‘Ah, Kemp, good. Close the door behind you and come here. Take a seat.’ There were no chairs left, so Holland pointed him towards the large oak chest that stood at the end of his four-poster bed.
Kemp did as he was bade.
‘Can I offer you a cup of wine?’ asked Holland, gesturing to a flagon of claret which stood on the table in honour of Sigglesthorne’s presence.
Kemp had not been upbraided by Holland in the eight months he had been working for him so he did not know what the procedure was, but he was fairly sure it did not include offers of wine. ‘No thank you, Sir Thomas,’ he said.
Holland shrugged. ‘You know Master Sigglesthorne?’
‘We’ve met briefly, sir, aye.’ Kemp had been on duty at the gate at the time of one of Sigglesthorne’s visits.
‘This is Master Vise, who is acting as the Lady Joan’s proctor in the tribunal currently being conducted in at the Papal Court in Avignon,’ said Holland, gesturing to the sub-dean.
Kemp nodded an acknowledgement at Vise, but his mind was racing. He had picked up a fairly good idea of how the court case was progressing thanks to scullery gossip, but he was not sure what any of it had to do with him.
‘Wat tells me that you are growing bored with my service, Kemp.’
Kemp shook his head. ‘Not I, sir.’
‘Nevertheless, would you deny that you have become restless of late, chafing at the bit, longing for the end of the truce?’ Holland asked with a smile.
‘The war has started again, sir?’ Kemp asked eagerly.
Holland laughed. ‘Alas, no. But I have a task that will take you out of Broughton and keep you occupied. It may even provide you with some excitement. How do you feel about a trip to Avignon?’
‘Avignon, sir?’ Kemp had never been further afield than Normandy before. Avignon might as well have been at the farthest corner of the world.
Holland nodded. ‘Master Sigglesthorne is of the opinion that one last trip to the Papal Court should clear up my dispute with Montague for good. However, on his way back from the last meeting of the tribunal, he and Master Vise were set upon by a couple of hired assassins: Montague’s hirelings. If the men had not been foolish enough to attack Master Sigglesthorne and Master Vise in the White Lion inn, where your old companion-in-arms David Brewster keeps house, they might have succeeded in killing them. Brewster killed one of the men, and the other is in Calais gaol awaiting trial; but Montague must have learned by now what has happened and, if he can send two assassins one time, he may send four the next.’
‘And you want me to act as bodyguard, sir,’ guessed Kemp, both flattered and worried that his master should consider him the equal of four men.
Holland nodded. ‘Exactly so. You are strong, skilled and courageous in a fight, you speak some French, you are good with horses, and you are capable of acting on your own initiative. In such troubled times as these, I wonder that I did not think of giving you this task before. All I ask is that you see to it that Master Sigglesthorne and Master Vise are allowed to travel to Avignon and back unharmed.’
‘I’m sure there will not be any more trouble,’ Sigglesthorne hastened to assure Kemp. ‘His lordship the Earl of Salisbury has tried to have us killed, and it has failed. If he tries aught else, it will be something different. However, I think he is more likely to do nothing. We already have a prisoner who has admitted to being hired to kill myself and Master Vise by the Countess of Kent’s serjeant-at-arms. We could make life extremely awkward for his lordship if we chose to, and he knows it.’
‘Assassination is still an option that remains open to him, however, and even if he does not choose it, there are plenty of robbers and brigands on the road today,’ Holland told Sigglesthorne. ‘I think the company of an armed man will help to make your journey free of incident.’
Kemp remembered his year spent as a bodyguard for Master Chaucer: a pleasant time, but hardly one of excitement. But there was no sign of the truce with France coming to an end and a journey to Avignon would be more interesting than life on Holland’s manor. ‘When do we leave, sir?’ he asked Holland.
The knight smiled. ‘Tomorrow.’
Kemp was up at the crack of dawn next day, saddling the horses while Sigglesthorne and Vise finished a more leisurely breakfast. He was tightening the belly-strap on his own nag when Conyers sidled into the stable. ‘Off to see the Pope, I hear tell,’ he said.
‘Aye, well, off to Avignon, at any rate. I don’t suppose I’ll be meeting his Holiness. I’m not sure that I care to, either.’
‘I know this story about an English abbot who went to see the Pope.’
Kemp grimaced. ‘Somehow I thought you might.’ Conyers was an unquenchable fund of humorous tales, most of them lewd.
‘One day he decides there’s nowt for it but to go on a pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s in Rome – this were back in the days when the Popes lived in Rome, you understand.’
Kemp nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘While he’s staying at a tavern in Rome, he gets invited to go to the Vatican to meet the Pope, and of course he can hardly say no, can he? So that morning he rushes out and gets a new set of robes made up so’s he can look his best for his meeting with the pontiff. Then he has a bath, brushes his hair and puts on his new robes, looking all spick and span. Only when he gets there, there’s a dozen other bishops and priests waiting to meet the Pope. They’re all made to stand in a line in a courtyard and wait for the Pope to emerge.
‘While he’s waiting, he notices this scruffy beggar standing there, with all these churchmen. Not being very charitable, he wonders what this beggar’s doing, amongst all these rich prelates, but everyone else seems to be ignoring the beggar, so he decides to do likewise.
‘Eventually the Pope emerges and starts to make his way along this great long line of people, with the English abbot standing at the very end of it. But the Pope doesn’t actually seem to be saying anything to any of them, he just raises his hand in benediction to each of them. Well, the abbot says to himself, I don’t reckon much to this. Here I am, I’ve come all the way to Rome to meet the Pope, I’ve bought some new robes especially for the occasion, and all he’s going to do is give me his benison, without so much as a word?
‘Then the Pope comes to this old beggar, and he puts his hand on the beggar’s shoulder and leans forward to whisper something in the beggar’s ear. A fine to-do, thinks the abbot, with all these rich priests standing here, and the only one the Pope speaks to is this filthy beggar. But not one to miss out on a good opportunity, he slips away from the end of the line and hurries after the beggar, who’s wandering away. ‘Let me swap clothes with you,’ says the abbot. The beggar looks at the abbot’s fine robes, and his own lousy rags, and quickly agrees, as you would. The two of them slips into an alcove and swaps clothes, and then, dressed in the beggar’s rags, the abbot runs back to take his place at the end of the line, just in time to meet the Pope.
‘The Pope looks the abbot up and down, taking in his scruffy rags, and the abbot’s delighted when his holiness puts a hand on his shoulder and leans forward to whisper in his ear. And you know what the Pope says to him?’
Kemp shrugged.
‘“You again? I thought I told you before: bugger off!”’
Sigglesthorne and Vise emerged from the manor house a few minutes later, talking to Holland. Kemp led the horses out into the courtyard: his own fleabitten grey hackney, Sigglesthorne’s bay palfrey, and Vise’s skewbald pony. Malkin Cook came out from the kitchens with a lunch of bread and cheese and a flask of ale so they would not have to stop before they reached Amersham. Dressed simply in his white chemise, jerkin of toughened leather and black cloak, Kemp swung himself up into the saddle of his hackney. Sigglesthorne and Vise also mounted their steeds.
Holland indicated the longbow that hung by the strap of its canvas case from the pommel of Kemp’s saddle. ‘Are you sure you want to take that? It’ll mark you out as an Englishman and, truce or no truce, you’ll not be welcomed a
s such in France these days.’
‘Our accents will mark us out as English, Sir Thomas.’ Kemp patted the bow and the broadsword at his hip. ‘I’d rather have these with me in case anyone wants to make something of it.’
Holland nodded, grinning. ‘Very well. Good luck and God speed, all of you.’
Sitting unsteadily in the saddle of his palfrey, Sigglesthorne raised his hat to Holland. ‘We’ll be back by Yuletide, the case concluded, Sir Thomas,’ he said cheerfully.
‘In my favour, I hope,’ Holland growled.
‘Of course,’ the serjeant-at-law assured him.
‘We’re wasting daylight,’ said Kemp. Holland nodded in agreement, and Kemp, Sigglesthorne and Vise rode out of the courtyard without another word.
‘Give the pontiff my regards!’ Conyers, standing on guard by the gateway, called after them. Sigglesthorne and Vise chuckled, and Kemp touched the hem of his cowl in a gesture of farewell.
* * *
It was September, and there was already a chill nip in the air. The dark grey sky threatened rain. They headed south-east, crossing the Chiltern Hills, and reached London towards the end of the second day, entering the city at Newgate.
As they rode over the blood-soaked cobbles of the Butchery towards West Cheap they became aware of a murmur running through the crowded street around them, and suddenly everyone seemed to be hurrying in the direction of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
‘They’ve come!’ shouted a fishwife. ‘They’ve come to save us!’
Leaning down from his palfrey, Sigglesthorne managed to stop her. ‘Who’s come to save us?’ he demanded. He had to shout to make himself heard amongst the hubbub.
‘The martyrs! They’ve come to wash away our sins in their blood!’
‘Flagellants,’ Sigglesthorne explained as the fishwife broke away, moving with the crowd towards Saint Paul’s.
Vise’s curiosity was piqued. ‘I’ve heard much talk of these so-called martyrs, but I’ve yet to see them with my own eyes.’
Sigglesthorne made a dismissive gesture. He had already seen a band of the flagellants on one of his visits to Avignon earlier that year and had been unimpressed by their self-imposed martyrdom. However, if he had hoped to avoid this performance he was soon disappointed: so thick were the crowds surging down Ivy Lane that the three horsemen were swept along with them.
The flagellants had formed a circle around Paul’s Cross, the crucifix-adorned pulpit immediately outside the cathedral. Although a large crowd of spectators had already gathered, Sigglesthorne, Vise and Kemp were able to see clearly from the backs of their horses. The flagellants numbered over a hundred, the women dressed in cowled white robes emblazoned with red crosses on the front and back, the men, with three weeks’ growth of beard adorning their chins, stripped of their sombre robes and clad only in loose kilts that came down to their ankles. They sang hymns while the master of their band stood in the centre of the circle with two assistants, watching the rite with approval. Both assistants held aloft banners of purple velvet and cloth of gold. The dirty, naked torsos of the men revealed backs already scarred and scabrous from previous scourgings, many of them swollen and infected. Then, as one, the men prostrated themselves on the ground in a crucifix position while the master moved amongst them, lashing them with a leather-thonged scourge tipped with spikes of iron.
Next the flagellants rose to their feet. Each one of them had a scourge of his own, with three or four thongs and spikes of bone or iron, and they began to lash themselves. As they did so, the master moved amongst them, calling for God to have mercy on all sinners. At each lash of the scourges, blood would spurt out, running across the flagellants’ pale flesh and collecting on the ground until the puddle of blood in which they stood matched that of the butchers’ market a few hundred yards away. Sometimes one of the spikes became so deeply embedded that it could only be pulled out by a second wrench.
The sight of blood was nothing new to Kemp, but he winced to see men subject themselves gladly to such torture. ‘Hell’s teeth!’ he hissed. ‘Why do they do it?’
‘They see the pestilence as God’s punishment for the sins of mankind,’ explained Vise. ‘They hope to cleanse us all by washing our sins in their blood and suffering.’
‘More fool them, if they think this nonsense will bring the pestilence to an end,’ grunted Sigglesthorne.
Kemp forced himself to watch the grisly spectacle. A few of the flagellants winced at each lash of the scourge but most smiled in beatific ecstasy, their eyes shining with religious fervour. Some spectators were sobbing, wailing, and tearing at their hair, while one woman – the fishwife – darted forward to dab a rag in the blood which ran over the cobbles, treasuring it as if it were a holy relic. Someone broke into the cathedral and rang one of the bells, but only one. For as long as Kemp could remember, it had been a tradition that church bells were to be rung singly except in the event of an invasion, in which case the ringing of them all would pass news of the invasion throughout the length of the land. A young woman laid the body of a still-born child within the circle of discarded clothes that formed the arena in which the flagellants scourged themselves, as if its proximity to such piety might raise it from the dead. Like Sigglesthorne and Kemp, however, the vast majority of the spectators remained unimpressed by the antics.
The flagellants continued to scourge themselves rhythmically, slowly increasing the tempo as the rite progressed, until they had literally whipped themselves into a frenzy.
Kemp shook his head in disbelief. ‘Jesus! The whole Goddamned world’s gone mad.’ Without waiting to see if Sigglesthorne or Vise were ready to follow, he chucked the reins of his hackney and rode away from the cathedral, heading down Watling Street towards the bridge.
* * *
‘Who are we supposed to be meeting?’ The young squire’s nervousness was betrayed by the tremor in his voice.
‘That is no concern of yours,’ hissed his master. ‘Stay by me and say nothing, and you will be all right. You have my word of honour on it.’
It was a dark night late in October. The two men were mounted on fine palfreys, riding through the Calais Pale, the no man’s land around the English-occupied town that was still disputed by the rival kings despite the truce. They were on the road between Calais and Saint-Omer, near the village of Ardres, halfway between the two towns.
A dozen horsemen, mounted on black horses and wearing dull brigandine armour that barely glinted in the moonlight, their surcoats and jupons unadorned with any coats of arms, appeared out of the darkness and surrounded the squire and his master. The squire’s palfrey reared skittishly. Somebody struck tinder and flint, lighting a brand that flamed in the darkness. Sir Oudard de Renty took the brand from one of his men and guided his horse forwards a few steps, holding the torch up the better to see the two riders. ‘Sir Amerigo de Pavia?’
The squire’s master nodded and reached up with a hand encrusted with jewelled rings to pull back the deep cowl of his dark but costly robes.
De Renty indicated the squire with a curt nod. ‘You were told to come alone.’
‘There are just the two of us,’ de Pavia protested, in a silky but rather nasal whine. ‘You cannot expect me to ride out here at this time of night without at least one servant to protect me.’
‘You were promised safe conduct,’ said de Renty. ‘Or are you suggesting that Sir Geoffroi is not to be trusted?’
‘Far from it,’ de Pavia replied hurriedly. ‘But there are other dangers on this road; robbers and brigands.’
De Renty grunted. He and his men had been watching de Pavia and his squire ever since they left Calais; not to protect them but to make sure they were not followed. ‘Come with us.’
De Pavia and his squire had no choice in the matter, for two of de Renty’s men leaned from their saddles and took their bridles to lead the horses a little further down the road. A few hundred yards away they came to an inn that was so dark and quiet de Pavia thought it must be deserted; not an u
ncommon sight in those days of the pestilence when it seemed that a black flag flew from the steeple of every church in Normandy.
‘Dismount,’ ordered de Renty. De Pavia and his squire swung themselves down from their saddles. ‘Inside.’ He nodded towards the open door of the inn.
De Pavia had never seen a less inviting portal. He glanced up at de Renty but the Frenchman’s handsome face was impassive in the torchlight, giving no indication of what might await him within. He moved towards the door and the squire began to follow him, but de Renty leaned forward and laid the flat of his broadsword across the young man’s chest, blocking his path. ‘Just you,’ he told de Pavia.
Fear filled the squire’s eyes as his master turned to face him but de Pavia gave what he imagined to be a reassuring nod and entered the inn alone.
Inside it was pitch black but for the splash of torchlight spilling through the open doorway. This, however, was cut off when the door closed behind him without warning.
‘Hello?’ he called. Edging deeper into the room, he barked his shin on the corner of a bench. ‘San Cristoforo!’ he hissed into the darkness.
Iron and flint sparked several times, and the glow of tinder was followed by the flare of guttering candle-light. The flame’s yellow aureole widened to reveal a hawk-like face, its dark eyes fixed unblinkingly on de Pavia as a bird of prey watches a rabbit.
‘Sir Geoffroi de Chargny?’
De Chargny nodded. ‘And you are Sir Amerigo de Pavia, Captain of the Galleys of Calais, and the town’s acting governor.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
De Pavia nodded.
‘Sit down.’ De Chargny gestured to a flagon of wine on the table in front of him. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’
De Pavia sat down opposite him. De Chargny snapped his fingers and the massive bulk of Guilbert loomed in the candlelight, startling de Pavia who had not suspected the presence of a third man. Guilbert picked up the flagon and poured the contents into a silver goblet, placing it in front of de Pavia. The Lombard lifted it to his lips and was about to sip when a thought occurred to him, and he turned fearful eyes on the flagon.
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