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

“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.