The Clerkenwell Tales, Peter Ackroyd [sight word readers txt] 📗

complexion. A change in the aspect of the stars would change everything. His business continued to flourish, in any case, situated as it was between the priory and the city; St. John’s Street itself led directly to the gate of the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, and many visitors passed Strago’s door. All the travellers to Smithfield came this way, too, in search of hats and shoelaces, combs and linen thread.

The shop itself was on the ground floor facing the street and, without waiting for Janekin, he descended; he unlocked the wooden shutters and unfolded the counter. He opened the door, too, and breathed in the air of dawn. The rays of the sun touched the painted cloths and the children’s purses, the whistles and wooden boxes, the beads and parchment skins, solemn and still in the early morning. Then the bells began to ring, and the street itself seemed to know that it must awaken.

At the top of the stairs Janekin coughed and spat; he muttered some oath, unintelligible, to which Radulf replied, “God give you good day!”

The evening before Janekin had been engaged in a battle of words with the young citizens who supported Henry, duke of Lancaster, in his struggle with King Richard. Janekin was of the king’s party, and wore a pewter badge of the white hart in his tall hat of felt. John of Gaunt, father of Henry, had died seven weeks before. Now King Richard had revoked Henry’s inheritance, keeping the Lancastrian legacy for his own use, and had consigned Henry to perpetual banishment. Whereupon some Lancastrian supporters had rioted through the streets, overturning barrels and breaking down signs.

Janekin had been watching them at the corner of Ave Maria Lane, and had called out “Torphut! Torphut!” as a signal of his contempt. Two of them heard this and ran in chase of Janekin, who turned upon his heels and fled down the lane. There was a fish-stall at the corner of a small yard and he sent it flying across their path. As they slipped upon herring and eel, he laughed out loud, with an exhilarating sensation of panic and excitement, before taking shelter in the porch of St. Agnes the Cripple. An old woman there offered him a candle. He took it, and walked reverently into the nave of the church. He blessed himself, lit the candle and left it by the shrine of St. Agnes with the prayer that he might escape his pursuers.

St. Agnes must indeed have looked down upon London and touched Janekin with her blessing, since he made his way to St. John’s Street without any injury.

He had been Radulf’s apprentice for the last three years. Before entering the merchant’s service he had sworn in the Hall of the Haberdashers and Drapers that he would not copulate or commit any fornication, and that he would not play at dice or hazard; on these matters, however, he had not proved entirely faithful to his oath. He had also agreed that “ye shall be obedient unto the wardens and unto all the clothing of this fellowship,” a stipulation which he had also disobeyed; he favoured the short hair and short tunics of the fashionable youth, and his slender legs were shown to best advantage in scarlet hose. Radulf was not a harsh master, and dismissed these failings as the way of the world. His wife, Anne Strago, had also pleaded on the apprentice’s behalf. “Can a young man,” she asked her husband, “be happy in such sad and wise stuff? Can he wear a slashed doublet in West Chepe? The dogs would bark at him.”

Anne had been present at the ceremony in the guild’s hall. When her husband had been asked, according to custom, whether his apprentice was of good growth and stature, and whether he had any disfigurement of the body, she looked at Janekin with curiosity. He was not disfigured at all; he was slender and graceful, already taller than her husband. She had been married to Radulf for two years, in a union properly conceived for purposes of trade. Her father had been a haberdasher, also, with a substantial shop in Old Jewry; she was an only child and, on his death, she had inherited the business entire. It was now only lent to Radulf Strago for the duration of his life; when his soul changed house, she would be a wealthy widow indeed. In the meantime she was disgusted by her duties concerning the merchant’s cod – his coillons, his bollocks, his yard, his testicles, call it what she would in her disgust – and she prayed God for an ending. She devoutly wished her husband to die.

Janekin was Radulf’s only apprentice. The guild had asked him to employ at least one other, but the merchant insisted that he had been made feeble by life and had not the strength to raise two. Anne Strago supported this plea, adding only that two boys in one house would never accord. “There are three things full hard to be known which way they will go,” she had said. “The first is of a bird sitting on a bough. The second is of a vessel in the sea. The third is the way of a young man.” With remarks such as these she had already acquired a reputation for wisdom among her neighbours.

So Janekin lived in a household where there was little restraining hand. Contrary to oath he played at hazard with other apprentices in the ward, and engaged in a violent game known to them as “breaking doors with our heads.” He had also participated in the frequent struggles between the competing groups of tradesmen and merchants. The cobblers and cordwainers, for example, fought each other over the right to mend shoes; the grocers and fishmongers pitched against each other in running street fights. After one such fight Janekin returned with a broken head. Anne bathed it for him, and anointed the wound with an ointment made out