[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter (2 page)

'Master Chapman!' The pale blue eyes regarded me fiercely as if he knew that of all that crowd I was the only one who had paid his words scant attention. Fortunately, as my gaze shifted guiltily under his, he was diverted by the approach of one of the congregation, a fuller whom I knew by sight, bearing a purse full of money.

'A collection taken up amongst us, Brother,' the man said respectfully, 'to help you on your way.'

'Thank you, my son.' Friar Simeon stowed the purse away in the shabby leather pouch which hung from his girdle. 'And now, Dame Walker, shall we eat?'

An hour later, as the pale winter sun rose towards its zenith, Friar Simeon scraped the last drop of stew from his bowl and drained the last dregs of ale from his cup before giving a contented sigh.

'That was an excellent repast, Mistress Walker.' They were the first words he had uttered since saying grace, a silence which had inhibited both Margaret and myself from speaking throughout the meal. The only noise, apart from the sounds of eating, had been Elizabeth's baby prattle, which no one but her grandmother could understand. She sat, as good as gold, in her own little chair with the high carved back which a neighbour and friend, Nick Brimble, had made for her, sharing the contents of Margaret's dish. She was a quiet, mannerly child even at that young age.

'I'm glad you found it to your liking, Brother,' said my mother-in-law, preparing to rise from the table. 'If you've finished, perhaps you'd care to draw nearer the fire. It's a bitter day.'

The friar needed no second bidding, dragging his stool closer to the hearth and pulling up his shabby gown so that the warmth could seep into his bony knees. Margaret sat beside him while I lowered myself to the floor, among the rushes, cradling Elizabeth, now released from her chair, on my lap.

'Do you come from these parts, Brother'?' I asked, thinking that I had detected a trace of local accent in his speech, but he shook his head.

'I'm from the north, the far north. From the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.'

His tone was abrasive as though I had somehow insulted him with my suggestion that he was from the south, where existence was safer and softer than in those harsher regions, governed solely by the laws of survival.

Margaret asked placatingly, 'Do you tarry long with us in Bristol?'

He shook his head. 'I slept last night with my fellow Dominicans beyond the town, but tonight only Our Lord knows where I shall take my rest.' Simeon crossed himself. "His Will be done.'

Margaret was horrified. 'Surely you'll tarry another night at the friary in the broad meads? It would be most unwise to set forward with the day so advanced and the weather so inclement and, above all, yourself so exhausted from your morning's labours!'

The friar turned his burning eyes upon her. 'What God wills for us we must do without question, nor with any thought for our body's needs.'

I shifted a little uncomfortably at this, causing Elizabeth, who was crooning to herself and making a bed for her wooden doll among the straw, to glance up at me inquiringly. I bent my head and kissed her on one velvety cheek before asking boldly, 'What is your mission from God, Brother?'
 

Again the eyes glowed like coals in a furnace. 'To bring back sinners into the fold! This is a godless age, Master Chapman, but what can you expect with a king upon the throne who thinks of nothing but bodily pleasures, and a queen whose family are eaten alive by greed? The court is a stinking cesspit of iniquity and only one member of it, My Lord of Gloucester, seems immune from its cupidity and licentiousness. He at least has the sense to stay away, living as he does on his own estates and visiting London as infrequently as possible. His, if report is true, was one of the very few voices raised against this late ignominious débacle in France. The roads of this country are even more unsafe to walk than they were six months ago because of the disbanded troops, who are all working off their frustrated martial spirits by murder and highway robbery.'

There was a great deal that I could have said on that subject had I been so minded, but I kept my counsel. Instead I reminded Brother Simeon that King Edward, far from spending his entire time in 'bodily pleasures', had been travelling the length and breadth of England meting out summary justice to the offenders.

The friar snorted. 'Maybe, when he can tear himself away from the embraces of this new leman of his, Mistress Jane Shore.'

I could not help retorting, 'You appear remarkably well informed.'

'I've come from London,' he hissed, 'where the talk is of nothing else. It seems that Lord Hastings and the King's elder stepson, the Marquess of Dorset, are also besotted by the creature, and are only waiting for His Grace's affections to wane before snapping her up for themselves.' He reached down and laid a claw-like hand on my shoulder. 'You think it wrong for a man of God to be concerned with such things? You fool! How else can I identify the evil which must be overcome? How else can I root out the sins which are destroying men's souls?'

His thin features which, in repose, looked like a parchment mask, were transformed by the light of reforming zeal. I recalled stories of the early Dominican friars who, in their fanatical determination to stamp out heresy, had forced families to testify one against the other, who had burned the unrepentant at the stake and who had even exhumed the bodies of those found guilty after death and burned them also. Their Chief Inquisitor had been Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose words Friar Simeon had quoted in his sermon this morning. Plainly, in the same spirit, he was carrying out his own crusade against lechery and debauchery, the sins which gave him most offence.

I thought it time to change the subject. 'Where do you go when you leave the city, Brother?'

'I go as far as the coast, to Woodspring Priory, where Father Prior has sent word, asking me to preach to his flock.

But between here and there, I shall spread God's message wherever men will heed it.' He leant towards me, the pale blue eyes seeming to change colour until they were almost black. 'Lead a pure and untainted life, Chapman. Resist the temptations of the flesh.' He drew back abruptly and rose to his feet. 'Thank you for your hospitality, Mistress Walker, and God's blessing on this house.'

He wrapped himself in his thick frieze cloak, nodded in my direction as Margaret and I respectfully rose to our feet, laid a perfunctory hand on Elizabeth's fair head and then was gone, letting in a short blast of icy wind as he first opened and then closed the door behind him.

The atmosphere inside the cottage lightened perceptibly with his departure. Even my mother-in-law felt it, although she said gravely, 'A saintly man.'

I grunted and resumed my seat upon the floor beside my daughter. It had often crossed my mind that saints caused as much trouble in this life as sinners, but I did not speak my thought aloud. Margaret would have been scandalised at the idea and I needed her to be in a good mood. I was wondering how to break the news of my imminent departure, but she forestalled me, sitting down once more and regarding me with a shrewd, unwinking gaze.

'So,' she remarked, 'you're leaving tomorrow morning, early.'

I jumped. 'How... how did you know?'
 

'I told you this morning, you have been restless for days.'
 

'But - you couldn't have known exactly when I meant to go. I only made that particular decision a moment or two since.'

Margaret laughed. 'Roger, yours is not a difficult mind to read. I had only to watch your face when Brother Simeon was speaking of travelling on to realise that his example had fired you with an immediate desire to follow in his footsteps. It was, however, unlikely that you would be off without apprising me of your plans and taking a proper farewell of Elizabeth first. It therefore seemed improbable that you would leave today. But tomorrow, at first light, yes, then you will take your pack, your cloak, your cudgel and we shall not see you again for weeks. Months, maybe, if the wanderlust grips you.'
 

I looked at her with respect. 'You're a clever woman, Mother.'

She made a vigorous denial. ‘I can't read and write as the monks taught you to do. I just use my common sense.' I smiled and heaved myself up off the floor and on to the stool which the friar had vacated, slipping an arm about her still trim waist.

'I'm lucky to have you to look after Elizabeth for me,' I said. 'Don't ever think that I'm ungrateful, or sorry that I married Lillis.'

She sighed. 'No, not now that she is dead. No, no! That's not meant as a reproach. You didn't love her, and I know that what happened between you was not your fault alone. Lillis was always a wayward girl, determined to get what she wanted. And now,' Margaret added on a more practical note, 'I must see to it that your spare shirt is ready and take your boots to the cobbler by Redcliffe Church. You'll need a stout pair of soles on them in this weather, and Matt Cordwainer will mend them while I wait.'

I gave her a hug. 'You're far kinder to me than I have any right to expect. I shan't be gone more than a couple of weeks at the most.'

'Don't make promises that you might not be able to keep,' she admonished me, standing up. 'Give me your boots and I’II be off directly. While I'm gone, you can draw some water from the well and refill the barrel. Also replenish my store of logs from the common pile. Tie Elizabeth to her bed with this strip of linen so that she can't crawl into the fire when you're not here to watch her.'

She put on her cloak and hood, slipped her feet into their paltens and clattered away down the street. I was left with my deep sense of guilt and the rapidly mounting excitement which I always felt at the prospect of approaching freedom.

And mixed with that excitement was apprehension, wondering where that freedom would lead me.

Chapter Two

Margaret had shown great foresight when she told me not to make promises that I might not wish to keep. I had already been on the road for ten days, and although I was less than a dozen miles from Bristol as the crow flies - and could indeed, with steady walking, have been home within the allotted span I was still moving in a south-westerly direction towards the coast and the broad channel of water which is the Severn estuary.

In spite of the bitter cold and the iron-hard ground, I was savouring my freedom. I had not hurried, searching out every settlement, however small, within a two-day journey both north and south of the main pack-horse track. And everywhere I had been welcomed and feted as one braving the hazardous weather to bring a little pleasure and distraction into people's lives. For the winter months are a dreary, dead time in isolated villages and hamlets, with nothing much for the inhabitants to do except work and sleep once the festivities of Plough Monday are over. Even on the larger farms and holdings the lambing season keeps the men busy out in the fields all day, and the women are glad to see a fresh face and hear city gossip, as well as being able to replenish their stocks of needles, thread and other such haberdashery.

But that particular January there was another diversion for the good folk of north Somerset to talk about. Wherever I went, however remote the homestead, the name of Friar Simeon seemed to be on everyone's lips, either as having not long departed or as being expected within the next few days. Those who had just heard him preach were distinguished from their fellows by being somewhat more subdued in manner and paying a greater attention to evening and morning prayers. I could not help wondering how long this new-found piety would last; and, in those places where he had preceded my arrival by several days, I noted that the after-effects of his sermon were already beginning to fade. Nevertheless, his message was generally applauded by members of the older generation who deplored, as had my mother-in-law, declining moral standards amongst the young.

By noon on the tenth day the weather, which had improved somewhat during the past week, once again turned bitterly cold. It had been a morning of heavy frost, and the grass crunched under my feet as I descended a steep slope towards the huddle of cottages at the bottom. On the opposite side of the valley the round-shouldered hills sparkled here and there with rime as a thin winter sunshine, cold as steel, penetrated the gathering clouds. Now and then a spatter of rain stung my face, and above a distant swathe of woodland I could see the bitten-off stump of a rainbow, which sailors call a winddog.

The children of the village, those not needed by their elders to help in the home or out of doors, were keeping warm with a game of camping, the two 'armies' drawn up at either end of a stretch of level ground beside the stream whose bed was the valley floor. Their 'gauntlet' was an old shoe which had seen better days, judging by the way its sole gaped from its upper. But it proved to be an excellent flier as, with a shouted challenge, it was hurled by the captain of one side high over the heads of his opponents, to land in the stunted scrub and whin behind them. And while the 'enemy' searched desperately to retrieve the token, their numbers rapidly diminished as they were taken 'prisoner' and dragged off to the other end of the field. At last, however, the shoe was discovered and flung back with a cry of triumph, to embed itself in a clump of willows growing close to the bank. The challenge was thus reversed, and while I watched, the 'enemy' managed to recover several of its own side and take captive a couple of their opponents as well. I smiled to myself, recalling the many games of camping played in my youth, but I could not wait to see which side was victorious. With sufficiently skilful players the business of capturing all the other team might last for hours.