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

up to their waists in the ground. The clay was clinging to them. The earth of the churchyard was soon over their heads, yet still the people could hear them dancing. Some say that the dead had joined them in their revelry.”

“Terrible indeed.”

“Others say that they are dancing still.” The monk paused in order to turn a page of De situ et nominibus, and examined an illumination of some ancient walled city. He noticed in particular a procession of its citizens issuing from one of its gates, holding aloft gitterns and cymbals as if they were on their way to some sacred shrine. “That is what I hear wherever I go, Sir Miles. The dancing under the ground.”

“Is this held to be true, or commonly reported as a fable?”

“Who can say?” The monk turned the page again, and saw the outline of a beast tale. Reynard the Fox had been tied by Couard the Hare, and was now being dragged to judgement before Ysangrin the Wolf by Chanticleer the Cock and Pinte the Hen. The wolf held up a spherical object, like an astrolabe, in which a spiral pattern seemed to circle endlessly. “If the past is a memory, it partakes of a dream. If it is a dream, then it is an illusion.”

Sir Miles Vavasour left the abbey of Bermondsey soon after, turning his horse north-west towards London Bridge. He was jostled by crowds as he went across the bridge, and their smell seemed to linger above the river; his horse had difficulty in moving between the carts and wagons, but when it reached the road on the other side it broke free. Quite by instinct Vavasour galloped along the bank to Old Swan Stairs, and then continued northward up Old Swan Lane towards the church of St. Lawrence Pountney. He had barely recalled the legend of the doomed dancers; it was for him one of those dim far-off things which he associated with his childhood, like those stories which began “In old days there was a man . . .” He came out at the corner of Candlewick Street, which Jolland had described as part of the old churchyard. In its place now was a row of houses, a stable owned by a hackney-man, a saddler’s shop, and a tavern called the Dog on the Trot. He could hear music in the air, and the sound of someone singing “This world is but a whirligig.” The noises were coming from the tavern. Vavasour rode up and bent over his horse to look through a little mullioned window; he saw a circle of revellers, holding hands and dancing in a ring.

Chapter Twelve

The Manciple’s Tale

“There shall be youth without any age. There shall be fairness without any spot of filth.” It was Lammas Eve, the last day of July. “There shall be health without any sickness. There shall be rest without any weariness. There shall be fullness without any wanting. There shall be worship without any villainy.” William Exmewe was addressing the predestined men, in the style which he had subtly fashioned for them.

He praised Garret Barton for his pinning of the Eighteen Conclusions on the Si quis? door; the killing of the scrivener was an unlooked for benefit, since the words would be easier read by the light of his death. “The floodgates are up,” he told them, “and all goes forth. When the pattern of the five wounds is complete, then shall we see the day of challenge and of wretchedness, the day of darkness and of mist, the day of high cloud and whirlwind, the day of trumpets and noise. He shall come in majesty; that is in great brightness, full comfortable to His friends and His darlings. But where shall we fix our sight next? In St. Sepulchre the doom is to be delivered.”

St. Sepulchre was the popular name of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Without Newgate; it was the largest parish church in all London, even though it stood close to the prison of Newgate. Newgate was so noisome itself that, it was said, the rats ran from it; it had acquired a strange power over its neighbourhood, and its stench lingered in the alleys and doorways as a continual token of the gaol fever. It made the bones ache. The cries of the prisoners could sometimes be heard, and the whole area had become known as “the assize.” It was no wonder that the church beside Newgate should bear the name of the sepulchre – but from this tomb no one could be resurrected.

“This is our text,” Exmewe was saying, “all is well that ends well. The first two wounds have been opened with the help of Almighty God. Now, with the help of the same, go to the third. The oratory was wonderfully burned by hand; this one must be engined.” He showed them a manuscript, entitled The Book of Fire for Burning Enemies, in which was explained the means of fashioning a balle de fer which would cause a great explosion. A hollow lead sphere was filled with gunpowder, and then wrapped around with leather; this ball was then placed in a box or chamber which contained the charge and was kept in place by a wedge. It were necessary only to remove the wedge and, lo, Greek fire would spread within the church. There was little danger. “Yet you know,” Exmewe continued, “that we are eternal in the knowledge of God. We are materia prima created in the beginning of the world. We are freed from all harm. Robert Rafu, God is here! His will is that you have the chief governance of this matter.”

The manciple sighed, and looked at the others as if for mercy. “This comes sooner than I looked for.”

William Exmewe saw the fear on Robert Rafu’s face, and exulted. He had chosen well.

After the predestined men had departed, he walked back with Rafu to the common stable where their horses were