The Midsummer Crown

TWO

There are people who maintain that the thirty-three Daughters of Albion were the children of that scourge of the Christian Church, the Emperor Diocletian. But that’s arrant nonsense, of course. The story is obviously set in the dawn of history, long, long before the rise of the Roman Empire. And surely even legends must have their logic. So I favour the version that the sisters were the offspring of some ancient Grecian king who, when his daughters rose as one woman and slaughtered their husbands, was so appalled by the deed that he was unable to tolerate their presence at his court. But neither could he bring himself to kill his own flesh and blood. Instead, he provisioned a ship with six months’ supply of food and water and set the women afloat upon the open sea, at the mercy of wind and tide.

When half a year had passed and the provisions were about to run out, the ship fetched up on the shores of an island rising out of the mists on the edge of the world; an island without a name. Albia, the eldest of the thirty-three sisters therefore decreed that it should be called after her: Albion. The island was peopled only by demons, horned and tailed, with whom the sisters mated to produce a race of giants, and these giants ruled Albion for the next seven hundred years. (The great gorge, just outside Bristol, is said to have been hewn from the rock by two of the giants, two brothers, Vincent and Goram, and you can still see the latter’s chair carved into the rock face, rising sheer from the bed of the River Avon to the heights above.)

But then came Brutus — son of Silvius, grandson of Ascanius, great-grandson of Aeneas — and his band of Trojans, landing, so it is said, at Totnes in south Devon. He renamed the island Britain and finally, after many hard-fought battles, overcame the giants, carrying their leaders, Gog and Magog, in chains to the Trojans’ new settlement on the banks of the River Thames. There the pair were forced to serve as doorkeepers until they were too old to be of any further use, when they were turned, by magic, into two painted effigies of themselves, and where they can still be seen, one on either side of the Guildhall entrance. Mind you, older folk will tell you that, in reality, these effigies formed a part of the street decorations when King Henry V entered his capital in triumph after the battle of Agincourt. (Of course, older people always like to air their superior knowledge in order to disillusion the young. They gain great enjoyment from it. I know because I do the same myself nowadays.)

So how, you may ask, did I become acquainted with these myths and legends? Well, the history of Brutus and his Trojans is told in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Britonum which Brother Hilarion, our Novice Master at Glastonbury, permitted his charges to borrow now and then from the abbey library. But this interesting room also contained other delights in the shape of a locked cupboard whose contents we novices were forbidden even to touch, let alone to read. So, naturally, we were desperate to get our hands on them. Now, I think I have mentioned on more than one occasion in these chronicles my friend and fellow novice, Nicholas Fletcher, whose talent for lock-picking was unrivaled by anyone else whom I have ever met. I don’t believe the lock was invented that he was unable to open. It was therefore inevitable that, sooner or later, he would break into the forbidden cupboard and allow the rest of us a glimpse of the banned folios — which is how I first learned of the legend of the Daughters of Albion. This particular tale was lavishly illustrated with graphic depictions of the thirty-three sisters mating with the demons; drawings which made our hair stand on end. (And not just our hair, I can tell you. I believe it was that book, as much as anything else, which made me realize that the celibate life was not for me.) Of course, in the end, Brother Hilarion discovered what we were up to and we were all thoroughly whipped and set penances that seemed to last for an eternity. But it was worth it, for me at least.

These legends came crowding back into my mind one showery morning seated on the lower slopes of Silbury Hill, that strange and eerie mound built thousands of years ago by the Celtic tribes who originally inhabited this island, although for what purpose no one has ever discovered. I have even heard it suggested that it was raised by a race of beings who came from a land beyond the stars. But that is blasphemy. Beyond the stars is Heaven, God’s paradise, which we all hope to attain some day.

Ten days had passed since I left London; ten days of steady walking, still keeping to the side roads and woodland tracks, following the path I had mapped out for myself in my head. It brought me, eventually, to Silbury Hill and, later that same day, to Avebury village where I managed to obtain a supper of freshly-baked bread, goat’s-milk cheese and some of those little leeks which grow so profusely in spring and are eaten raw. ‘Stink-breaths’ we called them as children, not without good reason. After my meal, and in order to disperse some of the flatulence it was causing, I walked around the remains of the ancient stone circles which echoed the great Giant’s Dance to the south, on Salisbury Plain. The stones at Avebury have worn less well and are mere stumps in many places, but they are spread over a far greater area than those at Stonehenge. As far as I could tell after walking around for an hour or so — and it was not easy to discern anything with certainty — I thought I could make out two smaller henges within a larger one, and reflected how the circle, without beginning and without end, had always been a source of fascination; the serpent biting its tail, the ring that signifies fidelity.

A butterfly hovered and settled near me on one of the stones, the pale transparency of its wings opalescent in the watery sunlight. Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, it was gone in a shimmer of coruscating amber and pearl. Indeed, so brief had been the time between its appearance and disappearance that, for a moment, I wondered if I had really seen it or if it was simply a figment of my imagination or the incarnation of a visitor from another world. .

I gave myself a mental shake and also, literally, shook my head in order to clear my mind of such dangerous fancies. But there was something about this tract of country that gave one fantastical thoughts; visions almost. As I have said, the Giant’s Dance lay some miles to the south of Avebury, while roughly an equal number of miles to the north, as I knew from my travels among the lower slopes of the Cotswold hills, was Wayland’s smithy and the strange white horse, carved into a hillside near Uffington. The latter is thousands of years old and nothing but a series of sweeping curves cut into the chalk beneath the downs, not at all as our artists today would portray the beast and yet, from a distance, instantly recognizable as a horse. Locals secretly worship it as the depiction of an ancient goddess and for century after century, in defiance of the Church’s ruling, have kept the outline clear of encroaching grass. As for Wayland the Smith, he belongs to Norse mythology and perhaps came to these shores with the Viking invaders; a magical being who would shoe travellers’ horses in return for a silver coin. I once knew a man who had tried it, leaving his offering at the mouth of the long barrow where the smith is said to have his forge, but nothing, he informed me sadly, had happened. When he awoke in the morning, his horse still had the same old shoes. He really wasn’t surprised, but disappointed nonetheless.

And as I stood there among the Avebury circles, I could feel the strangeness of the place seeping into my bones, could feel the prickling of the hairs along my arms and was aware of an inability to control my thoughts. Visions of Druids and blood sacrifice filled my mind and I found that I was sweating profusely in spite of the evening chill. For a moment or two I felt unable to move, as if some unseen force had me in its thrall; as though if I fell sideways I might find myself in some fairy world peopled by elves and demons. .

I fought back, struggling to recite the words of St Patrick’s Breastplate. ‘I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, the power of Heaven, the light of the sun, the whiteness of snow, the force of fire, the power of the Resurrection with the Ascension, the power of the coming to the sentence of judgement. I have set around me all these powers against the incantations of false prophets, against all knowledge which blinds the soul of man.’ And suddenly I was free of the miasma of weird fears which had beset me, whole and sane once more.

But I decided not to linger amongst the stones but to return to the village to see if I could beg a bed for the night.

I arrived home some eleven days later, three weeks by my reckoning since leaving London. I had deliberately taken my time, even, on one occasion, refusing a lift from a carter who was heading towards Bath with a load of peat, preferring my own company to the trial of making small talk. Besides, the man had only come from Chippenham and would have had no knowledge of what might be going on in the wider world, beyond the boundary between Wiltshire and Somerset. So I made up my mind to let Adela think that her cousins’ business had taken longer to solve than was actually the case, and that I had subsequently made all speed back to Bristol.

Fortunately, she was so pleased to see me, and so anxious to be told the outcome of my investigation into the Godsloves’ affairs, that her enquiries concerning my journey were perfunctory and easily satisfied. The children, as usual, wanted only to know what I had brought them and were perfectly happy with the sweetmeats and stuffed figs I had managed to buy in Bath market; although Elizabeth did give me a hug and Adam punched me in the belly, which recently had become his chosen method of greeting. All the same, I sensed that everyone was happy to have me at home once more, and reconciled myself to a prolonged period of domesticity, peddling my wares amongst the town’s citizens and the surrounding countryside. And, of course, drinking with my friends in the Green Lattis.

‘You’re back, then,’ Jack Nym observed when I sought him out to thank him for his care of Adela and the children during their journey from London to Bristol.

‘No, I’m still on my way,’ I replied with a grin. ‘This is my ghost you’re talking to.’

‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ he grumbled, but waved aside all my attempts to express my gratitude. ‘It were business,’ he disclaimed. ‘You paid me and they weren’t ’ny trouble. Leastways, not the humans, but that dog o’ yours, he’s another matter. He’ll chase anything what moves. There weren’t a sheep between here and Lunnon what were safe from him. On and off the cart he was until I came very near to strangling him with me bare hands.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘He usually does what he’s told.’

‘By you, yes. But you weren’t there, were you?’ He sniffed. ‘So, how did things go in Lunnon then, after we left? Solved the problem, did you?’

‘Yes.’ I answered briefly, but I wasn’t really interested in going over events yet again. I had spent my entire first two evenings at home satisfying Adela’s curiosity and was tired of the subject. Besides, I had questions of my own that wanted answering. ‘Is there anyone here,’ I went on, glancing around the usual throng that packed the ale-room, ‘who has recently returned from London? Within the last two or three days?’

‘What are you up to now?’ Jack asked with a leery look, but being the obliging chap that he was, peered around at our fellow drinkers until suddenly he nodded and pointed a bony finger at a man sitting alone in a corner. ‘Over there. Joshua Bullman. A carter like meself, but transports animals mainly. I know he was taking some sheep up near Lunnon. . oh. . week afore last, maybe.’ He raised his voice above the general hubbub and called, ‘Josh! Josh Bullman!’ And when, finally, the man looked our way indicated that the carter should join us.

I ordered fresh cups of ale all round as Master Bullman wedged himself alongside me on the bench.

‘You’ve not long returned from London Jack tells me.’

‘Yesterday as it happens.’ He finished the ale that remained in his beaker as the pot-boy scurried off to execute my order. ‘Left there a week ago. Why d’you want to know?’

‘I was there three weeks back myself. I wondered what’s been happening in the meantime.’

Joshua Bullman shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘Nothing much. They’re beginning to put up the street decorations for the young king’s coronation. He — the king that is — is in the royal apartments in the Tower, but the queen — well her that was queen — and the rest of the children, they’re still in sanctuary at Westminster and refusing to come out.’ He shrugged again. ‘That’s about all there is to tell.’

‘And the Duke of Gloucester?’ I queried.

‘Governing the country, I suppose.’ The man laughed. ‘How should I know? I’m only a poor carter.’ He added with heavy humour, ‘No doubt His Grace would like to consult me, but I’m a busy man. He’ll just have to manage without my advice as best he can.’

I forced a smile, but Jack, a more appreciative audience, roared with laughter and continued chuckling to himself long after the time warranted by such a feeble joke. I kicked him hard on the ankle, but it didn’t stop him.

I turned back to my informant. ‘There hasn’t been any. . any trouble then in the capital?’

Our ale arrived, plonked down in front of us by the harassed pot-boy with more haste than ceremony. He held out a grubby hand for the money before hurrying away in response to a shout from the landlord.

‘What do you mean by trouble?’ Joshua Bullman asked, his small, round eyes peering at me enquiringly over the rim of his beaker.

‘Roger knows something,’ Jack said with conviction. ‘I never met such a man for gettin’ tangled up in things he shouldn’t. Go on, then, lad! Tell us what trouble you’re expecting.’

‘I’m not expecting anything,’ I retorted irritably. ‘But the Queen Dowager’s family aren’t any friends of the duke, and there was that plot by the Woodvilles to either arrest or quietly despatch him at Northampton. And if it hadn’t been for the Duke of Buckingham it might well have succeeded. And also Sir Edward Woodville has put to sea with half the royal treasure.’

Joshua Bullman nodded. ‘Oh ay! I heard men’d been sent to waylay him before he reached Calais. But that’s all. What the outcome was, or is, I’ve no more notion than you.’

‘And Lord Chamberlain Hastings?’ I persisted. ‘He hasn’t been stirring things up?’

‘Not that I heard. Why should he?’

I hesitated, picking my words carefully. ‘Oh. . I just thought. . I thought he might resent Buckingham’s growing influence with my lord Gloucester. After all, right-hand man to the Protector is the position he’d probably decided upon for himself. Indeed, the position he had every reason to expect would be his. To be usurped in such a fashion could make him discontented, to say the least.’

Again came the shrug. ‘I know nothing of that. There were no rumours in any of the alehouses and taverns that I heard tell. London seemed peaceful enough when I left it. Everything going forward for the king’s coronation as it should. The place’ll be heaving by now, I shouldn’t wonder, with folk arriving for the ceremony and the Parliament that’s been called. There won’t be a decent bed to be had for love nor money. My advice is, if you’re thinking of going there, wait until after the crowning and thing’s have settled down a bit.’

‘Oh, I’m not thinking of returning to London,’ I said forcefully. ‘That’s the last thing on my mind. It’s my intention not to stir much beyond the Bristol pale for the next few months.’

Jack was shaken with silent laughter. ‘I’ve heard you say stuff like that before, Roger, my lad, and it never works out that way. You tempt providence, you do! I reckon you’ll be back in London inside a month. What’ll you wager me?’

‘Nothing,’ I said angrily. ‘Stop talking nonsense! I’ve told you! Adela and the children need me. I’m staying near home for the rest of the summer.’

He grinned. ‘Oh, ah! And I might find a pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow.’ He got up. ‘I must be off. You coming?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll stay a bit longer.’

‘Please yourself. Josh?’

‘Ay’ The other man rose ponderously to his feet and they went out together.

‘Don’t get drunk,’ was Jack’s parting shot. ‘I reckon you’ve had enough.’

I stuck two fingers in the air, but the gesture was wasted. He was already out of the door. As it happened, I had no intention of spending my money on more ale: I simply wanted to be alone, to think.

I could have sworn, when I left London three weeks earlier, that trouble was brewing. The general mood of the city was edgy and had been, or so I guessed, ever since the heralds had cried the news of King Edward IV’s death on April the ninth. Certainly, by the time I rode in through the Lud Gate on St George’s Day, there was a febrile atmosphere that was hard to explain. Even the arrival of the Duke of Gloucester with the young king three days after May Day had done nothing to dispel the general sense of uneasiness. Duke Richard’s perhaps over-excessive gratitude to his cousin, Henry of Buckingham, for riding to warn him of the Northampton plot, had put many noses out of joint; and, as I said before, I knew for a fact that Lord Chamberlain Hastings had begun plotting almost at once with his old enemies, the Woodvilles, and some of their adherents to overthrow the Protector.

Nothing, however seemed to have come of it. If Joshua Bullman were telling the truth — and there was no reason whatsoever why he should not be — all was quiet in the capital and plans going ahead for the young king’s coronation and the calling of his first parliament. And yet. . I repeat that no one knew better than I that Duke Richard strongly suspected, even if he were not entirely convinced, that the late king had been his mother’s bastard by an archer, named Blaybourne. Had he not sent me to Paris the previous year in an attempt to discover the truth of the matter? Unfortunately, the evidence I had uncovered had been sufficient merely to bolster the duke’s suspicions without amounting to proof. And as long as the Dowager Duchess of York refused to confirm or deny the allegation she had once made, on the occasion of the late king’s marriage to Dame Elizabeth Woodville, then my lord of Gloucester had no alternative but to accept his elder nephew as his rightful sovereign.

I swallowed the dregs of my ale and rose to my feet. But even as I did so, a memory obtruded itself; a memory of the night I had spent at Reading Abbey on my recent journey to London and the sudden flurried arrival, which I had accidentally witnessed, of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. My lord had appeared unnecessarily agitated, as he had also done when I saw him just over a week later on his way to the service of thanksgiving, for the king’s safe entry into his capital, at St Paul’s. A third sighting of him leaving Crosby’s Place in Bishop’s Gate Street, where the Duke of Gloucester had been temporarily lodging, convinced me that my lord bishop had something on his mind. And this, in turn, had provoked the recollection that Robert Stillington had not only been a close friend of George of Clarence, but had briefly been imprisoned around the time of the duke’s execution.

I sat down again, much to the annoyance of a man who had been waiting to take my seat, and stared sightlessly ahead of me, twisting my empty beaker between my hands. Here was certainly food for thought. But then, suddenly, resolutely, I once more stood up and made my way outside, breathing in the balmy evening air. What concern was any of this of mine? I asked myself. The capital and its affairs, its intrigues and secrets, were none of my business. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me back there. I was home and that was where I was going to stay.

I had been hawking my wares around the manor of Clifton with some success — enough, at any rate, to make me feel at peace with myself and life in general — and was seated on the edge of the gorge, eating the dinner of bread and cheese with which Adela had provided me. Far below me it was low tide, and the sluggish Avon was a narrow thread between its glistening banks of mud, while on the opposite side of the river, as on my own, the towering cliffs were cloaked in the green of trees and shrubs that clung perilously to the rock face. As I watched, a faint breeze tossed the sun-bronzed leaves into patterns of silver and jade and slate-blue, and the distant hills were awash with light, waves of beaten copper rolling towards some celestial shore. The June day was playing at being high summer to make up for the previous evening’s wind and rain.

I thought once more of the giants, Vincent and Goram, whom legend credited with cutting the gorge using only one axe between them. The latter, the lazy, gluttonous brother, had suggested that they raise great mounds of rocks mingled with bones of the huge creatures which stalked the earth at that time. Vincent could supply the rocks, he the bones, and incidentally provide meat for their table. The axe, which Goram also used for hunting, would be tossed from one to the other as needed, preceded by a shout of warning, a system that worked well enough until one day the inevitable happened. Goram, asleep in his chair, failed to hear his brother, who was digging three miles off, call out. The axe split his skull in two and he died instantly, leaving Vincent, grief-stricken with self-blame, to devote the rest of his life to good works, amongst which were the building of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, the raising of the ancient stone circle at Stanton Drew and even the single-handed building of the Giant’s Dance on Salisbury Plain.

Hercules, my dog, who had accompanied me on my excursion, as he so often did, nudged me with his cold, wet nose, indicating his willingness to finish my bread and cheese for me if I really didn’t want it. As he had already demolished a large chunk of meat which Adela had thoughtfully packed for him, I ignored the suggestion and, instead, got to my feet preparatory to starting on the homeward journey.

‘You’re quite right,’ I said, addressing him. ‘All this brooding on old legends and fairy stories is doing no good whatsoever. I don’t know what’s got into me lately.’

Hercules wagged his tail in a disappointed sort of way as I crammed the last of the bread into my mouth, but was soon happy again now that we were on the move, snuffling for rabbits among the long grass. (He had never caught one and never would, but he lived in hope.) I strode out across the downs, that high plateau of grassland that shelters Bristol from the northerly winds, keeping it snug in its marshy bed from the worst of the winter weather. In the past ten years, however, since I had been a resident, the city had begun to spread its tentacles ever further beyond the walls, spawning dozens of little communities on the slopes rising towards Clifton and Westbury, so that it was no longer remarkable to encounter children escaping from harassed mothers or to meet with washing drying on wayside bushes, or even blowing about one’s ankles on windy days.

As we descended the first of the three main slopes leading homeward, a young lad, some ten or eleven years old, toppled out of the lower branches of a birch tree, landing almost at my feet with a painful thud. Luckily, his fall was broken by a pile of small, leafy branches which he had hacked off previously and which provided a sort of mattress at the base of the trunk.

He picked himself up, cursing, but before I could commiserate with him, a voice from overhead enquired, ‘Are you all right, Harry?’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ Harry said irritably. ‘Don’ ask stupid questions.’

Another boy of roughly the same age as the first, swung from a lower bough and dropped to the grass. Together, the pair began to gather up the birch branches which I now noticed were far too young and green to serve as firewood.

‘They won’t burn,’ I remarked. ‘Your mothers won’t be pleased.’

The second lad regarded me scornfully. ‘They bain’t fer burning, master.’ His tone was derisive.

‘Naa,’ added the boy called Harry. ‘They’m fer makin’ midsummer crowns. We’m goin’ t’ sell ’em in Bristol market.’

Of course! I had forgotten the old pagan custom of making wreaths of tender young birch twigs and crowning some local child king or queen of Midsummer Eve. It was a country practice and not much adhered to in cities and towns where the watchful eye of the Church was constantly upon one.

‘Better not let too many people catch you at it, then,’ I advised. ‘You know how many churches and parish priests there are in Bristol.’

‘We’m not fools, you know,’ the second boy snorted, his contempt for me increasing. He waved a branch in my face. ‘Pretty leaves t’ decorate your home, sir? Take some home t’ your goody. Look lovely in a pot, they will.’

I laughed. ‘The priests aren’t fools, either,’ I warned, ‘so be careful. You don’t want to find yourselves in the stocks.’

‘My da’s a carrier,’ Harry said, ‘and he says in Lunnon they don’t care. The priests turn a blind eye. Do you want a sprig? It don’t have t’ be a crown.’

I thanked him but refused. Hercules was growing restless, anxious now to be home, an anxiety that communicated itself to me. I said goodbye to the two lads, striding out and soon leaving them trailing in our wake until, glancing over my shoulder, I could see them no longer.

Half an hour later, I was at the Frome Gate and, having exchanged a few words with the gatekeeper, was about to pass under the arch when I saw Elizabeth waiting for me, on the opposite side. My heart lurched. Something was wrong.

‘What is it?’ I asked, gripping her shoulder and hushing the dog who was barking ecstatically in welcome.

Elizabeth lifted her face to mine.

‘That man’s here again,’ she announced accusingly.