Bartholomew Fair

by Ann Swinfen

‘I’ve never worked at any craft but smithing and soldiering,’ he said. ‘I was born on my grandfather’s farm, but there were too many of us to make a living there. My eldest brother has it now. Then I worked with my father at the smithy. I can trace out a pattern, but I could never stitch as neatly as that.’ He gave a nod toward Liza.

  ‘It comes with practice,’ she said, biting off her thread. ‘You did not learn to handle a sword or a blacksmith’s hammer overnight, nor did Dr Alvarez learn his physic without much study. Every trade demands time and patience.’

  ‘Wisely said.’ I smiled at her. I was more than ever glad that William had found this haven after the horror of losing his leg.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘may I borrow your apprentice for a short while, and examine his injuries?’

  ‘Certainly,’ William said. ‘Go through into the back. You can be private there, in case a customer should come in.’

  Once we were in the back room, Adam removed his shirt and I saw that the sword slashes were healing well, though they would leave scars.

  ‘And what of this nasty gash in your head, Adam?’ I said, tilting his head to the light. ‘I can see that it looks clean, but have you been troubled by any recurring pain or dizziness?’

  ‘Not at all, doctor. It was very sore at first, then it began to itch as it healed and I had to remind myself not to scratch it. But now it is only a little tender if I touch it.’

  ‘It is time to take the stitches out.’ I removed the small scissors from my satchel and snipped through the threads.

  He slipped his shirt on again and tied the strings.

  ‘It looks as though you have been in the wars yourself.’ He gestured toward my bandaged hand.

  ‘A burn, quite a severe one,’ I said, ‘but it is getting better. I hope it will not bar me from work, for I have a new position.’ I told him about starting at St Thomas’s on the twelfth.

  ‘Well, if they need any recommendations from patients, William and I will speak for you,’ he said.

  I laughed. ‘I will remember that! And what of you, Adam? When you are fully recovered, will you return to the West Country? Or do you think you might like to take up the shoe-making craft, as William suggests?’

  He sat down across the kitchen table from me.

  ‘They have been more than kind to me, William and Liza, but they have no room for another pair of hands in the business. With William and his wife, and Bess and her husband, and even young Will coming along, they have more than enough people for the business to support. Even if they should decide to take on an apprentice, I am far too old. They would want a young lad to train up.’

  He began to trace circles on the table with his finger.

  ‘I feel no desire to go back to the West Country. Too many sad memories. I will try to find work of some kind here in London.’ He looked up at me, somewhat desolately. ‘I am strong. There must be employment for a strong labouring man, working on the docks, perhaps, or for a builder. I have not been outside much, for fear they were still looking for us soldiers, but from what little I have seen, there is a lot of building work going on in London.’

  ‘Aye, there is,’ I said. ‘I will ask around for you. I think you are safe to go outside now, for I do not believe they are still looking for soldiers. I will tell you what I know for myself and what I have heard from others about the outcome of your march on Bartholomew Fair.’

  I hesitated, for what I had to tell was not a pretty story, but Adam deserved the truth.

  ‘The Lord Mayor was so terrified by the march you made on the Fair,’ I said, ‘that, after he reported the situation to the Common Council and the Privy Council, he himself called out two thousand of the London Trained Bands. Those were the men who attacked the camp and injured you.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I thought they were the London militia.’

  ‘It seems they rounded up most of the men after some vicious scuffles, but without too many casualties on the part of the militia. They probably inflicted far more injuries than they received.’

  ‘Our veterans were still weak from our time in Portugal and the starvation journey home,’ he said.

  I nodded my agreement. ‘Most of them have now been driven out of London,’ I said, ‘with a warning that if they return they will be imprisoned. If any remain, they have gone into hiding. I believe the City authorities feel they have won that particular skirmish.’

  His face grew sad. I do not suppose he still had any hope that the soldiers’ demands might be met, even in part. Instead his fellows had been defeated and disgraced, after those soothing promises of discussions by the Lord Mayor.

  ‘What has happened to the soldiers who had the gunpowder?’ he asked. ‘Have they been taken, or are they still at loose in London?’

  ‘They have been taken, the men and the gunpowder,’ I said grimly, and could not forebear glancing at my burned hand.

  Adam caught my glance and his eyes widened.

  ‘How did you burn your hand, doctor?’

  ‘I will tell you the whole story some day,’ I promised, ‘but for the moment it is not to be spoken about. Those men will certainly suffer punishment.’

  He looked thoughtful at that, but did not press me further. He had a quick wit, Adam, as I had realised on more than one occasion.

  ‘What has become of our leaders?’ he asked. ‘Our leaders who went unarmed to consult with the Lord Mayor and Common Council? We heard they had been thrown in prison.’

  This was news I was reluctant to deliver, but it must be done.

  ‘To set an example, they say, your leaders who were invited so courteously to consult with the Lord Mayor–’ I found it difficult to go on.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said grimly. ‘I know it must be bad news.’

  ‘They have been hanged at Tyburn without trial,’ I said. ‘They went to the hanging with great courage, holding their heads high. I was told that as the noose was put round his neck, one of them cried out to the watching crowd, “This is the pay you give soldiers for going to the wars!” And then they hanged him.’

  Adam covered his face with his hands and we sat in silence.

  I believed, as I had said to Sir Francis, that this treatment of the men would have serious consequences the next time the State wanted the citizens of England to rally to the defence of country and Queen. More immediately, however, now that his fellows had fled from London, what was Adam to do, once he was well enough to leave the Bakers’ home?

  After a time, I said, ‘They were brave men, Adam, and they were treated abominably. The Lord Mayor broke his word.’

  He looked up at me, with a stricken face.

  ‘Why do great men always feel they can betray the lesser? Drake betrayed us thrice over – by abandoning us at Lisbon, by stealing the food from half the army, and by refusing to pay us, keeping the booty for himself. Now the Lord Mayor and Council betray us.’

  ‘I suppose that is how they become powerful,’ I said slowly, ‘by climbing over the bodies of other men. You cannot expect compassion from them. As they say, a rich man does not become rich by giving alms to the poor. If you want help, go to a poor man.’

  He sighed deeply.

  ‘But Adam, we must look to the future. I start at St Thomas’s shortly. I will see whether there might be work there. When I visited, I found the whole place teeming with people. There are workshops there, all kinds of businesses, left over from the days when it was a monastery. I will enquire whether there is anyone needing a strong reliable man.’ I grinned at him. ‘One who is also neat fingered.’

  After I left the Bakers’ shop, I decided to go for a longer walk. Sir Francis had said that he did not want me back at Seething Lane until my hand was healed, and after I began work at St Thomas’s I would have little time to myself. It was a beautiful September day. Under a sky of that bright pale blue one sees at this time of the year, the occasional trees which managed to survive in London were beginning to take on their autumn tints. There was a little sharpness in the
air, a reminder that colder weather would come soon, but it also managed to allay the stink that usually arose from the London streets.

  I found my steps automatically turning to the places I had known so well and where I had lived since coming to England. Just inside Newgate I saw that the chestnut seller had set up his little portable brazier again and was roasting his nuts. He had a full sack on the ground by his feet and was slitting each nut swiftly before laying it on the grid iron. I stopped to greet him.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ I asked.

  ‘If you don’t slit ’em, master, they can explode. Don’t know why. Tricky things, chestnuts. So I allus slits ’em.’

  He reached forward with a kind of iron paddle, shuffled the roasting chestnuts on to it, then flipped them neatly over.

  ‘And how well did you do at the Fair?’ I said.

  He beamed. ‘That gentleman’s sixpence made my fortune. I sold my comfits so fast my wife had to stay up all night, every night of the Fair, making more. I made a tidy sum, which will help see us through the winter.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘It was a good thing those ragamuffin soldiers wasn’t allowed to break up the Fair, or honest men would have lost everything.’

  ‘They were badly treated,’ I said. ‘They were honest men too, and should have been paid for their service and their suffering.’

  ‘But why make other poor men suffer?’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t seem right to me.’

  ‘I wonder whether they would have carried out that threat,’ I said. ‘I think they only wanted to force the authorities to pay them what they were owed.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, shovelling the cooked chestnuts on to the side plate of his brazier and laying out a fresh batch, ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, master.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we will. I’ll have two pokes of chestnuts, please.’

  As usual, I handed one of the paper twists of nuts through the grid of Newgate prison, where the destitute prisoners with no one to bring them food stretched out their hands to the passersby. I wondered whether any of those grubby hands belonged to the soldiers who had planned the attack on Drake’s house.

  Through Newgate itself, then up Pie Corner. The fair ground was empty of all the stalls and tents and booths, the acrobats and pig women, the fortune tellers and gingerbread bakers. Litter blew about the wide space, but soon there would be no sign that the magical town had ever been here. Like the fairy palace in some ancient tale it had vanished away for another year. Already the men who worked at Smithfield were putting up the pens for the beast market next day.

  I crossed toward the hospital and stood looking at it with fondness, but sadly. It was there that I had learned my profession, and there that I had worked for so many hours with my father. It had been hard work, and sometimes distressing, but I had been happy there. A familiar figure emerged from the gatehouse and came toward me.

  ‘Kit!’ It was Peter Lambert, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Have you come to see us?’

  ‘Nay,’ I said, backing away a little, as if I had somehow been caught out. ‘I am free for a few days, so I am enjoying the fine weather taking a walk.’

  He looked puzzled at this, for I was not known for idling away my time taking walks, like a gentleman of leisure.

  ‘I start at St Thomas’s on the twelfth,’ I said, by way of explanation. ‘Come to say farewell to the old place.’ I nodded toward the hospital.

  ‘Well, I hope you will not forget us,’ he said. Then he smiled again, rather shyly. ‘I have been meaning to write to you. I have some news.’

  ‘You will take your final apothecary exams soon?’

  ‘That too. Early next year. What I was going to tell you–’ he coloured, ‘the fact is, I have asked Helen Winger to marry me, and she has agreed.’

  ‘You are affianced!’ I seized his hand in my good one and shook it warmly. ‘That is splendid news, Peter.’

  ‘We cannot marry until I am fully trained,’ he said, ‘and have a salary enough to wed and support a wife. We will need to rent our own home. I cannot go on living in my room in the hospital. It will be some time next summer. The governors say that they will keep me on here.’

  ‘You have done so well for yourself, Peter,’ I said. ‘I am truly glad for you. Such changes in life for both of us! Shall we go and drink to your good fortune at the tavern?’

  ‘I wish I could, but it will need to be later,’ he said regretfully. ‘I am sent with a potion for a patient who went home yesterday. An old man, and stubborn. He would go home, though we wanted to keep him a few more days.’

  I laughed. ‘Not like some we have known, eh? The ones who like the warmth and the food and the nursing care so much that they want to move in. Do you remember that fellow we could hardly get rid of, when we needed the bed for the soldiers from Sluys?’

  ‘I do.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘He had a shrew of a wife. Found it much more peaceful here.’

  He turned away, then seemed to notice my bandaged hand for the first time.

  ‘You have injured yourself!’

  ‘A burn,’ I said. ‘I’m recovering!’

  When Peter was gone, I followed the familiar way back from the hospital to Duck Lane. I had walked it so often with my father, I could almost imagine he was walking beside me still. I would take one last look at my old home, then never come here again. I felt I was closing one door after another on the past.

  The woman I had seen before, the day I returned to London, was coming toward me from the other end of the lane, with a basket over her arm. Mistress Temperley, the wife of the new physician who had taken my father’s place. She had her little boy with her, but not the baby. I supposed the reliable maid must be minding the house and the baby. She caught sight of me in my gentleman’s doublet and dropped a courtesy. Her face showed no sign of recognition. I inclined my head, and watched her go into my home. My old home.

  I turned my back on it and walked away.

  I asked the servants to wake me before dawn on the twelfth. It was a long walk to St Thomas’s from Wood Street and I did not want to risk being late. I donned my new cap and gown, which I felt looked impressive, but I had no stomach for breakfast. The previous evening Sara had helped me put a smaller bandage on my left hand and I felt it no longer looked too serious. I was leaving Rikki with Anne again, but I would need to find some permanent arrangement. The gatekeeper at Barts had always been fond of Rikki, but there was no knowing what the gatekeeper at Thomas’s would be like. He might hate dogs.

  It was strange to be walking through the City so early in the morning. The streets were almost deserted except for the homeless beggars still asleep, huddled for shelter in the doorways of shops. Soon they would be woken and kicked out by the apprentices. At least it was not yet cold. I did not know how they could survive in the cold of full winter.

  The night soil men had finished their work and the street traders were not yet abroad. London seemed remarkably peaceful with so few people about. I saw a young shepherd herding a flock of sheep along Cheapside. They would be destined for the market at Smithfield. A couple of women were gossiping beside the Great Conduit, their buckets forgotten at their feet. They turned to stare at me as I passed in my finery, then, like Mistress Temperley, they curtsied. I inclined my head, suppressing a smile. Clothes maketh the man, it seemed.

  Carts were rumbling down Gracechurch Street, come from the market gardens in Shoreditch and further afield. They were loaded with every kind of vegetable: cabbages, onions, leeks, carrots. There were cages of squawking chickens and ducks, baskets of eggs, and here and there a few rabbits hanging upside down from the tailboard of the cart. The farmers must have left home even earlier than I. Some would be heading to Newgate market, others would be going the same way as I, over the Bridge to Southwark to the markets there, where disputes sometimes broke out between these farmers from the north of the City and the farmers with smallholdings on the fringes of Southwark, who regarded the south
ern markets as rightfully theirs. I quickened my pace to get ahead of the carts before they reached the Bridge.

  Even the Bridge was quiet this morning. A few people were passing on foot toward me, those who lived in Southwark but worked in the City. There were no pedlars or entertainers here yet. Overhead, maids were throwing open shutters and shaking out bedding. No need to dodge the contents of piss pots here, as one must in the London streets. The maids would simply tip them into the river, adding to the filth.

  I had learned to avoid looking at the spiked heads over the gate at the southern end of the Bridge, though I had never quite forgotten how they had haunted my childhood nightmares. Today I had other worries. I slowed my pace now I was in Southwark, for after walking fast I was flushed and hot, in no state to arrive at the hospital. In any case, I was early. Instead I ambled along, looking about me at the unfamiliar streets with a new eye. I would be spending most of my time here now, and I would get to know the back streets and crowded alleys – and their inhabitants – as I had known the poor districts around St Bartholomew’s. Both districts were poverty stricken, but this was probably a rougher area. The men and women who worked in the stinking industries banned from London lived here, as did the prostitutes of every sort, and those who were employed at the bear baiting and bull baiting. Although the Rose playhouse had been built here two years before to avoid the restrictions of the Common Council, it had to rub along with these coarser forms of entertainment. Although the Queen was said to love a play – and Simon had appeared before her even when he was one of St Paul’s boy players – the playhouses and their actors were still regarded by many as hardly better than vagabonds. The Puritans, those godly people, like the man I had seen ranting at the Fair, thought them creatures born of the Devil.

  It was time. I made my way under the gate and into the great doorway of St Thomas’s, still with the fine carving surrounding it from its monastic days, although empty niches on either side showed where statues of saints had been removed. Perhaps one had been St Thomas à Becket. No Tudor monarch would wish to have him presiding over a public building, a man who had dared to stand up to his king.