by Paul Doherty
‘Of course you would.’ Sevigny nodded. ‘You would believe the best of him, wouldn’t you, as I do of York. I was the only son of doting parents.’ Sevigny’s face abruptly changed; just for a fleeting moment, a deep sadness softened his hard expression. ‘They held manor and meadow from the Duke of York. During the early, tumultuous days of Beaufort’s regency, the manor was attacked; my parents were murdered. York took me into his household. He hunted down my parents’ murderers and hanged them before Micklegate Bar in York. He also educated me at Fountains Abbey, then the halls of Oxford. So we have a great deal in common, Master Roseblood: both loyal servants to our lords.’
‘Put not your trust in princes,’ Eleanor’s voice thrilled from the Swan’s-Nest, ‘nor your confidence in the war chariots of Egypt, nor the swift horses of Assyria. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who prepares my arms for battle and trains my hands for war…’
‘My good sister-in-law, Eleanor,’ Simon murmured. ‘She heard your words. This church has a strange echo.’
‘Ah yes, the recluse, the anchorite. Why is she so?’
‘Master Sevigny, that is her business, not yours, and I am very busy. I have listened to you long enough. Why are you here?’
‘They say you are a dangerous man, Simon,’ Sevigny answered blithely. ‘A taverner, a vintner, an alderman, but also lord of the dunghill and the latrine. The knight of the night soil. You control the scavengers who swarm through the filthy alleys of London. They clean the guts, filth and bloody rubbish of the shambles. They pile the dirt of the city into muck hills and middens.’
‘And?’ Roseblood demanded.
‘You have spies in every ward, Master Simon. Your minions of the mollocks collect the gossip, spread the rumours and fan the flames. Your adherents jostle, mix and crackle with the rest of the mob.’
Sevigny wiped the sweat from his upper lip. Simon smiled to himself; this clerk might claim to know a great deal about him, but he did not understand him. Never once had Sevigny managed to provoke him. The clerk turned away. Simon was sure he was trying to compose himself.
‘Master Sevigny, I am waiting.’ Simon deliberately kept his voice light. ‘We have danced and curtseyed, flattered and threatened. Now, your business or I walk away.’
Sevigny opened the door to the chantry chapel. ‘Master Walter!’ he shouted. The scribe hurried out of the shadows, head down, one hand held high. ‘Serve it!’
The scribe thrust a warrant, folded and sealed, into Simon’s hand.
‘Master Simon Roseblood,’ Sevigny declared, ‘you stand accused of treason, robbery, murder and other heinous felonies. You are summoned by lawful writ to present yourself at the Guildhall in two days’ time, before the market bell sounds, when a true bill of indictment will be laid against you.’ Sevigny let the legal terms roll off his tongue. ‘A jury will assemble and you will be indicted to appear before a special commission of oyer and terminer sitting in the same Guildhall. For the moment,’ he lazily waved a hand, ‘you are free. However, at your first meeting at the Guildhall, heavy recognisances will be demanded of you.’
Sevigny pushed Ramler out of the chapel. Roseblood followed them to the corpse door, trying to curb his anger.
‘Sevigny?’ he called.
The clerk turned.
‘Listen well. Tell you and yours that this is à l’outrance, usque ad mortem, to the death.’
Sevigny sketched a bow, fingers on the hilt of his sword, and left the church. Simon closed the door and leaned against it, the parchment still in his hands. He crumpled it into a ball, put it into his purse and walked back into the chantry chapel. ‘To the death,’ he whispered. Fury surged within him. He had been baited, taunted and threatened here at the very heart of his life.
He glimpsed a shadow shift to his right, and Ignacio moved into the pool of light. The Castilian was thin and angular, eyes worried in his dark-lined face, hands tapping the war belt around his waist. Roseblood winked at him and made a sign: ‘Peace and goodness.’ Ignacio relaxed, his fingers flickering and fluttering as he described what he’d seen and felt. Roseblood sensed the Castilian’s profound anxiety. Amadeus Sevigny was truly dangerous, and they were involved in a fight to the death. Using signs, he told Ignacio all he had learnt, both from the clerk and from his own spy in the sheriff’s household: Candlemas and Cross-Biter had turned King’s Approver; they would probably indict him, serve as witnesses against him, so they must die. Ignacio’s reply was swift and brutal: they would!
Roseblood watched him leave. Ignacio would certainly take care of it. Candlemas and Cross-Biter might think they were safe in the Shadows of Purgatory, a special house put aside for important prisoners, which stood along an alleyway off Cheapside. Ignacio would prove them wrong.
As Roseblood crossed the nave, walking down to the anchorite’s cell, his gaze was caught by a wall painting, The Torments of Hell, a compelling vision of the damned. A horde of demons, hairy, humpbacked creatures with swollen bellies and bulging calves and buttocks, prowling a blighted wasteland. Trying to clear his mind of Sevigny’s threats, he crouched to study the various colours, noting how the demons, half human, half animal, were in constant conflict with the golden-haloed, sword-wielding angels.
‘What are you, Simon Roseblood, angel or demon?’ Eleanor the anchorite could glimpse him through the squint gap of her cell.
‘A mere man,’ Roseblood replied, walking towards the Swan’s-Nest. ‘A very tired, rather worried one. My sleep is disturbed by demons and my waking hours by those who hate me.’
‘Then come and be shriven.’
Roseblood approached the anchorhold. This had once been another side chapel, but he had persuaded the parish priest, Father Benedict, to remove the wooden trellis screen and replace it with a heavy stone wall containing both a squint and a narrow door under a black Hospitaller cross. Now the door opened and Eleanor ushered him into the Swan’s-Nest. Sunlight poured through the large window high in the wall, its shutters pulled fully back.
Eleanor smiled at him, her beautiful ivory-pale face framed by a starched white wimple beneath the brown veil of a nun of St Clare. She ushered him to the only chair, while she sat on a stool close to his knees. Embarrassed, as he always was by this woman whom he loved, had loved and would love beyond all telling, Roseblood stared round as if seeing the simple contents of the cell for the first time. A cot bed stood beneath the window, next to it a table that also served as a desk. A diptych depicting the Five Wounds of Christ and the Seven Sorrows of Mary hung on the wall alongside a coloured cloth proclaiming the Jesus Prayer beneath the Franciscan Tauist symbol. He shuffled his feet on the coarse rope matting and stared at the lectern, which bore a book of hours containing the divine office.
‘You are agitated, Simon. I heard most of what that clerk said – the echoes of this church carry long and clear – although I did not catch his name.’
‘Amadeus Sevigny, Yorkist clerk, a nephew of my enemy Malpas.’ This time Simon held Eleanor’s grey-eyed gaze. He noticed her long lashes, the finely etched brows, the lips still red even without any carmine. He thought she looked tired and wan, yet this was a face that plagued his dreams and left a soreness of heart that could not be soothed. He curbed his agitation. He had lost this woman to his brother, and, after Edmund had been murdered, to God.
Unnerved and most uncomfortable with such a feeling, he rose and went across to study a painting of the Resurrection of the Dead that decorated the plaster above the squint. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. The dead were rising from their long sleep as if from a good night in bed. Some came to life yawning and stretching; a few immediately sprang up to eternal life. Others were slugabeds, so lazy that angels armed with crowbars levered their coffined lids and gently roused them into eternal wakefulness.
‘Is it serious?’ Eleanor abruptly asked. ‘Don’t hide from me, Simon.’
Roseblood looked over his shoulder. ‘York will invade. Civil war is imminent.’
‘And the K
ing?’
‘Poor Henry, long-jawed, bewildered, his dark eyes full of sadness, cowers like a bird in its cage when the cat is around. York’s badge, the fetterlock, and his insignia, the white rose, are appearing all over the city, on the great crosses at Cheapside and St Paul’s; even on the doors of Beaufort’s quarters at Greyfriars.’
‘And you, Simon, why are you being threatened?’ She laughed softly. ‘Of course I know, but why now?’
‘I am Beaufort’s man. I control the babewyns and the gargoyles of London, the scavengers, muckrakers and gong men in every ward. I can spread rumour and collect gossip. I speak for the King, his Queen and the Beauforts on the city council. My spacious tavern can host special guests. I can bring in and dispatch whomever I want. If Beaufort wishes to send someone abroad, I can arrange it. If he or the Queen want to receive some secret envoy, their wish is my command. If a street fight begins, I can whistle up my hoard of rifflers and ruffians. York and his henchmen, Malpas and Sevigny, would love to destroy that.’
‘But why now? Why has Sevigny appeared? Surely this is connected to my Edmund’s death. The same deadly game?’
‘I think so.’ Simon breathed in the heavy fragrance from the herb pots arranged around the chamber. ‘Yes, the same deadly game: who will control London? Five years ago, Cade occupied the city. He slaughtered many of the King’s party in an attempt to win it. In the end, he failed. Now Malpas is attempting the same before York marches, and has brought Sevigny in to assist. They will use the law, or in this case, Candlemas.’
‘I recall his name. I have heard rumours about the attack. What happened?’
‘Oh, Candlemas and his coven failed to steal silver being escorted to the Tower mint.’ Simon grinned. ‘They didn’t realise that there was no silver to rob; just sacks of old iron castings. No, no,’ he waved a hand, ‘I cannot tell you the full story. Four of the robbers were taken and tried before the justices at the Guildhall. Malpas had no choice. They had killed a royal serjeant, so they were sentenced to death for treason. Sevigny used the executions to see if Candlemas would appear. The fool did not disappoint him. He and two other rogues took refuge in the sanctuary of St Paul’s. On execution day, they stupidly left this and used a secret tunnel, an ancient sewer that runs close to Smithfield. They were captured and offered pardons as King’s Approvers. They must testify that I was the moving spirit behind the robbery.’
‘Were you?’
Simon just smiled. Despite his sea of troubles, he was quietly revelling in the subtle trickery he had played.
‘Simon, I remember Candlemas: a defrocked priest, a roaring boy with flame-coloured hair and a raucous mouth. Would he have the wit to plan such a robbery? Surely someone else…’ Eleanor paused in a fit of coughing, then abruptly gripped her stomach.
Simon walked over to her and stared down at the face he loved. The skin was taut, her eyes slightly starting; she was biting her lip as if in pain. He studied her carefully. Father Benedict had mentioned that she had asked for physic, medicines for her stomach. She glanced away, both hands nursing her belly.
‘Eleanor, are you well?’
‘I fast too much, too often.’ she confessed. ‘That is all.’ She rested a hand on his arm, ‘If you were not involved in this robbery, how do you know so much?’
Simon just winked at her.
‘Simon!’ she added warningly.
‘Everything can be bought, Eleanor.’
‘No, Simon.’ She half smiled, relaxing as the pain in her belly faded. ‘Not everything. Now,’ she added briskly, ‘our good sheriff will use Candlemas to indict you. Why didn’t they offer the same pardon to those executed?’
‘Somebody had to die for that robbery. Four of the gang were caught. What could Malpas do? The city would expect it. More importantly, they wanted to terrorise Candlemas and his companions, which they certainly have.’
Eleanor swiftly crossed herself. Roseblood wished he could stretch out his hand and cup her beautiful face, push back that hood and wimple to see her gorgeous black hair, though this would now be shorn and crimped. He also wondered, not for the first time, at this recluse’s absorption with the affairs of the city.
‘Eleanor?’ He touched her gently on her cheek. ‘Eleanor, why this? Why the flight from the world? Why not petition the bishop to be released from your vows? You know how I feel.’
‘Simon, how many years is it since your wife died?’
‘A good number of years.’
‘Do you still miss her?’
‘Of course,’ he lied. ‘Every day I speak her name and say the requiem.’ Eleanor’s grey eyes held his. You know I am lying, Simon thought. I did love Rohesia, but not as much, God forgive me, as I love you. ‘Why, Eleanor?’ he repeated. ‘This has nothing to do with Rohesia. Why have you locked yourself away?’
‘Atonement, reparation.’
‘For what? What did you do? You loved Edmund.’
‘Passionately. One heart, one soul, one mind, one body, breath for breath, life for life.’
Roseblood kept his face impassive, yet the very essence of his being surged at those passionate words.
‘So why?’
Eleanor glanced away. Simon turned, blinking furiously, staring at the two magnificent swans Eleanor had painted either side of the narrow door: beautiful, heavenly white, with their fluffed feathers and arching necks. Eleanor had always loved these birds. She used to beg Edmund to take her out on the great tavern barge, The Glastonbury, to feed them or just stare at their exquisite beauty. All around the chamber were other reminders of the anchorite’s fascination with swans, be it an incense holder or a hand-painted jug displaying the mythical Knights of the Swan. Little wonder parishioners referred to the anchorhold as the Swan’s-Nest.
‘Why did he leave?’ Roseblood asked, as he had so many times. ‘The night Cade’s men stormed through the city, Edmund left the tavern. We had it secure, fortified like any castle under siege. I’d summoned a legion of rifflers, yet Edmund slipped out. Why?’
Eleanor just stared dully back, as if the very life had drained from her.
‘Why, Eleanor?’
‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘He talked of men called LeCorbeil, Cade’s men…’ Her voice trailed away.
‘I know of LeCorbeil,’ Roseblood sighed. ‘God knows what Edmund had to do with them!’
Eleanor simply sat threading beads through her fingers. Roseblood marvelled at the change in her. She had been Eleanor Philpot when he first met her ten years ago, around the anniversary of his wife’s death. He had never thought any woman could catch his eye and heart so swiftly. She was the vivacious daughter of a failing, sickly London merchant who had lost his wealth due to sea monsters – Breton pirates in the northern seas. Simon had been deeply smitten, but so had Edmund, and Eleanor only had eyes for him.
‘Simon, this sea of troubles?’
‘Like any brother and sister, we’ll face it out.’ He paused.
‘Simon?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Roseblood fell silent; then, ‘I cannot walk away Eleanor, they will not let me. Out there,’ he pointed at the door, ‘are a multitude of empty bellies, not to mention my own kith and kin who depend on me. In the end, the life that I have is the life that I lead, and the life that I lead is the life that has been thrust on me.’ That was the real difference between him and Edmund.
‘And your children, how are they? I see them at mass; they talk to me, though I am never sure if they are just telling me the things I want to hear.’
‘Raphael is a pillar of strength; a serjeant at law, he has returned to help me in the tavern. He looks after all my business, which eases the humours of both mind and body. Gabriel is now a novice in the Franciscan order at Greyfriars under Prior Aelred.’
‘Edmund had a special regard for Gabriel. He saw him as the son he always wanted.’
Simon just shrugged.
‘And Katherine?’
‘As lovely as ever, though her right leg still pains
her sometimes. She is just about her eighteenth summer, keen and sharp-witted. Others think she is slightly fey. She has read too much about Arthur and the romances of Avalon. I am sure,’ Simon laughed sharply, ‘that Katherine expects Galahad of the Grail to ride into the tavern courtyard. She is constantly retreating to what she calls her greensward bower in the orchard.’
‘And the Fraternity of the Doom?’ Eleanor smiled knowingly. ‘I know that they pray for Edmund’s soul. That in his name they do good work along the Thames, combing its waters for those who have drowned, bringing their corpses back to Greyfriars for Christian burial.’
Simon crouched beside her. ‘Of course you know, sister,’ he teased, ‘as you know how the Fraternity also meets the wine cogs from Bordeaux, taking and selling their claret without paying custom. But…’
He paused at a tumult from the other side of the church. He left the anchorhold and hurried to the men tangling on the threshold of the corpse door. Through the poor light he recognised the thickset figure and harsh features of the parish priest; beside him Benedict’s curate and keeper of the Chapel of the Doom, Father Roger, thin as a beanpole, his blond hair cropped. The two priests were trying to drag into the church a man whose chest and belly were a soggy, gleaming mass of blood, his face half hidden by a cowl. They clutched him tightly, at the same time striving to drive off the city bailiffs, who held on to the wounded man’s legs, attempting to drag him back.
‘Desist!’ Father Benedict bellowed. ‘Hic est locus terribilis.’ He intoned the official sanctuary greeting. ‘Haec est porta Caeli et domus Dei. This is indeed a terrible place, the gate of Heaven and the house of God. This man, like Joab of old, claims sanctuary according to the tenets of Holy Mother Church. You shall be excommunicated.’
The bailiffs, led by Skulkin, would not be cowed. ‘He has not reached the horns of the high altar,’ the chief bailiff bellowed. The fugitive was now screaming in pain, kicking his legs as the priests pulled him in.
‘One more step.’ Roseblood, sword and dagger drawn, stepped round the priests, the blades of his weapons darting dangerously close to Skulkin and his companions. ‘One more step,’ he repeated, ‘and you will die, whilst I will be hosted by Holy Mother Church as the champion of her liberties.’ He sheathed his dagger, dug into his purse and drew out a few coins, which he threw over the bailiffs’ heads. ‘For your pains. Withdraw your men. Wet your throats or,’ he smiled, ‘you can have them sliced.’