‘Come on!’ a burly tinker bawled from the back of the crowd before shaking his fist at a pickpocket coming too close to his wallet. ‘Come on! What news?’
The herald ignored the tinker. He lifted one gloved hand, drawing in his breath. He knew his trade: here, at St Paul’s, news of the kingdom was always proclaimed and people would wait for his message. He would proclaim it here, and again at the cross in Cheapside before taking a barge downriver to make the same announcement before the cross at Westminster. A hush descended over the crowd. Even the whores took off their scarlet wigs, stretching their necks to catch the cool breeze and allowing their shaven pates some relief from the constant itching of their flea-infested hairpieces.
‘Know you this!’ the herald began. ‘That Edward IV, by the grace of God, King of England, Ireland, Scotland and France. .’
‘Aye, and of every woman in this city!’ someone shouted from the back of the crowd.
‘Know ye!’ the herald continued relentlessly. ‘That the King and his two brothers, Richard, Duke of Gloucester and George, Duke of Clarence, having destroyed the traitor’s army on the field at Barnet, have now moved west to seek out and destroy the rebel Margaret of Anjou. Yes, she who calls herself Queen, together with her coven of foreign mercenaries, outlaws, wolf’s-heads and other traitorous subjects who have withdrawn their rightful allegiance from the said noble Edward. Know ye this! That any man, giving sustenance to the said rebels, or who refuses to give sustenance to the King’s rightful subjects, will himself be declared a rebel and suffer the full rigours of the law!’
The herald raised his hand again and the trumpets brayed. Then the royal messenger and the trumpeters mounted their horses and rode across the graveyard into Paternoster Row.
The crowd, however, did not disperse and the water-tipplers, their leather buckets slung round their shoulders, did a roaring trade as they moved amongst the crowd, slaking dusty throats and wetting dry, cracked lips.
‘I hope the bloody war ends soon!’ A journeyman pushed his way to the foot of the steps. He placed his sack of goods on the ground, his eyes fiercely sweeping the crowd. ‘It’s no good,’ he continued, ‘to walk the lanes and trackways of England when armies are on the march with soldiers who steal from any honest man. Not that Edward of England’s men would do that. .!’
The crowd nodded. The war between the Houses of Lancaster and York did not really affect them but they always listened avidly to the doings of Great Ones. Not far from here, in the Temple garden near Fleet Street, or so popular legend had it, the Dukes of York and Lancaster had each plucked a rose, white for York and red for Lancaster, as badges for their opposing armies. All because their king, Henry VI, was feckless. Oh yes, a living saint but too weak to rule effectively. The two great factions had fought the length and breadth of the kingdom. Now York was in the ascendant, led by the golden Edward and his two warrior brothers, Richard and George. Having smashed a Lancastrian army at Barnet, to the north of the city, they now intended to sweep west to bring to battle and kill weak Henry’s French wife, Margaret of Anjou, and her young son.
The journeyman continued his harangue, extolling the prowess of Edward of York. A black-garbed preacher, standing with his back to a buttress of the cathedral, smiled bleakly. He studied the journeyman’s clothes, his broad leather belt, well-fashioned boots, the dagger in its embroidered pouch.
You are no journeyman, he thought, but a Yorkist spy, travelling the length and breadth of the kingdom on your master’s work.
The Preacher’s smile faded. He, too, was on his master’s work. He pushed his scrawny, black hair away up above his ears. He wetted his lips, calling across to a water-tippler to bring him a stoup. The man did so: the water tasted brackish, but at least the tippler refused the Preacher’s penny.
‘No, no, brother!’ he declared. ‘I can see you are a holy man.’
The Preacher did not contradict him. After all, he was a messenger from God, a man whose skin had been scorched by the sun and wind of Outremer.
A lay brother in the Order of the Hospitallers, the Preacher had travelled the roads of Europe seeking out that great opponent, the Demon, described to him in hushed tones by Sir Raymond Grandison, his commander in the Order of the Hospitallers. The Preacher had become accustomed to his task. He had delivered the same sermon on the banks of the Rhine, in the piazzas of the great Italian cities, even under the towering gibbet of Montfaucon in Paris. Now he would give it here. The Preacher’s eyes wandered to a buxom young courtesan. She was dressed simply in a costly blue samite dress tied at the throat by a pure white cord. She moved her hips provocatively and, sensing she was being studied, glanced over her shoulder and smiled enticingly at the Preacher. The self-styled man of God swallowed hard and looked away. The temptations of the flesh, he thought, were ever present. But, oh, the woman was beautiful: soft, golden skin, mocking eyes, lips meant to be kissed and hair like fire. She made to move towards him but the Preacher, seeing the journeyman, the Yorkist spy, had finished his declamation, moved quickly to take his place on the steps.
‘Listen to me!’ he shouted, arms flung wide. ‘Listen to me, people of God, because I am His messenger!’
The crowd, on the point of breaking up, now clustered together again, congratulating themselves on a good morning’s entertainment, a welcome break from the humdrum of trading. The Preacher did look interesting. Dressed in black sackcloth, bound round his waist by a dirty cord, wooden sandals on his feet, he had a face which attracted attention: wild, staring eyes in a dark, seamed face, like one of the prophets from the Old Testament which they had seen painted on the walls of their parish church.
The Preacher dramatically lowered his hands.
‘The Rose of the World,’ he began in a hoarse whisper, ‘is cankered and rotten to its core!’
The people strained to listen. The Preacher caught their collective sigh as if savouring what was coming.
‘The Devil walks!’ His voice rose like a rumble of thunder. ‘I have seen his stallion, black and swift as a storm cloud. Satan has come to ransack the treasures of the earth!’ He spread his arms out. ‘I have seen at night the horned goats of Hell and, on their backs, flesh-shrivelled hags. I have, in the howling of the wind, heard the squawking of crows and the hiss of serpents!’
The crowd nodded. Nothing was more interesting than the workings of the Devil and his legions of demons who ran through their world turning milk sour, causing fire in hay ricks, plague in the streets or pollution in the water.
‘I have seen one too!’ an old man shouted out. ‘A grotesque shape with goggling eyes which burnt like fire!’
‘You’ve been drinking again!’ someone shouted.
‘No, the good citizen is right!’ the Preacher shouted back, hands clawing the air. ‘Look around you! Kings go to war! Battles rage but these are only the precursors of things to come!’ He stared in satisfaction as his audience, gape-mouthed, stared back. ‘Oh yes,’ he continued in a loud whisper, ‘a great demon has been loosed upon the earth. Terrible will his work be. So be on your guard!’
‘How do we know?’ a man asked.
‘This devil drinks human blood!’ the Preacher replied, and paused, one finger pointing to the sky. ‘For sustenance and strength he must drink our blood, a travesty of the Mass.’
The Preacher felt his stomach clench in disappointment. He glimpsed the disbelief in their eyes and knew that, at least in London, the great Demon, the Rosifer whom Sir Raymond had described, was not known. Only twice on his travels around Europe had the Preacher’s claims ever been vindicated by a witness who could describe, in graphic and horrifying detail, some corpse found in a ditch or alleyway, its throat slashed from ear to ear, drained of blood like an ox slung above a butcher’s stall. It was ever the same. The Demon seemed to stay well away from great cities. The Preacher added a few more phrases, telling the people to be on their guard. He sketched a blessing in the air and wandered back down the steps.
‘Is that really true?’
He turned. The red-haired, pretty-mouthed courtesan was standing, arms folded, staring coolly at him.
‘It’s true, my child.’
He would have walked away but she caught him by the hand.
‘Come,’ she invited soothingly. ‘A drink of ale to clear the throat and sweeten the mouth?’
The Preacher smiled and squeezed her fingers.
