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

favourite expression, together with “Never tell your foe that your foot aches, quod Hendyng” and “Hendyng says, better to give an apple than to eat an apple.” Magga had been trailing her hand in the water. “Do you know how to catch a fish in your fingers?” the shipman asked her. She took out her hand quickly, as if she had been caught in some act of trespass. “You take saffron and frankincense, and mix them together. Then put the powder on your finger which has the gold ring.”

“This one?”

“Yus. Wash your finger beside both banks of the river. Then the fishes will come into your hand.”

“Is that so, Gilbert?”

“Who learns when young never forgets.”

“Quoth Hendyng.”

The shipman began to sing, as the barge passed under a wooden bridge that seemed to be of ancient construction:

“I am an hare, I am no hart,

Once I flee I let a fart.

You can see by my hood

My heart is naught, my head is wood.”

He stopped singing, and began humming the tune. They passed another windmill, on the western bank; a small pond had been created there, and the bright beaks of the ducks were darting in and out of the water. Drago, the canon’s yeoman, was lying there asleep. Gilbert began to tell Magga of the men without heads, whose eyes and mouths grew from their backs; he told her of a race of people with ears so big that they brushed the ground. There was a tribe of dwarves in Africa who gathered all their nourishment from the smell of wild apples; if they travel, and lose the smell of them, they die. In the land of Prester John there was a sea of gravel and of salt without any drop of water; it ebbs and flows in great waves, as other seas do, and it is never still. There was a faraway land entirely shrouded in darkness; its neighbours dare not enter it, for fear of its night, but they can hear from within this shadowland the voices of men as well as the sound of bells pealing and of horses neighing. “But they do not know what kind of folk they may be who dwell within it.”

“London folk. If it be dark enough. There was a mist yesternight which I could not see through.”

They had come up to the holy well of Chad; various pilgrims were going in and out of the little stone chapel, and Gilbert waved to them. Some of them waved back, and one young woman raised her crutch in greeting. Jolland, the monk of Bermondsey, was reciting his rosary behind her. “It is a hard road to Paradise,” Gilbert said.

“It marvels me that you have not sailed there.”

“Oh no. No man that is mortal can approach it, although many have tried. Its rivers run so rudely and so sharply, and come down from such high places, that no ship may row or sail against them. The water roars so and makes such a huge noise that no man can be heard, even if he is in the same ship. Many men have died for weariness of rowing against the strong waves. Many have become deaf from the noise of the water. Some have been lost overboard and have perished.”

“A good life will bear them there the quicker.”

“So it is said, Magga. But who can be good upon this troubled earth?”

They were passing the church of St. Pancras, where the altar of Augustine had been laid, and were coming close to the remains of the ancient woodland of the region; wild service, herb paris and wood anemone grew in abundance. The citizens of London still came for timber here, where areas of wood survived in the northern heights. There seemed to be a log floating in the water but, as the shipman drew close to it, he let out a loud “Halloo!” It was a man floating two or three yards from the barge. With his pole he steered it closer, and then bent down to haul the body on to the deck. The boy at the stern jumped quickly over the sacks of coal to view this unexpected find. Magga and Gilbert peered closely at the face. Then she crossed herself and began to pray, “We beg thee, O Lord, to receive the soul of your servant.”

Earlier that day, just as dawn had washed the woods of Kentystone in red, Thomas Gunter had ridden among the trees. He was curious about the letter which had suggested so much without stating any particular thing. Could it have been sent by Miles Vavasour himself? Or was it Bogo the summoner, ready to divulge more? Gunter ducked beneath the spreading branches as the hooves of his horse made a hollow sound upon the earthen floor. It had begun to rain, and the drops pattered down upon the leaves and fern as he rode beneath the canopy of sequestered light. There were patches of mist, in the groves and glades within this great wood, and the liquid notes of the birds created for Gunter what his favourite poet called “the bower of bliss.” William Exmewe was waiting for him, huddled beside an ancient oak. He had his dagger beneath his cloak. He had grasped its handle tightly as soon as he heard the horse approaching. Just as it was about to pass he sprang out, shrieking “Ho!” The horse reared, and threw Gunter to the ground. Exmewe stabbed its flank, and with a bellow it galloped away.

“When you see me you know me,” Exmewe shouted.

Gunter was too shaken to reply; he had bruised his left thigh, and injured his wrist, in the fall.

“Do you know me?” Exmewe shouted again.

“I have never seen you in life.” Gunter wept for pain in the green shade.

“Oh I have seen you. Or I have smelled you. I know your devices, leech.”

“What have I done to you, man?”

“What is that you leeches say? Cure or kill? Make or mar? Heal or harm? Well, you