The Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd (good short books .txt) 📕

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