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

back in order to remonstrate with her, and the nun raised her hands as if in prayer. The only words he heard were “Ireland” and “bounty,” but he could not construe their sense. He had not talked to his daughter since his revelation in the field, and she had averted her eyes whenever they passed each other. It sometimes seemed to him that her voices and her prophesying were means of not talking to him. She gazed at him now and he heard her say, as if in a dream, “Noli me tangere.” He stepped out of sight, and retraced his steps to Turnmill Street.

When he returned to the green, two of Noah’s sons, Ham and Shem, were holding out painted images of the animals that were supposed to be entering the ark. There were two unicorns, two monkeys and two wolves as well as other creatures which seemed to have no name. Then Noah and Japhet entered with pairs of real beasts – two cows, two sheep, two oxen, two donkeys, two horses, which passed through a gap in the wooden front of the ark. The reeve observed them carefully, in case they were part of the convent’s stock. The ark was then rocked to and fro by several carpenters while painted cloths, depicting great seas and waves, were raised and shaken behind it. Eventually a great ribbon glued with painted feathers was held up, in token of the rainbow, and God once more walked out upon his stilts.

He was about to speak when a sudden movement within the crowd was followed by whistling and jeering. Some members of the audience ran out, screaming “Idols!” and “The devil’s images!” One of them rushed up to God and, to the crowd’s horror, knocked him off his stilts. Another took the gilded mask from God’s face and crushed it beneath his foot, crying out “Whoreson false face!” It seemed to the reeve that, at this point, the crowd became one living creature with a single purpose. It hurled itself against the assailants of the mystery. There were cries of “Loller!” and “Antichrist!” as the offenders were set upon and beaten. One man was hit with a hammer between the shoulders, and then struck in the face with the butt of a sword; another was stabbed with a long dagger known as a “misericord,” and died instantly.

The rage ended as soon as it had begun, but only two Lollards were left alive; their bones were broken, and their bodies bloody, but they still breathed. They were speedily committed to prison, where they soon died of their wounds. It was the only occasion, in this fearful year, when the Lollards were seen.

Chapter Ten

The Physician’s Tale

The prioress had fallen into a fever, or an ague, or a rheum, or she knew not what. She was sore sick, as she told everyone around her. She felt sorry and heavy. She sent her water in a flask to the physician of the convent so that he might, in her words, “understand his conceit upon it” and discover whether “I shall mend or mar.” By the same porter, who bore the urine, he sent back the message that she would prosper in this world if only she would eat shrimps. Shrimps recovered sickly and consumed persons because they were the most nimble, witty and skipping creatures; they also possessed the best juice for cures, although she should be sure to unscale them in order to vent their windiness from which lust and venery arise. The allusion to venery was taken by her as a personal insult.

On the recommendation of the nun’s priest, then, she consulted Thomas Gunter, a famous leech whose shop was in Bucklersbury. She sent him a letter listing her symptoms, among which were heaviness of stomach and mistiness of sight. He wrote back in a very elaborate hand. “Do you have marigolds? Only to look on marigolds, dear sister in God, is to strengthen the eyesight. Yet they must be picked when the moon is in the sign of the Virgin.” He added that “the juice of the marigold is very useful for the inflammation of the breasts,” but the prioress let her eye pass over that sentence. He was much discomfited by her heaviness of stomach, but suggested that she mix the grease of a boar and the grease of a rat, the grease of a horse and the grease of a badger, souse the concoction in vinegar, add sage, and then put it upon her belly. “I can write no more to you at this time, ma dame, but the Holy Ghost have you in his keeping. Written at London the Monday after Corpus Christi.” He added, in a postscript, that he did in fact possess a pot of the said stomach ointment if the dear sisters were unable to procure the necessary greases.

The wind changed in the night. It now came from the north, and was deemed to purge all evil vapours. Thus Dame Agnes had read in Cantica canticorum, “Rise up, north wind, and perfect my garden.” But the new air did not refresh her. She sent a message to Master Gunter asking whether he would be so courteous and so gentle as to visit the convent “where you will find a suffering body.” He arrived on horseback three hours later.

Thomas Gunter was a small man, who seemed physically overwhelmed by the furred hood and robe of his profession. He moved quickly – as if he were on wheels, Dame Agnes said later – and his bright eyes quickly took in all the details of her gestures and appearance. The prioress was sitting in a high-backed chair when he was escorted by Idonea into her chamber. He kissed her ring, and glanced at the plate beside her. “Shrimps? What are shrimps doing here, ma dame?” He had a quick and lively voice, like that of a bird in a cage. “A fish with this flesh