Chapter 4
Thomas turned away from
Warwick’s departing troupe. Light from the church spilled across his face and
allowed the rebels to see him. It wasn’t to be helped. He had had to make the
plea to Warwick, useless as that had turned out. The Count was called to the
Tower to defend the King. Poor Saint Alban would have to defend himself.
The rebellion inverted
everything, as if every day would now be the Feast of Fools, when the stupid
led the wise, the lowest lay brother became abbot, and an ass brayed down the
center aisle of the nave with a abbot’s miter on its head. The Saint—who once
let himself be killed for the glory of God—now must act in his own behalf
against those who would weaken his power. Thomas lifted a small plea to Alban
and to Mary for Christ’s intercession in the troubles that had begun, that
right be restored and the rebels returned to their proper place in the order of
things. A certain degree of chastisement would not be out of order.
His prayer grew in
sincerity and intensity when the two men placed themselves in his way. All he
wanted was to go back to the church, gather his few belongings, and return to
the abbey. Thus he had been instructed if his mission to Warwick failed, for
what could he do in London? But John Barber and William Cadyndon stopped him
just outside the beckoning door.
“Patre Scriptorius! Please don’t leave us.” It had the form of an
invitation, but the sound of a command.
“What do you want?” The
only way to deal with ribalds like these was to assumed a certain authority. He
tried to brush past the two men.
Barber punched him in
the shoulder, like a boy trying to start a squabble. Thomas forbore to return
the blow; he knew well enough who surrounded him. He said a rosary under his
breath and prayed for deliverance.
It did not come. Barber
punched again. Thomas fell against Cadyndon, who kicked his feet out from under
him. His head struck the exposed root of a tree that shot arrows of pain through
his head, until he thought they were flying from his eyes like the missiles of
a hundred archers.
And then the Saint
answered his prayers.
William Grindcob
himself intervened. Thomas’s protégé pushed the rough hands of Barber and
Cadyndon away, lifted him to his feet, and brushed the leaves and twigs and
bits of soil from his habit.
His golden eyes stared
into Thomas’s. “Do you want to come along? I’m sorry for them. They’re
frustrated.”
“You’re out of your
head, Cob!” Barber protested.
“He’s not one of us.”
From Cadyndon. “He’s no better than a spy.”
Grindcob stood between
Thomas and the others. Thomas found that in this instant, where perhaps his
life stood on the cusp, his senses grew more acute.
From somewhere—for
there was none around—he smelled the perfume of flowers. Not scent that a woman
would wear, but the juices of the flowers themselves, as if they were bruised,
crushed underfoot. The torchlight that illumined the parish church threw a
ruddy glow against the back of his sudden protector, Grindcob, and Thomas saw
the warp and woof of the homespun stuff, a thousand and more tiny shadows
dancing in the fickle light. The earth itself felt unsteady beneath his feet,
as if it spun like the gypsies’ wheel of fortune on market day.
He had to calm himself.
His hand clutched Cob’s shoulder. The younger man helped him stay erect until
the earth stabilized. It was, for a too-brief moment, the fulfillment of the
vision Thomas had held of their future together, the younger steadying the
elder, as Christ increased while the Baptist decreased. The sacrilege snatched
Thomas’ hand from William’s shoulder. Let the earth spin, tumble, turn
somersaults beneath him. Let him fall, if need be, rather than take aid from
the betrayer of his kinsmen, his family, his father-in-God.
“You are a spy, you
know.” Grindcob grinned that seductive, secretive smile he had, his eyes wide
and seemingly guileless. “They have the right of it. And I know you’ll run and
tell your precious abbot every last thing you see and hear among us. But if
you’ll write down in truth the things you see and hear, then you’ll be welcome
on this journey.”
“And if I lie?” Thomas
asked. “Or you believe I lie?”
“Oh, you’ll find evil
enough amongst us that you won’t have need to invent more. We’re none of us
saints. And if I still live, when all is said and done, I’ll write it down
myself, and we won’t need your version.”
“The abbot expects—”
“Your abbot expects you
to do whatever is needful for the good of the saint. Think of yourself like the
monk Egwyn, from the Deeds of the Abbots
in your own library. When the Danes came and stole Saint Alban’s bones, back in
the time of Cnut, and carried them off to their homeland to gain the saint’s
powers, Egwyn—”
“I remember,” Thomas
answered. It was a disturbing story, one of duplicity and faithfulness mixed.
Egwyn gave up his office at Saint Alban’s abbey, and traveled north into the
country of the Danes themselves. He presented himself at the abbey where the
stolen bones were venerated, on one of the grim, gray islands of Denmark, and
became a simple brother at an abbey of the Black Monks like every other abbey
of the black monks, where the prayers were sung in Latin at the same hours of
the day, no matter what language was spoken outside the monastery walls.
Egwyn adjusted himself
until he fit in. He grew so trusted that, although the monks knew him an
English monk, he rose, over years and years, to the office of sacrist. Had the
lie at the center of his sojourn in Denmark ever bothered him? Or was his sense
of his mission—to bring the bones home—so strong that it made the sin of
untruth the virtue of constancy?
Egwyn, after many
years, sent the bones of the martyr home to England. But perhaps he left
something there, a bit of finger in Odense, and a rack of rib in Denmark, so
that the saint would care about the brothers among whom Egwyn had lived so
untruthfully. And then the abbot and monks of Saint Alban had praised him
greatly for his sacrifice. Egwyn’s was Thomas’ favorite story among the all the
Gestae, for it was the earliest that
told of a monk, rather than an abbot or a king.
“I will go with you,”
Thomas said.
“Good. Stay close. I
will not always have a word to say to you, but I want it all heard.”
Cob turned to the two
who had attacked Thomas. “You and you—this monk travels with us. If so much as
a hair on his head is harmed, I will come to you and demand satisfaction.”
“But he’ll tell all our
secrets—”
“I hope so,” Cob
ordered. “Guard him well. There may be others once we land in London who’ll
shave the beard of a monk as soon as look at one. This one is ours on loan
only, and must be returned from whence he came. Do you understand?”
Thomas learned
something of Cob he had not known. Cob could dominate a man larger than
himself, elder, more used to authority. As yet, he did not see how.
Nevertheless, Barber and Cadyndon yielded, and with an acceptable, if not good,
grace.
What an abbot he would
have made!
*
Highbury was half the
distance from Barnet to London, a brisk hour’s walk, and a good deal less on
horseback. Far back from Watling Street, the old Roman via that connected London with the north, the flames rose above the
wood that shielded the manor from the view of the casual traveler. Fire shot
into the night sky and burned the stars and planets from the sky. The stink
greeted them, a penetrating, acrid, nose-filling stench of ash and smoke. Even
from the road, Cob heard the crackle and crunch of the flames and the cries of
a crowd that outweighed his poor following twenty or even a hundred to one.
At the head of the
traveling crowd, he veered his horse into the lane that led from Watling Street
toward the fire. Through the wood, red and orange light showed the way, flaring
up and dying down capriciously. It gave the forest an unworldly glow, ruddy and
dark at once. The trees moved like the demons Cob did not believe in, and he
reminded himself not to be fearful of unreal things when there were so many
actual dangers to fear.
The midsummer night was
warm, and grew warmer still as he approached the fire. He and his company
shrank to insignificance. Twice their number, but a small fraction of the
gathering, acted as guards for the incendiaries.
A bowman stepped into
his path. Cob nearly ran him down, for the inferno ahead of him roared as must
the pit of hell itself. Its flames lifted straight and true into the sky,
lighting up the grounds of the manor as if it were day, but no ordinary day.
This was what doomsday must be.
The bowman spoke, but
the mixed roars of flame and crowd outshouted him. He wore a cloth over his
face. His arrow was nocked and ready, the bowstring quivering under tension,
the arrow aimed at Cob’s belly. He reined the dun mare to a hurried stop. The
bowman approached.
“Who goes?”
Cob explained. He felt
the presence of his people piling up behind him, the line of pilgrim rebels
shortening, thickening. How far into the trap had he wandered?
“And the watchword?”
He had the answer to
that. The messenger had brought it with him, so that brother insurrectors could
avoid trouble with one another, but he had to shout at the top of his voice,
“King Richard and the true commons.”
His heart pounded,
whether with fear or anticipation he could not tell. The fire howled and
crashed, trembled and sparked overhead, and threw the two towers into high
relief, black against the climbing, twisting flames. The manor house fell in
upon itself with a sound Cob had never heard, as if the house itself gave out a
death rattle, as if timbers and eaves and even the leaden roof sighed in final
release, their struggle ended in an upward shower of spark and spears of flame.
“Quite a fire, isn’t
it?” the sentry said. Cob turned; what little he saw of the bowman’s face was
dark with soot, as if he were a moor. Firelight reflected in his eyes. His
accent marked him as an Essexman. “It did fair for Hob the Robber.”
Sir Robert Hales, prior
of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, treasurer of England, had been well
repaid, then, by the commons on whom the taxes fell hardest.
“They’re backing up
behind you.” The bowman nodded forward, toward the fire, but, Cob noted, he had
not yet unnocked his arrow. “Jack Straw’ll want to see you.” He waved to the
crowd behind Cob, which had seemed so great in Barnet and in the square at
Saint Albans and now seemed as nothing against the thousands upon thousands who
worked to destroy Highbury. “Bring your friends.”
The guard took the
reins from Cob’s hands and led his mare through the busy rebels. Men dashed
everywhere, their faces dark with purpose and with soot. Common men, and women,
too, though not as many of the latter. The only livery to be seen belonged to
the servants of Highbury itself, huddled, like frightened sheep, under a tree
and guarded by a handful of older men with pitchforks and axes.
“What about them?” Cob
asked his guide.
“Jack knows. Either
kill ’em or turn ’em loose, I suppose.”
Cob turned his head as
they passed the servants. Those from Saint Albans had acquired their own
escort. A double file of men armed with farm implements and swords, longbows,
and cudgels had wrapped around his people. The manor’s flames played on all the
faces.
“And us?” Cob asked.
“That’ll be for Jack
Straw to say.”
Highbury perched on a
hill. At the foot, a knot of people encircled a clear space, in the center of
which a man held court.
“Wait.”
Their guard dropped the
reins and strode into the center of the circle, toward the tall, flaxen-haired
man. They spoke briefly. The surrounders opened their ranks.
The guard waved a
come-here. Cob, still atop his mare, looked back for a sight of someone from
Saint Albans. He caught the eye of Richard of Wallingford, who had been
watching him. Cob wanted someone with him for this interview. He wheeled his
horse, bumped aside several of his captors, and trotted to Dickon’s side. A
dozen of their escort tightened bowstrings.
“Have you lost your
wits?” Dickon looked away from the arrows. “They could kill us all.”
“But they won’t.
Highbury’s servants are far worse off then we. If we submit easily, we have
only traded one master for another. I mean to have no master, this side of
purgatory.”
Cob’s heart pounded,
but he ignored it. Dickon must be made to see—or at least to obey. “We can be
our own men now, or give ourselves over to these others.”
Jack Straw’s rebels
closed in on the two horsed men. Cob snatched Wallingford’s reins. “Play the
man, Dickon.”
He kicked his mare’s
flanks. The beast set off at a trot, and Wallingford had perforce to follow
behind. They broke through the ring of captors, scattering men on both sides,
crossed a small open space, then broke again through the ring of men who
surrounded Jack Straw’s court. Cob pulled to a dusty halt before the tall,
white-haired leader. Jack Straw must have had the blood of the Danes. He rose
from the ornate chair he had been seated in, unfolding his long body until he
towered over all his men. His skin glowed ruddy in the firelight, but in the
light of day it would have been almost white.
Cob, and, thank God,
Dickon, dropped from their mounts. Men with weapons sprang up like dragon’s
teeth. Straw pushed past those who interposed themselves between Cob and
himself.
“What have we here?”
“Allies, Jack Straw, if
you’ll have them” Cob answered, with more certainty than he felt. “Some who,
doing their own task, will also watch your back.”
Up close, Jack Straw
lived up to his name. He was a scarecrow, a figure to frighten children and
birds. Every bone showed under his sallow skin. Bits of straw poked out from
his sleeves and shoes, stuck in his hair. He bent down from his great height to
peer into Cob’s eyes.
Straw’s yellow pupils
were the color of gold, of straw, of piss. He smelled of barnyard. The yellow
eyes made a struggle of the looking at each other; each man tried, and failed,
to penetrate beyond the other’s gaze. Nothing within was revealed, save for a
dogged determination on the part of both.
They did with their
eyes what two curs do on meeting—take a good sniff and try to determine whether
the other is a threat.
Cob had the smaller
group behind him. He must pass through the larger unharmed.
He told Jack Straw who
they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound.
“Are all of you of one
mind?” Jack Straw asked.
“No.” There were as
many minds as men. “Some are servants of the abbey, but—”
“Which ones?” Jack
Straw demanded. “I can see the one fool in a habit, but there are others.” He
pointed; one of his men took the old monk by the arm and dragged him into the
charmed circle. Thomas trembled, but stood erect before the leader of the
commons.
Thomas was an old man,
of more than fifty years. The villein who held him pulled his cowl back. He was
bald, of course, tonsured there, a fringe of white above his ears and nape the
only hair.
“Take your hand from
me, lad.”
“Or what?” the villein
demanded. His muscles tensed.
“He offers you no
violence.” Cob stepped between the monk and his tormentor. “He has done you no
harm.”
“He’s a monk, isn’t
he?” The man spat onto Cob’s shoes. “Parasite.”
“Actually, no.” Dickon
spoke, and Cob turned, surprised. He had not expected Wallingford’s help, not
really. It had been more of a wish, and here it was—granted. The world was full
of surprises tonight.
The smooth man slipped
between the monk and his captor like butter between the meat and the fire.
“People often think the monks useless, I know, but the fact remains that they do pray. Who does not stand in need of
the prayers of all?” Dickon swirled around, spreading his arms and spreading
the distance between Jack Straw and his men and Thomas of Walsingham. It was a
performance worthy of a whole troupe of minstrels. “And more, they keep
learning alive, and we all stand in need of greater and greater learning.”
That got him a growl
from Jack Straw’s people.
“It’s the learning
that’s the problem,” their first guard growled.
“Not so, not so!”
“You talk like a
lawyer.”
“No,” Wallingford went
on, unbothered by the implied threat, “for a lawyer does not care for which
side he argues. A lawyer only talks because he loves the sound of his voice and
the power it gives him over others, a power he has not earned and does not
deserve.”
Cob gave a silent cheer
to the merchant for his argument, but Dickon fell silent himself, as if the
unexpected torrent of words had run dry. It was more than Cob had expected.
Smoke from the burning
manor drifted over the assembly with the change in wind that heralded morning.
Already the east brightened, though he could not be certain with the fire glow
all around them. The Saint Albans men needed to march to London.
“We are not of one
mind, I admit,” Cob said. “But we may become so. You and your men have
been—what?—three weeks rebels. We are fresh to revolt, children in it, infants.
We make for London, to the King. Some of us are unconvinced, but if you condemn
a man for being of the clergy, what about your own John Ball?”
He pulled the letter
from his tunic. Copies of it flooded the realm, he thought. “John the
Shepherd,” he read out loud, “sometime Saint Mary’s priest in York, greets well
John Nameless—”
“All right,” Jack Straw
snarled in reply. “You can keep your monk, provided he—and all of you—prove
your loyalty to the cause.” He surveyed the flames. “There—that one.” He
pointed at an unburned structure, a small wooden chapel, set apart from the
smoking ruins. “Burn it.”
Complicity was what he
sought. Cob understood his reasoning. If the Saint Alban’s men joined in the
destruction, they could be trusted.
Cob bowed to Jack
Straw. “With pleasure.” He snatched Walsingham’s arm and drew him toward the
tiny wooden church. Cadyndon, Barber and Wallingford followed, the first two
anxious to take part. Jack Straw’s men encircled them at a little distance. Cob
whispered harshly to the monk.
“If you want to save
your skin, then you’ll take your part in this.”
“If I want to save my
soul, I cannot burn the host that may be within.”
The host. Cob retained
enough piety, he discovered, that he could not desecrate the consecrated Body.
A possibility presented itself.
“You and I will go
inside,” he whispered, “alone.”
“But—”
Cob clapped his hand
over the monk’s protesting mouth. “It’s our only chance. You must trust me,
Brother Thomas.” He could not be certain whether the light glowing from the
monk’s eyes was reflected firelight or hope for martyrdom.
The chapel stood apart
from the other buildings, a wooden structure, heavy with age. The ancient
timbers would burn like straw. Only its leaden roof had saved it thus far from
the sparks the flew from the larger burning.
“The monk and I alone
will lay the brand,” Cob cried, “since your head man mistrusts us both. You
other men of Saint Alban’s, wait here. Old Thomas and I will have it burning in
an instant.”
One of Jack Straw’s
captains handed them each a flaming torch. Pitch sizzled at the hot end and
dripped fire.
“For God’s sake,
brother, hold it like this.” Cob demonstrated the angle that would prevent the
fiery liquid from running down the monk’s arm. Walsingham stared at the flame
as if it were a foretaste of hell, transfixed. Cob gave him a shove and they
were through the door.
Hissing torchlight made
dark and light both alive within the sad old church. The earthen floor was cold
underfoot. They had little time; if they dithered, Jack Straw’s men would enter
and see what they were about.
“Where’s the host?”
“There.” Thomas pointed
a trembling finger toward a lighted candle hanging above a small door, no more
than a foot square, in the northeast wall. “In the aumbry.”
“Get it.” Cob pushed
him in the right direction. Himself, he went to the southwest, where a small
tapestry hung. His torch revealed a trembling Virgin. He glanced back. Thomas
was at the host, mumbling.
“Hurry!”
The tapestry took fire
in an instant, the fabric dry and dusty. Flame raced up the Virgin’s dress and
brightened the church like angry daylight. Mary burned, her threads curling and
smoking as the tongues of fire consumed them.
Cob found another
tapestry, of Saint Catherine and her wheel, and set her ablaze as well. The
Virgin’s flames licked upward; the wooden ceiling overhead was already
charring; blue and yellow flickered above.
He glanced back. Thomas
still knelt before the aumbry, muttering Latin apologies to Jesus. Cob threw
his torch under the wooden altar. Sacrilege, but he hoped Christ would
understand. The people outside demanded a demonstration of faith. It was only a
building, after all, with less reality than the host Thomas labored to rescue.
“Do you have it?” Cob
shouted over the clamor of the flames. The smells of burning linen, wood, and
silk hurt his throat; his question ended in a choking cough.
Thomas held out a
double handful of communion bread. He could not speak, his mouth stuffed with
wafers. The monk’s eyes widened as the fire spread, red flame reflecting in
them. Cob’s own mouth was dry with sacrilege and fear; he could only wonder at
the monk’s state of being. He took the pile of communion bread, ate as much as
he could, and stuffed the rest into the purse at his belt. The bland, crunchy
stuff finished the job of drying his mouth and throat. Pungent smoke stung his
eyes; they teared, and his stomach roiled in a rebellion of its own, and still
the monk pulled more of the host from the aumbry.
“Leave it,” Cob
ordered, choking. He pulled Thomas toward the door, almost vanished in the
thickening smoke, but his onetime mentor jerked from his grasp and scurried
back to the aumbry. Heat from the burning ceiling poured down on him. A curtain
of smoke parted and he saw the door standing open, and felt a puff of fresh air
from without. He took a deep breath, then plunged back for the mad monk.
Smoke enveloped him. He
felt ahead blindly, stinging eyes streaming tears. A crash from overhead, near
where he had torched the Virgin, brought down part of the roof. Wind gusted in
to feed the flame. Cob looked back—Cadyndon and Barber stood framed in the
entrance.
“Come out! Now!” one of
his friends shouted.
“It’s coming down!”
cried the other. Cob barely heard them over the rushing air and devouring
flame.
The church could not burn as quickly as it did. Never had
he seen a thing like it. The roof now spat drops of liquid lead onto the
earthen floor. The molten stuff stung like wasps.
“Thomas!” he yelled.
“Christ, where are you?”
“Here.” The reply came
weak from one side, his left. Cob pulled his tunic’s hood over his head and
forced himself to find the man. Then, miracle of miracles, his hands closed on
the fine wool of Thomas’s habit.
The monk shook him off.
“Christ must not burn in this hell.”
“Christ has conquered
hell—you told me so yourself!” Cob had him now. “You’re coming out of here.” He
cold-cocked his onetime teacher and hoisted him over his shoulder. Unconsumed
communion hosts scattered across the dirt floor. Thomas would stop to pick them
up if he were awake. How there could be so many in such an out-of-the-way
chapel, Cob didn’t know. He re-set Thomas’s bulk across his shoulder like a
lamb, but the brother was far heavier than any lamb had a right to be.
Cadyndon, Barber, and
some others shouted again. The smoke thickened and swirled. Cob stumbled and
nearly dropped his lamb of God. A brightness beckoned him, but it was false, a
trap set by Christ to tempt him on a wrong turn deeper into hell. He choked on
the viscous gray air and fell to his hands and knees. Thomas fell from his
back.
The air was sweeter,
cooler down low. Cob grabbed Thomas by the cowl of his habit and crawled.
Somewhere, the door had to open out of this pit of flame and smoke. The shiny
bits of lead, like raindrops frozen at the moment of impact on the ground, made
a trail.
Then hands jerked him
along. He fought his way out of their grip. “Thomas!”
“We have your monk,
too.” Rough hands again took him. He was coughing and choking and could not
prevent them. He found himself out in the cool. A fine mist had come with a
gray dawn and chilled him all over. He was in a species of heaven.
Sudden alarm made him
sit up. “Thomas!”
But the monk lay
peaceful at his side, still knocked out. Somehow, he had held on to the object
of his desire. Clutched in his hands was a small, gilded monstrance, and within
it, a large priest’s Host. Poor Thomas had saved the body of Christ, though it
had nearly cost two lives.
Jack Straw himself took
Cob by the hand and raised him from the ground. The mist of morning clung to
his pale hair. He showed no sign of having been awake all the night long, save
for his bloodshot and yellow eyes.
He lifted Cob’s hand
over their heads, as if he had won a great prize. “Allies!” His voice rang
across the fields, louder even than the fire in the chapel. “I give you the
newest of our company—the commons of Saint Albans.” He lowered Cob’s arm. “Will
you take the oath?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Else we would
have to kill you. Gather your men.”
Cob called for all the
pilgrims of Saint Albans to gather ’round him. His small company—a couple of
hundred at most—closed in, hemmed about as they were by the thousands from
Essex. Cob knelt to take up the monstrance Thomas had saved and tucked it
within his tunic. He moved among his people quickly. The servants of the abbey
were mixed in among his rebels. They were confused by what had happened, how
Thomas the monk had apparently helped burn the chapel.
To his own, Cob gave
the word and had them spread it—“Swear the oath, and loudly. Follow my
lead.”—and heard it passed back. Some of the abbey’s troops set their faces
against him, but they were few, and well surrounded. He picked out Sir William
Croyser, and pushed through until he stood face to face with the knight.
Croyser stood,
gauntlets in hand. His sword hung at his side.
“Will you swear an oath
to the King?”
“You burned a church. I
don’t know how you talked Brother Thomas into helping you. Were we not
compassed about with traitors, I would have you—”
“I know, I know,” Cob
said. “You’d throw me in the abbot’s gaol or kill me where I stand. Or both.
But we are compassed ’round. Do you
intend to throw away your life, and the lives of your men?”
Croyser hesitated. Cob
removed the gilded monstrance from his tunic.
“Here. Brother Thomas
saved this from the flames.”
The monstrance was
covered with soot, but the large priest’s host within was undamaged. “Keep it
safe.”
“Why do you do this?”
The knight kept his hands at his side.
“Thomas is in no fit
shape to guard it himself.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t have time to
argue with you.” Cob glanced back. Jack Straw brought an old priest toward the
meeting ground. “At least pretend to swear. The rest we can work out later.”
Croyser made no answer.
Cob lifted the man’s scarred and brutal hands and deposited the host into them.
Croyser let it drop to the earth. Cob could not let it lie; he bent, snatched
it up, and hid it in his tunic. There was no time to argue. Croyser must needs
swear, and everyone with him.
Jack Straw, pale and
glistening with the light rain that still fell over the field, awaited him. By
his side an old man, a priest by his garb, shifted from one foot to the other.
Mud smeared his face.
Cob gathered his
people. Jack Straw loomed tall, ungainly, an awkward, ghostly figure. He nodded
to the old priest.
“In the name of
Christ—” the cleric sang out, in a voice thinned by years of chanting.
“In the name of
Christ...” Cob led the Albans men in the oath. His eyes searched his few
hundred people. Jack Straw’s men watched as well, but, Cob noted with relief,
even Sir William Croyser and his men mouthed the oath. Thomas the monk had the
good sense to remain unconscious.
“...we pledge our
faith...”
His men had the rhythm
now. Their voices rose above the dying crackle of the flame and the rising
breath of the rain.
“...to King Richard and
the true commons.”
A ragged cheer from the
Essex men put them on the road for London.
London boiled with
outsiders. The Saint Albans men had come in on Watling Street, the old Roman
road. William Grindcob rode with the monk Thomas, who was awake now, but dazed,
both astraddle the same horse. It rankled Dickon that Grindcob gave more
thought to the monk than to their strategy.
They would need some
kind of plan to come through this upheaval unscarred. Grindcob had got them
through the encounter at Highbury, but there were other encounters to come.
Jack Straw, that
strange man from Essex, had given them the watchword to pass through the guards
of the commons. But now that they were in the City, where groups of men rushed
about on unknown, dangerous errands, they must needs have a destination. It was
all very well to become pilgrims of revolt, but pilgrimage must have a goal.
They had to take
council, and something must be done about the troops and others of the abbey’s
side. Part of Dickon’s plan was indeed what they had stated to the abbot, to
see which way the wind blew, and to prevent the coming of the London mob north
to Saint Albans. No one wanted the destroyers in the town less than Richard of
Wallingford.
They took a turn. A
barricade blocked their way on the new street. Dickon slowed his mount,
glancing quickly ahead and behind. Behind the barrier, and lounging on it, a
group of apprentices held the area. He wished his clothing were less fine. The
’prentices looked angry, and he too prosperous by half.
Nevertheless, he would
gain nothing by hesitating. He spurred his horse to the barricade.
“The watchword,
merchant.” They were youthful men, their eyes wild with arrogance, their beards
thin and young, not yet razored a dozen times. One of them stood forth.
Dickon gave it. As at
Highbury, the procession behind him piled up against itself. Those in the rear
would know nothing of what went on at the front. London was like a battlefield,
those in the van all too aware of what they faced, those behind ignorant but
coming on in any case.
London stank. These
’prentices were local, but the city was overrun with tens of thousands of extra
people, all of whom had to eat and drink, piss and shit. Many, like Dickon
himself, were mounted, and the horses added to the refuse. The scent of dung,
much stronger than at home, hung over London’s narrow streets. The morning’s
mist, with them since Highbury, held the stench close to the ground.
“Where are you bound?”
Croyser rode up to
Dickon’s side. His weapon clanked against his horse’s saddle. The ’prentice
looked the knight up and down, then casually spat. “Sir Knight—Sir Merchant—we
don’t see many of your sort these days. Where are you from, and what’s your
business here?”
“To your first, Saint
Albans,” he said, “and to your second, none of your concern.” Dickon kept his
eyes on the ’prentices, but felt Croyser’s approval at his curtness. That was
the proper way to deal with people who threaten you. Give them nothing you can
avoid giving.
The leading apprentice
rose up from the barricade and circled around the two men.
“I see a ragtag group
of men, but some of them”—he slapped Croyser’s horse on the rump; it shied a
few steps and the knight took a moment to regain control; the ’prentice stayed
right with him—“some of them come armed and armored against us, and I’ll know
who they are or gut them where they sit.”
Through some magic or
other, a long, narrow dagger now appeared in the apprentice’s hand. He slipped
the point under a corner of Sir William’s armor. The knight sat very still atop
his palfrey, as still as he might lie in alabaster effigy atop his tomb were he
to die in service to the crown, which, at the moment, seemed a distinct and
pressing possibility. Dickon only managed to begin a protest when the ’prentice
shushed him.
“Look up, merchant.”
Two score men had
appeared across the rooftops on both sides of the street. In their hands,
longbows held nocked arrows, and each pointed at a man on horseback.
Dickon had seen no
signal. There had been no signal. He
laid his hands on the pommel of his saddle and let his feet dangle loosely in
the stirrups. He and Croyser were taken. “What do you want?” the youth
demanded.
“To see the leader of
the rebels.”
“Why?”
“We are a mixed
company,” Dickon explained. “Some of us favor revolt. Some of us do not.”
“I think I can tell
which, too,” the apprentice said.
“Perhaps.” Dickon
strained to keep his voice steady. Here, then, was where he must prove himself.
“Perhaps not. But we are a community, a commune. We are together. This is all
new to us, but if you know anything of Saint Albans, you know that the commons
has often risen against the privileges of the abbey—and moreso than London,
Kent, and Essex taken together. You need not doubt us.”
Croyser spat; his
hocker narrowly missed the apprentice who now held his horse’s bridle. The
spray must have touched him. Dickon quailed, but no arrow flew.
“Damn it, William!” He
thought to slap the proud knight’s face, but caution prevailed. “Have you no
sense?”
“I have contempt, for
such as these, and all who—” Croyser said, but the apprentice interrupted.
“You are not so unified
as you think you are, Sir Merchant.”
“It is because we’re
not that we need to talk together and take counsel over what we’ve seen.”
A cry came from further
back in the column. “Santa Maria Arcubus. By order of Jack Straw.” It was Cob,
shouting from behind the monk. The monk’s face, the rebel’s voice.
Dickon’s crest fell,
but once again, he had to disguise what was inside him. He had done well thus
far. But here came Grindcob again, always knowing best. Those two ne’er do
wells, Cadyndon and Barber, flanked him.
Cob still rode with the
monk sitting before him in the saddle, headed for Saint Mary-le-Bow, Mary of
the Arches.
The ’prentices opened a
passage in their barricade. The church of Saint Mary Arcubus, according to the
lads, was only a short distance away. The procession from Saint Albans flowed
through the gap, some on horse, some on foot. They had slowed, since Highbury,
so that all could stay together. The midmorning sun steamed the rain-damp
streets. Dickon waited with Croyser for the parade to pass. They could bring up
the rear together.
“He is a strange man,
our Cob,” the knight observed.
Dickon knotted his
brow.
“Don’t take it
wrongly,” Croyser said. “Are we not to talk at all? We have always known each
other. We may be adversaries, but that does not change the fact that we have
grown up together. Cob’s a strange one.”
Dickon found himself
agreeing, and wondered if that was all right. All right with whom? Perhaps he
could change the subject.
“The abbot must be
worried.”
They watched the
procession narrow and slow to pass the barricade, both men astride their
horses, almost companionable.
“Everyone awaits to see
what will result.” Croyser patted his palfrey’s neck. “You’re in need of a
rubdown, aren’t you?” he asked his mount. “She’s not used to this heat, any
more than I am. I begin to feel like a clam in the pot.” He sat erect again in
his saddle. “The abbot’s worried, the prior’s worried, everyone is worried. You
people have rebelled before, and it’s never lasted. What makes you think this
time is any different?”
Croyser only pretended
to be casual, Dickon thought. The soldier’s eyes moved constantly, never
resting; they flitted from the weary marchers to the apprentices still lounging
on their makeshift barricade, to the windows of the houses where Londoners of
substance kept out of harm’s way.
“It’s not so bad, you
know.”
Dickon realized he had
let himself woolgather. “What’s not bad?”
“It’s old-fashioned,
the way the abbey holds the town as a manor, but the old ways work. Everyone
knows his place, what to expect. There are no surprises. This business is full
of novelty.” Croyser leaned to one side and spat down to the mud. “Novelty
becomes a disease, a rush after more and more of itself.”
How am I to argue with this man? Dickon wondered. It’s
not like doing business. But it could be. And in that moment, he understood
how to play his role in the rebellion. He did not have Will Grindcob’s
imagination nor his fiery willingness to suffer for what he believed. Instead,
though, he had the ability to dicker. And if they came up short, as he thought
they must when matched against the dual powers of the church and of the
aristocracy, yet the burgesses were needed by both. Who was it that bought and
sold the weapons, paid the cost of their books, and made certain there was food
for both?
“Novelty might be
nothing more than a commodity,” Dickon mused aloud.
“Something to be bought
and sold?”
“Everything is bought
and sold.”
“Even a man’s soul?”
the knight asked.
“Christ bought us, the
priests say.”
The last of the
procession slipped past the barricade. Croyser clicked his tongue; his horse
followed, and Dickon followed him. The ’prentices put their obstacle back
together with much noise of hammering, jostling, shouting, and threatening.
There was no going back that way.
Far ahead, Cob still
held his monk astride the worn-out horse. Everyone was senseless for lack of
sleep, and London was as packed as a rabbit warren. The streets, like paths,
wandered this way and that, with people on unimagined errands criss-crossing
like rabbits.
Mary-le-Bow hove up in
front of him like a ship coming out of the fog. About the size of Stephen’s
church in Saint Alban’s, which served a quarter of its town, Saint Mary’s gave
its name to a whole neighborhood of London, Marleybone. Next to it was an inn.
Thomas stirred at the
sight of her arches. “I must say Mass.” The desire came as no surprise to
Cob—for a monk, Thomas was shockingly devout.
Mary-le-Bow was a
destination for people from Saint Albans. They could come there and be sure of
a welcome, perhaps even a familiar face. The parish priest originally came from
the town. In the complex web of relationships from one town to the next,
Mary-le-Bow owed a small fee to the Abbey, which was requited for this service.
Thomas must have been
dogging it. He jumped from Cob’s horse with a wakefulness he had not shown
since Highbury and dashed within.
John Barber swung his
mount alongside Cob’s. “I thought he was hurt.”
“I didn’t hit him quite
so hard as I thought.”
“You hit him?”
“I had to,” Cob
answered, “else he’d still be in the chapel in Highbury, and burnt to a crisp.”
“For Christ’s sake.”
Barber stomped off, disgusted.
Exactly, Cob thought. He looked back. The thin, straggly line of
pilgrims stretched around a corner and out of sight. Everyone was tired after
the night without sleep and the excitement at Highbury. Only Thomas had managed
any rest, and he was going to waste it on a mass.
But not if Cob could
help it. He had an idea. Once a year, at Easter, the laity received the
Eucharist. The rest of the time, it was restricted to the celebrating priests.
If Thomas wanted to have a mass, Cob would help him, so long as he would let
the travelers have a piece of it.
The whole business
would shock everyone. It was far enough out of the ordinary that they would all
have to think about what it meant.
“John!” he called to
Barber’s back, “Everyone’s to go inside, to the nave. Villeins, soldiers
everyone. Can you organize it?”
Barber’s eyes went
wide. “What for?” Born to rebel, he always had questions.
“We have to be as one.
This is too large an undertaking for us to be running off in all directions.”
Barber looked skeptical. Cob wracked his brain. “We must meet Tyler at
Blackheath. Before we do that, we must know what it is we want him to do for
us.”
“A war council, then.”
“Of sorts,” Cob
answered. His thought, now that it was no longer hot and fresh, bred skepticism
even in his own mind. Fatigue sapped his thinking. “We need a meal, rest, and
time to think. I’ll work on the priests within. They won’t deny so many of us,
but they’ll need to feel themselves overwhelmed with our numbers.” He was
halfway lying to Barber. Rebellion was not conducive to truthtelling. He had no
useful weapon, save his wits. “Can you do it?”
Barber grinned, a
wolfish grimace that showed a blackened gap in his mouth. The barber-surgeon
once drew his two of his own teeth from his jaw, just to show his customers
that the pain could be borne.
Cob was glad to go from
the steamy sunshine into the comparative chill and dark of Mary-le-Bow. The
church was empty, save for Thomas the Precentor.
“They’ve gone.” He
knelt, disconsolate, at a prie-dieu to one side of the altar.
“Where?”
“Who knows?” The monk
pointed to a cold candle that hung above an aumbry. “They even took the Host.”
Tyler’s men must have
scared them away. It was just like a priest to run off when he was needed.
Thomas looked as if he
might cry. Pain, fatigue, and fear painted his face a deadly gray. Only the
color streaming from the stained glass windows gave him any semblance of
liveliness.
“You must say a mass
for us.”
Thomas looked up from
whatever he was seeing on the floor in front of him. “For you?”
“For all of us.” Cob
coaxed his onetime mentor. “It’ll do you good. It will do all of us good.”
For an instant, Thomas
brightened, but the spark faded with his thoughts. “There is no host.”
“There is. Have you
forgotten what we did at Highbury so quickly?”
Thomas’s face reddened
with that, but he stood up with energy, eyes spilling hope, until he reached
into the pocket of his habit and—
“It’s gone.”
Cob removed the
monstrance from his purse. “You were unconscious.”
“I’ve been meaning to
ask you about that—I don’t remember anything—”
Cob shut him up by
handing him the monstrance containing the priest’s host. “I want the people to
share in the host.”
“All of them? It’s too
small.”
There were other things
in Cob’s pouch than the monstrance. From its depths he drew dozens of miniature
hosts, each hand-made by cloistered nuns, round, flat, pale golden, and
perfect. He scattered them before Thomas.
“Where did you get
these?”
“Highbury. Where do you
think?”
“For the love of God,
they may be consecrated. They must be.” He scrambled around the prie-dieu and
knelt to pick up the wafers Cob had dropped, and kept dropping. “Stop it!”
Thomas shouted. “Stop it! You’re profaning—”
“—the body of Christ,
yes, I know.” Cob stopped raining the sacred bread down on the floor. He only
had a few left, anyway, although Thomas wasn’t to know that. “What about that
mass? Do we have enough?”
Thomas regarded the
small pile of golden wafers he had rescued from the dirt of the floor.
“Perhaps. If each only takes a crumb. But there is no wine here, either. They
took everything away.”
Cob remembered a
snippet from the gospels—not what goes into a man profanes him, but what comes
out. Unlike most, he had read the Bible, in the Latin taught him by Thomas, in
the scriptorium in the monastery.
Odd, how the monastery always meant Saint Albans,
although here in London convents sprouted all around like weeds. How many monks
could there be in England? It was a question without an answer.
But to the question of
wine, there was a reply. The inn might have some, hidden away. The innkeeper
would keep at least a small supply for the higher sort of travelers.
“I’ll get you some
wine. Make yourself ready.”
Cob bustled out the
west door of the church, filled, Thomas thought, with an energy born of
rebellion. He was left in the empty church.
Without, there was a
shouting of commands. Within Saint Mary’s, Thomas gathered up the spilled
hosts, went behind the altar, and placed them on top of the stone. His head
hurt; a knot had risen where something or someone at the chapel in Highbury had
struck him. His legs ached from straddling Cob’s horse on the last miles into
London, and his belly ached for food. There had been nothing to eat since the
night before, before all these things had happened. At least his fast would be
put to use by the celebration of the mass. He dusted the dirt from each host as
well as he could, muttering an apology to Christ for their rough treatment. Pater, dimitte illis: non enim sciunt quid
faciunt. Father, forgive them….
He had saved Christ—he and William
Grindcob, to be honest. Neither of them, in truth, knew what he was doing.
Everything was improvised. They had lost their way from the moment the news had
come that the rebellion was underway. He would make a mass for them, do what
Cob wanted, although their souls were all in mortal danger. He could preach to
them, perhaps turn them from their dark purpose.
Soil was ground into
one of the hosts. He bent his head close, and picked at the dirt with his fingernail.
No matter how he tried, he could not remove the stain.
Sudden brightness made
Thomas look up. John the Barber had thrown open the western door. He stood,
surrounded by light, with two flagons in his outstretched hands.
“Wine, Father Thomas!
We have found the blood of Christ for your mass.”
“Bring it here.”
Barber obeyed. Thomas
dipped a finger in the wine and tasted. His tongue curled in rebellion and his
eyes teared in shock; the stuff was one step away from vinegar.
“Pretty good, eh,
priest?” Barber was proud of himself for finding the wine.
“It will do.”
“How long until you’re
ready? Cob wants to know.”
Thomas surveyed the
empty church. He needed no service book, no text of any sort. He said mass
every day, and had done so for thirty years and more.
“Now. Or later.”
John the Barber, with a
day and night’s worth of beard on his face, leaned over the altar. “You’re in
for it, priest. You know that. Cob’s got you under his wing for now, and no one
will touch a hair on your head.” He brought out one of his razors and honed it
on the altar, worn smooth by thousands of masses. The steel hissed against the
stone and into Thomas’ imagination. “But a time will come when the first shall
be last and the last will come first at last. He won’t always be able to
protect you.”
Thomas found himself
strangely fearless. His body trembled at Barber’s threat. The man had no
anxiety about shedding blood. But it was only his body. He had heard the truth
here, and he would live long enough to tell it. The spirit was willing enough;
the weakness of the flesh could be overcome. The means were in his hands,
stained with dirt, but still powerful.
Thomas leaned across
the block of stone and covered the hosts with his hands. Barber’s breath was as
sour as the wine he had brought. Thomas drank the smell in. Barber’s corruption
might kill him, but the greater danger was to give in to the fear the wretched
man wanted to engender.
“Go out, John Barber.
When the others come in for mass, stay away. You’ll get no blessing from me.”
Barber turned his eyes
downward and spat onto Thomas’ hands. “That for your blessing, priest.”
Thomas contained
himself. His rage threatened to burst through his control, a physical pain in
his chest, his head, his neck, an awful pressure that grew and thickened around
his heart. But Barber whirled and strode down from the altar and out the
western door before the curse could escape him. He was left with nothing to do
but wipe the spittle from his hands before it dripped onto the hosts they had protected.
Like Pilate, he wanted to wash his hands of the man, but there was no water to
be found. He settled for drying them on his habit. Lord knew, there were enough
stains on it already that another would not matter.
They came in while he
was still behind the altar. More and more of the people from Saint Albans
poured into the church than he had thought the abbey’s town held, but he knew
so many of the faces, scores and scores of them, plus more from nearby
villages, Barnet and Rickmeresworth and the others, until Saint Mary-le-Bow was
filled wall to wall and front to back with travelers. Some carried swords,
others had their hoes or axes. Many bore their yew bows and a quiver of arrows.
He had no time left to prepare.
In the normal course of
things, his masses were small, private, or for the brothers, decorous affairs.
He never went into the parishes. It was below the dignity of a monk of Saint
Albans; secular priests were hired for the task. Thomas had no idea how to
quiet them.
William Grindcob pushed
through the unruly, noisy crowd. It had more the air of a revel than of piety.
“Brother Thomas,” he
shouted, and at his words they
quieted, “has agreed to say a mass for us.”
There was little
agreement about it. He had acquiesced. The result, however, was the same.
“After,” Cob went on,
“we shall take counsel together.”
Chapter
6
Masses were said for
the dead, the rich, or both. A mass could be bought and paid for. Old King
Offa, the ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, five hundred and
eighty-eight years before, before there were Vikings or Normans, had built the
abbey for the monks to sing masses for the repose of his soul. They still did,
Cob knew, though not as often as once upon a time.
They sang masses for
people who had left land or money to the abbey. They sang masses for deceased
nobles or their relatives. They sang masses for dead kings and popes, earls and
knights, the odd bishop, and even for several rich merchants who had bequeathed
their wealth to Saint Alban.
Salvation was for sale.
If you were poor, and had not managed to arrange your repentance in a proper
and—especially—a timely manner, too bad for you.
So it was with immense
satisfaction that the rebels and friends alike of the abbey of Saint Alban,
listened to the mass chanted by the monk Thomas of Walsingham for them. Who
better than the precentor himself to fit the words to the music, to roll the
sacred syllables around his well-trained tongue?
Cob stood to one side
in Mary-le-Bow, beneath an arch painted in yellow and red, leaning against a
column. The sound of Thomas’ chanting, his high, nosey tenor, took Cob back to
a more innocent time, when he had known only the monastery, before he had
friends outside. Listening to the mass always sent him into himself.
Thomas had been younger
then, and had had to have his tonsure cut in a thick mop of brown hair. Now,
they were all older, many gone, but with age came knowledge, if not wisdom.
Knowledge that, Cob acknowledged, had alienated him from the brothers.
He could have been one
of them, were it not for women. He was too proud of Joan to deny her or to
confess her as a sin. Marriage to her saved him from a life in the stews. He
had been gone from her only the one night, during which he had not slept, and
already he missed her morning muzziness, the warm flesh next to him in their
bed.
Cob realized his
fatigue. His eyes were closed. He drifted in a standing mimicry of sleep, the
monk’s voice a distant buzz. If he felt this way, he dreamed, the others must
be in even worse case. He had the waking task of leading them through mists and
mazes of rebellion to some kind of freedom.
The pain of
responsibility snapped his eyes open. It took him a moment to realize where he
was. Thomas was just now lifting the host.
“Hoc est corpus meus,” the cleric sang, “This is my body.” Hocus-pocus, Cob had sung as a child.
Even then he had known the words had power.
Now that power seized
him. As soon as Thomas began the Agnus
dei, Cob found himself, not exactly against his will, but nearly without
volition, striding into the space between the altar and the people. He took the
consecrated hosts, perhaps two dozen, into his hands.
He issued an
invitation. “Today is a new Easter. This”—he held up the wafers—“is His body,
which was given for you. Take it, eat it, in remembrance of Him.”
“Blasphemer!” Thomas
shouted behind him. And “Sacrilege!” one of the knights yelled in front.
But a line formed in
front of Cob. He husbanded his meager supply of Christ, breaking each host into
pieces so that there would be enough to go around to all who wanted to be fed.
All his life he had listened to the monks do these things. Was he to be cheated
out of them because he loved someone?
“Corpus Christi,” he said to each who came before him, heart open
to receive. “The Body of Christ.”
“Those are
consecrated.” Thomas Precentor reached across the altar, but Cob evaded his
grasping hand. “You can’t do that.”
Cob wasn’t certain what
he had intended by taking control of the sacred bread. Christ in his hands
performed His own miracle, though. There was no longer doubt about who was on
which side, who would follow him, and who would remain loyal to the power of
the abbey. Only those who took communion from his hands might be trusted.
Croyser approached him
from one side. The knight was threat enough, even without his weapons, which
still remained sheathed.
“Give over, son. You go
to far.”
“Not as far as I shall
go.”
“This is wrong. Even
you know that. Especially you, I should think.”
Croyser’s men, the same
who had followed him out of the Waxhouse Gate the night before, backed him up.
However, dozens of townfolk, led by Barber and Cadyndon, who still limped and
owed the knight for it, surrounded Cob and would not let the warriors near him.
It relieved Cob to see Richard of Wallingford fall in with his supporters.
The jostling of bodies
built a wall around Cob and protected him from the others.
Cob jumped atop the
altar.
“Some of you want no
part of this. You think it’s a heresy. But I tell the rest of you—you who work
with your hands, who grow crops for others to eat, who build houses for others
to live in, who work leather for others to wear—you who work so that others may
fight and others may pray—you are the body of Christ. I have read it in the holy
scripture, and I know it in my heart.”
Something coursed
through Cob’s body with the words, something thrilling and frightening at once.
His heart pumped hard. The fatigue disappeared. He looked out and caught his
breath at the multitude of faces upturned to him. The nearer ones were all
open, trying to take in his words, scarce thinking that such words could apply
to them, who had always been told to keep their places, keep a civil tongue in
their heads, and mind their business.
The further faces, the
faces of the knights and the others called “servants of the abbey,” who made
their livelihoods as his father had done, taking care of the needs of the
monks—they scowled.
“If you have no liking
for what’s being done here,” he shouted to them, “take you away. Go back to
your cloistered homes and warn your monks what is to come. Christ’s body should
be free.”
Cob knelt, then, on the
altar, to reach the people who crowded near to have a taste of God. Christ was
absent to most of them, most of the time. The monks kept Him locked up within
their walls, and locked Him more tightly in their church and chapels, as if He
were their Prisoner in the monastery gaol, to be brought out for a quick look
on feast days, then hidden again, too precious to let the vulgar pollute with
their filthy eyes.
The monks knew Christ
was powerful; Cob would share that power, put it into the commons. Christ had
come again, and Cob was his Baptist.
Already, the skulking
tattlers planned their reports to abbot and bailiff. Someone would note it all
down. John the Baptist had paid a price. Some one out of all these would tell
Herod.
Brother Thomas.
Betrayal would come at the hands of the one he loved. Thomas stared at him, not
having moved from his place behind the altar. Their eyes met and held. A tear
fell from the monk’s eye before he turned away and stalked out of the church.
Cob gave away the bread
of power and might, broken into tiny pieces so that he would have enough to go
around. The servants of the abbey melted away from Saint Mary-le-Bow. When the
commons came to itself, after, it might be dangerous to be too closely
associated with the monastery.
Cob pressed a hundred,
two hundred, five hundred bits of pandemaigne, Lord’s bread, into hands scarred
and worn, hands soft, young, old, large, small. He barely saw the faces, for
the sake of the hands.
The hands drove the
plough, turned the soil, sowed the wheat, pulled the weeds, cut the stalk,
threshed the grain, ground the kernels, mixed the dough, baked the bread.
No single pair of
hands, but multiple, a community of them, could make a loaf. His own hands
divided it and shared it back again. He closed the circle which privilege
interrupted.
And then, only one pair
of hands awaited him. He looked down into the face of Richard of Wallingford,
the merchant.
“They’ve gone.”
Richard’s voice was soft and quiet, full of wonder. “How did you—?”
Cob opened himself to
the room. Mary-le-Bow was half as full as she had been. Those who remained had
room to sit and stretch and rest.
He placed the crumbs
remaining into Dickon’s outstretched hands. “Corpus
Christi.”
Richard ate, the last
of the multitude. Surprisingly, there had been enough to go around. When he
finished, he asked again, “How did it happen?”
“What—this division of
the sheep from the goats?”
A rasping, jellied
snore rose from one of the sleepers. Cob ran across the nave of Mary-le-Bow and
kicked the offender in the arse.
John Biker rolled over,
complaining. Cob silenced him.
“Can’t you stay awake?
We’re late—up with you!” As if sated with the bread of life, the people lazed
all over the church of Saint Mary. Cob strode among them, nudging and kicking.
“We’re off to see the King!” Gradually, they came back to life.
“Where in God’s name is
the King?” Cob whispered to Dickon. “Have you heard anything?”
“Blackheath?” It was a
large open ground north of the City where the rebels had camped.
“No, he wouldn’t go
there, would he? Too far from help.” Cob stretched. He understood the fatigue
of his followers all too well. Exhaustion clutched at him, a hand that reached
up from darkness and would pull him down if he but relaxed his guard. It would
work on all of them, and he must be alert against it. It would be night before
he could sleep.
The western door of
Saint Mary-le-Bow crashed open.
“William!” The voice
demanded and questioned at the same time. “Are you the deputation from Saint
Albans?”
“Henry?” Cob called.
Light shrouded the figure, leaving his face in shadow.
“Where the hell have
you been?”
Henry Grindcob limped
into the church. Cob ran to meet him. One of his brother’s legs was shorter
than the other, the result of some illness when they were children. Henry was
the elder, the prodigal who had gone off to the big city to seek his fortune.
Instead, he found a trade. Dyes stained Henry’s hands to a heavy, murky
green-gray color. Splatters of dye tinted his clothing an improbable
combination of hue, a Joseph coat instead of a tunic. Henry wore it as a badge
of honor.
He gestured to his bad
leg. “It’s a slow walk. I came as soon as I was able.”
Cob saw his brother
seldom enough, but they stayed in touch through letters. The constant travel
between London and Saint Albans made finding a carrier easy enough. Henry’s
letter had warned him of the rising before Tyler’s messengers reached north
into Hertfordshire. Seeing Henry was like seeing an altered, older version of
himself, like looking into the future. Age and gait alone separated them in
others’ eyes.
“Where is the King?”
“He’s been locked in
the Tower.” Henry looked around. “Is there a chair?”
John Barber ran out
behind the church, to the priest’s house.
“Lean on me,” Cob said.
“His being in the Tower won’t help.”
“He’s not there now, is
he. He’s at Mile End.” Henry’s arm snaked around his shoulder; his weight was a
welcome burden.
“East of the City? Why
there?”
“That’s where Tyler is,
with all his company.”
This was the
intelligence Cob had been waiting for. The King and the rebel leader in one
place—it was more than he had hoped for.
Barber returned with a
bench. Henry sank gratefully down on it.
“Thank you, John.”
Barber touched his
forelock, smiling. “Glad to do it.”
Cob gathered the others
around himself and his brother—Dickon, Barber, Cadyndon.
“You heard what Henry
said.”
“We must go to the
King.” Dickon liked to aim high.
“Tyler’s the man,”
Cadyndon said. There won’t be a member of the aristocracy alive, after all this
is over. Tyler’ll be in charge. You mark my word.”
Cob wasted no time in
letting them argue. “They are both in one place. We’ll see both.”
He no longer had the
monk Thomas to share his saddle, but he had a better replacement in Henry. It
took three men to raise him up to the horse’s back, but the pleasure he took in
it gave Cob a smile. They set off through London, to the east. Cob and Henry
both looked back. A holiday
procession of some hundreds of country men followed.
“You’re quite the
leader, now,” Henry said. “Mother always said you’d rise above your station.”
Henry was the elder by ten years, and remembered things about their parents
that Cob had never known. He was the man Cob might have been, had things been
different.
“Tell me—you’re well
connected here—what has happened these last few days.”
Henry had always taken
pleasure in explaining the world to the younger brother. He leaned back against
Cob’s chest. “It feels good to be off that leg. Where to start?”
A Hanging Offense by Alan David Justice is licensed under a
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