‘Come along, my good friar, let’s visit Sir Thomas Parr.’
They walked across the wasteland, leaving the trackway as a group of courtiers thundered by on their horses, laughing and joking, their gaily decorated clothes bright in the sunlight. They chattered among themselves, hardly sparing a second glance for the fat coroner or the little friar. They held hawks and peregrines on their wrists; the birds were hooded, their jesses clinking like fairy bells. Behind them padded dogs, lurchers and mastiffs under their whippers-in. Sir John narrowed his eyes and watched them go.
‘They are going down to the marshes,’ he said. I feel sorry for the poor herons. That’s what wrong with this city, Athelstan: the rich don’t give a fig while the poor, they sit in their hovels and watch narrow-eyed and think about the weapons they have hidden beneath their mud-packed floors.’
Athelstan looked in alarm. ‘Sir John, you sound fearful?’
‘You would as well, Brother, if you’ve read what I have.’
As if to match the coroner’s words, the sun slipped behind a cloud and a racing shadow sped across the fields.
‘You believe the great revolt is coming, don’t you?’ Athelstan asked.
‘I know it is, Brother, but Gaunt and his cronies won’t listen. You remember France.’ He led Athelstan back on to the trackway. ‘The English, Athelstan, do not put their trust in knights but in the yeomen, the farmers and the peasants with their long bows. Now we are driven out of France, except for Calais, all these soldiers have returned home to eat hard crusts and drink brackish water. The shadow men, those who spy for the Regent, claim that weapons and arms are being brought into the city. Worse still, the peasant leaders have allies here, men who should know better: these believe they can win the race by dividing their wager and placing equal amounts on each horse.’
‘Meaning?’
‘If the revolt fails they will support Gaunt. However, if the rebels seize the city, capture the Tower and march on Westminster, there are those who will come out of their hiding holes, ready to support the “Great Community”.’
Athelstan stopped walking. He watched the riders retreat into the distance. He always feared this. He was a priest in Southwark and tended to his parish. Along the narrow, filthy alleyways, he’d heard the rumours, the whispered talk beneath the gaiety and bustle of life; a sense of deep grievance and, time and again, that slogan, that chorus of the working man: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’
‘Come on, Brother. Let’s visit Sir Thomas Parr. While we walk I’ll tell you a story about the nun, the friar and the lecherous goat.’
They entered the city, taking the path through Martins Lane down to Cheapside. It was now early afternoon. Some of the stalls had closed so their owners could take refreshment in nearby taverns and cookshops. Sir John gazed hungrily at these but Athelstan urged him on.
‘Sir Thomas might offer us good wine,’ he coaxed. ‘We must have our wits about us, Sir John.’
On the corner of Westchepe a crowd had gathered. A man dressed in gaily coloured rags, his hair white as snow, eyes gleaming in his sunburned face, was declaiming to the crowd: ‘Woe to the rich! To those who feed upon soft meats! Fill their bellies with sweetened wines! The day of reckoning is about to come! Circles of fire will fall upon the city! The highways will swarm with the worms of the earth! In their thousands and their tens of thousands!’ He paused to draw breath.
Athelstan recognised this wandering preacher as one who supported the Great Community of the Realm. The ‘worms of the earth’ was a common term for the peasants, the oppressed serfs, the landless labourers.
‘They will be led by angels!’ the preacher continued. ‘And they will ring the bell of doom!’ He started to clang the handbell he carried.
The crowds of shopkeepers, apprentices, chapmen and tinkers, the pedlars, the beggars and cripples from the alleyways gathered round, heads nodding, eyes gleaming. A group of market beadles stood on the fringe, nervously plucking at the daggers in their belts, tapping their staffs of office against the ground.
‘And what have we to fear?’ the preacher continued. ‘Death? We live a living death!’
A growl of approval rose from the crowd.
‘Hey there, Pig’s Arse!’ Sir John grabbed a scruffy little man running through the crowd, a long thin dagger jutting out from the sleeve of his jerkin.
‘Ah, Sir John, good day.’ The beggar looked fearfully up at the coroner.
‘Now, Pig’s Arse,’ Sir John breathed quietly. I would not start cutting purses here. This merry lot will turn ugly in a while and they’d hang you out of hand!’
Pig’s Arse scuttled off. Sir John looked over the heads of the crowd. A group of soldiers were coming up Westchepe, wearing the livery of John of Gaunt and Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel.
‘Here they are!’ The preacher had also glimpsed them. ‘Come to silence the Voice of Truth!’
The crowd turned as a man. Daggers were drawn and, as if from nowhere, a group of men dressed in dark- brown leather jerkins appeared. They carried bows with quivers full of arrows slung over their backs.
‘Lord have mercy!’ Athelstan said. ‘Sir John, this will turn ugly.’
Sir John drew his sword and advanced, waving it as if he were Hector of Troy.
‘Hey there, my beauties! Lovely lads all! This is Cheapside, not Poitiers!’
‘Bugger off, Sir Jack!’ someone shouted.
Cranston’s hand went behind his back as he drew his dagger. The preacher had vanished like a wisp of smoke. Sir John advanced threateningly upon the archers.
‘We’ve no quarrel with you, Jack Cranston!’ one of them shouted, face hidden deep in a hood.
‘If you don’t piss off, you will have!’
The archers slung their bows and disappeared among the stalls. The rest of the crowd began hastily to disperse. Sir John resheathed his sword and dagger.
‘Come on, Athelstan, time we moved on.’
They continued up Cheapside just as the soldiers arrived. Athelstan glimpsed Pig’s Arse running like one of Ranulf’s ferrets towards the mouth of an alleyway, a small purse clutched in his hand.
‘You were very brave, Sir John!’
‘Like a hawk swooping for the kill,’ he replied. ‘Now, for real trouble!’
They turned into a lane leading up to Goldsmith’s Hall. The thoroughfare was broad and swept, the sewer had been cleaned and filled with fresh water from a conduit. The houses on either side were large and spacious with red-bricked bases and black and white timber upper tiers. The gables were ornate and gilt-edged, the doors squarely hung. Pots of flowers hung from the walls and the air was sweet with the fragrance from the gardens laid out in front of the houses. The sun glinted and shimmered in the mullioned window glass: some of these were even coloured and decorated with heraldic devices.
Sir Thomas Parr’s was the stateliest of these mansions. It stood in its own grounds, two small apple trees on either side of the path leading up to the smartly painted door. This was decorated with shining iron studs, its large brass knocker formed in the shape of a knight tilting in a tourney. On either side stood huge pots of herbs on a charcoal base, the fragrant smoke curling up in billows like incense in a church. Men-at-arms lounged along each side of the house: city bullies, hired by this great merchant, they were dressed in his livery, white surcoats displaying a mailed fist holding a sword. They kept well away from Sir John’s threatening look.
‘I don’t like these buggers!’ the coroner muttered. ‘Small, private armies. Look at them, Brother, they can’t keep their hands away from their swords and daggers. Too much red meat and too little work, always eager for a fight.’
Athelstan quickly inspected the men. They were city boys in their tight fitting hose and high-heeled boots. They were well armed; some even carried crossbows with small pots of bolts attached to their leather war belts.
Sir John lifted the knocker and brought it down with a crash.
‘I enjoyed that,’ he muttered.
He did it again. The door swung open.
‘What’s your business?’
‘What’s your name?’ Sir John barked.
‘Ralph Hersham, man-at-arms to Sir Thomas Parr.’
‘I’m Cranston the King’s coroner. Now, sod off, and let me in!’
