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

“I cannot –”

“I am with Henry, soon to be highest of all. In his name Dominus has done its work.”

“Work?”

“You jangled about the churches. You jangled about the circles. You did not make. You marred.”

Gunter now understood. “Bogo saw the circles.”

“Do you not know from Holy Scripture that chaos must come before creation?” Exmewe laughed out loud. “With Richard gone, we can begin anew.” He leant over Gunter with his dagger. “And yet, for some, the day of doom is close at hand. This is for your curiosity, leech.” With one movement he slit Gunter’s throat. He wiped the dagger upon his cloak, and put it back in its scabbard. Then he dragged the body of the little physician through the moss and the bracken towards the Fleet which, in this place, was deep and fast-running.18 He rolled it down the bank. Very gently, it slipped into the water. When Magga and Gilbert found Thomas Gunter, a few hours later, his features were still fresh.

Chapter Twenty-one

The Parson’s Tale

John Ferrour was telling his beads in the chapel of Westminster Palace. He was a devout man, now grave in middle age, who for eighteen years had been Henry Bolingbroke’s priest and private confessor. He had been a priest of the Tower in 1381, at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt, and had then saved young Henry’s life.

The fifteen-year-old Bolingbroke had taken refuge in the Beauchamp Tower, in one of the stone “apartments” which were generally given to noble prisoners, and Ferrour had been asked to comfort and advise him. “And David thereof bears witness,” he told him, “where he says, Laqueum paraverunt pedibus meis. They have delivered a snare for my feet. You must walk carefully through this trouble. David also says, I am turned in my anguish while the thorn is fastened in me. But the thorn can be plucked out.”

“Why all this talk of David when you see before you suffering Henry?”

From the narrow windows, no more than slits for arrows, priest and fugitive could see the rebels running up to the Tower. Some clandestine elements within the fortress were even then drawing down the bridge, but many of the rioters were so eager to enter the building that they swam across its moat. There were cries of alarm within, and then screams for help. The boy king, Richard, had already ridden out to Mile End in order to parley with the main company of rebels; in his absence from the Tower, the disaffected mob had come to plunder and kill those who remained. Ferrour could hear heavy footsteps mounting the circular stairway of the Beauchamp Tower. He took off Bolingbroke’s richly embroidered doublet, and with his knife ripped it to shreds. Then with a piece of charcoal he made dirty marks upon the boy’s throat and arms. Bolingbroke wailed and put his hands across his face as if he might blot out his own image. There was a straw mattress on the floor of the cell; Ferrour asked him to lie upon it and pray. “Rely upon the bounty of God,” was all he said, before opening the thick wooden door and stepping out on to the stone landing. From the stairway came the sound of roaring, with no distinguishable words, and within a few seconds there appeared a tall man in a threadbare doublet wielding a sword.

Ferrour put out his arms. “Christ keep you in His holy keeping. We look for deliverance.”

“Who do you hold in there?” Two other rioters had joined him, and peered at Bolingbroke lying very still upon the mattress. “What little mouse is this?”

“The son of a poor prisoner immured on the orders of the king himself. The father is but lately fled, leaving behind his child who is sick. Come closer. Look at the tokens of that sickness.”

They did not move. “The death?”

“The very same. The pestilence.”

“To kill him would be to cure him.”

“Oh, my masters –” This was a happy choice of phrase, which seemed to cheer the ragged men. “Consider well. Reflect what horrible peril there is in the sin of murder, what an abominable sin it is in the sight of heaven. It is the very full forsaking of God. Come.” The priest put out his hand, but they stepped back. “Approach the bed. Kill the lamb. Heap up in your hearts a dunghill of sin. Then kill me, for I will not shrive you. The blood will be too hot upon your hands. And remember this. You may send your soul out naked to Him no man can tell how soon.”

His eloquence disturbed them. They spat upon the floor, looked at one another, and then retreated down the stairway.

Thus John Ferrour entered the service of young Bolingbroke as his confessor.

He had listened to the voice of Henry’s conscience through intrigue and rebellion, peace and war. He had heard him whispering of avarice and of lust, of pride and of envy. He had raped a young girl; he had stabbed in anger a bedfellow. Nothing, however, had prepared Ferrour for this moment. Only two hours before, his master had been acclaimed king of England in the parliament house.

He had heard the cheering as Henry left Westminster Hall. At that moment Ferrour had clutched his rosary to his chest, pinching the wooden beads until the tips of his fingers burned. Henry had acquired his throne by rebellion and conquest, not through divine right. He had not confessed as much, but had murmured to the parson about the realm’s undoing and Richard’s bad laws. He had told his confessor about his duty, but he had never once mentioned the promptings of avarice or ambition. But Ferrour could see into his heart. He knew the depths of sinfulness to be found there. Would he himself be caught in the snares of mortal sin, if he remained silent about these matters? Was he giving the new king his tacit blessing, and blinding them both to