The Abbey Close

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘He was a gentleman usher of Cardinal Wolsey.’ A little pride coloured Danforth’s tone.

  ‘Yet you never speak of London. I’ve been in his Grace’s service for,’ his lips moved as he counted, ‘four years, and yet in all that space I’ve never had a word out of you, not about your life. You’re a closed book.’

  ‘His Grace has never thrown us together,’ said Danforth. He did not like the direction of the conversation. It was threatening to become personal, the precious knot of a professional relationship in danger of being loosened. He straightened his back and crossed his arms.

  ‘No, he hasn’t. Did you not like England?’

  Danforth became very interested in his hands. ‘I did not like its religion, or what it came to.’

  ‘Ho, here’s my supper!’ Danforth blessed the reprieve, as Martin’s interest shifted to the innkeeper, who set a loaded wooden trencher before him. ‘What a feast, sir. I’ll give it a good home.’ Danforth watched as Martin’s fingers danced around the food. ‘This is good,’ he said, his cheeks blooming. ‘Sure I can’t,’ he swallowed, ‘tempt you?’

  Danforth paused before answering, to allow a chorus of cheers to dampen. Someone had a good hand. He hated taverns. ‘Indeed you cannot,’ he said, cursing at his mewling stomach. ‘I am not so weak.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Martin. He swallowed again, before dabbing a napkin to his lips and glaring at Danforth. ‘I’m as strong in the faith as any man standing in this realm or without. Though I don’t need to advertise my religion and virtues to the world.’ With that, he picked up another wedge of bread and shovelled it into his mouth, defiant. A morsel of cheese fell onto his doublet. ‘Ah, shit,’ he mumbled. ‘My good doublet. And me a gentleman.’ He brushed at it, his mouth a little moue.

  ‘More dandiprat than gentleman, for all your airs,’ said Danforth. Martin narrowed his eyes, but continued to eat. Danforth felt the need to lighten the mood. He uncrossed his arms. ‘Did they starve you in Paris?’

  ‘Rather I reckon they increased my capacity. Better food in France, though.’

  ‘You shall become unwell, eating at such a pace. And there might be no apothecaries where we go on the morrow.’

  ‘Is that so?’ asked Martin, with a little interest. ‘And where might that be, O wise one?’

  ‘Not far. By my reckoning some ten miles or so to the west. Perhaps less. Paisley.’

  ‘Paisley?’

  ‘The same. I have a mind to see it. It is one of the four great places of pilgrimage in this realm. I have seen Melrose, and Scone. Dundee too.’

  ‘There’s no bruit of the slanders in Paisley. The Cardinal might wish our attendance upon him. He gave us no freedom to go and play.’

  ‘His Grace has given me leave to visit the town, knowing my desire.’ Cardinal Beaton was always sympathetic to him. Fatherly, almost. ‘And we are not to return to him until the matter of the verses is settled. As well you know. It might be that our shaking the Archbishop will now put fear into the rebellious churls. We shall return in a week and see if his inquiry has borne fruit. Or even if it has been convened. I suspect it will be dilatory.’

  ‘If that means half-arsed.’

  ‘At any rate, you need not accompany me,’ said Danforth, sensing his chance. ‘By my truth, I think it better that I make pilgrimage alone. Aye, that’s best, for sure. You can tarry here and make your presence known.’

  ‘Non. Paisley’s a busy place, from what I’ve heard. Any news out of Glasgow will reach it. I prefer company, sir, even if you don’t.’ Something illuminated Martin’s face. His hand wandered to his cloak. ‘Aye, I knew I’d been think about Paisley. That paper, the one I took. A missing girl. From Paisley.’

  ‘What has that to do with anything?’ He felt a groan coming on.

  ‘Nothing. I might make some enquiries whilst you make your obeisance, is all.’

  ‘Enquiries? About what?’

  ‘This little kitty. I’ve heard nothing about strangers turning up here – save ourselves, and we’ve seen no stolen lass. It excites my mind, that’s all.’ Martin’s voice had turned defensive. ‘I might learn something, and the girl might be discovered, and we might win the friendship of the Abbey. Or our master might.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Kitty ... I think I prefer not to know how your French blood heats. She shall be already found, or run off for a whore, or dead upon some ditch, you mark me.’

  ‘You have a black mind, sir. Sick.’

  ‘My mind inclines towards business, not trifles. Our business is this crime, this writing. Some stolen girl is of no consequence. Some feud, she’ll be an heiress taken for marriage, or some such nonsense.’

  ‘You’re hard, Mr Danforth, a hard man. Which is the greater crime, attacking the Church in words or stealing away one of its flock?’

  ‘Ugh, I want no debate. But I will say this. You mention sickness? The whole world, Mr Martin, is a sickly patient, sick since the great fall. And God is the physician, the clergy his apothecaries. But He deals with a stubborn patient who turns to tricksters, who feed him heresy, Lutheranism, whatever you call it, instead of honest medicine.’

  ‘Fuck physicians,’ spat Martin. Danforth cocked an eyebrow. If Martin had some grudge or other, that was his business.

  ‘I shall ignore that. Me, I have had business enough for this day. My back fair aches from the saddle.’ That seemed to happen a lot. Whoever said spending a lifetime in the saddle accustomed one to it was a liar. ‘I am retiring.’

  ‘And I’ll finish my supper, and perhaps keep these gambling fellows honest.’

  ‘Goodnight to you, Martin. Keep your mind on business, and off missing lassies.’

  ‘Goodnight, Danforth.’

  3

  Danforth’s wife had died again. It had been that damn Martin who had done it. He lay on the soft pallet bed, gazing at the indistinct blur of the ceiling. It had been Martin who had forced his mind into dark places. It had been Martin who reminded him of his own great sin, the one that no amount of pilgrimages seemed to erase.

  The dream had not come upon him for some time. Months, perhaps years – he couldn’t remember. He’d trusted that his devotions had banished it, that his silent pledges to God that he would complete his Scottish pilgrimage had been enough to keep it at bay. Somewhere, however, he must have slipped. It had returned and roused him, as familiar as a scar, at whichever dark and breathless hour it was.

  As always, he was back in England. None of the foulness of London was present in the dream: no fetid airs; no noise; no sense of fear. Nor was there plague. He would be reading by candlelight when Alice would come through the door, rosy-cheeked and blonde-haired. She still had the snub-nosed look of youth. Alice, dead and gone for years. Alice, pretty, needy, childlike, entrancing. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there’s been some mistake. I am alive, I’m well, Simon. I’ve come home.’ She was carrying their daughter in her arms and all was well. ‘What death? What curse of God? I’m here, don’t tease me.’ He would stand, his book falling to the floor – a valuable thing, but no matter. He would embrace his wife, their child between them. ‘Thank you, God. Oh, thank you, God.’

  And then he would wake up. His grief would be fresh. The mind was cruel. Alice, he realised, had now inhabited his dreams longer than she had lived by his side. He had loved and been loved by her so briefly, and yet it cast a long shadow, her face and voice never far from his mind. That was her home now. He had laughed a great deal when she was alive, when he was young. He didn’t need to be reminded of it. And it was all that wretched Martin’s fault.

  He turned on his side and stared at nothing until the blackness began to change in quality and thin shafts of greying light broke through the gaps in the wooden shutters, announcing the morning.

  After Mass at the Cathedral, they took the highway south, through Glasgow’s fields and orchards and across the Clyde. South of the river the highway turned to the west, dotted here and there by spittals. Despite Martin’s protestations, Danforth insist
ed they stop and pray at each of the little wooden lean-tos. He didn’t care to repeat the nightmare of the previous evening.

  ‘I find the labour of journey a great comfort,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Do you know, I considered taking holy orders myself when ... in the past.’

  ‘Oh? What prevented you?’

  ‘Well,’ Danforth sighed, looking upwards ‘it came to me that I did God’s work better in more active service.’

  ‘Christ’s cloth, you’re a pious old bugger,’ said Martin, smiling. ‘I hope you did not consider taking the monk’s robe. You have a fine head of hair, not best suited for the tonsure.’

  Danforth turned to him, but said nothing. He prided himself on being a serious-minded fellow: deserving of respect, not ridicule. ‘You are a grave and solemn lad,’ his father had often told him, one paw on his shoulder, ‘fashioned for grave and solemn business.’ He had never questioned the prediction. Henceforth, he decided, he would not speak so freely. It was labour enough to work cheek by jowl with Martin until the job was done.

  As they rode in the cold sunlight, they were joined by fellows on the road. Their companions were a happy assortment of pilgrims and country people. Coming the opposite way were grinning chapmen, their packs filled with goods that they hoped to hawk at profit in the outlying districts. All talk along the road was of war. Making for the Abbey also was a rabble of itinerant vagabonds, the men unshaven and wild, the women coughing and shivering in rags. Exiles too, thought Danforth, but in their own country. Many of them leant on sticks. Some had skin infections so grotesque they were difficult to look at. Danforth turned his face from them; they would be moved on by the burgesses if they lacked license to beg. In summer, he thought, this journey, this pilgrimage, must be a thing of beauty. But now it was ugly, the ground damp and cold, the trees signposts declaring the way to winter. The smell of wet woodland rose from the ground. It had been a bad summer.

  Long before the burgh came into view, the spire of the Abbey was visible over the treetops, reaching heavenwards. The road passed outlying tanneries, the corn-mill of Seed Hill, and wound around the tall, grey Abbey walls before forming a bridge over the River Cart. The narrow skein of roiling pewter, in high spate, cascaded over a low waterfall, full of dead leaves and brambles. Danforth was disappointed. He had hoped for still, clear waters. He had wanted the place, he realised, to resemble a picture in stained glass. In the surrounding hills and braes, the Abbey was supposed to resemble a jewel in the cupped palm of a hand. His shoulders slumped as he crossed the Bridge Port.

  The crowds of people melted away to attend to their own business. The Tolbooth, municipal courthouse and gaol, caught Danforth’s eye. Paisley’s was surmounted by a squat tower with an enormous clock displaying a time far later than the sky suggested. He started when a gnome-like face appeared next to the clock. It was the knock-keeper, hanging out of a shutter by the clock-face. Danforth looked away, surveying the town with a traveller’s eye. The towns and villages he knew better paraded through his mind: the Canongate, St Andrews, York, Surrey, London, London Bridge, home, Alice... He shook the cobwebs and refocused.

  Though it lacked the ancient grace of Edinburgh and the neat lines and dramatic vistas of St Andrews, Paisley had a vigorous, earthy vibrancy, like a brash and uncaring musical score, composed more with a desire to make itself heard than to soothe and delight the ear. No doubt, thought Danforth, that is what conditioned its people’s accents.

  ‘And so we arrive,’ Martin announced. ‘And hours later than we need have. Ought we not have announced our arrival at the Abbey? We’re on the Cardinal’s business, we might lodge in the guest house.’

  ‘No. I am not minded to lodge there.’

  ‘Why not? There’ll be good beds, good wine.’

  ‘I wish to stay in the burgh, near the people. News will carry here out of Glasgow before it reaches the monks, I fancy.’

  ‘News of the bills, or news of the war?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Then we must find some inn. Jesus, another inn. So much for good beds and wine. Do you see one?’ Several signs hung from the wood-and-stone buildings: a butcher, with bloodstained table in front of the building; a draper, who displayed lengths of colourful cloth; a fishmonger, table glistening. But no inn. Danforth peered down the streets and vennels converging on the cross. Each spewed human waste and sewage in brownish streams to meet and continue the journey to the river. His breathing slowed. Even the smell of Martin’s perfumed gloves would be preferable. He struck off for the broad High Street, Martin following at a trot.

  They passed a variety of tenements and frowning, close-packed houses in the lower High Street, all crumbling stone foundations and heavy thatched roofs. The stones used on them must, thought Danforth, have come from the same quarries as those which built the Abbey, but here they were put together without care. The road widened to allow a series of finer houses, the burgesses’ and prelates’ mansions. None of them were attractive. Only colourful front doors and gallons of whitewash proclaimed wealth. It was not until the end of the High Street that they spotted an inn sign. The place itself might once have been a fine, small private home. Now it had fallen on hard times, despite the prosperity of the burgh. Its thatched roof was a few feet from the ground, the whitewash on the low walls flaked and peeling. The sign, in contrast, was bright and gaudy, like a jewelled ring on the finger of a rotting carcass.

  ‘Might we now reconsider approaching the Abbey?’ asked Martin.

  ‘No. This will suffice. I did not come to these lands to be cosseted like a new born bairn.’ Already Danforth was dismounting and removing his saddlebag. He threw it across his back. Beside the building was a gated stable with a grey palfrey and no ostler. Danforth rattled the gate. Eventually a boy appeared, stretching.

  ‘Whit ye after, sirs? Ah’m busy.’

  ‘Mind your tongue, you saucy whelp,’ said Danforth. ‘A poor excuse for an ostler, you are. Take these horses and see that they are attended well.’

  The sulky child took the horses, closing the gate behind him with a disgruntled bang. ‘A labourer, that one,’ said Martin.

  ‘If he proves not, he will feel the pain of it.’ Danforth opened the door of the inn and led the way, his spare frame bending under the low lintel.

  Inside was a bare and neglected asylum. No one had bothered to make even a pretence of attracting business; the only concessions to comfort were some wooden chairs facing an unlit central hearth, and the entire building stank strongly of burnt peat. Danforth started at what looked, in the gloom, to be thin, trailing columns. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that they were ropes, tied around heavy stones lying on the floor. The other ends disappeared into the low part of the ceiling. It was an old trick, used in the houses of the very poor. The ropes and stones would keep loose patches of thatch from blowing off in heavy winds. It was a strange sight in what once must have been a good, two-storey house.

  ‘Good morning?’ called Danforth, wrinkling his nose. ‘We seek lodging.’ Beyond the hearth a crudely-built wall divided the room. No answer came. Martin made a move towards the passage through it.

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ hissed Danforth, raising an arm.

  ‘I mean to find our host.’

  ‘He may be from home; you cannot just intrude.’

  ‘It appears that I’m doing so. Can’t seem to help myself.’ Martin stepped through, his own arms held out like a sleepwalker.

  Muttering, Danforth followed him. In the back the ceiling was higher, its beams crossing above them, and there were some odds and ends of furniture – a washbowl, another chair, a trestle that looked like it might once have been valuable. Some scattered account sheets lay neglected. One of the walls appeared to have once held panelling, but it had been torn or fallen down, likely to be burnt or sold. A good flock bed with a battered mattress took up one corner: an unkempt sign of better days. Light poured through an open door leading to the garden, and already Martin was making for it. Danforth p
lucked at the back of cloak. ‘Stop! This is not your house!’

  Outside was an overgrown yard, littered with denuded trees and felled stumps. Midway down some chickens scratched at bare patches of soil, and at the far end was a stout woman, a stained cap on her head. Her back was to them. She stood on a low box, affixing an assortment of brambles and nettles to the top of her fence. Beyond the fence loomed the uppermost branches of countless bare tree limbs. Danforth shivered at the sight of the wet, black confusion. It was not by chance, he thought, that when poets turned their pens to the woodlands they wrote of the sweetness of summer airs.

  ‘Good morning, mistress,’ cried Martin cheerfully, swaggering towards her. The woman jumped and almost toppled. She turned a granite face towards them, throwing her thatch of jagged foliage to the ground.

  ‘Who the hell are you? What do you mean by comin’ in here?’

  ‘My apologies, mistress,’ said Danforth. He cursed at Martin, and gestured behind him. ‘We are looking for lodgings.’

  ‘What? Who are you?’ Suspicion and fear mingled in her protuberant eyes, which ran over their travelling cloaks. Her hair, escaping its cap, was the colour of rust.

  ‘We are gentlemen of his Grace the Lord Cardinal.’

  ‘The Cardinal? Then you lodge in the Abbey. Guests of quality lodge in the Abbey, always they lodge there. Why are you here?’

  ‘We are minded to stay in the burgh, mistress.’

  ‘We are come on matters touching the Cardinal’s honour, some crude bills in Glasgow –’ began Martin, Danforth silencing him with a stare.

  ‘We have seen no better lodgings than your own,’ he said. It was true, in its fashion.

  ‘I ... I don’t take much business, no’ these days,’ she said. She caught Martin’s wandering gaze. Then something dawned in her eyes. ‘But neither can I refuse custom. Cardinal’s men? Come away ben, sirs. I apologise. I was securin’ the limits of the burgh. We’re wantin’ for stout town walls. Not that there’s much worth savin’ here.’ Danforth did not ask if she meant the house or the town. No sense prolonging her blabber. She marched across the garden, black skirts trailing in the mud and grass. As she passed, she attempted a welcoming smile. Behind her back Martin made a sarcastic, lustful face, and Danforth raised a warning fist in return.