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

this world while you may. Matters of religion were to be used to quell the people and to promote good order. This was a belief that the prelates among them also accepted.

Sir Geoffrey de Calis called them to order once again. “There will be more fires,” he said, “and more destruction. Henry will return to England and summon a great host. If Henry is to defeat Richard, he must be looked upon as the saviour of the Church. The first law of reverence is need. There then follows fear. In the meantime we must be still as any stone. No one must know of our devisings. Not what we do but what we do not do.”

As they left the chamber, some of them stooped to kiss Sir Geoffrey’s ring; it was on the third finger of his left hand, which communicated directly by the nerve to his beating heart.

When they had all departed into the night he mounted the stairs of the tower into the muniment room on its second floor. There was a cubiculum here in which someone was kneeling, whispering the holy words of the Hidden Gospel. Sister Clarice was saying, “Vertas. Gadatryme. Trumpass. Dadyltrymsart.” Then she turned to Sir Geoffrey. “All will be well, good knight. And all manner of things shall be well.”

Chapter Nine

The Reeve’s Tale

The prioress, Agnes de Mordaunt, stood by the principal gate of the convent and sighed. She turned to her reeve, Oswald Koo, with an expression of fury only partially softened by the dimple upon her chin. “On no account give them leave to use our barns. Look at them! Nasty, vile tregetours! They have already pissed on the straw we were about to lay in the church.” She was staring at the workmen who were even then building Noah’s ark upon the green. It was the second day of the mysteries held each year in Clerkenwell, during the week of Corpus Christi, under the guidance and supervision of the guild of parish clerks. A raised platform had been erected near the ark itself, and the painted cloth hung upon it represented the front of Noah’s house. It was depicted as if it were a merchant’s house along Cheapside except for a see-saw, or merry-totter, which had been placed in front of the cloth.

There was much activity behind the stage, as the cast prepared themselves for their roles. Noah and Noah’s wife had performed as Adam and Eve on the previous morning, and had exchanged their white leather costumes for the more familiar gear of smocks and gowns. “Let go, Dick. Let go!” Noah’s wife was played by the clerk of St. Michael in Aldgate; he was laughing as a pair of false breasts was tied to his chest by the keeper of the costumes. “This is so tight I cannot breathe.”

“For a little woman, you cause a great commotion. Put on your hair with your own hands.” The wig of Noah’s wife resembled a great yellow mop, but the clerk of St. Michael raised it reverently above his head.

In the cart of costumes there were several masks, with stars and spangles glued to them, ribbons, hats, jackets and paper streamers as well as various false beards and wooden swords. The parish clerk of St. Olave, who was playing Noah, was leaning against it; he was drinking pudding ale out of a leather bottle.

“If you rut-gut in my face,” Noah’s wife warned him, “you will feel my fist.”

“It is a necessary, good wife. When my stomach is empty, I have no strength.”

The faces of Ham and Japhet were being painted with grease and saffron, while God practised upon his stilts on the bank leading down to the Fleet. Already a crowd had gathered beside the green. Some of them were exchanging jokes with the carpenters who climbed across the ark and were even now raising its mast.

Something indelicate was shouted by one of the players, and the prioress put her hands to her ears. “Oh this sinful life. Aufer a nobis iniquitates nostras.” The reeve blessed himself, and asked if he might return to the cart-house. “Yes. Leave this valley of vanity.” Yet Dame Agnes lingered, and watched as the audience assembled; the wooden stalls were filled with distinguished visitors – among them the knight, Geoffrey de Calis, and an under-sheriff – while the crowd settled down upon the green. And then at nine o’clock, on this last morning of May, she might have been heard whispering to herself, “Whatever is this approaching?”

A man in a tight red costume, and wearing a pointed red cap, had drawn up beside the well; his horse was caparisoned in red, and its saddle sewn with bells. “Oye! Oy!” he cried out, waiting until the noise of the audience had subsided. He was the clerk of St. Benet Fink, better known to Londoners as the pageant master who for many years had organised the Clerkenwell plays. He was known to be a merry man; he was too merry, perhaps, since his evident and inexhaustible happiness left others feeling inadequate and uneasy. “Oye! Oy!” All were still.

“Sovereign citizens, hither am I sent

A message for to say.

I pray you all that be present

That you will hear with good intent

The message of our play.”

It was a bright morning and the sun gleamed upon the gilded mask of God, who now walked on his stilts before the crowd; he was dressed in a white robe, embroidered with golden suns, and his arms were raised in greeting. He looked straight ahead, above the eyes of the crowd, to the rows of wooden benches where the dignitaries of the city were seated.

“It is my will it should be so.

It is, it was, it shall be thus,

I am and have been ever.”

The clerk of Mary Abchurch, who played this part, was known for his harsh and unyielding temper. He had once accused a child of sacrilege, for playing football in the nave,