Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Aye, why waste our time with tales of tragedy?’ said our ever-tactful host. ‘Such talk is nor worth a butterfly. It’s so boring that it is a miracle I haven’t fallen asleep, plunged altogether off my horse and broken my neck. So please, good monk, save all our lives by telling us something that will at least keep us awake.’

  ‘If you care not for my tales as they are, then you must choose another to entertain you,’ said the monk, sulkily.

  ‘Very well, I will,’ the host replied. He turned to the priest who was escorting the prioress and her nuns. ‘You, good Sir John! The monk has spread misery over us as a yeoman spreads the shit from his dung cart over his fields – that is to say, thickly and insufferably. I am sure you have a tale which will rescue us from this morass.’

  ‘Since not to be merry deserves reproach, I’ll do my best,’ the nuns’ priest promised.

  Those close to him began to smile, and I would have smiled too, had I not just looked over my shoulder and seen that the men who had followed us all morning were once again a hundred yards behind our caravan.

  *

  His tale was of a cockerel known as Chanticleer, the nuns’ priest told us, and the name was enough to set his listeners smiling again. For even before he had begun to describe the cock in heraldic terms, it was clear that this was not a story of domestic animals but one aimed at poking fun at the poetry of courtly love such as had been written by that doleful poet Chaucer.

  Chanticleer lived with his seven concubines, the priests aid, but the one he loved the most was the gracious Lady Pertelote. One night Chanticleer has a terrible nightmare in which he dreams that he meets a fearsome creature - something like a dog - which tries to seize him. He wakes up moaning and trembling, but when he tells Lady Pertelote of the dream, she pours scorn on it and says that he is a coward to be frightened of such things – and that she can never love a coward.

  The cock protests that only a fool ignores the warnings which come to him in dreams, but Dame Pertelote haughtily claims they are no more than indigestion. And Chanticleer, letting his passion overrule his fear, abandons thoughts of dreams for thoughts of love.

  ‘It was a woman’s counsel that first brought man to woe, when Adam followed Eve’s advice in the Garden of Eden, and lost Paradise because of it,’ the nuns’ priest said. Then he grinned and added, ‘Of course, that is only what the cock might say. I, myself, have nothing but the highest opinion of woman-kind.’

  A coal-tipped fox appears in the yard, but Chanticleer does not recognise him as the enemy from his dream. Through flattery about his singing, the fox persuades him to close his eyes, then grabs him in his mouth and runs off towards the woods. Soon there is a hue and cry after them, but the fox is well ahead, and would have escaped with his prey had not Chanticleer started thinking for himself at last.

  ‘Sir Fox, if I were you, I would turn round and tell those bumpkins to stop chasing you,’ he says. ‘Let them know that this cock is yours, and you intend to eat him at your leisure.’

  ‘Faith, it shall be done!’ replies the fox.

  And once he has opened his mouth, Chanticleer slips out and flies to safety in a tree. The fox tries to talk him down again, but Chanticleer will have none of it. He has learned his lesson, he says. Never again will he be flattered into closing his eyes when he should have kept them wide open. The fox admits that he has learned his lesson too – never again will he be tempted to chatter when what he should do is hold his tongue.

  ‘And if you think this is no more than the fable of a cock, a hen and fox, then I may as well not have spoken,’ the nuns’ priest said in conclusion. ‘For there is a moral here. As St Paul says, all things are written for our learning, so take the grain and leave the chaff alone.’

  The pilgrims clapped their hands with delight. Here was a tale worthy of the telling, they all said. But I wondered then, and wonder now, how many of them (and I include myself) took from the tale all that it contained of value, and learned to leave the chaff alone.

  As we rode into Rochester, we found ourselves gazing up at the castle, which towers over the whole town like an angry giant.

  ‘Is it not a wondrous building?’ the franklin asked me.

  There was a warmth in his words that seemed a little forced, and it struck me that he was perhaps making an effort to heal the rift which had existed between us since that morning.

  ‘Yes, it is indeed a fine castle,’ I answered with equal warmth, for I too was eager that we should be friends again.

  ‘Yet why should it have three square towers and one round one?’ the franklin wondered.

  ‘Do you not know?’ I asked, amazed.

  And the second the words had left my mouth I was sorry that I had ever uttered them.

  ‘No, I do not know,’ the franklin answered coldly, ‘for I am not of the habit of asking questions to which I already know the answer. You, however, probably do know, since you seem to be an unlimited font of knowledge.’

  ‘No, you are wrong. There are many things of which I am ignorant,’ I protested, attempting to undo the damage my earlier surprise seemed to have wrought. ‘It is by no more than happy chance that I should be aware of the history of this castle. The round tower, you see, is much later than the others. It was built after King John had…’

  ‘I am a landowner, not a clerk,’ the franklin cut in. ‘I have no interest in such bookish matters.’

  And with that he spurred his horse more harshly than was strictly necessary, and pulled away from me.

  I shook my head, perhaps in sorrow, or perhaps in wonder. If it is so important to a man that he always be king of the castle, then he should never leave that castle of which he is king, I thought.

  Then my mind turned once again to the castle which was still in front of us, and to the king I had attempted to tell the franklin about.

  It had been in this very castle, in 1216, that the barons had chosen to make their stand against King John – a man who brought kingship into such disrepute that no monarch since him had borne that name. Here, that a hundred and forty knights and their followers had gathered to dispute his right to rule.

  The king had responded with force, as kings sometimes must. Not able to trust his own subjects – even those in his capitol - he destroyed the bridge which connected Rochester with London, and laid siege to the castle. The barons held for two long months, whilst John’s engineers tunnelled under what was now the round tower, and had then been square. Once their burrowing was completed, the engineers had soaked the tunnel supports in the fat of forty freshly slaughtered pigs and had set them alight. The tower had collapsed, and with it the revolt. Yet the castle still stands, and must surely serve as a constant reminder to he who wears the crown that he cannot rest easy, even for a moment.

  Could any king now ride through Rochester without feeling a shiver run through his whole body? I wondered.

  And what of the burghers of the town itself?

  Though their revolt was older than that of the men of Dartford, and had long since retreated into the mists of time, was there perhaps still a faint memory running through their veins that they had once defied the power of a king – and that, having done the unthinkable, it was unthinkable no longer, and they might, conceivably, do it again?

  Day the Third

  Evening

  We supped that night at an inn close by the cathedral. I’d now spent two full days studying my companions, and had a rough idea of how they would appear in my Tales. In this, I suppose, I was like a painter who has sketched out in charcoal the crude form that his composition will take. Yet I differed from a painter in one significant way. To complete his vision the artist must pick up his paint brush and fill in the details, but for a writer like myself, it was only necessary to watch, and let the pilgrims – by their words and by their actions – fill in those details in themselves.

  The good woman of Bath, I observed, was not at the knight’s table, as she had been the previous evening in Dartford. Instead she had ch
osen to sit with the ‘professional’ men. Or perhaps the choice had not been hers, I thought, for though she appeared to be listening with interest to what the franklin, the doctor and the merchant had to say, her gaze kept wandering somewhat wistfully towards the crusader and his party.

  At the rogues’ table, the pardoner and the summoner were occupying the position of adversaries, as the miller and the reeve had the night before. A wound had opened between them in Dartford, I remembered, yet from what I had seen of them as I rushed out onto the gallery in answer to the miller’s scream, they seemed to have cauterised it overnight with the heat of their passion. Now the wound had opened once again, and since neither of them could sit at any of the other tables – for who would have them? – they were keeping as far from each other as possible.

  The prioress was once more holding court at the clerical table.

  ‘I am sure the princess would have seen me if she’d able,’ she told the others, ‘but she was quite right not to make such an effort when she was feeling unwell. I have no doubt she will give me an audience when I visit her on our return journey.’

  The nuns nodded to indicate that they were certain the princess would, yet it did not appear to me as if the prioress held the same sway over them as she had formerly. And I understood why, for now she had a rival her nuns’ attention – the priest. Until that afternoon they must have scarcely noticed him. He had been no more than a brother, who handled the heavy work and sat silently as he listened to them confess their trifling sins. Then he had told his tale with vigour and gusto, and had revealed that beneath his brotherly cowl there lurked a powerful man.

  A man with humour and the power over words.

  A man who, in their virginal fantasies, they might well imagine thrusting vigorously between their spreaded legs.

  Of the guildsmen’s table, there was little to say – would, I suspected, forever be little to say. They sat close together, as they no doubt did in the guildhall. When one of them spoke, the others nodded sagely. And why should they not, when the words being spoken were exactly the ones each would have spoken himself? I determined that in my Tales I would provide them with no names, since names would grant them an individuality which they had never achieved in life.

  I had seen enough for one evening, and determined to go to my chamber and add to my notes before retiring.

  I have asked myself many times since that night if, as I climbed the steps up to the gallery, I had even the slightest presentiment that the following morning would be as dramatic as the one which had preceded it. And in my more self-indulgent moods I persuade myself that I had.

  But for most of the time, I know it is not true, so as my reader can well imagine, it came as a shock to me to be awakened by screams, though the screams this time came not from the victim - but from the victim’s acolytes.

  I am getting ahead of myself, a sin almost unforgiveable in writers.

  To return to the proper order of events, then – I went to my chamber, climbed into bed, and fell asleep.

  I did not know exactly where the fox was, and had it not for the occasional flash of bright red fur in the bushes which fringed the clearing, I might have decided – more than once – that he had gone away.

  He had circled the clearing three times – or perhaps more – and even though it must have been obvious to him from the very beginning that I was alone, he still chose to stay under cover.

  I did blame him for his making this choice. A fox can no more be condemned for its cunning and caution than a king may be rebuked for his arrogance and impetuousness. They are both as God made them, each tailored to fit exactly into his preordained place in the world.

  Nor did I know why he wished to speak to me – or even how I came to be in this clearing in which our conversation would be staged. Yet so convinced was I that his words would be worth the waiting for that I was prepared to stay rooted to this spot for a thousand years, if that was what was necessary.

  The fox broke cover and loped across the open ground towards me. The closer he got, the more it became plain that though he had appeared to be the normal size for one of his kind when in the distance, he was far larger than any of his brothers - so large, in fact, that he could have stood shoulder to shoulder with a small horse.

  I did not panic, though I would have had every reason to. Instead I toyed with the ploughshare in my hand, which was glowing red with heat, yet did not seem to have the power to burn me.

  The fox came to a halt in front of me, his eyes level with my own. He opened his mouth to smile, and revealed a set of sharp brown teeth as lethal as any row of daggers.

  ‘Good day to you, Geoffrey Chaucer,’ he said.

  ‘You know who I am?’ I asked, attempting to keep the amazement from my voice.

  ‘I know all that goes on in my forest,’ he replied. ‘Not a leaf falls from a tree but I am aware of it. Not a rabbit scuttles across the woodland floor but I know where he has been - and where he is going. This is my world, and I am master of it. But you, poor poet, are lost in these trees. You know not what happens, or even why it happens.’

  ‘Then instruct me,’ I said.

  ‘Why was the miller killed?’ the fox asked challengingly.

  ‘I do not know,’ I confessed.

  The fox’s grin widened. Not a great deal of sunlight could enter the clearing - for most of the rays were soon strangled by the oppressive green foliage – but what little did get though shone on his wicked teeth

  ‘Was not the miller’s beard as red as mine?’ he asked. ‘And in the nuns’ priest’s tale, was not the cock more than just a cock, and were not his hens more than simple fowl?’

  ‘Madame Eglantyne! Madame Eglantyne!’ screamed a chorus of hysterical women’s voices from somewhere deep in the forest.

  But I was far too intent on what the fox had to say to pay attention to anything else.

  ‘Are you telling me that the miller was more than just a miller?’ I asked the cunning creature.

  ‘I am telling you that we are all of us more than we seem – but also less,’ the fox answered.

  ‘Madame Eglantyne! Madame Eglantyne. Oh, Sweet Jesus, Madame Eglantyne!’

  ‘Tell me more!’ I pleaded.

  ‘More?’ the fox asked mockingly. ‘Have I not already told you enough, my poet? What more could you possibly wish to hear from me?’

  ‘Why did the miller have to die?’ I replied, and discovered that I was shouting. ‘How was he more than just a miller?’

  The forest began to blur before my eyes.

  Soon it was no more than a green and brown backcloth, and the fox, too, turned to green and brown, so that now I could see only his outline.

  And then I could see nothing at all.

  *

  Suddenly, I was no longer standing in the clearing, but lying down, with my face half-buried in a pillow.

  ‘God preserve us!’ screamed one of the women, sounding much closer than she had earlier, when I had imagined we were all in the forest. ‘Something terrible has happened to Madame Eglantyne!’

  I raised myself groggily up on one elbow. This was no forest but my bedchamber in the tavern in Rochester, I decided, and the hysterical women were standing on the gallery just outside it.

  Who were they? I asked, as I swung my legs off my bed, and planted my feet firmly on the floor.

  The only women I had noticed in the common room the previous evening had been the widow of Bath and the wenches who had served us food and ale.

  But why would any of them even be awake at this ungodly hour of the morning?

  And who was this Madame Eglantyne they were all screaming about?

  ‘Madame Eglantyne! Madame Eglantyne! Oh, what will the bishop say! What will he say!’

  As I reached for my gown, I cursed myself for the fool I was. There had been other women in the common room the previous night, and the reason I had forgotten them was because they had been shrouded, meek and virtually silent.

  I flung open my c
hamber door and stepped out onto the gallery.

  Just as I had done the previous morning.

  Just as I was fated – so I was coming to believe in my half-awake state – to do every morning for the rest of my life.

  The three nuns had stopped screaming, and stood huddled against the powerful figure of the nuns’ priest, much as the hens must have huddled against Chanticleer in priest’s story.

  ‘What has happened?’ I demanded.

  ‘The prioress!’ the nuns’ priest said. ‘She’s … she’s dead.’

  If this tale I am writing were one of pure invention, I would, for the sake of symmetry, have had the knight and the franklin appear on the scene at this moment, just as they appeared when the miller screamed out his death cry. But this is a true account which will not readily conform to the artistic rules of order, and hence it happened that the first pilgrims to reach the prioress’s room after the nuns had left it were the pardoner and the monk.

  They were by the door, as if barring entry to visitors. The pardoner looked as ill as any man might while still able to stand on his own two feet, and he had a lining of vomit around the edges of his mouth. The monk, in contrast, wore the expression of a weary teller of tragedies, to whom it was no shock that life should choose to imitate art.

  ‘Is the prioress dead?’ I asked.

  ‘As a doornail,’ the monk confirmed bluntly.

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  The monk shrugged, as if answering the question again would be nothing more than a waste of his time.

  ‘You are a justice of the peace, aren’t you?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  He moved slightly away from the door. ‘Then go and see for yourself, your worship.’

  As I stepped forward, the pardoner reached out and clutched my arm with one of his bony claws.

  ‘Oh, stay away, good friend,’ he implored me. ‘Spare yourself the sight that we have been forced to endure.’

  Under any circumstances, the pardoner’s touch would have repelled me, but now it was, in addition, hindering me from doing my duty. I brushed him aside and entered the room.