15 The Sempster's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  “That gift of peace, that precious jewel,

  If men it keep and throw it not away,

  Sons of Christ they may be named full well…

  There is no doubt that ambition

  And greed fire all this debate…

  Though a man be great, yet higher would he go;

  And these are causes of our strife and woe.“

  But it was a long work and beyond the priory’s purse and purpose, she feared and moved regretfully away from it.

  ‘A holy story by a well-respected man,“ Master Colop was saying, still extolling Capgrave’s St. Katherine.

  A holy story, Frevisse thought wryly, of a girl defying in usually very rude terms her parents, an emperor, and several score of philosophers before going, still scornful but triumphant, to her martyrdom. It was a goodly blend of piety and daring ever widely loved and, she thought, reading some of Dom Capgrave’s prose past Dame Juliana’s shoulder, well-told here.

  The Gilded Quill had choice enough, and Master Colop’s prices were none so bad, that they told him they would consider and decide and probably be back. Then, with nothing purchased but much learned, they rejoined Master Naylor and Dickon, who had been waiting in the street with at least outward patience, and started back toward St. Helen’s. Passing St. Paul’s yard again, they saw a crowd was gathered into the corner made by the meeting of the cathedral’s transept and choir, and Frevisse said, “There must be someone preaching.”

  ‘Preaching?“ Dame Juliana asked.

  ‘At St. Paul’s Cross there,“ Frevisse said. ”Anyone with words to say to Londoners at large can speak or preach from there.“

  ‘So long as what he has to say is not treasonous, heretical, or likely to rouse the crowd to riot,“ said Master Naylor, sounding as if he expected all of them at once and immediately.

  The man there now, standing in the pulpit at the top of ten stone steps that put him well over the heads of the gathering of perhaps two dozen people, looked to be a Franciscan friar, which would be usual enough. The grey-robed Franciscans were given to public preaching, and their great London house of Grey Friars was not far beyond St. Paul’s, toward Newgate. Although this man’s voice carried over even London’s street noise, Frevisse—following Dame Juliana toward him—could not make out his words for certain until nearly to the rear edge of the crowd, and by then Master Naylor could hear them, too, and said, like giving a curse, “Lollards. He’s talking about Lollards.” Heretics who claimed that by reading the Bible for themselves they were as able as long-studying churchly scholars to determine the meaning of God’s word, and that therefore the Bible should be allowed to them in English. More than once they had brought their disagreement against the Church and royal government to such a pitch they had risen in armed revolt, attempting to force their will and ways upon everyone, so that they were a peril to men’s bodies as well as to their souls.

  ‘… damned to Hell’s eternal fires,“ the friar’s voice rang out, ”unless they can be brought to repent of their sins, but for most of them that will come only under the weight of the Church’s hand pressing down on their heretical hearts!“

  ‘Oh,“ said Dame Juliana, drawing back a step in disappointment. ”I don’t want to hear about Lollards and damnation today.“

  Besides that, she looked beginning to droop with a weariness that Frevisse would soon share, and they left the friar to his preaching and took the first chance that came, on a bench under a beech tree in a churchyard not much farther along Cheapside, to sit down out of the hurry of the street. Hungry now that she took time to think about it, Frevisse gave Master Naylor coins, and he and Dickon went away to a nearby food stall and soon came back with savory-smelling pork pies and a leather bottle of ale that Master Naylor poured into pottery cups, complaining as he did, “I had to give the man a ha’penny more as promise I’d bring back the bottle and cups. I warrant I’ll get no more than a farthing in return when I do.”

  His voice was stiff with something beyond ordinary complaint, though, and Frevisse—having already found that the pie tasted as savoury as it smelled—saw his face was creased with more than its usual share of worry. Even Dickon was gone intent, and she asked, “What is it?”

  ‘Those Kentish rebels,“ Master Naylor said grimly. ”There was a man at the stall saying he’s heard they’ve come back to Black Heath. That’s the other side of the Thames and about ten miles away, so that’s no worry.“ Which would have been to the good if Master Naylor had not, nonetheless, sounded worried. ”Still, we’re maybe best to have you back into St. Helen’s quick as might be. To leave me free to find out better what I can about what’s happening and being said. I don’t like that they’ve come back even that far off.“

  Nor did Frevisse. For rebels to turn in their tracks and come back argued a lack of fear of king and nobles that was not comfortable to think on.

  Master Naylor turned his head. “Listen. Word’s spreading.”

  There were indeed voices rising in the street beyond the low churchyard wall, and the flow and come and go of folk in the street was changing into clots and gatherings of men and women talking hard together with gestures and alarm. Frevisse brushed crumbs from her skirts and took the filled cup Dickon was holding out to her. “I think you’re right, Master Naylor,” she said. “We’ll do well to go back to St. Helen’s as quickly as may be.”

  Chapter 4

  Because Bette’s bad hip was playing up, this Monday’s buying fell to Anne, who did not go out to it until late morning, intent until then on laying the ground for St. Mark’s lion with a brick-stitch in green silk. “Bread,” Bette said, handing her the deep, tightly woven market basket. “If that fellow of yours is going to be here, a chicken, too, maybe? Plucked, mind you. The day is gone far enough, I won’t have time for plucking a chicken if you want it for your supper. Or eels if you happen on any that look good. I could do an eel pie, if you think he’d favor that. And apples if you see any. I could do an apple tart.”

  Anne went out smiling at Bette’s willingness to cook for Daved. A tailor who had come courting Anne soon after Matthew’s death had been given not-quite-stale biscuits on his visits, and Anne had not chided her for it, as willing as Bette to discourage the man’s interest. Now, even without the hope of Daved’s visits, she would have been loathe to give up her single life; but she did have Daved’s visits, and he had promised when he left her Saturday before dawn that he would come again on Monday.

  ‘I’m not certain when, my love,“ he had said and kissed her. ”But sometime.“

  And now Monday was come, and all the morning she had found herself smiling to herself over her sewing until now as she stood with her full market basket over her arm at the edge of the crowd gathered in St. Paul’s yard around the preaching cross, listening to a Franciscan friar declaring against Lollards in a clear, carrying voice from the pulpit’s stone height.

  His strong voice had turned her from the street as she passed by on her way home from the butchers’ stalls along Newgate, and though she had neither seen nor heard him before this, he had to be the Brother Michael she had heard Mistress Upton praising of late with, “He’s English, but he’s been in France a long while and come back very learned, it’s said. He’s supposed to be a mighty hunter-out of heretics there and, St. Paul be praised, he’s been sent back here to hunt out Lollards. You have to hear him. Truly, he’s worth the listening to.”

  He was, Anne silently agreed.

  He was a young man—younger than Daved by a few years, anyway—not overly tall and looking slightly built, even with the thick, grey friar’s robe rope-belted around him, with a raw-boned, high-cheeked face, and his fair hair short-cropped to above his ears. In any gathering of men, he would look only ordinary, but his voice was otherwise. Sweeping his arm above the upturned faces of his gathered listeners, pointing beyond them to all of London, he was declaring, “They’re there!

  Heretics. Lollards. Satan’s fools. Satan’s tools. Set to trap others into their
errors. Into their folly.“ His voice dropped without losing its force. ”Into damnation. Utter and eternal.“ But even as he railed against all Christ’s enemies, against all heretic-traitors to God, his voice was warm, as full of possibilities as richly spiced wine, winning his listeners to hear him, to heed him as he declared, ”Understand well that Lollards are your foes as well as God’s! Like these rebels out of Kent, Lollards, too, in their arrogance and heresy have in their time risen in revolt against God and man. Left to go their heretical ways, they will rise again! They are a pollution here among you. A pollution that must be found out, so that either their souls may be cleansed of their sin or England cleansed of their corrupting presence!“

  He made that the challenge of a commander rousing men to battle, and there was much nodding of heads and a ready rumble of agreement from his listeners, men and women both, and Anne nodded with the rest because there was no denying what he said. It was almost twenty years since the Lollards’ last open, armed revolt, but every now and again a Lollard was too bold and was found out, a reminder that the threat of them was not gone.

  ‘Their stubbornness of heart,“ Brother Michael declared, ”has set them against Church and King and you. For the safety of all those souls they seek to corrupt and for their own sake, too, they must be found out. You—you as good Christians—must keep watch for them and give them over to the Church’s mercy, because they are damned to Hell’s eternal fires unless brought to repent of their sins, and for most of them that will come only under the weight of the Church’s hand pressing down on their pride-filled, heretical hearts!“

  Out of seeming-nowhere, Anne felt a coldness of fear close on her own heart. Daved had once said, when she had let a little of her fear for him show, “Remember, love, the friars hunt heretics. By rights I cannot be a heretic, having never been Christian.” Had said it lightly, the darkness under his words showing only a little as he added, “Save that of late the learned friars of the Inquisition have determined that Jews may after all be heretics despite never being Christian, and that therefore they can hunt us at their will.”

  Anne rarely heard him bitter, but he had been bitter then, and close as they were lying together, their heads on one pillow, he had seen her worry, had lifted himself a little and smiled down at her and said, “But they don’t hunt us here in England, my love, because…” Had kissed her forehead. “… here in England…” Had kissed her nose. “… there are no Jews…” Had lightly kissed her lips. “… for them to hunt.” Had kissed her then in a way that made all other things cease to matter except that he kiss her more and go on to more than kissing.

  Which he had. But afterward, when he was gone and she was left to her thoughts, her thoughts had gone where she did not want them to go. Yes, here in London Daved was safe because here no one looked to find out Jews; but mostly he was elsewhere, and for some of that time when he was not here he gave up his seeming to be Christian. Somewhere he had a Jewish home, a Jewish life. Somewhere between where he was known as a Christian merchant and where he was known as a Jew, he slipped from his Christian-seeming into his Jewish life and then he was open to all the perils that came with being a Jew. And even in the whiles that he seemed Christian, how safe was he, when there were men in other countries whose whole purpose was to find out secret Jews?

  Those were thoughts from which she tried to keep; and tried the harder when Daved was away from her. Tried, too, not to think of where he might be, what he might be doing, what might be happening to him. And when he was here, she only wanted to think about their happiness and naught else. Most especially did not want to hear some preaching friar threaten damnation to heretics because—another thing she tried not to think on—it could be said she, by lying in lust with a Jew, was a heretic and as liable to the Church’s wrath as he was.

  Brother Michael brought his arm down to sweep the pointing finger at the upturned faces below him. “Lollards could be among you even here! On consecrated ground. Feigning to be Christians even as corruption gnaws at their souls, devouring them to damnation!”

  Anne wanted to hear no more. The friar’s words had nothing to do with her love, nothing to do with Daved, and while Brother Michael warned, “If you listen to these heretics, you risk your soul being damned to burning Hell along with theirs,” she backed from the crowd’s rear edge and walked away.

  From here, she had choice of going by either Foster Lane or Gutheron’s to reach Kerie Lane. She meant to take Foster today, it being nearer, but as she went toward it along Cheapside the shift and flow of the ever-moving crowd was changing to clots of people standing in talk with voices rising. That had to mean some news of something was come, but she saw no one she knew to ask what was toward and then had no need, able to hear enough snatches of talk to understand the rebels out of Kent were come back to Black Heath. To hear more as she went, she passed Foster Lane, going on to Gutheron’s, and along with word of the rebels what she heard was open anger against King Henry. “Because if he’d done what he should at the start, we’d be done with them now!” was said one way and another by more than a few, while one man loud among others at the corner of Gutheron’s said outright, “It’s not with the rebels the fault lies! It’s with the king! He’s never done good, and by God’s teeth he’s not likely to start! If he’d kept the upper hand over that ape Suffolk and greedy-handed bastards like Lord Saye from the start there’d be none of this we’ve had this year!

  On the whole, there was more anger than fear, because there was still the river and London bridge between them and the rebels; and then Anne, turning into Gutheron’s Lane, forgot it all because maybe twenty feet ahead of her— his back to her—was Daved, going with his straight, long stride. Partly because they were best not seen so openly together, but mostly because of her sudden pleasure in watching him when he did not know she was, she did not hurry to overtake him.

  Losing sight of him when he turned left into Kerie Lane, she hurried then, but when she reached the lane herself, still did not see him. She had left the upper half of her fore-door open to the air when she went out. He would have rapped on the door frame and gone in, calling to Bette, and Bette would have come from the kitchen to say she was gone marketing but would be shortly back. But why was Daved come so earlier than usual? Was something gone wrong that he was come so much before his time? Anne dared not hurry. She did not know how much his comings and goings her neighbors had noted, and after all he was so rarely here and so often came after dark or at hours when folk were busy at their suppers, and left in darkness, before dawn. No one had yet said anything to her of him, anyway, not even her priest or Mistress Upton, and she’d not draw anyone’s heed by haste now when there was no open need of haste. But when she was come to her door, was inside and closing it and setting the latch, Bette’s laughter in the kitchen made her smile in relief. If Daved had Bette laughing, then nothing could be too far awry, and she called out, mock-sternly, “Bette, have you a man in there with you?”

  ‘That I have, mistress,“ Bette called back merrily.

  The last of Anne’s worry went away as Daved met her in the kitchen doorway, smiling as he took the market basket from her arm, and she said past him to Bette as if she had never had any fears at all, “I found everything you asked for. Has the poulterer’s boy brought the chicken?”

  ‘He has,“ Bette said. ”I’m rubbing it with rosemary right now. Then it goes in the pot with a little of this wine Master Weir has brought.“

  She held up a leather bottle. Daved, setting the basket on the table, protested, “I didn’t bring that to please a chicken.”

  He pretended a snatch at it. Bette laughed at him, kept it out of his reach, then gave it to him, saying, “Nay, I have what I want for the fowl, but since you’re both so young and nimble, you can take your wine upstairs yourselves, the pair of you, and leave me to my business. Go on.”

  Daved paused to plant a kiss on her cheek that made her laugh again, and then he and Anne obeyed her. Up the stairs, the wine set as
ide, Daved kissed Anne on other than her cheek and for long enough that they were both breathless when they drew apart. Only barely was Anne able to gather her wits enough to say, “You’re early. Is everything well?”

  ‘With me, most well. With the rest of the world, not so well. Besides Cade’s rebels being back, Hal hasn’t shown himself, and Pernell knows it and is not happy.“

  Anne realized with a pang that she had not given the missing Hal a single thought since Friday, nor Pernell, either, and guiltily she said, “I never thought Hal wouldn’t be back by now. I’ve meant for more than a week to visit her anyway.” The more especially since Pernell, nearing her time to bear her second child to Raulyn and kept at home by her wide body, was in need of visitors to divert her. “I’ll go tomorrow. But all’s well with you?” She had hold of the front of Daved’s doublet, unwilling to loose him. “You’re not here to tell me you’re to sail again this soon?”

  ‘All’s well with me,“ Daved assured her. He began to unpin her veil from her wimple. ”Things have merely fallen out well enough that I was free to come to you now instead of later.“ He laid pins and veil on the table beside the wine bottle and drew out the pins of her wimple so that its folds fell away from her face and neck, leaving them suddenly cool to the air. ”I hope you do not mind seeing more of me than you thought to.“

  ‘I never mind seeing more of you,“ Anne said, beginning to unfasten his doublet.

  Daved set the wimple aside and slipped her close-fitted cap from her head, put it aside, too, and pulled out the two long wooden pins that held her hair in a coil behind her head, letting her hair fall loose to below her waist. But Anne stepped back, realizing, “I’m dressed work-a-day. I didn’t mean for you to see me work-a-day.”