A Burnable Book: A Novel Part 5

'Very little,' I said, deciding to mention nothing about the book's theft, nor about Swynford's peculiar suggestion regarding its prophetic nature. I needed to learn more first, and I was not in the business of giving away information, even to an intimate friend. 'She doesn't have it, if that's what you want to know. She'll do some discreet asking around.'

'I see,' said Chaucer, looking at me dubiously.

'I've only started searching, Geoffrey,' I said, wanting to give him something. 'London is a big place. A book could be anywhere.'

He gave me a tense nod.

'Just one question.' I pulled him out of the human flow. His eyes darted to the hall door, then back to the lane as I leaned into him, my mouth inches from his ear. 'What do you think this book is, my friend? What do you know about it that you haven't told me?'

I felt his breath on my cheek. 'Less every day, it seems.'

'And you're aware you're not the only one looking for it?'

'I suspect not,' he said. 'But I need you to find it first, John.'

I backed away, found his eyes. 'You know me, know my skills. If it's there to be found I'll find it.'

His shoulders rose slightly, and he grasped my arm before turning for the feast. We parted at the arched doorway into the great hall, where hundreds of lawmen were already at table, ladling soup, picking flesh from lavish trays of sauced cod and porpoise. At the front of the s.p.a.ce stood the pageant wagon, covered in a cloth that obscured everything but the wheels. As I found a seat the men around a far table lifted their gla.s.ses in song. The crowd joined in, the din rising to the rafters and the darkened s.p.a.ces high above.

Twice two full quarts we lawyers need, To fill a legal jug.

With one, we're gay, with two, we teach, With three, we prophesy.

And four good quarts it takes to bind Legal senses, legal tongues, A lawyer's hands and mind.

Cups and flagons clashed on the last word, drink sloshed, the sobriety of Lent set aside for an evening. The clamour stirred a familiar longing. Though I had spent two formative years at the Temple, my father had not allowed me to remain in the profession. For an esquire's son the practical application of law was regarded in those days as a rather low trade. Had I been born ten years later I might well have been sitting that night with Pinchbeak and the serjeants instead of on that crowded bench, shrouded in ignorance.

The line of nervous apprentices formed for the tap. As the first hopeful presented himself, the presiding master leaned forward and plucked at his gown, the mark of unsuitability. The young man turned away, his eyes already moist at the prospect of another year before his next chance at admittance. Other unlucky souls followed him out over the next little while until the successful cla.s.s stood at the front of the hall to great applause. A few pompous speeches, then, with cake and ale served out, the main event began.

Up stood Stephen FitzWilliams, master of the utter barristers. Delighting in his role, he pushed himself on to the pageant wagon, his legs swinging freely between the wheels, his gown hanging loosely on a gaunt frame. He spread his hands above his head, gathering silence.

'Gentlemen of the law,' he intoned. 'I bid you fair evening, and good fare made of our moot!'

'Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!' the crowd replied.

'As your new-appointed liege, your sovereign, your emperor and king-'

Someone threw a fish spine.

'Leave that off!' He loudly cleared his throat. 'It has fallen to me to determine our evening's weighty matter, to be mooted before you.'

'Huzzah!'

'Last year on a similar occasion we mooted some obscure clauses of the Statute of Merton, did we not?'

'We did!'

'Our disputations involved the writ of redisseisin. In the Latin of our beloved Parliament, Et inde convicti fuerint et cetera et cetera. Which is glossed, in our Frenchy cant, Ceo serra entendu en le breve de redisseisin vous vous cadew hahoo haloo and thus and so. Shall we revisit this well-trodden ground, as dry as pestled bone?'

'Nay!'

'Perhaps we should dabble in the a.s.size of novel disseisin.'

'Nay!'

'In default of a tenant en le taile?'

'Nay!'

'In the wrongful appropriation by a tortious patron?'

'Nay!'

'In theft?'

'Nay!'

'In misprision?'

'Nay!'

'In the law of bankruptcy?'

'Nay!'

'Well then, you leave me no choice!' A master of delivery, FitzWilliams had brought me and everyone else in the great hall to the edges of our seats.

'Our subject for this year's moots shall be a matter of universal and urgent concern.' He leaned forward, an air of suspense in his thrown whisper. 'Methinks the matter of our March moot, my matriculating men, must be ...' The pause lengthened until finally FitzWilliams, his head bent back, his nose pointing to the ceiling far above, screamed, 'MUST BE MURDERRRRR!'

A collective whoop went up from young and old alike, followed by a round of sustained applause. As the claps and stomps faded and the men retook their seats, I glanced over at the upper benches, where the serjeants-at-law sat in high station. Thomas Pinchbeak, I saw, was leaning forward and speaking with some urgency to two of his colleagues. I could understand their consternation, as even the more festive moots generally treated the finer points of property and torts. A murder trial would not be unprecedented, but it would require the subst.i.tution of mere spectacle for legal rigor. I was somewhat surprised that the young men had opted for such a subject.

FitzWilliams hopped down and grasped a corner of the drapery. 'Servants of the law,' he shouted, his eyes wild, 'I give you the evening's bench!' In one flourish he pulled off the canvas. The applause was thunderous as the crowd took in the mock court on the wagon: the stern judges in a ponderous line, the pompous bailiff, a hunch-backed recorder, and finally the accused, bound standing to a rail by his legs and wrists, his teeth gnas.h.i.+ng, his face twisted in mock agony at the imagined hanging in his near future.

The most remarkable part of the spectacle was the scene laid out on a narrow platform jutting forward from the left front of the wagon. A scraggly hawthorn bush, potted in an oaken tub, suggested the outdoors, as did several inches of loose dirt spread around it. On the soil, face down, lay a young man, his torso bare, his waist and legs clad in a flesh-coloured costume, the b.u.t.tocks exaggerated with padding.

'Our victim, if you please!' FitzWilliams called out over the roars of approval. The actor rose to his knees, cutting a ghoulish figure. His chest had been shaved clean and painted with wide crescents traced to suggest b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Between the legs of the suit had been sewn a triangle of animal pelt. And from his head, adorned with a wig of long, dark hair, a dried shower of red paint descended in a glistening path, its source a crusted wound mocked up in gruesome detail.

I looked again at the cl.u.s.ter of serjeants. At least five of the powerful men were now visibly agitated, their gestures conveying strong displeasure at the subject of the performance. There was clearly some disagreement, though: I guessed that several of them wished to halt the murder moot, while others felt reluctant to take action, with all the objections this would raise. Yet why, I wondered, was this spectacle provoking their concern at all, given the usual tenor of plays at the Temple? Such pageants were notorious for their bawdy and even violent content, some of them ending in blows; this one appeared no different.

FitzWilliams had pressed a cl.u.s.ter of utter barristers into service as the jury. He held up his hands.

'Let us review the facts of the case,' he said. 'First: before us lies a young woman. A virgin, I'm told though I have not, personally, performed the requisite inspection.' He put a finger in the air, drawing earthy calls.

The victim sat up, pursed his rouged lips in a kiss, then, with a wan wave, collapsed. 'Her head crushed,' FitzWilliams continued, 'her fair body stripped of its dress, her raiment laid carelessly over a rock. So far a straightforward matter, no? A fair maiden wandering in a place where a woman should never venture alone. Attacked. Perhaps ravished. Surely killed.'

An exaggerated frown. 'But consider the complexities of the case before us. First, where did this act most foul occur? Not in London, but outside the walls indeed in the Moorfields, hard by Bethlem Priory, where the wood are wont to wander.'

A crowd along a side wall sent up a wolfish howl, and my skin went suddenly cold. Katherine Swynford, at La Neyte. It was a young woman ... Someone skulled her, out on the Moorfields.

My vision blurred as FitzWilliams continued. 'The location of the crime introducing, then, the matter of jurisdiction, which some will place under the abbot of Bethlem. Others will contend that the Moorfields as a whole lie within an outer ward of the city. In what court, then, and by whose authority shall this matter be adjudicated?'

A movement to my left. Pinchbeak had summoned two pursuivants.

'More central to our purposes this evening, though,' FitzWilliams continued, 'shall be the nature of the crime: how are we to determine whether we are facing a killing ex malicia praecogitata, or an accidental death? Was she killed with a club to the skull? Or' he held up a knife, then placed the blade against his chest 'with a steely thrust to her heart?' At this last word FitzWilliams plunged the knife into his chest and doubled over.

A few shouts of alarm from the more gullible and drunk, but mostly laughter as he withdrew the wooden blade. For me the moot had lost all its humour.

'Ah, but wait!' The murmurs died down. 'We must now reveal the ident.i.ty of the accused.' He dug a hand into a pocket. 'Why, what's this?' He pulled out a parchment, waved it before the room. 'The indictment, honourable gentlemen! Inscribed by His Honour himself, Justice Beelzebub Barnes of Brixton!' He stood at the top of the aisle between the rows of tables. 'In this doc.u.ment,' he shouted, 'is written the very name of the accused!'

'Huzzah! Huzzah!'

'As well as his profession, our next matter for rumination. And what is the profession of our accused, you may ask? A moment ...' He held the doc.u.ment up to the lamplight. 'Our alleged killer is a highwayman?'

'No!'

'A street vagrant, then?'

'Nay!'

'How about how about a friar?'

'The friar! The friar!'

FitzWilliams shook his head, s.h.i.+ning an exaggerated sadness around the great hall. 'Incorrect, gentlemen of the bar, the killer is not a friar!'

General laughter, and as it crested, then ebbed, I noticed a small stir from afar, rendered peculiar only by its timing. In the hall's north corner Chaucer rose from his seat, nodded an apology to his benchmates, and ducked through the low doorway leading to the b.u.t.tery. As the door closed to on his back FitzWilliams adopted a more serious look. 'Our alleged murderer is not a priest, nor a bishop, nor a cardinal. He is neither a cooper nor a cordwainer, neither a mercer nor a s.h.i.+pwright, neither a pinner nor a-'

'Let's just have it, then, Fitzy!' someone shouted from the back.

FitzWilliams looked up, affecting offence. More t.i.tters. I sat forward, confused by Chaucer's departure at the height of the apprentice's spectacle. With a flourish, FitzWilliams gazed across the crowd. 'Have it we shall. Our murderer is, rather, a p-'

'Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!'

Loud shouts, drowning out FitzWilliams's revelation with the force of a gale. The serjeants-at-law, twenty strong and with Thomas Pinchbeak hobbling in the lead, rushed the pageant wagon as a single dark-robed ma.s.s, their gowns spread above their heads like bat wings as they mobbed the players. Three of the younger serjeants climbed on the wheels and proceeded to demolish the set, kicking apart the flimsy rails, ripping the robes from the judges, releasing the accused from his bonds. Two others grappled the 'victim' off the side platform and stripped the costume from his flesh, leaving him only in his braies, then sent him into the crowd with a jar of wine over his head.

Utter pandemonium: screams of delight and alarm; cups, jars, and flagons flying overhead, to shatter against the walls; serjeants and apprentices alike screaming to the rafters, some enjoying the skirmish, others frightened nearly for their lives; the wagon overturned on the floor, its spoked wheels and siderails broken on impact; the melee thrown in long shadows by hooped candelabra casting pantomimes of disorder against every surface.

Even the wildest revels must end, however, and eventually, as the tumult subsided and the barristers and apprentices surveyed the results, there was a general quieting through the hall, an almost embarra.s.sed a.s.sessment of the state of things. I watched and listened to the reactions. Many held that the disruption had been coordinated between the utter barristers and the serjeants, perhaps as a staged commentary on the poor quality of the recent moots. Others avowed that the serjeants saw murder as inappropriate for mooting, and broke the spectacle up accordingly. There were still others who had observed what I had during the lead-up to the interruption: the anger of the serjeants-at-law, the whispered conferrals among England's most powerful lawmen, the decision taken to rush the players before their moot had even begun.

Yet there was something more that had disturbed me about the spectacle, something I would scarcely admit to myself as I lingered in the great hall. I sat at my bench for a long while, watching the overturned wagon as the s.p.a.ce emptied of barristers, of serjeants, of apprentices and guests, until only the servers were left. Around me they swept up broken bits of gla.s.s and clay, gathered the leavings of the students' extravagance into buckets that would now feed pigs, dogs, their children in the tenements. As the hall emptied my certainty deepened, and a tingling of unease began at the bottom of my spine, moved up my back, and settled into my heart as a coiled suspicion.

My memory replayed the course of the abbreviated moot: the introduction of the case, the gaudy spectacle of the victim, Chaucer's unexplained departure through the kitchen door and finally, the naming of the accused. In that moment before the serjeants shouted him down, I could swear with a near certainty that one final word had escaped FitzWilliams's mouth. Our murderer is, rather, a p- It seemed unlikely in the extreme that the man had suggested such a thing. Yet I had heard it from his lips, was sure of it: the one word that could most have affected me as I took in the lewd spectacle of a young woman's violent death. Our murderer is, rather, a p- One word: poet.

Wors.h.i.+pful Sir, and Our Most Intimate Friend, Your muse finds herself in peril. Upon your return from Rome you will fondle not her supple skin but this rough parchment. Here on the banks of the Arno it will await you, just as my flesh awaits reunion with your own.

Those pleasures must be delayed, for in the morning I leave our Tuscan Eden for the coast. From there I shall arrange pa.s.sage to that faraway island our histories call Albion, and you call home.

You are a lover of stories. Stories of love, l.u.s.t, and loss. Of wars, rivalry, and revenge. Of the commonplace and the unlikely. The story I must now tell you is woven of all these threads, and more besides.

You know its characters, some better than others, though you cannot know, as I do, the depths of their perfidy and the heights of their n.o.bility. Even to commit this tale to writing is to subject you, its reader, to the same peril that stalks me now. For Hawkwood's talons are sharp, his vision is keen, and his enemies tend to die young.

I can delay no longer. Time is short, and there is much to relate.

Here, my only heart, is the story.

Once, along the Castilian marches, beyond the Crown of Aragon, there lived a knight. Not a great knight; no one would have mistaken him for a Lancelot, a Gawain, a Roland, though where he fell short of these famed knights in ferocity, he matched every one of them in honour. To his lord he was a model of duty. To his own men he was the very mirror of chivalry: swift of sword, moderate in judgment. Toward his people he acted fairly and wisely in all things.

Our knight kept a castle. Not a great castle; no one would have mistaken it for the alcazar of Pedro the Cruel, nor for Avignon's papal palace, nor England's palace of Westminster. Yet its walls of broad stone and heavy mortar kept our marcher lord well defended from the occasional marauder.

Our knight had a wife. A beautiful wife indeed, so beautiful one might well have mistaken her for Helen, or Guinevere, or for the Laura of Petrarco. She was the daughter of a minor count of questionable lineage. A family of Moorish blood, not a few whispered, keeping the faith of Mahound while miming love of the Cross. Yet as the knight was trusted by his people, such whisperings were soon quieted, his small, dark wonder of a wife accepted into the circles of Castilian ladies gathered on occasion at court.

Soon a daughter arrived. She was, like her mother, dark and small. She captivated her parents. The knight, of course, wanted a son. The wife was still young, and though the years went by with no further issue, there was little doubt that G.o.d would someday reward them.

It came to pa.s.s, when the daughter was approaching her seventh year, that the knight was summoned by his lord to battle. Not a minor border skirmish, but a major campaign in a larger war that threatened to conscript every able-bodied man from the Pyrenees to the port of Cadiz. You will know of this war: of Pedro the Cruel and Enrique de Trastamara, of brothers divided against themselves. When Pedro called, our knight gathered the might of his men, leaving only a small garrison behind.

Word soon came of a b.l.o.o.d.y battle in Najera, a battle in which King Pedro won back the crown of Castile from his b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother. Though this victory was to be short-lived, the tidings brought considerable joy to the castle and town, despite the additional news that the lord's return would be delayed many months as King Pedro led his army to further battles against the lingering enemies of the crown. In her knight's long absence the lady saw to the needs of his property and people, with an added touch of feminine grace that delighted those around her.

On the Day of St Dominic, as the lady and her daughter strolled in the castle's herb garden, the scents of rosemary and lavender mingling in the hot calm of an August afternoon, a blotch on the northern hills caught the little girl's eye. She squinted against the sun.

Dust, yet not from a storm. The road from Burgos was dry, and any single horse would kick up a ma.s.s of saffron powder that might linger for hours.

The cloud she saw now filled the horizon. Forty horses, perhaps fifty. She tugged at her mother's dress. They gazed together at the approaching force, their hearts lifting against a darkening sky.

The Day of St Dominic. The day the strangers came.

EIGHT.

Rose Alley, Southwark The p.r.i.c.king Bishop. Edgar Rykener shook his head at the painted sign, amazed that the Bishop of Winchester allowed such pictures in his liberties. Lord Protector of Wh.o.r.es, they called him up on Gropec.u.n.t Lane, defending his right to run as many houses as he pleased across the river in Southwark while the hard-working maudlyns of London got constantly hara.s.sed by the law. Joan Rugg would go on about it for half a day. Unlike Gropec.u.n.t Lane, the stews of Southwark embraced their natural filth, the half-pipe gutters stopped up with brackish water of a murky green, the conduits to the river long forgotten by the bishop's underworked ditchers. Wobbly shacks had been built out into the streets to claim s.p.a.ce for shops, while the oblong fishponds at the western end walled off the great houses on the riverbanks beyond. No sweepers or rakers to maintain the streets, nor regular dung carts to haul away the most offensive waste.

On the Bishop's front steps sat a withered old maudlyn, barely there beneath her s.h.i.+ft and smock. St Cath was her name, Edgar recalled, still alive after half a century on her back. A dozen cats wandered in and out of the half-opened door, pressing against St Cath's side or darting past while she ignored them.

'Is Bess about?' Edgar asked her. The old woman said nothing. 'Bess Waller, be she about?'

St Cath s.h.i.+fted against the step. 'Bess Waller,' she said, as if speaking the name of a stranger. Her face, crossed by a thousand lines, registered no emotion.

Edgar tapped his foot.

St Cath spat. 'The matter of it?'

'Not your concern.'