The Pale Companion

by Philip Gooden

  “The parson of Rung Withers.”

  “The one who also attended when you buried Robin, and said a few words?”

  “He’s an odd one,” said Sam. “To care for a poor worthless body.”

  “Just one more thing, Sam, for my six pennies. They’re saying it was the wood spirits who did this or – or something else.”

  “Thought is free,” said Sam.

  “Yes,” I said. “But let us suppose that Robin did this to himself. How do you think he did it? How did he hang himself?”

  “He climbed the tree, Master Nicholas. He fastened one end of the rope about the branch and the other end about his neck and then he fell off into the empty air.”

  I admired the touch of poetry in my friend’s answer but the rest of it left me dissatisfied. However, I asked nothing more in this line.

  As I was making to leave, Sam said, “Have a look in the barn before you return to the big house.”

  “Why?”

  For answer, Sam tapped the little protruberance that served him for a nose.

  “Do you believe in this?” I said, glancing down at the dirty rope on the floor. It seemed to swell and writhe under my gaze. The room grew hotter.

  “There are things in the woods which might drive a man to despair.”

  “No,” I said, reluctant to make myself clear, “I mean – that touching this cord will bring luck and so on.”

  “Thought is free,” he repeated. “Go on. You have paid.”

  I bent down and touched the rope with my fingertips then turned quickly about and, after fumbling for a moment with the door, walked out of his dwelling and into fresh air. My fingers burned.

  Outside all was calm. The afternoon sky was cloudless. Farm buildings were dotted among clumps of elm and sycamore. I wondered why Sam had directed me to go to the barn. It was easily identifiable as the largest of the buildings hereabouts. The path to it was scuffed and rutted. As I drew nearer I heard someone speaking inside in low, even tones but was unable to make out what was being said. The double doors to the barn were wide open. At the far end among the shadows stood a pale figure. I wondered that a man could stand so tall. Then something thickened in my throat, for the figure was not standing but swaying slightly from side to side. I blinked and rubbed my eyes but the image did not disappear. I felt my gorge rise. Even so, I continued to advance towards the black, gaping entrance with an almost mechanical tread.

  I halted on the threshold. I wasn’t the only one drawn by this spectacle. Knots of people stood about in the interior of the barn. They were looking at a man hanging from a rope which was attached to a beam. The body, clad in a white smock, swung gently from side to side. The tie-beam creaked under its weight.

  “Well,” said Will Fall, “I thought it was nearly as good as the real thing.”

  “I have never seen one,” I said, “and I’m not sure I want to either.”

  “No true Londoner then, Nicholas – not until you’ve been to Tyburn and seen someone turned off. My father would drive me miles to see the sight.”

  I’d been told this before: that I was no true Londoner until I’d done or seen something . . . usually something unpleasant, even if exciting. My normal response would have been to shrug it off or make a joke of it. But this afternoon I felt unequal to laughter. The session with Sam the bailie had left a bad taste. My fingertips still tingled from touching the rope with which Robin had hanged himself. Then to witness, immediately afterwards, the body of a man swaying from the beam of a barn, watched by an appreciative crowd as if it really had been a Tyburn turn-off. No, I didn’t see much to applaud here.

  “What you should do,” said Will Fall, his voice dropping low and glancing behind him, “is take along a wench, especially one who has not yet come round. There’s nothing they like more than to see a man turned off. Even better if he struggles somewhat. It’s more efficacious than a love-philtre. You’ll hardly have time to find a dry patch of earth.”

  “I’ll remember that,” I said, wondering if Nell had ever been present at an execution.

  Will looked behind him once more. Audrey, his “wench” from the Instede kitchens, knew her place and followed us at a respectful distance. She was red-faced in the sun. She it was who had discovered the swaying body of Robin the woodman, and gained a certain fame thereby, particularly with the claim that one of Robin’s feet was cloven. I wondered that she had any desire to see the scene re-enacted in play. But there is no accounting for human taste – and, more particularly, no accounting whatsoever for the leanings of the female half. As Will Fall showed by his next comment (he was unable to shift off the subject of women and executions):

  “And for the effect on a woman of a full hanging and drawing and quartering . . . just think of that.”

  “You’ve seen one of those?”

  “I live in hope.”

  “We need more traitors,” I said.

  “Aye, we do,” said Will eagerly, oblivious to my irony. “More common traitors. These noblemen like the Earl of Essex are no good. They lose only their heads, not their bowels and all.”

  I stared ahead across the fields. We were walking back towards the big house which, from whatever angle you approached, dominated the scene. Inside the barn I’d found, in addition to the hanged man, Will Fall, our carter-player, making up one of the onlookers and accompanied by his drab Audrey. Plain described her fairly. Whether she was good or not there was no knowing. She cast frequent cow-like glances in his direction. If she was still good then it was a condition she wouldn’t enjoy much longer.

  As you’ve probably guessed, what I’d witnessed through the open doors of the great barn was no real hanging but the mere simulation of one, though quite good enough to deceive the eye from a few yards off, especially when played in shadow. The “victim” was supported by quilted belts and straps fastened around his chest and under his arms, the whole apparatus being concealed beneath the white smock he wore and being connected at the back of his costume to a dark cord hanging from the rafters. The noose circling his neck was a trumpery thing, more like string and probably made of flax for safety’s sake (so that it would have snapped if it had borne any weight), yet because of its light colour it stood out against the gloomy interior of the barn, as did his white garb. All that was required to top up this desolate picture was a deal of face-pulling and the sounds of strangulation on the part of the dangling man – in short, the kind of effect which every player loves (there is a child in all of us). After that he merely had to swing gently. It wouldn’t have been comfortable to maintain this position six feet above the ground for long but you can endure much for the edification and amazement of the crowd.

  This hanging was the conclusion of yet another drama penned and performed by the Paradise Brothers, the players who’d so recently fetched up at Instede and who were allowed to remain here through the sufferance, perhaps even the active encouragement, of Lady Penelope Elcombe. This time the brothers – of whom there really were three (aptly named Peter, Paul and Philip) – had chosen to enact the story of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of our Saviour. So, for the betterment of the Instede workers, they told the sorry tale of the thirty pieces of silver, the treacherous kiss in the garden, the despair of the renegade, and his self-slaughter dangling from an elder tree. This had gone down well, I gathered, particularly the hanging. As Will Fall had said, it was nearly as good as the real thing. And the Instede workers probably welcomed it the more because they didn’t have the benefit of all the amenities and diversions enjoyed by Londoners: to wit, regular hangings, and occasional drawings and quarterings as well.

  At the end of the hanging – that is, after Paul “Iscariot” Paradise, again wearing the yellow beard he’d sported in the part of Cain, had swung up there for long enough – the leader of this holy trinity, Peter Paradise, stepped forward and sermonized and harangued the rustic audience, just as he had the Salisbury townees a few nights before. Once more he “brothered” and “sistered” us puritan-style
although real puritans would have had nothing to do with the drama, even of this pious Biblical kind. I wasn’t entirely clear what the God-player was talking about, but he seemed to be attacking greed and money – and cupidity and lucre – and, just in case the point hadn’t been driven home, avarice and coin. Judas Iscariot, you see, was tempted by thirty pieces of silver. Observe into what an abyss of despair his money-lust had tipped him. Begone, greed! Avaunt thee, avarice! The day will come when the rich man shall be expelled from his castle, and the poor man come into his own.

  I wondered to hear all this. Like the talk in Salisbury it sounded faintly seditious. Did Elcombe over in his palace know – or more to the point did his wife know – that a company of player-preachers were uttering heresies about money and property on the edge of their fine estate? Perhaps fortunately, most of what he said seemed to go over his audience’s heads. They were only there for the hanging, after all. Whether he was understood or not, Peter Paradise, with his natural white beard and furrowed brow, was a powerful speaker. He thundered. And he was a powerful man too. As a whole, the trio were well able to look after themselves; I remembered how “Cain” had clubbed Tom the farmer, and the brawl which had ensued.

  I wondered also whether the holy brothers had heard of the stir on the estate over the hanging of Robin and were using it to their own ends. If so, I didn’t in any way blame them for this . . . they were merely behaving like players in all times and places, setting themselves afloat on the current of the moment, the one that was flowing past their door. Otherwise it seemed too much of a coincidence that they should have picked on Iscariot’s tale at the same time as a man had strung himself up in the woods.

  If he had strung himself up.

  This was the question that my visit to Sam the bailie hadn’t answered. If anything, the visit had deepened my doubts. In pursuit of this problem I went down to examine the spot where Robin’s body had been discovered. I quickly identified the elm, not by any markings on the tree itself but because of the scuffed, disturbed ground around its base. The branch was easy to identify too. It was long, straight and relatively low. Still hanging from it was the little stub of rope, cut through by Sam’s man when he’d been unable to undo the knot. The air was warm but I shivered.

  Nothing of what I saw there hardened my doubts into certainties. But it didn’t allay them either. The trouble was that I could do nothing practical with my suspicions. Our seniors Richard Sincklo or Thomas Pope would probably have been receptive enough if I’d talked to them, but they wouldn’t have been able to do anything either, even had they been so inclined. We had no real foothold in this place. We were guests of Lord Elcombe, but paid guests, relatively lowly ones at that with a task to perform. Whatever happened on his estate had nothing to do with us. And the suicide of an eccentric who dwelt in the woods, odd and unsettling as it might be, would surely be forgotten soon, especially when there were great matrimonial matters to attend to.

  Except that it showed no signs of being forgotten. The stories about Robin being strung up by woodwoses or sprites or fetched off by Old Nick did not abate but became a distraction at a time when the hearts and minds of everyone at Instede should have been devoted to the nuptials of Harry and Marianne. Someone in authority – presumably Elcombe himself – evidently decided that enough was enough and called in help from outside to try to clear up this business.

  I learned of this in a roundabout way the next morning. I was wandering about the eastern side of the estate, near the margin of the little lake which lay by the approach to the great house. Sun glittered off the water. I wondered whether Elcombe had had the lake dug or whether it was already there, conveniently at hand when the house was built. The diverting pretence that all these acres were mine, never a very convincing one, was hard to sustain for more than a few moments, and my mind was free (videlicet, idle). So generous was the provision which had been made for the Chamberlain’s preparation and rehearsal time at Instede that we found ourselves with several spare hours of the day to fill. The Dream and the wedding were still some days hence. So there I was wandering, slightly mopish, in these sunlit grounds, book in hand, and thinking of Master W.S.’s Hamlet, who also wanders about the chambers and grounds of a great palace, book in hand, and much more than a little mopish. I was word-perfect in my part as Lysander the lover. If we’d been in London I would’ve been furiously learning my lines for the next day’s play, and the day after’s, and the following week’s too. But here in the country there was no urgency.

  In the absence of work, my thoughts drifted like the thistledown which floated through the haze. I had no kitchen-piece to pursue, although I was beginning to wonder whether I shouldn’t find myself some occupation of that sort, as two or three of my fellows had.

  Country matters.

  “Master Revill.”

  I looked back. A woman was approaching across the sward.

  My heart started to beat faster and my bowels to do a little dance. Afterwards I couldn’t have sworn that I hadn’t been thinking of her at that very moment, and that she had arrived pat.

  “Master Revill,” she called again, but softer. She was wearing a small-brimmed hat and had to shield her face with her hand so as to see better.

  I smiled as she drew closer. At least I hope I smiled. I was, to be honest, a little flustered.

  By day she was even more beautiful than by the candlelight of her father’s house. Her hat provided a little shelter from the sun but left her face largely open for my timorous inspection. Her complexion had that natural whiteness which only a young woman can achieve without artifice. She had her father’s eyes, grey and penetrating but in her case they were softened by a touch of amusement, even mockery. Her lips were firm and red. Her nose was more assertive than shrinking, yet still delicate enough, even if it confirmed her as a woman of decided opinions. Or so it seemed to me. I hadn’t even started to look below her fine neck yet, except in the most general, fleeting fashion. Staring would have been ill-bred. I didn’t want lower myself in her eyes by lowering my own on her.

  I was, of course, already half in love with her and I hadn’t even said a word yet!

  “Mistress . . . Fielding,” I eventually stumbled out with.

  “How are your cuts and bruises?”

  She made to put her hand up to my face, to the places where only a few days before she’d touched me with long white fingers and soothing ointments. But to my regret she withdrew the hand, obviously considering that this would be rather a familiar gesture in broad daylight.

  “Much better,” I said. “In fact I’d forgotten about them – thanks to your ministrations.”

  “My father told me how you’d acquired them.”

  “Oh, it’s not worth troubling about,” I said, embarrassed to recall my unwise words in the Salisbury market-place and surprised that Adam Fielding knew the story. I thought I’d taken care to not tell him. However, he was obviously the kind of man who made it his business to know everything.

  “What must you think of us down here?”

  “I come from down here myself – or not far away.”

  No doubt she already knew this too from her father. The idea that they might have discussed me was not unpleasing.

  “Anyway I’ve seen much worse in London,” I said airily. “Up there . . . mobs of apprentices roam the streets like wolf-packs looking for honest citizens to insult and foreigners to injure.”

  Her grey eyes widened and, pleased with effect I was producing, I plunged on.

  “There are cast-off soldiers and sailors, desperate men who know no way of life but fighting or threatening to fight. There are places you’d be afraid to tread by day let alone at night.”

  Her eyes widened further. Too late I noticed they were tinged with mockery.

  “Strange, Master Revill, that I saw so little of this when I was last in London a few weeks ago.”

  “You probably didn’t visit the right places,” I said lamely.

  “The wrong ones
, you mean. But then my aunt lives quite close to the city walls.”

  “I am not lucky enough to be connected with anyone on the other side.”

  “The other side? You make it sound like the hellish river Styx.”

  “Right enough,” I said. Not only was she beautiful, she was also quick and resourceful in conversation. “There are many Charons, though, who will transport you across to the south side, which is where I am. And my Company as well.”

  “Where the soldiers fight and the apprentices fester?”

  “You take it lightly, Mistress Fielding, but there are places where I would not be happy to see you wandering, at any rate by night. Even if you are no stranger to London.”

  “It’s good of you to be so concerned for my welfare, Master Revill.”

  “Nicholas, please, if you will agree that I can call you Kate. And I’m merely repaying the concern you showed for my welfare when you dressed my wounds.”

  She made no direct answer to this but turned slightly to one side, as if to indicate that she wished to move on. I fell in step beside her. We ambled in the direction of the Instede lake. The sun dazzled off the water. As we walked I cast covert glances at her, but (believe me) in no lascivious spirit. Her neckline was low enough to interest but not to over-excite. She was wearing a farthingale which defined a small, delicate waist.

  “What do you read?” she said, glancing at the closed book in my hand.

  I might have answered with the words my lord Hamlet uses when he is questioned by Polonius – namely, words, words, words. But I said, “A volume of verse by one of our playwrights.”

  “Our?”

  “At the Globe playhouse in London.”

  “It is Master Shakespeare you mean?”

  “No, Kate,” I said, a little surprised at her knowledge, “not Shakespeare but a lesser light. A new writer in fact. One Richard Milford who had some luck with a piece called A Venetian Whore earlier this year. His success on the playhouse stage has encouraged him to turn his hand to poetry, and call it A Garland.”