The Clerkenwell Tales Page 7

  “It was a scrivener,” Garret Barton said, “who asked me what I did.”

  “You have favoured him. He has gone back.”

  “Where no pens or receipts will trouble him.”

  “You did a good deed, Garret. He is dissolved into time. Here is the place I sought.”

  It looked like a house, but it was a tavern. Some men were playing checkers on a bench outside; Rafu and Barton stepped over the threshold into a room filled with laughter and raised voices. “Put the case,” someone was saying at Rafu’s right hand. “Put the case that the cloths were not good. The dye would not hold. Am I to be blamed for it?” Just behind Barton a man and woman were arguing. “It is all very well for you, dame patience. I grant you, patience is a great virtue. But not every man is perfect. I am not perfect.” A cat leapt down from a table on to the floor. A young man was staring down into a cup of ale, talking slowly and hesitantly to his companion. “The poor man is hard pressed on all sides. If he does not ask for his meat, he dies of hunger. If he asks for it, he dies of shame. I would rather die a better death. More, please. Fill it up.”

  Rafu and Barton found a small table with two round stools and, when the tapster came over to clean away all the spilled beer and wine, they asked him what was best. “Ask your purse, sirs.” He was a surly man, used to dealing with customers who might be violent as well as drunken. “My best ale is fourpence a gallon. A gallon of Gascon wine is fourpence also. The Rhenish is eightpence. If you wish for sweet wine, then you must go to another place.” And how good was the Rhenish? “It will defy the dust.”

  They sat in silence over their drinks and could distinctly hear the conversation between a pedlar and an old woman. “The parrot is luxurious and very fond of wine,” she was saying. “The drake is wanton and the cormorant is gluttonous.”

  “What of the raven?”

  “Oh, sir, the raven is wise. While the stork, you see, is jealous.”

  “And a drunken old woman,” Barton murmured, “is as wallowing as a sow and as foolish as a she-ape.”

  “They say of a drunken man,” Rafu whispered, “that he has seen the devil.”

  “What of it? Lucifer himself cannot touch us.”

  “So we can never be drunken? Never piss-pots or cup-shot?”

  At another table one man was asking for the reckoning, even as the cry went up from his companions to let go and pass round the cup. One of them fell from his stool and, as he was pulled up by the tapster, began to urinate in his breeches. “When I said to put down your shot,” the tapster told him, “I meant your pennies and not your piss.”

  There was general laughter, and Garret Barton leaned towards the manciple. “There is no heaven or hell for these, except earth itself.”

  “Butler, fill the bowl!”

  “God created them without souls.”

  “Cast your counts first, friends. Sixpence each one.”

  “They will return to earth and air, fire and water, without ever knowing that they have lived.”

  “One pot more!”

  A huckster selling laces peered into the tavern. The tapster shook his head at him, and put out his hand in warning, but he entered. “Have you heard, good masters? A murder in the cathedral! And a proclamation made by the Lollers! All is in havoc.” He asked for a jug of pudding wine, which was speedily purchased. Garret Burton and Robert Rafu did not speak, and kept their faces averted from the huckster as he told his tale. “It was Jacob the scrivener – you know him, all goggle-eyed and tongue-tied – who was struck down and died upon the spot. Goodwife Kello found him, and fainted away.”

  “Do we know who did it?”

  “No. Not a word in the wind. Yet a Lollard must be suspect. Above him were some words written which damned the clerics and the friars.”

  “Truth enough there.” It was the old woman who had discoursed upon the qualities of birds. “Jacob has departed to God, sure enough. It will come to each of us.” She crossed herself. “Then we will know who are the holy men.”

  The drunken man now roused himself. “Is there not any man here who will make good cheer? Tomorrow is still untouched.”

  After a full husting12 the aldermen of each ward called together the worthier and more prosperous citizens. They met at various locations – a pump, a well, a corner of a street – but their purpose was the same. They were to visit each hostelry and investigate the aliens or travellers who were staying on the premises. It was considered likely that the poorer sort might fall upon any strangers, as angry bees might cluster around an intruder, and it was necessary to be seen to act. “You must make surety for every person you harbour,” Alderman Scogan told Dame Magga of St. Lawrence Lane.

  “God forbid I should swear for those I do not know.”

  “You must. You are held responsible for all their deeds and trespasses.”

  “Oh Lord, that is too great a burden for a widow woman. Whatever next? Will you wish me to follow them in the highways and byways?”

  “Just answer me this, Magga. Do you have any strangers?”

  “They are all strangers to me, as you know, Ralph Scogan. Have I not kept this house for twenty year without causing the least harm? Why, the mice are better fed here than most households. It is a sad day when a widow woman is judged to keep Lollards under her roof!”

  “Nothing of the kind, Magga. We only wish you to open your eyes. Look to any suspected person.”

  “Infected persons? I have none such. Can you keep a good tongue in your head? Soon you will have me locked up in my chamber with a bowl of vinegar before my door. I shall be painted with a red cross for all the world to see. Oh, has it come to this?” She held out her shawl of blue serge. “This is not a winding sheet, is it? Or am I mistaken?”

  “You are in the right, Magga. But no one –”

  “You disturb me like thieves.” She gazed scornfully at the small group of citizens who were accompanying the alderman. “Am I to be mocked in my own street where I have paid scot and lot? Inform me, Ralph Scogan, if I have not paid it.” She was a thin and bony woman, upon her head a parcel of false hair, which she believed the world to mistake for genuine hair. There was real hair upon her upper lip, however, which she rubbed each morning with a pumice stone. “Every goodwife now will mouth me behind my back, I am sure of it.”

  “Calm yourself, Magga. You have done nothing.”

  “So I am to be put in the ducking stool for doing nothing, am I? This is the king’s justice, is it? Well, it is a hard day for London.” She was about to close the door, when she opened it again. “And as for the rest of you – you are good only to fry pilchers in hell. Good day!” She slammed the door shut.

  Alderman Scogan looked up at the sky, and whistled. “Well,” he said to no one in particular. “The wheel will roll on.”

  The parchment of the Eighteen Conclusions was solemnly burned by William Swinderby, standing at the right hand of the under-sheriff by Paul’s Cross; Drago watched him with interest, as he raised it high in the air before plunging it into a brazier of fire.

  Chapter Seven

  The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

  “What is truth and what is seeming?” Dame Agnes de Mordaunt had just put this question to John Duckling, the nun’s priest, who was removing a piece of excrement from beneath one of his fingernails. “The mayor believes her to be as true as a stone in the wall, but of course she serves his purpose by stirring the people against heretics. The king has gone to Ireland, and the mayor feels himself to be alone. So Clarice blears his eyes.” On this Day of the Ascension of Our Lord, the candles of the convent church were wreathed in flowers; according to custom, too, John Duckling was wearing a garland of flowers upon his head. “She weeps too readily.”

  “That is her complexion,” he said.

  The nun’s priest was studying the image of a pilgrimage in the margin of the psalter which the prioress had opened; a knight and a squire were striding gaily forward amid a cloud of words. A nun was riding through the phrase, “
Ascendit Deus in jubilatione,” with a second nun following close behind.

  “I am not so sure of that.” Agnes was very severe. “Beneath all that mummery, she is a gay mare.”

  “Of course some hold her to be mad.”

  “Oh no.” Dame Agnes turned from the window, and stared at him. “She uses covered language, but Clarice is not mad.”

  “Then God send her better words.” John Duckling had witnessed an interview which the bishop’s chaplain had conducted with Sister Clarice two evenings before.

  “I am not like a hawk,” Clarice had said to the chaplain. “I will not be lured with something under the thumb.”

  “I am not offering you gifts, sister. I am offering you a sure way to repentance.”

  “Of what should I repent? Of hearing the word of God? You sit at the dais, but I sit between His feet. He touches my head. He touches my ears. He touches my eyes. He touches my mouth.” With her finger she outlined her lips.

  John Duckling had looked away.

  “But more venom than sugar comes out of you, Clarice.” The chaplain whispered to her, as if their talk were dangerous. “Why do you speak of burning and slaughter in the city?”

  “Because I see fire and powder. Because I see companions disguised with false faces, both foreigners and those free of the city. Because I see many perils arising.”

  “Well done! Well done! You will put London in a fury.”

  “Well, sir priest, it is better to be forewarned than unarmed. There are a hundred churches within the walls. Not one of those hundred will be safe. Do you believe me, John Duckling?” She turned to the nun’s priest, took up her wimple and showed her forehead to him. It was a sign denoting faithfulness; but he had shaken his head.

  Now he hesitated before looking up from the psalter and gazing at Agnes de Mordaunt. “She is not yet proven a liar or a suspect person. Hold yourself in patience, ma dame. Link after link the coat is made at length. So piece after piece things will come to light.”

  “Watch her. Follow her. Listen to her. Stay as close as a hound to his bone.”

  “I must be sure not to bite her.”

  “Oh, she will bite back. Take care, John Duckling. Let her be her own roper, and hang herself.”

  Sister Clarice had been given a chamber in the guest-house of the convent, on the instruction of the Bishop of London, Robert Braybroke, and was constantly attended by a monk as both guard and protector. He had been given a chamber next to her own, but they had been permitted to pray together at the sacred hours. This holy man, Brank Mongorray, had previously acted as a confessor and prayer-reader in the parish of St. Sepulchre and was considered to be skilled in all matters “above this world.” It was not clear, however, whether he had been placed beside Clarice as a spy or as a companion; he may have assented privately to both roles. The prioress feared that in any case Clarice would bewitch him.

  Brank Mongorray opened the window of the nun’s chamber to enjoy the air of May. He was on the first floor, above a lead cistern of water which the birds used for their refreshment. John Duckling was crouched silently against it, so that he might hear any words that were spoken.

  “Did you hear the thrush this morning, Brank?” It was the nun’s clear voice, known now by so many. “They say that if a man is sick of the jaundice and sees a yellow thrush, the man shall be cured and the bird shall die. Is that not too cruel?”

  “A man has an immortal soul. A bird does not.”

  “Who can be sure of that? Dieu est nostre chef, il nous garde et guye.”

  Duckling had never heard her speak Anglo-Norman before; for some reason this seemed to him to be evidence of her duplicity. There was more conversation but the monk and nun had moved away from the window; Duckling could make out only occasional words until he heard her cry, “When will come the day of the Seven Sleepers?” Then she called out, “Deus! cum Merlin dist sovent veritez en ses propheciez!” These were marvellous strange words from a young nun: Merlin was no more than a devil worshipped by the little folk who lived in the moors and marshes. He could hear Brank Mongorray talking quietly to her. Could they be in league against the world of holiness?

  Sister Clarice then began to chant, in a high voice, “Lords wax blind, and kinsmen be unkind, death out of mind when truth no man may find.” Duckling repeated the words over to himself, so that he might better recall them. “Wit is turned to treachery, and love unto lechery, the holy day unto gluttony and gentry into villainy.”

  He had once known a young man who always stood on the corner of Friday Street and Cheapside and who raved only in rhymes such as these; eventually he had been taken up and tied down with chains in Bethlem. He had said that he was the King of Beeme or Bohemia, and the local people called him the King of Beans. He had been released from Bethlem, wearing the badge of that place, but had thrown himself into the Thames in a fit of desperation.

  A candle was lit in the nun’s chamber, just as it grew dusky. Duckling slipped into the shadows. He had heard Clarice say, “Let it be ready made at the cordwainer’s with the crooked back, next to the water gate at the Cow Cross.”

  Just as the other nuns were gathering for vespers, Duckling heard footsteps upon the turning stair of the guest-house. It was Clarice. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, and glided past him across the lawn towards the side gate; he took care not to be seen, but followed her as she opened the gate and hastened down the lane towards the Fleet. Then she took the path along the river and walked in the direction of the city. It was not the place for any nun to walk alone. This bank of the Fleet was notorious for loiterers and wanderers, and was also a trysting place for effeminates called scrats or will-jicks.

  Clarice walked past wooden huts and small outcrops of stone, past refuse and the sodden remains of small boats, until she reached the bridge at Cow Cross. On the other side of the river rose the slope of Saffron Hill; it had become the haunt of tinkers who had spread their camp as far as Hockley in the Hole. The glow of their fires and torches was reflected in the quietly moving water of the Fleet, while the sounds of hammering and beating could still be heard. There was no curfew beyond the walls.

  Duckling stayed as close to Clarice as he dared, but she had stopped. She had reached the stone cell of the bridge hermit. He thought that she was simply giving alms but, approaching the little hermitage, he could hear the nun and the anchorite talking quietly together.

  “And the height of Moses?”

  “Twelve foot and eight inches,” Clarice replied.

  “Christ?”

  “Six foot and three inches.”

  “Our Lady?”

  “Five foot and eight inches.”

  “St. Thomas of Canterbury?”

  “Seven foot save an inch.”

  The hermit then helped her down some ruined steps to the bank of the river, and into a small wherry like those which crossed between Lambeth and Westminster. Duckling could hear the splash of oars, and saw the boat move slowly down the Fleet towards the dark city and the Thames. The Fleet flowed softly here, but its quietness was deceptive. It was filled with unclean things, from the dead dogs of Smithfield to the refuse of the tallow chandlers. In some places it was deep and perilous, and in others more like a mire or marsh than a river. It was known to be dangerous to children and to drunkards, who were often found floating in the filthy water or caught among the reeds.

  John Duckling began to walk across the bridge, when he heard something sighing or whispering in the water. It was just below his feet, waiting to raise its hands towards him, and he turned back in horror. As he rushed past the hermit’s cell he heard a thin voice calling to him.

  “Right dear brother, great worship be thy sacred order unto you. Do you have any offerings for the sake of Christ?” The cell stank of the age-old sweat that had settled into its stones.

  “One nun came this way. Sister Clarice. Do you know of her?”

  “No nun has come here, sir priest. There is no nun who may leave her house alone. What novice a
re you? Do you have hair under your hood?”

  “I saw her take boat here and depart.”

  “Do way! Do way! I know nothing of this!” The bridge hermit, a man no more than thirty, was wearing an unclean shirt which touched his knees; now he banged his head savagely against the wall behind him. “Do way! Do way!”

  The nun’s priest retraced his steps along the Fleet towards the House of Mary; he opened the side gate and walked across the lawn to the guest-house and the cloister beyond. A candle was still gleaming within the nun’s chamber and, as he came closer, he could distinctly hear the low voice of Brank Mongorray coming from the open window. And then – but this could not be – the reply of Sister Clarice. It was her own clear, light voice. John Duckling had just watched her floating down the Fleet in the direction of the Thames. How could she still be here? Had he seen a hobgoblin of the night? Such figures were known to haunt convents and other places of God; but why had it taken the form of a nun? He heard her suddenly singing, “Oh one that is so fair and bright.” And at once the strangest memory descended upon him.

  Three years before he had been the confessor to the Alder Street compter, a local prison of ancient foundation where the more serious malefactors were confined before they were hanged. He had been ordered to undertake this dangerous work as a penance by the Bishop of London, after he had been found consorting with a married woman of his parish. The prison itself comprised two connecting vaulted chambers constructed at a depth of seven feet, with an aperture in the roof as an entrance; on each side ran a stone bench for the whole length of the room, and in a platform on the earthen floor against the western wall were inserted six huge rings of iron. It was here that John Duckling, fearful of the gaol fever, had first conversed with Richard Haddon, a fishmonger who had suffocated three children. Haddon had admitted his crime at the sheriff’s court and, since he could not read and therefore not plead benefit of clergy, he was sentenced to hanging at the site of the murders on Dark Tower wharf.