The Law of Angels

by Cassandra Clark

  She ran a finger over the glass. There was another way of reading the symbol of the little fox. It could be an ironic sign to demonstrate Gilbert’s secret affiliation with the beliefs of Bernard of Clairvaux. The fox. Scenting out the heretics. Exterminating them as the saint instructed.

  She moved a pot with a few grains of ground glass in it that had been left on a corner of the trestle then leaned down to have a closer look at the separate panels.

  A border of leaves and vines enclosed the figures and within their convoluted shapes of green and red was the tiny white-robed figure of a nun. She saw at once that it was based on the drawing Gilbert had made in his pattern book when she had been sitting by the river. At first she did not recognise herself, so serene and strong was the expression on the face drawn in miniature on the glass, and yet, even within its limitations, she could make out her unsettled attention as she turned away from the world. She peered more closely and saw another familiar figure in its own separate frame.

  It was an angel.

  His wings were outspread. On his legs were quaint feathered breeches.

  It was Jankin. He was smiling out of the glass as at a distant splendour.

  She stepped away.

  Whatever the nature of his other activities, Gilbert’s work was magnificent. Master Danby’s life, in many respects unfortunate, was now immortalised by his collaboration with an artist-craftsman. Their work would live forever in the windows of the minster when their stories were long forgotten.

  As she went out into the yard Mistress Julitta came out behind her from the direction of Danby’s kitchen. She carried some herbs wrapped in a rhubarb leaf. With a tight-lipped nod she carried on up the yard to where the guards were at their posts.

  One of them spoke up. “Still cooking for him, mistress?”

  “Only doing what needs to be done,” she replied haughtily as she went on inside the house.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  By now the sky was the colour of a copper pan. Sheet lightning lit the sky. There was a close, dry, dusty feel to the air. It was weighted like something that could be cut by a blade. The whole town seemed to be on the point of erupting into flames. Hildegard’s headache hammered at her temples with renewed force.

  Before leaving Danby’s yard she went to look in on her hounds and thought about slipping their chains and taking them with her, but the streets were wilder than ever by now so she refilled their bowls, gave them a pat and left without them.

  The pageant wagons were still lumbering from one station to the next. The first half-dozen plays had already reached the twelfth and final station but the rest continued to come down one by one over the bridge and into the town. The Day of Judgement would not arrive at the final station until midnight. By then the streets would replicate the fields of Armageddon.

  * * *

  Although it was still only mid-afternoon it became so dark because of the brewing storm that people were beginning to carry flares. Lighted cressets were placed in the brackets outside the houses of the wealthy and between the overhanging buildings people passed in a kind of twilight, their features lurid, like those of the players under the flickering pageant fires.

  To make it even more confusing many had gone to the trouble of painting their faces with violent-coloured dyes and most wore motley, an assortment of costumes in whatever bizarre form their imaginations could devise.

  Some groups dressed alike as if having devised a common theme, a school of fish, for instance, their paste scales dislodged in the press falling like leaves in their wake, or a chivalry of knights with fake swords and armour leading a man wearing a horse’s head, or groups of Saracen brandishing wooden scimitars, or teams of dragons, red, green, with paper flames spouting from between their jaws.

  A gang in animal masks were threading their way through this mayhem, creating an even greater commotion. Nobody gave them more than a passing glance amid the confusion. A haze of lung-wrenching smoke from the torches they were carrying added to the smoke trapped between the buildings from the pageant devices. The dangerous scent of naptha hung in the air. Hildegard tried to move out of the way as the animals came charging down the street, but the crowd was at a standstill. Everyone was trapped.

  To make matters worse, out of the heart of this tumult a pageant wagon loomed between the houses farther up. It was trying to force a way between the onlookers from the previous station and it emerged like a behemoth, ungainly through the smoke. Hildegard flattened herself against the wall with everyone else as it trundled past.

  At last it was the glaziers’ wagon, with Gilbert himself sitting high up on a throne of clouds attached by stout ropes above the tilting stage. His throne was so elevated he was almost on a level with the first-floor windows of the houses and could have touched the sills as he passed. The whole top-heavy edifice was swaying from side to side as it rumbled over the cobbles.

  The actors—Jesus, John the Baptist, Adam, Enoch, Seth, Simeon and the rest—were hanging on to the struts that held the scenery, singing various anthems with their flagons in their hands and now and then declaiming sundry lines as they lurched along. They looked unreal in the weird light. Gilbert’s wings, crumpled by now, reached down to the stage in a fall of crimson paper feathers. What was it Kit had said? “So that they controlled everything.”

  Gilbert didn’t seem to be controlling anything at all just now.

  He appeared to be trying to descend from his perch but everyone was too drunk or preoccupied to help him down. Or maybe Danby had warned one of the players he trusted to make sure Gilbert did not leave his aerial prison cell.

  Banter passed back and forth between the cast and the crowds and the latter, pressing thickly in on both sides, continually handed up gifts of ale, cheering as they did so. Several brawny apprentices wearing nothing but cotton breeches were working as a team to heave the wagon forward. They were sweating and pouring ale down their throats to keep their strength up, their leader urging them on with a whip, but when he insulted their manhood they cursed back happily, impugning his own.

  “Come on, you lily-livered losels!” he was roaring as they approached the place where Hildegard was flattened against the wall. “Put some beef into it. Let’s have a bit of effort! Where are your balls?” Tendons stood out on arms and necks as they strained to heave the loaded cart forward. The racket of the tabors was deafening in the confined space and seemed to obliterate all logical thought.

  A guildsman was walking in front with a beribboned mace to clear the way of dogs and drunks. A child ran out from the crowd and was scooped up immediately and returned to its parents. So far there had been no fatalities. Now the mace-bearer said something to the wagon-master and the whole swaying edifice groaned to a halt. The wagon ahead had not yet moved off from the front of the Common Hall. There was a snarl-up as the great vehicles blocked the street.

  Watching Gilbert in the character of an archangel perched on high reminded Hildegard of the angel in the glass. Gilbert had talked about type and anti-type. The Harrowing of Hell now due to be enacted before the mayor and his aldermen would be anti-type. Its type was the Massacre of the Innocents. But that particular pageant had gone by long ago without incident. She shivered.

  There were shouts from somewhere up the street and the wagon began to edge forward again. She followed in its wake, forced along with the rest of the crowd as far as the yard outside the Hall.

  The mayor and his council rose to their feet with as much enthusiasm as everyone else as the wagon approached.

  There were deafening cheers. A steward seemed to call for silence but it went unheeded.

  Simon de Quixlay stepped to the front of the stand and appeared to make a speech although nobody could hear a word he said. When he finished he waved a fist above his head in a sign of solidarity and it brought a massive cheer from the onlookers. Fists were raised in response and somebody started to sing the rebel anthem. The mayor regained his seat, smiling and shaking hands. Aldermen were slapping him o
n the back, everyone clearly delighted that today he was the man at the top.

  Hildegard watched carefully. It was difficult to believe he was under threat. The townsfolk clearly adored him. Maybe it was all a hoax. There was no threat. It was only wishful thinking by his enemies. It was impossible to understand what had made Gilbert pen that warning.

  De Quixlay, it was well known, had refused three times to be mayor. Only on the third vote had he agreed to stand. His reluctance might have been natural humility or it might have been caution—knowing as everyone did that Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, wanted to put his own man in charge of the city as he had done in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon and elsewhere in the north. It would be a tough and dangerous prospect to stand against the duke.

  Apart from the people he served the only allies de Quixlay had came from the burgesses in smaller towns like Beverley and Scarborough, ones fined heavily after the Rising in ’81 because of their support for it.

  Even Hull, an increasingly important trading port, was run by a council who favoured Gaunt. No doubt this was because of the protection he offered in terms of trade with Flanders and the Hanse ports of the Baltic. Nobody else had the resources to protect their merchant ships from pirates and the excessive taxation the Hanse League tried to levy on foreign traders, so it was easy to see their point.

  Gaunt: trading profit. No Gaunt: trading loss. Type: anti-type.

  But here in York, de Quixlay had the free vote of the burgesses. He was no strong-armed autocrat with an army of knights at his back. He had started from humble origins and worked his way to the leadership by sheer ability. He was a vigorous supporter of the bonded labourers in their attempts to free themselves. He said, it was claimed, that they should be able to sell their labour just as the merchants sold their goods. He offered protection for those who were outlawed for their beliefs.

  Surrounded by the love of his people it was difficult to work out how he could be in danger.

  Engrossed by this problem Hildegard slowly became aware that there was an increasing commotion at the end of the street in addition to that caused by the glaziers’ wagon.

  The crowd seemed to bulge and fatten in the narrow artery leading out towards the back of St. Mary’s Abbey. The wagon was forced to a halt before it could reach the mayor’s stand. People craned to see what had brought the procession to a stop.

  “It’s the Host!” a distant shout went up. “They’re taking it back to St. Leonard’s!”

  A column of blazing torches became visible crossing the junction ahead and following the blaze of gold and silver came a cohort of hooded monks, carrying their own lighted candles.

  There was more pushing and shoving as the crowd, forced by the procession of the Host up the street towards the stand, met a column of masked players trying to force a way down. They all carried lighted flares.

  At first sight they reminded Hildegard of the jolly company of cardinals who had saved her from Matthias a few nights ago, but as they drew level she felt unsure. There was no pope at their head chuckling, “See you in hell, fair lady.”

  Instead the leader pushed with some violence through the crowd, arousing hostility as he passed. A woman standing next to Hildegard held a protective hand round the child at her knee. “No need to be so bloody rough!” she shouted after them as they went on. One of them turned with a snarl but was urged on by the pressure of those behind.

  “Who are they?” asked Hildegard. She followed their progress with a puzzled frown.

  “Never seen ’em before in my life, and when I see ’em next it’ll be too soon,” the woman replied.

  Hildegard watched them force their way down the street until they merged with the crowd near the mayor’s stand. She couldn’t see what the hurry was about. They were not in the glaziers’ pageant and if they were hoping to join another wagon they were going in the wrong direction. When the glaziers’ finished here they would go on towards the house of old Adam del Brygges in Stonegate and then on down towards the station at Minster Gates.

  More and more people were trying to get into the yard outside the Common Hall by now and it was beginning to be frightening. The constables seemed to have lost control. People were pushing and being pushed in all directions. Someone fell but was dragged to his feet before he could be trampled. There were calls for calm which no one was able to heed.

  The masked men must be trying to join the procession of the Host, Hildegard decided. She felt troubled.

  They had set off a minor stampede by the rough way they forced a passage through the otherwise good-humoured crowd, and the thick smoke from their torches left a suffocating stench in the air.

  The smell of naptha was stronger still.

  The crowd was forcing her towards the pageant wagon and by now she could see the Host being raised beyond it. A group down there started to sign a te deum. At once it provoked opposition and one of the rebel songs could be heard in reply: “Together we stand as brothers and sisters, one for all, all for one, strong we stand, never to fall, all for one, one for all.”

  It was like an antiphon or one of the Saxon poems, a line followed by a response.

  The two rival groups increased their volume in an attempt to drown the other out. Everyone joined in. Neighbour vied with neighbour in a cacophony of sound.

  Then something happened.

  An alarm swept through Hildegard that was as sudden as a physical shock. It caused her to exclaim aloud. In a flash she recalled the man in the mask who had snarled at the woman and her child as he pushed past. That smell of rancid wax. She knew who he was. But it was impossible.

  She stood on tiptoe to search the faces of the crowd.

  The group were standing outside a house opposite the mayor’s stand. It was the only one that had no spectators leaning from the windows. Inside, however, cressets blazed and there was an elderly porter standing on guard in the doorway.

  She turned her attention back to the men in the masks. They wore cloaks. Only the fact that no arms were allowed inside the walls of the town during the festivities had made her think the danger would come from an explosion like the ones before. But anyone could conceal a weapon should they choose.

  Now, as she stared over the heads of the singing mob, the exact words scratched on Danby’s piece of vellum flooded back: After the specific warning to the dignitaries came the words they had all ignored as being mere bombast. Now she ran them through her mind again: Beware the Antichrist! He comes armed with a bow of burning flame!

  The pageant wagon reached its destination. It shuddered to a halt in front of the mayor’s stand. Gilbert was struggling to get down from his throne in the clouds. Somehow he noticed Hildegard as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd.

  She was staring up at him.

  White-faced he stared back.

  He had written the words. There was no doubt of that.

  Now she thought she understood why: It was a warning, not a threat. He knew something, and for some reason this was the only way he could make it known.

  Fighting her way through those thickest round the edge of the stage she managed to attract the attention of a group of apprentices leaning against the shafts of the wagon. Jesus and a couple of the others were playing dice in the pause before the performance started and she called up to them.

  “Gilbert wants to get down!” she shouted above the chanting crowd. They had clearly forgotten he was there.

  John the Baptist heard her first. He stood up and bellowed up to Gilbert, “Want a piss, lad?” Shrugging his skins over one shoulder he began to slacken the ropes that kept the throne of clouds in place.

  “Hurry, I must speak to him!” urged Hildegard above the commotion.

  With a sudden pull the final knot unloosed itself, the throne slipped and Gilbert half fell, half jumped to land on the wooden boards. The audience cheered. The whole wagon rocked, making the actors yell in protest at having their dice disturbed. Somebody reached out to catch a toppling flagon and the apprenti
ce boys jeered lustily.

  When he stumbled towards her she demanded, “Did you post that notice on the minster door?”

  “Of course I did! I thought it was a clear warning. But look at de Quixlay. He hasn’t understood, the sot wit! He thinks he’s safe!”

  He reached out and gripped her by the edge of her veil so he could be heard. “Jankin hinted about their plans before they shut him up. He knew about the whole thing. I tried to get in to see de Quixlay but their security was too tight. They thought I was just another madman predicting the Last Days.”

  “Is it to do with those players in the masks?”

  “Who?”

  “Over there!” She gestured towards the house opposite.

  “They won’t be players, they’ll be the duke’s men.”

  “I know one of them.”

  He stared.

  “You wrote ‘He comes armed with a bow of burning flame.’ What did you mean?”

  “That’s the phrase Jankin heard them use. But it makes no sense to me.”

  “It does to me.”

  They were almost in front of the stand. It was surrounded by singing supporters. Hereabout the te deum went unheard.

  “We’ve got to warn de Quixlay,” she told Gilbert.

  It was all so obvious now. The guards standing along the front railing could be picked off one at a time by anybody with a crossbow—so long as they were suitably hidden above the crowd. The mayor himself and every one of his council could be shot by as few as half a dozen men aiming together.

  If the attackers used fire to prime their bolts the entire stand and the Common Hall could go up in flames.

  She glanced back at the line of players with their burning torches. In the present crush no one would be able to get away. People would be killed in the stampede to escape. The buildings all about would be set alight. The entire town could burn. Even if, by some miracle, de Quixlay was saved from the flames, it would be a sign to the superstitious that he was the herald of the Last Days, to others that he had no backing for his reforms.