The Midsummer Crown

SIXTEEN

I knew that for my past sins I was going down to Hell. The only thing that surprised me was that it should be so wet. Fire and brimstone I would have expected, but who could have supposed that the road to the nether world would be by water?

My head was throbbing and I had not yet dared to open my eyes. Lights — very bright lights — flashed across the inside of my lids, and there was a humming in my ears that sounded louder than a swarm of bees. But I could also hear people shouting, distant cries which I presumed came from other unfortunates like myself who were on their way to the realm of Old Nick. I reproached myself bitterly for not having lived a more blameless life. The shades of Juliette Gerrish and Eloise Gray haunted me, together with all the other women I had lusted after. .

I was sinking lower. Water closed over my head and I swallowed a mouthful of something that smelled disgustingly of public latrines or the night-soil carts that rumbled about the city in the early morning. At the same time, a voice echoed somewhere in the depths of my mind, ‘I know who you’m talking about. I’ve seed her once or twice lately. Don’t know who she is. .’ I wanted to protest that this statement was untrue; that I had just seen the speaker, Etheldreda Simpkins, and Amphillis Hill talking together in the Boar’s Head in East Cheap as though they were old friends. I took another mouthful of water. An oar smacked me smartly on one ear — and suddenly I was fully conscious, horribly aware that I was struggling for my life in the River Thames.

I trod water as hard as I could while trying to get my bearings. A swift glance over my shoulder just before I went under again, informed me that I was not far from the bank, but I knew from experience that many of the boats and barges rowed dangerously close to the shore. Moreover, I had briefly recognized the great bastion of the steelyard where the Hanseatic merchants plied their trade; where vessels containing cargoes of timber and oil and pitch tied up ready to be unloaded, before being reloaded again with bales of the broadcloth that the Germans exported to all the markets of eastern Europe. And to the west of the steelyard was Three Cranes Wharf belonging to the vintners of the city, where ships from Bordeaux berthed.

My brain still wasn’t functioning properly, but the instinct for danger is one of the strongest we have and I knew that I was in trouble. How I came to be in the Thames and why my head hurt so much were problems that would have to wait for a solution at a later time. For the moment, all my energy was concentrated on keeping myself afloat and trying desperately to avoid the water traffic all around me. I tried shouting, but in the general din my voice was lost. I tried waving, but no one noticed me (hardly surprising I suppose as half the time I was being sucked under by the wake of whatever was passing closest to me). I tried catching at oars as they flashed by me, but my strength was ebbing rapidly and I wasn’t quick enough. Only sheer desperation and the determination to survive preserved me from simply giving up and letting the water take me. Heaven knew, I was tired enough for it to begin to seem like an attractive proposition. My mind was starting to cloud over again and reality and fantasy were becoming one. Sometimes I was at home with Adela and the children, at others in some church with steps leading down into a crypt. But whether it was St Giles in Bristol or somewhere in London, I really couldn’t tell. And what was more, I really didn’t care. .

‘Fer the sweet Lord’s sake, grab ’old of the bloody oar,’ screamed a voice from above me.

I must have obeyed this injunction because the next thing I knew I was sprawled anyhow in the bottom of a rowing boat while a vaguely familiar face hovered between me and the sky.

‘God save us! I thought it were you, lad,’ said a voice from the past. ‘What you up to now, then, eh? Poking yer nose into other people’s business, I daresay. Lie still or you’ll upset the fuckin’ boat. I’ll take you ’ome to Southwark and get you dry.’

Bertha Mendip! I recognized the West Country burr which, in spite of all her years in the capital, she had never quite lost. I had first met her twelve years earlier during my very first visit to London when I was enquiring into the disappearance of Clement Weaver, and then again some six years or so later. She had her home amongst the beggars and criminals of the Southwark stews, making a living by dragging dead bodies out of the Thames and selling the corpses’ clothes, plus any other trinkets they might have had about their persons.

From what I could see, she looked much the same; a woman who had appeared old before she was thirty, but who seemed to have aged very little since, although the unkempt hair which straggled about her skinny shoulders had, when I first knew her, been a dark chestnut-brown. Now it was completely grey and, in places, turning white. But her eyes were just the same, a brilliant blue and still full of eagerness and life.

I smiled at her foolishly, too tired even to make the effort to speak, but I think I must have mouthed the word, ‘Bertha,’ because she nodded and gave a gap-toothed grin.

‘Tha’s right, lad. Jus’ lie still and don’ try talkin‘. I’ll soon ’ave you right as rain again when I get you back to Angel Wharf.’

At least, I presume that’s what she said because the last part of the sentence was lost as I either fell asleep or fainted.

Now I knew I really was in Hell. I could feel the heat of the fire as it warmed and dried out my shivering body. But it wasn’t unpleasant; indeed, quite the opposite. Perhaps the nether world wasn’t as bad as it was painted. .

‘Comin’ round then, are we?’ There was a cackle of laughter.

I was suddenly fully conscious and in command of all my faculties. I remembered everything that had happened to me: St Etheldreda’s Church, the crypt, the lower chamber, being hit over the head and, finally, my rescue by Bertha Mendip. I opened my eyes and immediately recognized her hut on Angel Wharf with its smell of drying clothes which had been too long immersed in water and in contact with decaying flesh. They hung from poles at one end of the single room, while smoke from the fire disappeared through a blackened hole in the roof. My own decent hose and tunic were being held in front of the blaze by Bertha herself and a scrap of a girl who looked no more than about ten years of age, but who, I guessed, was probably some years older than that. I realized also that I was naked — who had undressed me didn’t bear thinking about — and that I was wrapped in a filthy old blanket which was almost certainly verminous.

‘Where’s your son?’ I croaked, saying the first thing that entered my head.

There was another cackle. ‘Lord love you, ’e’s long gone. ’Opped it the moment ’e were old enough t’ do without me. Got in with a gang o’ cutpurses working’ the city. Never seen ’im from that day t’ this. Thirsty?’

I was suddenly conscious of a raging thirst, but Bertha didn’t wait for my answer. She put down my tunic and vanished outside the hut, returning after a while with a beaker of ale which at first I sipped cautiously. But to my great surprise it tasted wonderful. Bertha picked up my tunic again and resumed her station by the fire.

‘This is good stuff, this is,’ she remarked over her shoulder. ‘Gen’leman’s stuff. ’Ow d’you come by it?’

‘It was a present,’ I answered shortly.

There was an explosion of mirth. ‘From a woman, I’ll be bound!’ I didn’t disillusion her. She went on, ‘So what ’appened? ’Ow you come t’ be in the water?’

‘Someone hit me over the back of the head. But not hard enough, I fancy. I suspect I’m supposed to be dead by now. But how I came to be in the river is more than I can fathom.’

Bertha half-turned and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘There’s a drain thereabouts,’ she said, ‘what empties into the Thames. Years gone, when I first come to Lunnon, someone told me it were a stream what had been built over, but stills runs underground.’

The Wallbrook! I had a sudden vision of the semicircular aperture I had noticed on my first visit to the chamber below St Etheldreda’s crypt. It must be a secondary pipe which connected to the main culvert. .

Bertha was speaking. ‘I found a few bodies there at different times. Tha’s why I goes there. It’s a good spot fer pickins.’

‘Do you. .? Do you think these bodies come out of the drain?’

‘Lord, I never thought about it! Maybe they does, maybe they doesn’t. But I s’pose it’s possible. Not my place t’ question what the good God sends me. I just fishes out the corpses and am thankful for what I gets.’

‘And I might have been another of them,’ I mused. ‘I feel certain I was intended to be.’

‘G’arn with you! Nobody ain’t goin’ t’ kill you that easy.’ Bertha was dismissive. Nevertheless, she added, ‘What you up to, then? Pryin’ and pokin’ about I guess, like the first time I met you?’

‘I suppose so,’ I admitted sheepishly, not feeling up to telling her the whole story. I changed the subject abruptly. ’Will those clothes ever be any good again?’

She was indignant. ‘’Course they will! Think I don’ know me own business? I bin restorin’ clothes what’ve bin in the river fer years. And most of ’em’ve bin soaked a lot longer than what yours ’ave. But it won’t be done in a trice. You may ’ave t’ stay ’ere the rest o’ today an’ t’night. You can’t run through the streets as naked as the day you was born, now can you?’

I was appalled at the prospect, but I could also see that I had no alternative. My tunic and hose would take some time to dry before they could be worked on to bring them back to anything like their former glory. And I suddenly remembered my hat with the fake jewel pinned to the upturned brim. Had I been wearing it? If so, it was probably gone for ever. Moreover, I wasn’t certain that I could move, even if I were prepared to expose my manly body to the interested of Southwark. A great lassitude was stealing over me, and the heat from the fire was making me feel stupid.

‘Wha-what did you put in that ale?’ I asked sleepily. I remember that I wasn’t at all perturbed by the realization.

‘Lettuce juice,’ Bertha answered, her voice coming from a long way off. ‘You needs the rest. Don’ worry. I ain’t goin’ t’ rob you. You’m a friend. You comes from the same part o’ the world as what I do. .’

Her voice grew fainter, dwindling to a mere thread of sound before it ceased altogether. I sank deeper into the velvety darkness. .

I was standing in the great solar in Baynard’s Castle between Sir Pomfret and Lady Fitzalan. There seemed to be no one else present except the Dowager Duchess of York, facing us and tapping on the floor with her silver-handled cane.

‘Where are the rest of you?’ she was demanding of Sir Pomfret. ‘I was told that all your brothers would be present.’ Sir Pomfret made no reply and the duchess tapped even harder, adding an impatient foot to the beat. ‘Well, man? Speak up! Ah!’ This exclamation followed the opening of the solar door as Godfrey and Lewis appeared. ‘Here at least are two more.’ The twins bowed and went to stand behind their brother, jostling me out of the way as they did so, while the duchess continued glaring at us all. Her voice rose to a screech. ‘But some are still missing. Where are the others? Where are Henry and Warren and Raisley and George?’

‘No, no!’ protested Bevis and Blaise, getting up from the window embrasure where they had been sitting (although I felt sure that they hadn’t been there earlier). ‘Your Grace means Thomas and Peter and Maurice and Cornelius. Young Gideon can’t be with us because he’s disappeared.’

Duchess Cicely had turned towards them as they spoke, but now she swung slowly back to point an accusing finger at me.

‘Haven’t you found him yet, Master Chapman?’ she demanded. ‘The king told you to do so and before his coronation. The king, my son. . The king, my son. . The king, my son. .’

I noticed the expression of horror caused by her words on all the other faces, mouths opening and shutting as though they were trying to protest. They reminded me of the fish that used to be netted from the abbot’s carp pond at Glastonbury and how ridiculous the poor creatures looked once they were landed. I started to laugh, loudly, stupidly, and found myself shouting, ‘You fools! You fools! You never thought Edward was going to be king, did you? Did you? Did you. .?’

The cry died on my lips and I sat up with a start, aching in every joint and limb. Opposite me, seated beside the fire on a rickety three-legged stool and watching me fixedly, was Bertha Mendip. We were alone — there was no sign of the young girl — and early morning sunlight was streaming in through the open doorway of the hut.

‘What. . What day is it?’ I mumbled, struggling to get my bearings.

‘Friday,’ she said. ‘Freya’s day — the mother o’ the gods. You’m slept all night through, but not easy. You’m bin tossin’ and turnin’ and mutterin’ in yer sleep somethin’ terrible, so you ’ave.’

Friday. Today, Lord Hastings would be beheaded on Tower Green, quietly and without fuss. Indeed, so little attention would be drawn to the proceedings that, in after years, many people would continue, mistakenly, to assert that that he had been executed out of hand the preceding week.

‘Yer boots aren’t quite dry yet,’ Bertha said, ‘but the rest of yer gear’s ready.’ And she indicated my hose, shirt and tunic lying beside me. ‘There’s a hat, too,’ she added, ‘what I fished out the water. Gawd! You in a gen’leman’s hat! Velvet!’ She rocked to and fro, convulsed by a paroxysm of laughter.

I couldn’t have taken umbrage even had I wished to. It had been no vain boast when she said that she knew her business: all the garments had been restored, if not quite to their former glory, then to a condition that would deceive most eyes.

‘You’re a marvel, Bertha,’ I breathed, picking them up and examining them one by one.

The next moment, I was hurriedly pulling the blanket I was wrapped in up around my shoulders as I realized that by sitting up I had rendered myself half-naked.

My companion gave another of her cackling laughs. ‘No need fer modesty, lad. I seen better nor you in me time. Still, if you’d rather get dressed on yer own, I’ll get meself to the Rattlebones and get you summat to eat and drink. Big fellow like you needs ’is victuals.’

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Bertha, I can’t pay you. I’ve no money.’

She grinned. ‘Oh, yes you ’ave.’ She picked up my belt with the money purse still firmly attached to it and shook it in my face. ‘Whoever ’it you on the ’ead weren’t after robbin’ you. This ’ere was still strapped round yer waist when I pulled you out the water.’

I breathed a sigh of relief, opening the purse to check the contents. All my money seemed to be there and I handed a couple of coins to Bertha. For her part, she continued to regard me curiously.

‘Who did ’it you over the ’ead,’ she asked, ‘and whereabouts were you? From what you said yesterday, seemed like you reck’ned you’d been pushed down that drain what empties the Wallbrook inta the river. What you got yerself mixed up in, lad? You’ve nearly got yerself killed, you knows that, don’t you? If it ’adn’t bin fer me, you’d likely be fish meat by now.’

I nodded humbly. ‘I know that, Bertha, and I’m grateful, believe me. Is it really Friday? I must have been asleep for hours and hours and hours. If I remember rightly, I hadn’t long had my dinner when. . when. .’

‘You ’ave bin asleep fer hours and hours and hours,’ my companion acknowledged, ‘but that were the lettuce juice. I got some from ’pothec’ry when I went fer the ale. Sleep’s the only cure fer a shock like you’d ’ad. But it weren’t easy sleep, like I told you. An’ afore you woke up jus’ now, you was in a right sweat. Callin’ out a lot o’ men’s names, you were. An’ summat about a sun an’ a king.’ She eyed me sternly. ‘You goin’ t’ tell me what ’appened or not?’ She sat down again on her stool. ‘’Cause I ain’t goin’ fer yer breakfast until you do.’

I could see she was in earnest and I owed her my life. So I arranged the blanket more modestly about me, to the great irritation of the fleas settled within its folds, and proceeded to tell her as much as I knew (but making no mention of my lord of Gloucester or his intentions regarding the crown). Bertha heard me out without comment and when I had finished, she got to her feet once more.

‘I’m off t’ Rattlebones now,’ she said, ‘t’ get yer breakfast.’ She hesitated as though she would add something, then, obviously deciding against it, left the hut without further remark.

During her absence, I got dressed, although it cost me a greater effort than I had anticipated. I felt as weak as a kitten. I was getting too old, I decided, for these sort of adventures.

I wandered across to the doorway and looked out at the busy scene as Southwark stirred into early morning life. A part of London and yet outside the city’s jurisdiction, it was a place of contrasts; a warren of noisome alleyways, an absolute haven for criminals, cheek by jowl with the splendid houses of various abbots and bishops. St Thomas’s Hospital and the church of St Mary Overy were two of its more imposing buildings. The Tabard and the Walnut Tree were respectable enough taverns, but others, like the Rattlebones, were of a more dubious nature, patronized by thieves and whores and others not anxious to be noticed by officers of the law. Overhead, the sky was a clear, cloudless blue. It was going to be another warm day.

After a while, I went back inside. The heat of the fire and the stench of the drying clothes suddenly turned my stomach, and I began to retch. My own clothes, too, seemed to have a smell about them previously unnoticed, and they felt stiff and uncomfortable. I wondered irritably where Bertha was and what was keeping her. She seemed to have been gone an unconscionable time, and I was longing to be off. My head ached, and I was no nearer finding out what had become of Gideon Fitzalan, or why he had been taken, than I had been a week ago.

I knew that my dream had been telling me something, but what it was I had no notion. God was speaking to me, but I was too stupid to understand. I remembered what Bertha had said, that I was shouting out names — the names, obviously, of the Fitzalan tribe. I could recall the events and circumstances of the dream quite clearly. It was interpreting them that presented a problem.

The nausea was beginning to pass, but my legs still felt too fragile to support me, so I pulled Bertha’s abandoned stool well clear of the fire and sat down near the door, trying to marshal my thoughts. I had been in the chamber below St Etheldreda’s crypt when I had been assaulted. Someone had either followed me with such stealth that I had been unaware of pursuit, or else somebody had already been down there and had concealed him — or herself before I had time to descend the steps. Of the two, I favoured the latter theory.

I also recalled that, just before I was struck, I had thought there was something different about my surroundings; that there was something there I had not noticed on my previous visit. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to picture the scene, but try as I might, I could recollect nothing, only the blow to the back of my head which had sent me plunging into oblivion.

So what had happened next? Someone — more than one person? — had dragged me across the floor and bundled me bodily into the drain which connected with the Wallbrook culvert. Judging by the bruises with which my body was covered, it had been a tight squeeze, although wide enough to prevent me from becoming stuck, and I must have been helped on my way by a good shove from above. (I concluded that the drain itself was fairly short in length and had been made to stop the underground chamber from being flooded when the Thames was in spate.) But I was a big man and a heavy weight. It must surely have taken more than one person to shift me.

Bertha entered the hut, nearly falling over the stool in the process, carrying a covered dish in one hand and a jug of ale in the other. The first smelled deliciously of hot bacon collops and the other made me realize that I had a raging thirst which, until that moment, I had been too preoccupied to notice.

When she had finished cursing me for getting in the way, Bertha handed me the dish and placed the jug on the floor where I could reach it, along with the beaker she had brought yesterday from the Rattlebones. This she wiped out with a handful of straw picked up from the floor. I decided to drink from the jug.

‘Gettin’ nice all of a sudden, ain’t we?’ she jeered, throwing more sticks on the fire and pulling one of the racks of drying clothes nearer to the blaze. Then she sat down on the floor, arms locked around her knees. I offered her the stool, but she shook her head. ‘You finish yer breakfast. But you’ll ’ave t’ give it up in a minute. I’ve invited someone in t’ see you.’

‘What do you mean? Who?’

She shook her head. ‘Jus’ eat and don’ ask so many questions.’

With this I had to be content as she plainly intended to say nothing further. The sunlight coming through the open doorway had strengthened and it was now full daylight, while the sounds from without had steadily increased. The denizens of Angel Wharf were up and busy. I thought again of Lord Hastings in the Tower watching the dawn of his last day on earth and wondered what it must feel like to know the hour of one’s death; to hear the birds and feel the warmth of the sun on one’s face and accept that in a while it would all be gone. I thought, too, of Earl Rivers, young Sir Richard Grey and old Sir Thomas Vaughan as yet, probably, unaware of their fate, but soon to learn that they also must die. Twelve short weeks ago, when King Edward had breathed his last, how could they possibly have known how soon they would be following him into the grave?

‘Cheer up,’ Bertha said. ‘You’ve got a face as dismal as a week o’ Fridays. Which reminds me, I s’pose, bein’ Freya’s day I oughta brought you fish, but you don’ look to me like one what takes fastin’ very serious.’

‘Not when my wife isn’t here to keep me up to it,’ I admitted, which made her give yet another cackle of laughter.

‘Like that is it? Well, I can’t say you looks too bad on married life. I reck’n you’m one o’ the lucky ones.’

A shadow fell across the door, blocking out the sunlight. Bertha got to her feet and went to welcome her visitor.

‘Come in, me dear an’ this gert lump ’ere’ll give you the stool t’ sit on.’ I lumbered awkwardly to my feet, trying to prevent my head from hitting the hut’s roof and provoking my hostess to even further mirth. ‘I told you ’e were a big un.’ (Her chosen calling had never dimmed her sense of humour.) She turned to me. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Audrey Owlgrave.’

I found myself facing a small, sharp-featured woman of indeterminate age — she could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty — but who, I suspected, appeared older than she probably was. Her weather-beaten skin was seamed with lines and her lips were the thinnest I have ever seen, almost non-existent. She was poorly dressed — I could see at least two darns in the skirt of her homespun gown — but everything about her was clean and neat and, astonishingly for Angel Wharf, sweet-smelling. Her eyes were a very dark brown and dominated her little pinched face.

‘Mistress Owlgrave.’ I made her a bow and indicated the stool. ‘Please, sit down.’

She thanked me, and the most surprising thing of all about her was her voice. She spoke with a quiet, ladylike accent that would have done credit to the Duchess of York herself.

‘Mistress Mendip has been telling me of your adventure,’ she said. ‘I trust you are feeling better?’

‘A little,’ I acknowledged.

She smiled gently. ‘I understand that when you were so cruelly assaulted, you were in St Etheldreda’s Church in Dowgate?’

‘Not in the church itself, but in a chamber beneath the crypt, which I think might be Roman, perhaps a part of the Temple of Mithras, which originally stood on that site.’

She nodded in concurrence. I had obviously told her nothing that she did not know already.

‘The cult of Mithras was not itself a sacrificial one,’ she said, ‘although some of its followers did interpret it as such because of the cutting of the bull’s throat by the god. In the Christian faith, it is, of course, God Himself who is the sacrifice.’

I had sat down again on the floor, my back propped against one of the doorposts, and I stirred uneasily at the mention of the word ‘sacrifice’. Something continued to nag uneasily at the edges of my mind.

Mistress Owlgrave went on, ‘But in fact we are not concerned with Mithras or his worship. The fact that the church of St Etheldreda stands on, or very near, the Roman site, is neither here nor there. What I am about to say to you has to do with the saint herself. Do you know her story?’

I nodded. ‘I was a novice at Glastonbury Abbey before I renounced my calling and took to the roads.’

I didn’t know how much Bertha had told our visitor of my life history, but she seemed to accept my explanation without demur.

‘Very well then. You know about Etheldreda’s dislike of the carnal dealings between men and women.’ She shifted slightly on the stool so that she was looking directly at me. ‘But have you ever heard,’ she asked with great emphasis, ‘of the thirty-three Daughters of Albion?’