[Sir Richard Straccan 02] - Pendragon Banner

by Sylvian Hamilton

  ‘What about Talfryn?’

  The fowler had most likely killed Drogo but it was none of his business. ‘Just tell them what happened. Your father attacked you, you ran, he followed, you hid in the greenwood until he’d gone. That much is true. No need for more.’

  Havloc jumped up as his cell door swung open.

  ‘They’ve agreed to drop the charge of murder but the coroner insists I take responsibility for you,’ Straccan said. Paulet, forced to admit that he might have accused the wrong man, would never forgive him. ‘There’s still the charge of theft, and until that’s cleared up you’re in my custody. I’ve sworn to produce you on demand if necessary.’

  He waved away Havloc’s stuttered thanks. No need to remind him that he would still hang if the cup wasn’t found. What he was to do with his unwanted charge he had no idea: another complication, as if he didn’t have enough.

  ‘The constable’s signing your order of release now. Meanwhile they’ll take the fetters off and Bane will bring you some clean things. By the time you’re presentable we’ll have the order.’ He eyed the young man critically. ‘You’d better shave as well. Bane will lend you a razor. Alis is waiting for you.’

  ‘He’s got manners, whatever he is,’ said Lady Margery to her husband in the privacy of their chamber. ‘Alis had better marry him as soon as it can be arranged. It would be nice to have the wedding here, but of course she may wish to be married at home with her sisters as maids of honour. Once he gets his memory back and this theft nonsense has been sorted out she’ll probably do well enough with him, whatever his birth.’

  ‘I suppose it’s all right, them marrying,’ Cigony said with a considering frown. ‘She’s no heiress so the king won’t interfere— Ahem,’ he coughed, shooting a quick glance at the door to make sure no one had heard that. ‘I mean he won’t concern himself with her marriage. All in all,’ he mused, ‘she’s lucky to find a husband at all, even if he is just a steward. She may be pretty but she brings nothing with her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, Cigony,’ said his lady. ‘She brought him his life.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bane found Havloc in the hall breakfasting like a man who feared he might never have another chance, an attitude with which he wholly sympathised.

  He sat down beside him. ‘How d’you feel?’

  ‘All right,’ said Havloc, ‘but I still can’t remember. Not a damned thing! Not even Alis! I can’t believe that we… that I… that she…’ He pushed his trencher away impatiently.

  ‘Believe it, you lucky dog. Don’t you want that? Shove it over here, then.’ And Bane finished Havloc’s breakfast for him.

  ‘Master Bane, what do you think? Suppose I offer a reward for the return of the cup. Alis brought my savings.’ He pulled at a thong round his neck, drawing up a purse which clinked when shaken. ‘Wouldn’t a thief rather have money?’

  Bane pursed his lips appraisingly. ‘It’s an idea. Might work, too, if he’s still got it and if he’s still around. You’ll need to fee the town crier.’

  ‘And Master Bane, I’d like to make a thank-offering to Saint Leonard.’

  Bane nodded approval. ‘Never hurts to say thank you. We’ll go to the shrine. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘A wax votive.’

  ‘Right. Let’s find a chandler.’

  Overnight drizzle had left the cobbles slippery. Here and there along the street shopkeepers were forking straw out and spreading it over the treacherous surface, taking down their shutters and tipping the night’s ordure into the broad kennel which steamed and stank in the middle of the road. A red kite alighted on the chandler’s signboard, which creaked and swayed slightly. The kite gaped, stretched a wing, and took no notice of the hustle below as the chandler prepared for the day’s business.

  Early as it was there were customers ahead of them, one outside at the booth, another within, arguing with the master chandler himself. While one apprentice took the shutters inside another flicked his feather duster over the wax votives on display in the little booth projecting from the building’s front and dealt with a well-dressed man in a quilted coat.

  ‘How much for an arm?’

  ‘Full size, sir, or a miniature?’

  ‘Full size.’

  ‘Sixpence.’

  ‘Oh. What about just the elbow, then?’

  ‘Lot of wax in an elbow. Fourpence.’

  The would-be buyer stood undecided, gazing at the wares laid out on the booth: rows of hands and feet, arms and legs, breasts and heads, hearts and livers painted in crude colours, ears, eyes, tongues, teeth and genitals.

  ‘Oh, go on, then,’ said the customer eventually, carefully counting out his silver — two whole pennies, three halves and two ragged pie-piece quarters. He placed his waxen elbow tenderly in straw in his basket and departed, walking very carefully for fear of slipping.

  Inside the chandler’s shop a heated voice was raised. ‘Sixpence is too much!’

  ‘Up to you, master. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘I’ll give you threepence!’

  ‘You’ll not get work of this quality for threepence. There’s the workman’s time and the wax — that’s dearer now, you know; there’s an Interdict on. Everything costs more these days, master. And paint; you wanted them coloured. That costs extra, for artistry.’

  ‘Artistry my arse! It’s daylight robbery!’

  ‘No one’s forcing you, master. You can walk out of here with your silver still in your pouch. I didn’t come to you and bother you to buy, did I? No, you came to me, and now you sit in my shop blackguarding me for my prices! Why, just last week you couldn’t bear to sit down at all, and look at you now! There’s a miracle, if you like. I’m happy for you, but now, master, excuse me, I must get on. There’s a batch of moulds waiting to be filled and the wax about ready—’

  ‘Fourpence!’

  The chandler grinned and tapped his fingers on the counter.

  ‘Oh, damn you, sixpence then! But wrap them up. I’m not carrying them through the streets like that!’

  The chandler snapped his fingers for an apprentice, who carefully packed the curious luridly tinted wax mass in sheep’s wool. The customer wrapped the tail of his cloak over it.

  ‘You’ll not see a finer set of emrods in the shrine, master,’ said the chandler, pouching his six pennies. ‘Have a good look while you’re in there. There’s some sorry-looking poor puny pale old emrods; I’d be ashamed if they was mine. You can be proud of these emrods!’

  The apprentice in the booth saw the new customers waiting and gave them a cheerful smile.

  ‘How can I help you, my masters?’

  ‘We’ll talk to the master chandler,’ said Bane.

  The boy nipped round from the back of the booth just in time to usher the first customer out, cradling his sixpenn’orth of waxen haemorrhoids as tenderly as a new-born child. The apprentice bowed the new clients into the inner shop where the master chandler popped up from behind his counter, radiating cheerfulness, as well he might, with such a good early start to the day.

  ‘What d’ye lack, sirs?’

  ‘A head,’ said Havloc, nudged forward by Bane. ‘I mean, how much for a head? Life-size.’

  ‘Lot of wax in a head, sir.’ The chandler eyed his customer’s decent clothes and his companion’s sword and good boots, and estimated their worth.

  ‘How much?’

  Your basic head, fourpence. See? It takes all this to make one.’ He delved under the counter again and brought up a pinkish-yellow ball, handing it to Havloc who hefted it nervously and gave it back.

  ‘Have you got any finished?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, come round the back here, that’s right.’ He twitched aside a curtain and waved them ahead of him into a storeroom. At a table in the centre an apprentice was smoothing wax flash off a well modelled life-size foot. Several other anatomical pieces lay on the table awaiting attention — a forearm and hand, a heart, some teeth. At another table a boy sur
rounded by paint pots and brushes was colouring little male and female figurines. The chandler waved his hand expansively at the shelves which covered all four walls, filled with rows of wax creations. There were animals — hawks, horses, bulls, pigs, dogs — also miniature carts and boats and, pale and gleaming, human disjecta membra: feet, lower legs, legs entire, hands and arms, hearts and haemorrhoids, ears, noses, eyes — and heads, some with hair, others bald, some with painted blue eyes, others brown, all staring glassily.

  Bane raised an eyebrow at them. ‘That all?’

  ‘If you don’t see what you want, sirs, we’ll make it especially for you. What sort of head are you after? Child? Lady?’

  ‘Man,’ said Havloc.

  ‘Yourself, Sir?’ And at Havloc’s nod, ‘What is the ailment? A wound? Headaches? Tumour?’

  ‘I was hit on the head. Lost my memory.’

  The apprentices looked up, interested, and the chandler pinched his lower lip thoughtfully between finger and thumb, pondering the problem. ‘Can’t make a votive memory,’ he said, considering. ‘Who knows what it looks like? It’s just in there.’ He tapped the side of his head and looked at Havloc as a collector looks at a rare specimen.

  ‘Just a head,’ said Havloc, but the artist had risen in the chandler, elbowing the mere businessman aside, and the intricacies of representing memory in wax had brought a creative gleam to his eye and seamed his brow with frowns.

  ‘Ben,’ he said to one of the boys, ‘fetch ale and biscuits for these gentlemen. Sirs,’ indicating a bench at the painter’s table, ‘do me the honour of sitting down in my poor shop and refresh yourselves while I think about this.’

  ‘Just a head,’ repeated Havloc, but Bane pushed him gently down and they sat watching a boy paint blue eyeballs, highlighting them with a touch of white so that they looked alive. It put Havloc off his biscuits, and Bane ate them.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ cried the chandler radiating triumph. ‘Suppose we do a head, hollow, the usual, but put something inside. I mean, your head’s empty now, isn’t it, sir, meaning no offence, just that there’s no memory in it. Now memory might be a sort of web, it catches and holds things after all. . . So, a web of wax, inside the head . . .’ The apprentices were nodding admiringly. The chandler looked smug. ‘There you are then, sir. What about that?’

  ‘How much?’ asked Havloc.

  They settled on sevenpence and promised to call back for the masterpiece in the morning.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A pieman had stationed himself at the door of Saint Leonard’s chapel in Corve Street and was doing a brisk trade. As yet not many candles had been lit; even so, there were a few people inside. Despite the early hour two young men were arguing prices with a whore while just inside the door, out of the wind, a pedlar was handing out pins and gauds and pouching coins while he kept up a sing-song chant praising his wares. Some folk had come to gossip, some to meet lovers; a few had even come to pray.

  Someone was grovelling on hands and knees beneath a statue of the Blessed Virgin, with just his bare heels and black-gowned clerical bottom sticking out. Beside him on the floor a dustpan held curls of dust, a piece of bacon rind and two pennies. After hesitating for a few moments Havloc stooped and tapped the protruding bottom. The body jerked, there was a ringing thump and a muffled ‘Ow!’ and a young priest crawled out backwards and straightened up on his knees, rubbing his tonsure.

  Are you all right, father?’ Bane asked.

  ‘Just a bump,’ said the priest cheerfully, dropping a third retrieved coin into his dustpan. ‘Worth it for threepence.’ He scrambled to his feet, brushing briskly at his dusty gown. ‘Now, sirs, I’m Father Peter, chaplain here; what can I do for you? Depends what you want, of course. There is an Interdict, you know! Can’t say Mass, can’t give sacraments, can’t even ring the bell! But there’s no law says I can’t pray for you. For everyone. Even the king,’ he added with a mutinous scowl.

  ‘Can you take offerings?’ asked Havloc.

  The chaplain beamed. ‘Never more welcome! The Interdict paupers us and the king, God forgive him, bleeds us dry. What d’ye want to give?’

  ‘I brought this for Saint Leonard.’

  Havloc unwrapped the head, feeling a momentary twinge of disappointment. It looked smaller and less important than in the shop, he thought, but the chaplain examined it with admiration.

  ‘A fine piece of work,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen better. Come along and I’ll show you where it goes.’

  Havloc followed the chaplain, Bane wandered off towards the door and the pieman, while Straccan leaned against a tomb and watched the pilgrims shuffling in with their candles and coins.

  One man, limping heavily, had brought a votive wax foot. A father carried his small sick daughter to be measured to the saint, and a deacon bustled up, meting out the cord to mark the girl’s exact height so that her father could pay for a candle of that length. The man held his daughter to his chest, her head against his shoulder, her fair hair — just like Straccan’s daughter Gilla’s — falling over his arm.

  Coins rattled in the collecting box. Some folk prayed, some wept, some moved on and others drifted in.

  Straccan hoped Saint Leonard would be moved to grant Havloc’s prayer and restore his memory. If he remembered what had happened to the cup, if it could be traced, he would be able to go home and marry his sweetheart and Straccan wouldn’t be saddled with him.

  Bane’s voice said, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

  Straccan turned and saw Starling Larktwist.

  Bane had the smaller man firmly by the arm and from the look on Larktwist’s face the grip was none too gentle.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here, Larktwist?’ As if he didn’t know! ‘Spying again?’

  ‘Ssshh! Please, Sir Richard, be careful what you say. There’s ears everywhere! Matter o’ fact I was looking for you. I was!’ he squeaked as Bane’s grip tightened.

  ‘Let him go, Hawkan,’ said Straccan.

  Larktwist straightened his clothes, glowering at Bane. There was no love lost between them. Last summer, caught while following Straccan and Bane, Larktwist — one of the king’s legion of paid informers — had been compelled to join them in their hunt for Straccan’s daughter. He and Bane had never hit it off.

  ‘What do you want?’ Straccan asked.

  Larktwist looked around carefully. ‘I heard the crier. This cup you’re after… I might be able to help.’ He pulled his hood forward to shade his face. ‘Not here. Too many eyes, too many ears. Be at the first milestone on the Shrewsbury Road around sext.’ He slid away and was lost among the pilgrims.

  ‘That’s the last we’ll see of him,’ said Bane.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Straccan said. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘He was hanging round the door watching folk coming in. You’re not going to meet him, are you?’

  ‘He may know something about Havloc’s cup.’

  ‘He probably stole it.’

  Havloc had finished his business with Saint Leonard and had paid a halfpenny to be shown a piece of a rib of the martyred Saint Thomas, which the chaplain was buying from Canterbury on an instalment plan. A fat puce-faced knight had also paid to view the relic; leaning on his arm was his equally fat but pale and wheezing sister. Apart from colour, they were as alike as peas in a pod. The knight had a hooded hawk on his other fist and greeted Straccan with enthusiasm.

  ‘Here for a cure, sir? Wonderful, Saint Thomas, wonderful! I promised Ermengarde’s weight in wax if she was cured.’

  ‘Your sister, sir?’ Straccan bowed to the lady.

  ‘Eh? No, not her! My hawk, man! Splendid creature, ain’t she? It would break your heart to see her as she was! Off her food, sheddin feathers, eyes all gummy, green droppins. Better now, eh, pet?’ He kissed the gilt bauble on top of the bird’s hood and it reciprocated with a copious creamy squirt all over his velvet sleeve. The knight beamed. ‘There! See? Lovely!’

  ‘Praise God,’ sa
id Straccan. ‘I’m happy for you, sir.’ He turned to Havloc. ‘All done? Good. I have to meet someone.’

  Outside the chapel several beggars had gathered to try their luck. People who came out in a good mood were often so generous that they more than made up for those who came out bad tempered and kicked a beggar down the steps. Below the steps where at least, if kicked or shoved, he hadn’t far to fall, a pitiable creature caught Havloc’s eye. The beggar, seeing himself observed, eyed the mark up and down, a wholly professional assessment: well fed, well clothed, well shod, good natured — above all gullible — and began his routine.

  'Pity me, good sir, for the sake of Him who pitied all the world! Pity me, good sir, of your charity!’

  Havloc froze and Bane, right behind him, nearly knocked him down the steps.

  ‘God’s teeth, man, look out! What’s up?’

  ‘That beggar! The voice! I heard it the night I was hurt! It was nearly dark, and… There was an angel!’

  Bane looked at him sceptically. ‘An angel?’

  ‘I saw one,’ Havloc insisted.

  The beggar’s practised whine cut in. ‘Pity me, your honours, a poor cripple, one of God’s poor, can’t work, can’t walk! Pity me.’ He was well into his stride now, lying in his little wheeled cart displaying cruelly twisted limbs, dislocated hips and shoulders, feet pointing backwards, neck awry, a stained patch over one eye.

  The knight with the hawk came down the steps followed by his unhealthy-looking sister.

  ‘Poor soul,’ said the fat man kindly, dropping a coin into the beggar’s cup.

  ‘God bless you, me lord!’ The beggar reached along the edge of the bottom step, grasping it to pull his cart towards Havloc. ‘Pity me, sir, for the sake of Him—’

  Regardless of his good new breeches Havloc knelt beside the cart. ‘Do you remember me?’

  The beggar looked alarmed at this unexpected behaviour. The marks usually kept a healthy distance, pitching their coins from a few feet away; he’d become very skilled at catching them in his cup for if he wasn’t quick enough some other poxy sod was sure to nip in and snatch the offering.