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

place. Your path is to Dover, where you will remain upon the shore. Each day you must walk up to your knees in the sea, until a boat is ready to take you away from this realm. Before embarking you are ordered to proclaim, ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! I, William Exmewe, for the foul sacrilege which I have committed, will quit this land of England never more to return, except by leave of the Kings of England or their heirs, so help me God and all His saints.’ ”

And so it came to pass. When Exmewe arrived in France, however, he was taken secretly to a small castle outside Avignon where he was closely guarded for the rest of his life.

After his departure the citizens marvelled that, on the same day, Sir Miles Vavasour had gone on pilgrimage. There had been rumours, too, that a conventicle of heretics had been detected and destroyed; they were described as the “new men,” and nothing more was known about them.

Sister Bridget had informed the nun of these startling events; Brank Mongorray had been sent away, and Clarice spent most of her time in her chamber at the House of Mary. Bridget slept at the foot of her bed, and joined in her prayers. She trusted the nun of Clerkenwell, and never doubted for a moment that her intentions were holy. She was perturbed, however, on those occasions when Clarice ventured from the convent alone. She was absent for four or five hours, and would return without a word of explanation. When she had been imprisoned by the Bishop of London, Bridget naturally feared for her safety, but Clarice had been freed by Robert Braybroke after three days without incurring any noticeable harm; indeed she seemed refreshed by her ordeal, and had told the second nun that there was much spiritual comfort to be found in confinement.

She had now become so popular with Londoners that any further attempt to arrest or to silence her would be met with an immediate and violent reaction. The prioress, Agnes de Mordaunt, had given up any attempt to restrain or discipline her. “Mark well your bedfellow,” Dame Agnes had warned Bridget. “Be sure that she does not stray into the path of temptation and sin. Certain people may be injured or bewitched by immoderate praise. It is known as forspeaking, Bridget. I pray that Sister Clarice does not rely upon fickle fame.”

“I am sure that she does not, ma dame.”

“An hour’s cold will suck out seven years of heat. The wheel may turn for her. What was whole may be bruised.”

“I will tell her that you have spoken, ma dame.”

That is why, perhaps, Sister Clarice formally asked the permission of the prioress to attend Henry’s coronation; her presence had been requested by the senior clergy of the abbey, but she had agreed to arrive secretly and to remain in the upper gallery.

She was still looking through the squint. “Now, Bridget, the crown is upon his head. He holds the orb and sceptre. He sits very still for a condemned soul.” The sound of the choir, singing the anthem of jubilation “Illa iuventus,” surrounded the two nuns. “The archbishop has raised his right hand to heaven. Now he has extended it to the image of the Virgin on the north side of the altar. Now he genuflects. Henry rises.” She laughed. “A foul person richly dight seems fair by candlelight. Now Henry processes before the earls and all others.” Lessiez les aler et fair leur devoir de par dieu. They should do their duty before God, she had whispered fiercely to the second nun.

That evening, long after the ceremonies were over, Bridget was startled out of her slumber. Clarice was shaking her arm. “Bridget, come. Come with me. It is the time.”

“Time?”

“Follow me.”

The two nuns left their chamber, and walked quietly through the cloister. Clarice insisted upon silence and secrecy. A chariot, pulled by two horses, was waiting for them by one of the side doors of the convent; as soon as they had entered it the horseman raised his whip.

“Where do we go?” Bridget asked. She could smell the new straw laid at the bottom of the vehicle, and for some reason it instilled in her a profound unease.

“Not far, but a great distance.”

They were travelling south, across Smithfield, along Little Britain and down St. Martin’s; as a girl Bridget had walked through these streets with her nurse and companion, Beldame Patience, and their perpetual activity never failed to reassure her. She knew every shop and shack, every stall and tenement, but she was always surprised by the city’s endless life. Then she had been obliged to enter the convent.

“You need say nothing,” Clarice was telling her. “What you see, lay up in your heart for the fullness of time.” They were coming close to the riverside, and the chariot stopped by the round tower of Roman stone.

Two servants with torches came out of the great porch to greet them and Clarice, leading the way, entered the tower. Bridget noticed three men in sumptuous attire waiting in a passage, and, much to her amazement, they made obeisance to the nun. They followed her down a turning stair of stone, into a large vaulted room where others were waiting. Bridget recognised Robert Braybroke, the Bishop of London, who had imprisoned Clarice a few weeks before. And was not that the archbishop himself? They were wearing cloaks of blue striped cloth. Why had they assembled in this place on the evening after the coronation?

Sister Clarice stood in the middle of them. “You know my name,” she said to them. “It has come to pass as we have wished. Exmewe has been expelled, and will not speak. He plotted with heretics, and he has gone out with the winds. The predestined men have been scattered, and nothing further will be known concerning them. Yet they have left a comfortable inheritance. This new king is not holy. He is a usurper. God is with