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

Gunter could scarcely hear him, however, above the din of the minstrels who walked between the wagons and the stages with harps and fiddles, bagpipes and gitterns, strings and trumpets, bladders and tabors, hurdy-gurdies and pipes. It was the feast of the midsummer watch, on the Vigil of the Assumption, when the might and glory of the city were celebrated.

Gunter grimaced as the guns upon the walls and bulwarks were “shot for joy,” in the phrase of the mayor, while the merchants of the several crafts walked in procession past the Great Cross of Cheapside. The men of the wards then progressed in their ancient array; the citizens of Bridge and Walbrook carried lances all red, for example, while those of Farringdon and Aldersgate had black lances powdered with white stars. There followed behind them a group of citizens riding in disguise, as if for a mummery. Some were dressed as knights, in coats and gowns of red, with visors upon their faces; one was arrayed as the emperor and after him, at some distance, came one like the Italian pope accompanied by twenty-four cardinals. In the rear were seven others masked with black visors, unamiable, as if they were in the service of some foreign prince; they were hissed by the crowd of spectators, who were eager to enter the spirit of the proceedings.

He walked over to the corner of Friday Street and Cheapside, where he could better see the traditional procession of the poor men, each one wearing a straw cap with a badge of lead pinned to it; they were assembled to personify the Book of the Midsummer Watch’s claim of “None but rich men charged, and poor men helped.” Gunter knew them well and knew, also, that they took their place in the vast hierarchy of need and service; they were not citizens free of the city, but they were not loiterers or lost men. Nor were they beggars known as “louse men,” from the proverbial expression, “he is not worth a louse.” These were in the third degree of want, and were known as “masterless men.” They would change their employment according to the season – woodcutters in winter and shoemakers in the autumn – and whenever they had earned as much as they required they simply stopped working. It was their unwritten rule. Or, as Gunter used to say, it was the law of London. Their garments came at second hand, with faded colours and frayed hems. They were at the lowest level of the commonalty before the stage of abject need and misery, and they made up a considerable number of the city’s population. That is why they were given their own procession.

As the physician watched them passing by, raucously singing a hymn to the Virgin, he felt for an instant that he was being watched. He turned instinctively, but all those clustered around him seemed intent upon the moving pageant. Two tall men were now walking past on stilts. They were impersonating the giants, Gog and Magog, who were the twin guardians of the city; they were masked as lions, and wore artificial wings. Thomas Gunter decided to walk down Friday Street, where each door was garlanded with green birch and long fennel, white lilies and orpin or “live-long,” in honour both of London and of the Virgin. He still felt uneasy, as if someone else’s natural humour were shadowing his own. He walked faster and looked back once or twice, as the sound of minstrelsy began to fade.

“For Christ’s love!” Gunter was startled by this voice coming from nowhere. “For Christ’s love give meat or money to a poor man!” A beggar, with bag and staff, had stepped from an alcove by the corner of Watling Street; it was a “passing point” known to the citizens as a “pissing point.” “I am in heaviness, master. I have lost all that I had.” The light of the sun surrounded him. Gunter observed the shape of his prominent nose and the breadth of his wide forehead. He might have been a great scholar, but by chance or destiny he had become one who sits in the dust and stares at the world.

The physician took out a penny. “God comfort you,” was all he said.

“Sir, I thank you of your goodness towards me.” It was clearly a ritual acknowledgement, long practised. “I pray God I may one day make you amends.”

Gunter was used to all the odours of the human body, and he was not offended by the smell of this man which suggested night things. He seemed in good health except for curious ring-like markings upon his forehead. “Do you have the scabbado beneath your hair?” The beggar nodded. “When you go into the fields, gather the weed commonly known as liverwort. It grows in wet places. Make a paste of it with your own spittle, and then press it down upon your head.”

The beggar laughed at this. “It is a hard world, my master, when a man must grow grass instead of hair.”

“Not so hard that it may not help you. God keep you.” The beggar’s laughter had recalled to his mind the song he had learned as a child. He repeated it under his breath as he turned the corner.

“Nos vagabunduli

Laeti, jucunduli,

Tara, tarantare, teino.”

There was also a saying, beggars are God’s minstrels. The song was still in his head as he walked along Watling Street, but once more he was filled with fear of being followed. Quickly he turned down Lamb Alley and into Sink Court; he heard footsteps behind him, and he waited impatiently for the one whom he feared. There came out a man in middle life, wearing an old-fashioned surcoat of leather and a leather cap. It was Bogo the summoner, whom he had lately treated for an inflammation of the thigh. In his sudden relief Gunter called out to him. “How is this, Bogo? You know my door. Why haunt me in the street?”

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