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

a young man and remonstrating with him. Exmewe noticed Rafu and waved. The young man had his back turned and was staring down into the running water.

“Here is Rafu,” Exmewe said. “One of the good men.”

Rafu dismounted, and they started to talk intently.

Exmewe put his hand upon Hamo’s neck. “I have told Robert Rafu that you are as fit for this purpose as any man I know. That is the truth, is it not?”

“William Exmewe tells me, Hamo, that you are a faithful man.”

Hamo looked from one to the other, and said nothing.

Exmewe was angered by his silence. “What else is there for you upon this earth? You are already marked.” The boy was silent. “The tooth-drawer rots in his grave. If I were to surrender you, your life would be forfeit.”

Then Hamo smiled. It was a smile of recognition. Suddenly he saw the shape of his destiny. He saw the whole web of his fate shimmering before him. What had seemed hard now became simple; what had been confused was clear. The nun had told him that she had been summoned. And this, too, was his purpose. He must accept his hard fortune: that was all. He had been born for trouble in this world, and must embrace it. There was no more to say.

“See,” the manciple said. “You are already of good cheer. God give you grace, and all will be well.”

“This boy is as still as a lamb which recognises its master,” Exmewe said. “It is time, and more than time, to requite me for all my past kindness to you. I pray God, Hamo, that you bring this matter to a good end.”

Hamo walked away from them and once more looked at the course of the Fleet, as it flowed down to the Thames before it reached the open sea. “Well,” he said. “He must needs swim that is borne up to the chin.”

The manciple rode back to St. Paul’s in high spirits. He had been relieved of a difficult and dangerous task. There had been the prospect of death or maiming. If he had been taken up, there would have been the certainty of Murus, the wall or perpetual imprisonment. As a predestined one he knew that he was part of God’s breath and being, but this knowledge was tempered by the painful experience of the flesh in which he presently served. Robert Rafu was a practical man, or a “useful man” as he was called by the canons, but his successful conduct of the cathedral’s affairs was based upon indifference and dislike. He despised the beliefs of the Church. He knew that its pardons, and other of its trumperies, could be bought and sold in Lombard Street as you would buy and sell a cow at Smithfield. You could pay for time in purgatory as men bought twopenny pies in Soper Lane. As for the sacrament of the Mass, well, the little mouse will eat the wafer and profit nothing from it. The so-called sacred wine waxed sour and stank, just as the holy water which had lain too long in the font.

He had ridden close to the north gate of the cathedral, when he saw the glare of torches raised in the air; several clerks and canons had gathered in the churchyard, and were examining something lying upon the ground. Their voices were raised; whether in excitement, or fear, the manciple could not tell. He dismounted and walked over to them with his usual soft tread. A pit, or hollow, had opened in the ground a few yards from the north porch. The master of the novices came up to him and murmured, “A child fell. The earth suddenly gave way and behold –” Rafu stepped closer to the pit and could see the outlines of a shallow walled grave. Lodged within it was a coffin of ancient shape, some eight feet in length. The upper part had decayed, and a great skeleton could be seen. At first sight, it seemed to be the skeleton of a giant that roamed the earth before the Flood. Yet on its right side lay a small chalice, covered with a patten, and a piece of silk or linen wound around its stem. On its left side were the remains of what was clearly a bishop’s crozier. But what giant bishop was this? Rafu peered into the dust around the thigh-bone of the body; there was a ring, glinting in the torchlight. He lay down upon the ground, and reached into the pit. When he had retrieved the ring, he saw at once that the emerald stone at its centre had been embellished with a curious device; it was that of five circles within a circle.

Chapter Thirteen

The Summoner’s Tale

The physician, Thomas Gunter, observed the Mother of Christ presented pleasantly by the Kings of Cockaigne. A gallant young man, piping and singing, was standing on a cloud called Spring. A verse, painted in red letters upon a long strip of parchment, was hanging from this cloud:

“With these figures showed in your presence

By diverse likenesses you to do plesaunce.”

On a gaudily painted stage, carried by six porters, were two citizens playing Providence and King Richard II; they were embracing and kissing as they processed down Cornhill. The stage was followed by a pageant wagon, drawn by two horses with gay gilt saddles and shining bridles. Gunter, his eyes alert and bright, saw everything clearly. The wagon contained a great coloured model of the cosmos, with naked boys positioned upon the glittering circle of each sphere. Close behind them was a young man riding upon a platform with his arms and legs tied; he was wearing a white leather costume, borrowed from Adam of the mysteries, upon which numbers had been painted. Beside him stood one dressed as an astrologer, in long furred cloak and hood, who sang out to the crowd, “What solemn subtlety is this? It is the subtlety of figures.”