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

Jolland’s knowledge stretched towards the things of his God. Vavasour, like the other members of Dominus, had no faith or belief in matters that the common people reverenced. Yet the sergeant was an intelligent man, spurred on by curiosity; he was a lawyer, too, and had an infinite zest for debate and dialectic. He was an impulsive and argumentative man, also, who loved dissension. He had a large nose and wide mouth, as if his features were trying to betray his true character. He had come to Bermondsey in order to discover more about certain miracles connected with the history of Glastonbury Abbey, but the conversation had taken another turn. As the monk had said, the events of the world must keep on breaking through.

Jolland had lately heard of a surprising incident in neighbouring Southwark. Joan de Irlaunde, one month old, had been left sleeping in her cradle on the floor of a shop which her parents had rented for the sale of the shoes which they cut and stitched; in the hour before vespers this couple had decided to take a stroll along the high street leading towards the bridge, but they made the mistake of leaving the door to their shop partly open. A pig had entered from the street and, despite the fact that the baby was tightly swaddled, had as Jolland put it “mortally bit the right side of the head.” On returning, the horrified mother had snatched up her child, but had only managed to keep her alive until midnight. The monk knew no more, but the incident rekindled his fascination with the presence of destiny in human affairs. Was the pig prefigured to eat the child? And did the bodies of animals bear the marks of the stars? “It could be said that, even if Venus was compounded with Jupiter, it was still unable to repress the malice of Mars against the pig. As the heavens began to turn, the child was subject to the bad aspects of Saturn that ordained she would be destroyed. Or so it is argued.”

“This is all matter for children.” The sergeant seemed annoyed that so learned a man should speak of such things. “You are like those enchanters who see the future world in a basin full of water, or in a bright sword, or in the shoulder-bone of an ass.”

“I am not so serious as I may seem, sir judge. I only put the case. But there are those who believe that all is prejudged and predestined, even to the number of the souls in bliss.”

Vavasour suddenly put his hands together as if in prayer, and imitated the pious declaration of the predestined men whom Exmewe guided. “Above the world I am. In this world I am not.”

“How do you know that chant?”

The sergeant laughed in order to conceal his confusion. “It is nothing. I have heard it somewhere in the courts. But tell me this, Jolland. How do we find the distinction between providence and destiny?”

“Providence is the governance of all mutable nature as it exists in the mind of God. Destiny is that plan as it is worked out on changeable things in time. We are going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. I would know that Canterbury was our end, but I would not of necessity know the myriad accidents of fortune upon the way.”

“But that is not God’s way, is it? Does not God know the path thoroughly? Has it not been said that God causes a man to sin and to become a sinner? For the man who sins is but conforming his will to the will of God. If that man feels hatred for his sin, he need only remember that God is the antecedent cause. Is that not so?”

“It has been concluded by some, I grant you, but it is a false reasoning. If all were preordained, what would be the use of choosing any one course above another?”

“You know that Henry Bolingbroke has landed in England with sixty followers?”

“What is that to me?”

“He means to kill Richard and take the crown. Will that be necessity? Has God foredoomed it?”

“He has and He has not.”

“And while we await His judgement, the nation wades in blood. Is that it? I merely ask the question.”

The monk recognised the sergeant’s impatience, and took it as the sign of a heavy heart; he realised that his uneasiness, too, was a form of bad conscience. He was happy to augment it, if only to curb Vavasour’s pride. “I have by me a very learned work, Hieronymus his De situ et nominibus, which justly expounds the matter. Let me unclasp it.” He unlocked the chain holding a book, lying upon the shelf above his head, and then with another key opened the clasp around it. Here was a rich volume indeed, illuminated with great coloured capitals through which birds and monkeys ran. Jolland felt the vellum paper with his forefinger. “Every page takes the skin of a sheep. So here we have many flocks before us.” He turned the pages very carefully, in case one of them might crack or tear. “Hieronymus argues somewhere that all comes of necessity, and that our destiny is shaped before our shirt. Now let me read this to you. Ah. Here it is.” He translated from the Latin, as he recited the words. “For some men say, if God has seen all before – since God may in no manner be deceived – then must it fall out that way, even if men had sworn that it would not happen. No other thought, nor deed, can ever be but such as providence decrees. Otherwise we would be claiming that God does not have clear knowledge, but to lay such an error upon Him would be false and foul and wicked cursedness. There is more to this effect.”

Vavasour shifted uneasily in his seat. “There is a stone laid upon a tomb in the nave of Paul’s. It has an inscription carved upon