Death and the Chapman Page 6

  There were other relics, too, here in this great cathedral where Thomas a Becket had been martyred three centuries ago; the nails and right arm of St George, some of the Holy Thorns which had pierced Christ’s brow, a tooth of John the Baptist, a finger of St Urban, and the upper lip of one of the Murdered Innocents. Even I, coming so recently from Glastonbury, the oldest Christian shrine in England, was overwhelmed by the sanctity of the place, and by the awestruck devotion of the many pilgrims around me.

  I, too, had travelled the last part of my journey by the Pilgrims’ Way, joining it after I left Southampton, where I had gone to replenish my stock of merchandise from some of the ships just put into port, and from the market in High Street near St Lawrence’s church. By purchasing in bulk from the stall-holders I could get things cheap, then add the necessary penny to make my profit when selling to outlying villagers and hamlet-dwellers. It was a rougher life than I had anticipated when I first set out on my travels. I had slept under as many hedges and in draughty barns as I had in the slightly less spartan conditions of an abbey or a priory guest-house. Yet I wouldn’t have changed it for all the safety of four permanent walls, even though I knew I had so far had the best of the weather and that the winter was still to come.

  ‘You’ll change your tune, my lad,’ a fellow traveller had said to me one evening, ‘when the roads are blocked with snow or slippery with ice, and the womenfolk won’t venture out of doors.’ He was an unfrocked priest, turned out of his parish for some misdemeanour and forced to beg for his living from door to door. It was a bad night, I remember, cold and wet, and we had taken refuge in somebody’s byre just to get out of the rain. If the owner discovered us, no doubt we should have been turned out into the elements, but the cows had been milked and had raised no alarm, merely chewing the cud contentedly and regarding us with solemn, incurious eyes.

  But even under those conditions, and with my companion’s pessimism sounding in my ears, I had no regrets. ‘I’ll deal with winter when it comes,’ I said, taking bread and cheese from the pouch at my waist and sharing it with my doleful ex-priest. We cheered one another up through a night of fitful slumber by exchanging scurrilous anecdotes about the Church and churchmen.

  But now, standing on the hallowed ground of Canterbury, I felt ashamed of my ribaldry, and something like nostalgia for my former life momentarily swept over me. I wanted to be one again with the brothers at Glastonbury and to feel assured of Christ’s love. I looked into the face of the painted Virgin, searching for some sign of divine approval for the decision I had taken to leave the abbey.

  ‘Holy Mother, pray for me, now and in the hour of my death.’ I crossed myself, at the same moment becoming aware of the kneeling figure on my right, draped from head to toe in black and with a heavy veil concealing her face. To one side of, and slightly behind, this supplicant, whoever she was, a young girl wriggled uncomfortably, her knees pressed against the cold stone. She, too, was dressed in mourning, but it was plain and unadorned with any gold cross or jet rosary, such as hung about the woman’s neck. Obviously, they were mistress and maid.

  From somewhere, a draught stirred the woman’s veil, and I was immediately transported back to Bristol, that warm May day almost five months ago when I had seen Anne Neville, together with Margaret of Anjou, riding along Corn Street. Then, they had been mother and daughter-in-law: now, the fortunes of both had been irrevocably changed. For the clash of arms which everyone expected had in fact taken place only two days later at Tewkesbury, and King Edward had been victorious. Margaret’s son and Anne Neville’s young husband, Edward of Lancaster, had been killed during the battle, whatever our present so-called historians might tell you to the contrary. He was not murdered afterwards by Richard of Gloucester, nor was his father; although Henry Plantagenet was undoubtedly put to death in the Tower, on the orders of the King, however much Edward and his Council would have wished us to believe that the poor man died of ‘pure displeasure and melancholy’. Margaret of Anjou was at this time a prisoner of the King, while her erstwhile daughter-in-law had been restored to her sister, Isabel, and was living in the Duke of Clarence’s household as an honoured guest.

  Here again, I must stress that I was not then as knowledgeable of events which were happening in the larger world as my narrative would suggest, although I naturally gathered stray pieces of information along the way; particularly those of such grave importance as the outcome of the battle at Tewkesbury. And if l had remained ignorant of it before, I should certainly have learned of it in Canterbury, where they were still talking of the splendour of King Edward’s summer visit, when he had come to render thanks at St Thomas’s shrine, not only for his victory, but also for the birth of his son, born in Westminster sanctuary during his exile.

  Remembering these things also prompted recollection of the Weavers, to whom, I must admit, I had given little thought in the intervening months. The episode now seemed dreamlike and distant, something which had happened a very long time ago and to another person. I recalled guiltily my promise to the Alderman to make inquiries concerning his son when I reached London; but somehow, although the capital still beckoned, and remained my goal, I had not yet reached there. However, it was my avowed intention to go when I left Canterbury; but whether, on arrival, I should keep my word and search for Clement Weaver was a different matter. It now seemed not only impossible, but fruitless; a waste of time which I could ill afford. It was ten months since his disappearance, and in any case, what was there to find out which had not been discovered already? The more I thought about it, the more foolish seemed my promise to his father. I was sure that after this lapse of time, the Alderman would absolve me.

  The woman beside me had risen from her knees and was making preparations to leave, motioning to her attendant as she did so. The girl caught my eye, pulling down the corners of her mouth in a comic grimace of resignation, indicating that her mistress was not the easiest of people to deal with. Indeed, the woman was fussing peevishly with the folds of her gown, smoothing and arranging them with uneasy, fluttering hands, before joining the throng of other pilgrims making their way out of the choir. The girl, following obediently, turned to smile at me across her shoulder, then was swallowed up by the press. She left me with the impression of a tip-tilted nose, bright blue eyes fringed with jet-black lashes, and dark, curling hair, judging by the tendrils which strayed from beneath her hood. Her skin was pale, made even more pallid by the black clothes she was wearing. Her demeanour suggested natural high spirits with difficulty suppressed, and there had been more than a hint of invitation in her manner. A pity, I reflected, that I would be unable to take advantage of it, as we were unlikely to meet again. I knew neither her name nor that of her mistress, nor where they lived. Besides, I had my living to make and I must start knocking on doors.

  There were rich pickings to be had in Canterbury, where the constant influx of pilgrims from all parts of the country meant an unceasing flow of money into the pockets of its citizens. It had more taverns and cookshops than any other town of its size that I had passed through. And more trouble, too: the streets were rarely quiet. There were frequent disputes between the clerical and secular interests of the town; between mayor and archbishop, layman and priest. They quarrelled over water rights, the fishmarket, and whose authority it was to arrest wrongdoers; over ecclesiastical immunities and restraints of trade. It was nothing to see several brawls a day in the Canterbury streets, and it was not always simply fists which were used. I had been there less than a week, and already I had seen daggers drawn on more than one occasion. But then, the English have always been anti-clerical in their attitudes. They have always resented the power of Rome.

  Before leaving the cathedral, I returned once again to St Thomas’s tomb, kneeling before it in prayer. I meant to seek his intercession with the Heavenly Father for abandoning my religious life, but somehow, the words would not come. I was not truly contrite. Instead, I found myself wondering what it was like to have been dead for hundr
eds of years, while the flesh, the only house my soul knew, rotted from my bones. I remember folding my arms around my body, seeking the solid reassurance of skin and bone. I thought of lying in the cold earth while the centuries spun by above my head, but my imagination was unable to encompass it; that drift of years, weaving its ever-changing patterns, while I, once so alive, crumbled into dust…

  Like a dog shaking water from its back, I shook off my gloomy thoughts and emerged some minutes later into the bustling streets and the fragile, crystalline beauty of the autumn day. The sky was a delicate blue, rinsed at the edges to a soft, pale green, and the September sunlight was warm on my back. I was alive and young. My life stretched before me. That was all that mattered.

  * * *

  I met the girl again the following day.

  I had done well that morning, selling needles, thread, ribbons and a length of sarsanet, which I had picked up cheap in Southampton market, for nearly twice what I had paid for it. It was gone dinner-time and I was hungry, so I bought two meat pies from a cookshop and took them down to the banks of the Stour. I ate ravenously, wishing that I had treated myself to a third, then filled my leather bottle from the river, washing the food down with clear, cool water; Adam’s ale, and on some occasions nearly as satisfying as the proper thing.

  It was quieter outside the city walls, and I had chosen a secluded spot beneath some overhanging willows. Sunlight sparkled on the water and everywhere there was the sharp, dank smell of early autumn. A faint breeze rippled the grasses silver and green, and from where I sat, I could see the track leading to the West Gate. While I watched, two horsemen passed, their mounts blowing gustily through flaring nostrils, sweating hides glittering like polished metal, raking at the bits as they were reined in to a walk for their approach to the city. But that was the only sign of life that I saw for quite some time, and I began to nod. For the past few nights, since coming to Canterbury, I had slept in the dormitory of the Eastbridge Hospital, but my fellow guests had not made good bedmates. There was the inevitable snoring and wheezing one got in such places, but one man also suffered from a most distressing cough. No sooner, it seemed, had I dropped off to sleep, than he began hacking again, with a persistence that woke the rest of the room and sent one or two sleepless souls into a positive frenzy. Last night it had only been through my intervention that the poor man was saved from a beating. So, what with one thing and another, today I was tired, and before I knew what was happening, had begun to doze…

  I was awakened by a hand on my shoulder and started upright, feeling very foolish. I felt even more foolish when I saw who it was: the young girl I had seen in the cathedral. I had thought her pretty yesterday, but this afternoon, without her mourning and dressed in a gown of home-dyed blue bysine, she looked even prettier. The colour of the dress enhanced the blue of her eyes, and she had dragged off her hood to reveal a profusion of hair at once darker and curlier than I had imagined it.

  The hood lay in her basket, along with flowers she had been gathering. These included the feathery, flat-topped heads of fleabane, and a quantity of the plant known as Ladies’ Bedstraw, the bunched yellow heads clinging tightly to the long, pale stems. I remembered my mother collecting the selfsame plants; the first, burnt, gave off an acrid smoke which was death to fleas; the second she would boil, using the flowers to make dye, and extracting a substance from the stalks and leaves which could be used as a substitute for rennet.

  The girl sat down beside me and took off her shoes and stockings, dipping her toes into the water. ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she breathed after a moment, turning to smile provocatively in my direction. ‘My feet are so hot and tired.’

  ‘It’s a warm day,’ I said feebly, not knowing what other answer to make. I was not used to girls taking off their clothes in front of me, and found to my dismay that I was blushing.

  She saw it too, and gave a little crow of delight. ‘I do believe you’re embarrassed, a great, well-set-up lad like you! Haven’t you ever had a sweetheart?’ She put her head on one side, consideringly. ‘No, I don’t believe you have.’ She added, with a frankness which took my breath away: ‘You don’t like boys, do you? Instead of girls, I mean.’

  ‘N—no, of course not!’ I stammered hotly. I knew that such practices existed: they had existed among the monks, at Glastonbury, even though they were anathema to the Church and the punishment for sodomy was death. (A great deal was overlooked by the Superiors of enclosed orders; whether wisely or not, who can tell? I am certainly not fit to sit in judgement.) No, it was not this which shocked me, but the revelation that a woman – and so young a woman – knew about these things and was, moreover, prepared to discuss them openly.

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ she said, wriggling backwards until she was right beside me, her little feet clear of the water and sparkling with a myriad drops. ‘Kiss me,’ she commanded, laughing again at my horrified expression. ‘Go on! I dare you!’

  How was I to resist such an invitation? I bent my head to hers and did as she instructed. Her lips were soft and yielding and tasted faintly of salt. Immediately, she wound her arms around my neck and returned my kiss with passion. I fell back on the grass in sheer surprise, her thin, lithe body pressed urgently on top of me, and it was some time later that I sat up, dishevelled and panting.

  Which was how I came to lose my virginity at the advanced age of nineteen, when many of my sex could boast at least one, maybe two, bastard children. As for my companion, although I did not realize it at the time, she had nothing to lose.

  As I adjusted my clothes, I said, appalled: ‘I don’t even know your name.’

  She giggled. ‘It’s Elizabeth, but most people call me Bess.’

  And for the second time that day I found myself remembering the Weavers. Clement Weaver’s horse had been named Bess; the beast who had cast a shoe at Paddington. Once again, my conscience smote me.

  ‘What’s yours?’ the girl asked. Then seeing my blank stare, repeated the question impatiently. ‘What’s yours? Your name, you stupid!’

  ‘Oh! Yes… It’s Roger.’

  ‘Roger the chapman, eh?’ She leaned back on her elbows, quite at ease, as though what had just taken place was, for her, an everyday occurrence. And I think it probably was. No, not everyday, of course; that, perhaps, is an exaggeration. But I’ve met women like her on many occasions since, with the same sort of expression in their eyes; hungry and languorous both at once, dissatisfied, always searching for fulfilment. A few of them have been rather sad creatures, but Bess wasn’t: she was vital and eager and, above all, inquisitive.

  She began plying me with questions about how old I was, my family, where I came from; and before I knew it, I was again recounting my brief life’s history. When it was finished, I said: ‘And what of you? Or are you a woman of mystery?’

  She shook her head regretfully, the black curls dancing. ‘I wish I were. I should like to be very beautiful and very rich and live in London. And then the King would notice me and take me for his mistress.’

  ‘You’d be one of many, if all accounts are true,’ I put in drily – and was back in the Weaver’s kitchen, listening to Marjorie Dyer. ‘The women all went wild about him. I reckon there were a few cuckolded husbands during that visit.’

  Bess tossed her head. ‘One night with me and he’d forget the others.’ She had all the arrogant assurance of youth. ‘Anyway—’ she shrugged ‘—it’s not going to happen.’ Her chin jutted. ‘At least, not yet awhile. For, I’ll have to make do with the local lads and—’ she gave me a glinting, sideways glance beneath lowered lashes ‘—the odd, handsome, passing stranger.’ She sighed. ‘No, for now I’ll just have to go on serving my lady and pretend to be devoted to her interests.’

  ‘Who is your lady?’ I asked. ‘And why is she in mourning?’

  Bess answered the second question first. ‘She’s in mourning for her father, who died last month. He was Sir Gregory Bullivant, a distant kinsman of Archbishop Bourchier. That’s why the f
amily are so prominent in Canterbury. I was lucky to get a place in my lady’s household – or so my mother tells me.’

  ‘And her husband? Or is your lady not married?’

  For the first time in our short acquaintance, Bess hesitated, looking around her at the golden haze of autumn which lay upon the sloping banks and trees; at the first shimmer of bronze and red touching the summer’s green. After a moment’s silence, her gaze shifted back to me.

  ‘Oh, she’s married. At least…’ Again there was that hesitation before she continued: ‘My lady’s husband is Sir Richard Mallory, a Knight of the Shire. They’ve been wed four years come Christmas, and very happily as far as anyone could see. Which made it all the more surprising, I suppose.’

  ‘Made what all the more surprising?’ I asked, when she showed signs of sinking into some reverie of her own.

  ‘What? Oh…’ Bess sat forward suddenly, hugging her knees. ‘It was all the more surprising when he disappeared.’

  Chapter Seven

  The silence was so profound that a moorhen thought it safe to leave her nest in the bank below us and take to the water. She was so close I could see the blue-green sheen of her breast and the rhythmic jerking of her head as she swam serenely onwards.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked Bess at last. ‘Has your lady’s husband left her?’

  Bess had closed her eyes against the sun, but now she lifted her heavy, almond-shaped lids to look at me. ‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose. He went to London two months since and never returned. My lady and my lady’s father – Sir Gregory was still alive then – sent men to inquire after him, but no trace of Sir Richard was ever found. He left the Crossed Hands inn, where he had been lodging, for the journey home, and that was the last anyone saw or heard of him.’ She tilted her head inquiringly to one side. ‘Is anything the matter? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’