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

see-saw and began scratching the face of her gossip, to general laughter. When she saw Noah coming towards her with slow step, she hitched up her smock as if preparing herself for combat.

Oswald Koo, the reeve, had retreated to the cart-house before the mystery had begun; one of the carters had complained about the quality of the nails, and Koo wished to weigh and measure them for himself. There were also the instructions of Dame Agnes to be followed. He had cleared away the damaged straw and, just as Noah and his wife began to fight, he had walked carefully and quietly around the back of the stage. He did not wish to disturb the players, but he was convinced that the workmen had stolen some of his wood for the construction of their ark. He was searching for the mark of the convent, a hind outlined in red ink, on the edge of the planks. He had found nothing and, keeping out of sight of both players and audience, he crossed the end of the green and walked a little way down Turnmill Street. At which point he glimpsed something in Black Man Alley; it was leaning against the wall, but now it rose to its full height and turned to face him. It was more horrible than any dragon. It had the feet of a lizard, the wings of a bird, and the face of a young girl; it put its claws up to its face and, with a shriek, fled from him down the alley. The noise of the crowd on Clerkenwell Green could distinctly be heard, as it passed the fishpond and the bowling alley. What monster was this? It had not yet occurred to Oswald Koo that it might be some player in costume, perhaps in the part of one of Lucifer’s demons. Instead he had instantly recognised an image of damnation and judgement. He believed that the face he had glimpsed was that of Sister Clarice.

Eight months earlier he had followed her into the fields; he had been watching for her there, and waiting for her. When he saw Clarice leaving the mill, bearing two sacks, he asked if he might assist her. He gazed earnestly at her as he spoke and, refusing his help, she lowered her eyes.

“Well, sister, how do you?”

“Pretty good, God be thanked.”

“You like this life well enough?”

“I have known no other, Master Koo.”

“True enough. Ever since you were a child –” He stopped, fearing to speak. The years of silence then broke around him; he could keep quiet no longer. “I knew your mother, Clarice.”

“No one knew her.” She crossed herself, and stared down at the muddy earth of the field. As a child she had been told by Agnes de Mordaunt that she had been found, abandoned, upon the steps of the chapter-house.

“That is not true,” he said as gently as he dared. “She was once among us.”

“What is it that you mean? Among us?”

“She was of the order.”

“How do you know this, Oswald Koo?”

“I was under-bailiff to the convent then. I was a young man. With the heat of a young man. Her name was Alison.” He hesitated. “She was the chantress. She died in the travails of birth.” He walked away from her, and then returned out of breath. “Do you by any chance remember the tunnels?”

The story of the tunnels had reached her, even as a child, and she had often wondered why the other nuns treated her as if she were some unregarded piece of the convent itself. She did indeed recall some place of stone that seemed to her to be secret. It was full of wailing and of anger. She associated stone with tears and iniquity.

“I was a young man, as I said. Your mother and I – well, it was error. Accident.” He had copulated with Alison by the Fleet river. He could still recall with horror that moment when his thin leather yard-case, or prick sheath, had split and his seed had tumbled into the queynte of the young nun.

“I was the fruit of her womb?” Clarice remained very calm.

“I was your seed.”

“But you did not claim me. Or recognise me.”

“How could I? I was a servant here.”

“You did not love me then.” She still betrayed no feeling at all.

“Love you, Clarice? I did not know you. But I watched you grow up within the walls. The nuns were often harsh with you.”

“I know it. I was the token of sinfulness.”

“I suffered with you when you were beaten with candles. Yet I was uplifted when I heard you sing ‘O altitudo’ at vespers. I was proud of you then. No one knew that I was your father. Your birth was blamed on a monk hospitaller. So I never ceased praising you to Dame Agnes. I still pray each night for your soul to God and to the congregation of saints.”

“You may save your prayers for yourself. I have no need of them.” With a sigh Clarice put down the sacks of wheat. “Will you carry them to the cook-house?” was all she said.

She walked away across the field until she was out of his sight. Then she lay down upon the grass, and beat her fists against the earth. She was whispering, “Dear mother, let me in. Let me in.” It was the next day that she experienced the first of her visions.

When Oswald Koo saw the serpent with the child’s face, he feared it as some phantasm of the evil he had committed. He determined to follow its path even if, as he believed, it had no true outward form.

The reeve passed the fishpond, in which he saw his own guilty image hastening across the surface, and walked over the empty bowling green. The noise of the audience, a few yards to the north, was growing louder. He turned a corner – and stopped short. Sister Clarice and her monk, Brank Mongorray, were in earnest conversation. The monk stepped