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

“My words are fit for a sick body, then.”

Gybon Maghfeld had been watching her carefully. Was she inspired or simply feigning inspiration? But for what purpose? Was she genuinely possessed by prophetic utterance, or was it some Christmas game for children? It was not to be expected that a young nun could stand against the Bishop of London without some inward power, whether of mischief or of bonchief it was impossible to tell. The squire had a further interest in the nun. His senior aunt, Amicia, had claimed prophetic powers in the reign of Edward III. She had worn a white tunic with a black hood, and each week she wore new shoes; she called herself “The Woman Clothed with the Star of the Sea,” and she had specifically foretold the defeat of the French at Poitiers and English control of Aquitaine four years later. Her family had at first been embarrassed and even horrified by her claims to divine grace, but the king himself had congratulated her on her fervour in the national cause. Her brother, Gybon’s father, had taken her into his house at Hosier Lane where, against all the laws and ordinances of the Church, she preached before the women of the ward. “We are all moving towards the light,” she had said, “but we do not know what it is.” Her conduct grew ever stranger. She popped, painted and plucked her face; on Fridays and Sundays she ate only grass and drank only brook water; she was wheeled through the streets in a dung-cart, crying out that the wounds of her sins had rotted within her. Eventually she was judged to be distracted and she was consigned to Bethlem Hospital where she died from an internal tumour.

Now the young nun stood before Gybon Maghfeld, her arms crossed upon her breast as a token of resignation.

“You are as quiet as a girl, Clarice.”

“I must suffer as I have done in time past, sir, and so I will do for God’s sake.”

“Straw for your gentleness.” The bishop scraped his left cheek with one of the fingers of his glove. “Put her in irons. Let her not see her feet for seven years. She has blasphemed.”

“If it is blasphemy to speak God’s word, then I admit it. You may hang me by the heels, but it is your world that will be turned upside down.”

“Is your bile not broken yet? What are the causes of your murmuring?”

“What else is there to do but weep in this mortal life? Oh lord bishop, you mock the misery of this world when you say ‘Over the fields of Babylon we sat and wept when we thought of you, Sion.’ I have heard you babbling this in the pulpit.”

“You will be whipped for this insolence, nun.”

“God loves chastisement. God liveth, and I will play before Him in my prison. The Lord has already disciplined me with a loving rod, and my cry is a liking song to Him.”

“You speak of your prison but in these latter days, Clarice, you have moved around the city like a thief in the night.”

“The teachers of truth must be prudent where they speak.”

“Harlotry of the mouth.”

“Take heed, lord bishop, you are of unpower. Yet you cannot weep because you are so barren and sorrowless. The old, foul and thick sins of London surround you. You must be turned to God.”

The bishop moved forward as if to strike her, but Gybon Maghfeld made a sign to him.

“Take off your veil, Clarice.” The squire asked her this very gently. “Show your face.”

Reluctantly she obeyed his request.

As she lifted the veil they could see that her face was almond white, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted.

“You can make good cheer, if you wish, with your countenance. Come now. Be merry.”

“Merry?” She replaced her veil, and once more crossed her arms in an attitude which now resembled defiance rather than resignation. “You are about my death. Why should I not be in great heaviness?”

The bishop laughed out loud. “She has imagined against the king, and she claims to be woebegone! Lay her on a roasting iron and turn her. She will cast out oil and grease rather than words.”

“I have said that the king shall die. And so must it be.”

“Clarice,” Gybon murmured. “You should file your tongue.”

“When I am silent, sir, my bones grow old.”

“This is strange English, nun.” The bishop again took a step towards her, but she did not move. “Your words are full dark. You need exposition.”

“I will give you dispositio, expositio and conclusio –”

“Let be! It is an evil thing to see a schoolman in a nun’s habit.”

“You mistake me. Not all the words in the world can paint you the image of my soul.”

The bishop seemed to be growing impatient with her testimony. “Some say that you are inspired with the Holy Ghost, and some say that you are inspired by the spirits of the cellar.”

“It makes no matter what ‘some say.’ ”

“You are a gaud and a trifle. A geegaw. A whimwham.”

The squire interrupted the bishop’s invective. “Clarice, can I tell you thus. You say that you have had a vision of the Holy Church of God in sad ruin, after the death of the king. You have stirred the folk. Much of what you say is perverted and turned into malice. Those who were once your friends have become your enemies. They are like huntsmen blowing your death.”

“I do not know how. Who are these who use such subtle craft against me?”

“The enemies of all good order. Who long for the doom of this world.”

“Yes. I have heard some say, is the world to end at long last?”

“You play on both the hands,” the bishop said. “You hear some say this or say that. You are the spotless lamb born for the sacrifice. Is that your song? You are more like my father’s old mare. You will not go until you are pricked. No one in England can blear eyes better than