever finished. Fauconberg flees to Kent. Eventually his head will find its way into the Museum of Skulls.

  A week later Edward is only fifteen or so miles north of London. His triumphant army will parade through the city on the following day. But Clarence and Gloucester arrive at the Tower late on the preceding day, at the hour that is, ‘between the dog and the wolf’. They tell Anthony that he must conduct them immediately to Henry of Lancaster who is in the Wakefield Tower.

  ‘Cousins of Clarence and Gloucester and er… You are most welcome,’ says Henry. His smile is trembly. ‘Will you sit and have some wine?’

  Gloucester looks at Clarence and nods. So they all sit and Henry, with a shaking hand, pours wine from an earthenware jug. Neither Clarence nor Gloucester seems inclined to speak, so Henry breaks the silence, ‘Is it true my boy, that Edward of Lancaster is dead?’

  Gloucester nods and then Henry says, ‘I do not blame you, Richard. I forgive you. I swear there is no malice in me – or you, I am sure.’

  Anthony notices that urine is trickling down Henry’s leggings. Then Gloucester looks hard at Clarence who shakes his head vigorously before gulping down more wine. So then Gloucester says, ‘Perhaps it is time for your prayers, Henry?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I usually pray about now.’

  And the former King goes to kneel in a corner. Gloucester picks up the jug, which is still half full, and smashes it against the back of Henry’s head and blood and wine are sprayed all over the cell.

  ‘A man does good business when he rids himself of a turd,’ says Gloucester. ‘But this was your job, George, since Edward entrusted the commission to you. I swear that you fail every test that is given to you.’ Then to Anthony he says, ‘You are our witness. What we have done, we have done for the good of the state.’

  In the past Anthony has admired Gloucester’s piety and his skill as a military commander. Now he admires his resolution. But he also thinks that he will keep his distance from this man who is also a villain.

  The following morning it is announced that Henry has died of pure displeasure and melancholy on hearing of the outcome of the Battle of Tewkesbury and the death of his son. His body is displayed in St Paul’s where his head rests on a thick pillow of flowers. Now that there is peace at last, Anthony thinks that he may seek out Malory and learn more from him about Jack Coterel and in that way perhaps find some clues as to the present whereabouts of Scoggin. Also he may hunt for the enchanted garden. Also he may travel east to Scythia, Persepolis, the fiery lakes and Xanadu.

  Chapter Fifteen: Coterels

  For the past three weeks Anthony has garrisoned himself in the Tower. Now at last he returns to the Woodville townhouse. It strikes him as he dismounts from Black Saladin that the groom is made nervous by his arrival. Then it is Ripley who opens the door to him. Ripley’s welcome is effusive, and of course, he is full of praise for the charge that Anthony led against the Kentish rebels. The steward of the house, John Bromwich, hurries up behind Ripley and shrugs his shoulders at Anthony. Then his mother comes shuffling to the doorway. She looks at Anthony curiously, but it seems that she does not recognise him. Instead she takes Ripley by the arm and leads him away. Ripley looks back and smiles, as if to say, ‘You see how it is.’

  Anthony and Bromwich confer in the accounting room. Anthony says that he wants Ripley to be politely told to leave. Bromwich says that he has tried to close the door to him, but his mother will not allow the alchemist to go. The day Anthony left for the Tower Ripley arrived at the Woodville townhouse and sought an audience with Jacquetta. Since then she does not like to be parted from him. Instead she is his shadow who stumbles behind him everywhere in the house. Though it has become very difficult for the servants to understand what she is saying, Ripley has no difficulty in this and they spend long hours conversing and often he writes down what she says. Most nights he sleeps just outside her door where he stretches out on the floor and uses a cloak for a pillow. Often she wakes in the night and then they talk some more. He feeds her (as once he fed the Talking Head). But since Edward’s return Ripley has been frequently called away on the King’s business and then she wanders around the house, a lost soul.

  Various documents are spread upon the table awaiting Anthony’s attention and beside them is an enormous pile of manuscripts, on top of which there is a covering message. From this Anthony learns that Sir Thomas Malory has died and has bequeathed to him one of the copies of Le Morte d’Arthur. Anthony’s first vague thought is that now he will never hear how the story of the lady and the bratchet ended. Then he wonders what happened to all the gold that he gave Malory. It is sad that he did not live to enjoy his wealth. Also, if Anthony wants to learn more about Jack Coterel, he will have to find other men to give him the information he needs. He asks Bromwich if he knows anything about a Jack Coterel and the steward replies that there are many Coterels. There is a great gang of them and from what is known as their Secret Commonwealth in Southwark, they are reputed to carry out many criminal acts. But Bromwich knows no more than that.

  Then Anthony has Ripley brought before him. Before Anthony can speak, Ripley does, ‘My lord, I fear that it will not be long now. I crave your hospitality and indulgence for a few days more. Soon your mother will no longer be able to stand. It is painful to see, yet I should like to be with her until the end. To be honest, though I feel pity for her, I will not conceal from you that I profit from her talk.’

  Anthony gestures that he should continue. Then Ripley explains that the fairies, knowing that she will shortly die, are stripping her of everything she ever leant from them.

  ‘She calls them fairies. I do not know what they are, but they steal things from her mind. Her head still retains some of the secret knowledge and I try to make a record of as much of it as I can, though some of it is muddled and often there are bits missing from the spells. A sorceress is nothing without her memory and Jacquetta de St Pol is losing hers.’

  Anthony sternly says that his mother is not and has never been a sorceress and Ripley hastily agrees. Only he thinks that she has acquired some knowledge of what sorceresses do.

  Then Ripley talks about rivalry between magicians and how when one magician enters into combat with another he attacks his enemy’s memory. And then he says that we are all mostly dead before we die, for most of what we have experienced when younger has passed into oblivion. It is the ravages of forgetfulness and these many thousands of little deaths that make the final death less hard to bear. Then he starts to lecture on the subject of mnemonics…

  But now Anthony raises his hand. With an ill grace he allows Ripley to stay a few days longer, even though he is quietly angry that Ripley has usurped his place with his mother. As Ripley, much relieved, is about to depart, Anthony asks what he knows about the Coterels. Ripley knows a little more than Bromwich, but not much more.

  In the days that follow Anthony speaks with some of Ripley’s intelligencers, with ward beadles, watchmen and one of London’s sheriffs and slowly a picture is built up. The Coterels are a long-established business – though perhaps business is har
dly the right word for it. They have been operating out of Southwark for almost a hundred and fifty years and so they have a longer history than the houses of Lancaster or York. The Coterels have powerful protectors. They are a large clan and other smaller clans are allied and subordinate to them. They specialise in abductions and ransoms. But they also steal lead piping, collect money from prostitutes, persuade foolish investors to take part in bogus treasure hunts and they train pickpockets. They have a schoolroom above a tavern in Southwark where lots of purses with bells attached are suspended from the ceiling and it is here that the young pickpockets are trained. The Coterels broker the sale of stolen property back to their owners. They also provide equipment for burglars.

  One of the late Jack Coterel’s cousins, Hugo is known as ‘the trainer of tortoises’. A burglar, equipped with one of these trained tortoises, fixes a lighted candle to its shell and then slips it through the window of the house he proposes to burgle. If he then hears someone say, ‘What is a tortoise with a candle on its back doing in my house?’ or words like that, then the burglar will abandon his planned robbery, but if there is no sound then he may enter the house and the tortoise can serve to light him to whatever he desires to loot. The clan has its own private language, a thieves’ cant. They also have an alphabet of signs they use to chalk up on houses, marking those houses as safe or dangerous places to burgle, as well as those owners who are charitable to beggars and those that are mean. Anthony is disturbed by some of what he has learnt, for he is accustomed to think of the settling of issues by violence to be an aristocratic prerogative.

  Two weeks after Edward’s triumphant return to London Mayor Stockton presides over a celebratory open-air banquet in a meadow beside the gardens of Holborn. Edward and Elizabeth and the King’s two brothers attend, as well as many of the leading peers, the aldermen and the two sheriffs of London. Anthony receives much praise for his defence of the city. (Ripley’s men have been at work magnifying Anthony’s feats of arms at Aldgate.) Fish baked in pastry, swan’s meat, venison in frumenty, glazed meat-apples, fritters and various subtleties are among the dishes served to the mayor’s guests.

  Anthony is leaning against a tree at his ease and cheerful, for he has belatedly realised that he can read what happened to the lady and the bratchet as soon as he finds the time to leaf through the pages of Malory’s manuscript. Suddenly he is approached by two young men. They must be brothers, for they have the same square jaws and curly brown hair. Moreover both wear slashed doublets of black and yellow cut in the fashionable Italian style. They nod respectfully before introducing themselves, ‘I am Toby Coterel.’

  ‘And I Barnaby Coterel.’

  Then Toby continues, ‘My lord, we hear that you have been asking many questions about our family and we thought that we would save you further trouble by coming here today to answer any questions that you may have. We are entirely at your service.’

  Anthony is pinned against the tree. The brothers have daggers at their waists. He is unarmed. He could, of course, cry out for help. But in this company that would be absurd. He would never be able to live the shame of that down. So finally he says, ‘I am trying to find out what has happened to Scoggin who was formerly the King’s jester and I thought that he might have had friends in Southwark who would know of his whereabouts.’

  The Coterel brothers look suddenly cheerful.

  ‘That Scoggin! What a marvel he was! He used to come to one of the schools that we have endowed in Southwark and he would entertain the apprentices with japes and merry quips. How they loved him! Tell me, my lord. What is the distance between the top of the sky and the bottom of the ocean?’

  Anthony does not know.

  ‘Why, it is but a stone’s throw! Ah, ha ha!’

  ‘And at what time of the year does a goose have most feathers on her?’

  This time Anthony has the answer, ‘When she has a gander on her back.’

  And Toby asks, ‘It is good to laugh, is it not? And it is sad that he is no longer with us. Where are we without the blessed gift of laughter?’

  ‘What? Is Scoggin dead?’ Anthony is alarmed that the Angel of Death may have cheated him of his vengeance.

  ‘God bless you, my lord. I only meant that he is no longer in London and that he has repented his folly and forever renounced his former profession as a jester. He now holds that jokes are heinous and that for what remains of his life he will seek to purge himself of the sins he has accumulated in his former profession. He told us that from henceforth he would have nothing to do with the fellowship of we Coterels and that jokes are all either cruel or trivial. According to the new Scoggin, God wishes us all to live soberly, but we think it is a sad business. We hear that he has become a monk in a village called Pirbright.’

  ‘Thank you for this.’ Anthony is astonished by the information and the manner in which it has been delivered.

  ‘You have become the hero of all London,’ says Barnaby. ‘It has been an honour to have talked with you, and we hope, to have been of assistance.’

  Mayor Stockton is approaching. The brothers bow to Anthony before smartly walking away from the banqueting throng and out of the meadow.

  Anthony thinks that once he has found Scoggin and dealt with him, he will travel. He will say that he is going to Portugal as a Crusader to fight against the Saracens, but after Portugal, he will travel on to the fabled deserts and jungles of the East. Edward looks very merry. Perhaps now would be a good time to approach him?

  It is not the right time. Edward is furious.

  ‘Are you quite mad, Anthony? I have only regained the throne within the last few weeks. The country still crawls with rebels. There is a huge amount to be done restoring all the damage caused by the recent strife. I need you here in London close by me. On pain of death you are forbidden to leave the country for Portugal or any place else. I will not see England’s resources squandered in wars with Saracens. It is the coward’s way to slink off when there is much work to be done. So many great lords have died – Tiptoft, Pembroke, Somerset, Say, Warwick, Montagu, Oxford and many others. Because of that those that are left must work harder.’

  Then Hastings, who is standing close by, adds, ‘And drink and wench harder.’

  And Edward’s customary good spirits are restored.

  A week later, instead of Jerusalem or Babylon, Anthony has arrived at Pirbright. He arrives there in early afternoon. The monastery is a small place a little way out of the village and half in ruins, and thus not to be compared to the great Abbey of Crowland. There is a gatehouse, but no gate and looking through Anthony sees that half the cloister has become rubble. The Abbot, a well-built twinkly man, comes to what should have been the door. His welcome is unceremonious, ‘If you have stopped here to seek accommodation, I am sorry but there is none. You will need to ride on to the great Abbey of Chertsey. It is not far.’

  ‘Thank you, I have no need of lodgings or food. I am Earl Rivers and I carry a message from the King summoning his jester to Westminster.’

  ‘Goodness an Earl!’ The Abbot flutters his hands. ‘But good sir, there is no jester here. We are all monks and our prayers and our labours are most serious.’

  ‘I mean the man Scoggin who was formerly the King’s jester.’

  By now it seems that the entire population of the monastery, doubtless curious to learn what has brought a rare visitor here, has gathered behind the Abbot. There are five monks in the white robes of the Cistercian order and six boys. There is something about the boys that strikes Anthony as sinister. They are all blond and they gaze at him with cold curiosity. Scoggin is one of the monks. There is another monk whose face seems oddly familiar, though Anthony cannot think why. Perhaps he has seen him at Crowland?

  The Abbot babbles away. This monastery, which once thrived, has fallen into disuse, and as can be seen, local people have stolen much of the wood and stonework. The monks’ task now is to recolonise the place, though as Anthony can see there are only six of them, and so far only t
he two dorters, the kitchen and the brewhouse have been fully restored, though work on the roof of the church is far advanced. The orchard is horridly overgrown. The Abbot fears that he and his fellow monks spend too much time with spades or axes in their hands and too little time with their missals. (Indeed, apart from Scoggin, they look a muscular crew.) These boys, who currently serve as choristers, are oblates, for they have been offered by their parents to be educated. The Abbot wonders if the great lord might not consider making a donation to the work here.

  Anthony is impatient and speaks directly to Scoggin, ‘I am sent from the King to persuade you to return to his service. Since you have left the court, he has fallen into a great melancholy. You will be richly rewarded for your return.’