Pilgrims

by Matthew Kneale

  I’d have liked to hear the rest but that was when Hugh and Margaret came back. ‘I almost forgot about you, Tom,’ Hugh said, slapping me on the back again. ‘Like I said, we’ll set off after harvest, as I’m not going till that’s safely in.’ It seemed like we’d reached the end of our talk so up I got. And there was another strange thing, because when we walked outside I smelt a strongest stink of shit, and I saw one of the sons was rubbing away at the door with an old rag. ‘What’s all this?’ I asked Hugh and he laughed like it was the gamest thing. ‘They love a bit of play here in Asthall.’ And how right he was, as just then something flew right out of the fog – from the shape of him he looked like a big fat turd – that hit the wall and then bounced off onto the ground.

  Another odd thing was that though I still hadn’t made up my mind to go to Rome, it turned out I had after all, without even deciding, just because everyone supposed it. All of a sudden people started knocking on our door to give me little cloth pretties or crosses or dolls that they wanted blessed by Saint Peter, and then Jenny of the alehouse said I wasn’t to worry about money as she was making a collection and everyone in the village had said they’d give something. With them being so kindly and needing me to get their cloth pretties and such blessed I couldn’t very well say no, so that was that. When I told Auntie Eva she gave me one of her crabby looks. ‘That’s all I need,’ she said. ‘But then I’ve got no choice, have I? I promised your mother. I’ll have to come with you.’ If truth be told I wasn’t sure I wanted her grumbling all the way to Rome so I told her, ‘Don’t you worry about me, auntie, as I’ll be all right.’ But she shook her head and said, ‘You’re a witless fool, Tom. Everyone knows it and you know it yourself. You wouldn’t last a day.’

  It was as well Hugh wasn’t going till after the harvest, as there was plenty to do. Auntie Eva got Uncle Bill to give his accord to her going, which wasn’t hard as he did whatever she told him, and then she set about getting us our clothes and such. With her own hand she made both our pilgrim cloaks, which she sewed from an old piece of cloth she found in the house, and then she made our hats, which had a red cross on the front and a long scarf hanging off the back, like all pilgrims had. After that she had Uncle Bill, who worked leather when he wasn’t delving his fields, put two new soles on our boots, which made them so high I felt like I was walking on stilts, though I’d need them if they were going to see me all the way to Rome and back everyone said. He made our scrips, too, and as he was busy with his fields by then, the sewing was done by Auntie Eva’s girl, my cousin Mabel, who was a goggle-eyed squinter but kindly. I needed a pack, too, for all the cloth pretties and dolls and wooden crosses, and though Hal’s Sarah said she’d make me one, she couldn’t find her cloth nor her thread so in the end Mabel did that as well.

  Father Will wrote us our testimonials so we wouldn’t get hanged as robbers. Rightfully all pilgrims had to write a will too, he said, but I was lucky and had no need, seeing as I had nothing to my name, aside from what I’d be wearing or carrying in my scrip. Being bound, I went up the manor house to ask Sir Toby for leave to go, which he gave readily enough, all the more so as he had some favours he wanted me to do for him in Rome, as he told me. Father Will blessed my scrip and my staff, which was a stick I’d found in the wood and smoothed down, and he blessed my begging bowl, which I carved myself from a log. And a good piece of news was that Father Will had told his churchmen friends about us going and they found some others who were going at the same time as us, and who’d join us. We’d meet some at Witney, he said, and then some more at Oxford, and the churchmen would spread the word so we might have more after then, too. That way we’d be a proper party and would be less likely to be stabbed or robbed or cudgelled to death along the road.

  Then one afternoon, when we were in the middle of the harvest and it was getting close to the day when we were to go, I was scything the crop in our strip by the river with Hal and Sarah, who was so swelled she looked ready to pop her baby that very day, when Uncle Bill came running over and called out to me, ‘It’s your auntie, Tom. You’d better come right away.’ The three of us followed him to their house and there was Auntie Eva sat on the ground with a black scowl on her face. It turned out she’d been up on a ladder roping sacks of grain from the rafters so the rats couldn’t get them and she’d missed her balance and come crashing down. ‘My leg’s broke, that’s all,’ she said, almost like it was my doing. ‘There it is. You’ll just have to wait till next year going to Rome.’ As if I could leave my poor little beastie burning for another twelve months. ‘I’m not waiting, I’m going now,’ I told her, and Hal and Sarah were with me, saying, ‘So you must, Tom, for your Sammy.’ ‘Don’t you worry about me, auntie,’ I told her. ‘I’m doing God’s pleasure and he’ll watch after me. Father Will said it so I know he will.’ Not that she believed me. ‘Go then if you must, you great jobbard, as I can’t stop you,’ she said. ‘But it’ll go badly for you, that I promise.’ And of course it wouldn’t be long before I’d think back to her words.

  Just a few days later I set out. How proud I felt when I went down to the green at first light and found every single body in the village had gathered to see me off. Father Will was there with his cat Prince running along beside him. Sir Toby and Dame Emma had come too and Sir Toby gave me six shillings, one to help me with my journey and five for the favour he wanted from me, which was to buy him a silver cross and a vernicle, which he said was a likeness of Jesus from a famous one they had in Rome. Dame Emma gave me a little cloth with a picture of the Virgin holding baby Jesus, which she’d sewn herself very prettily, and which she wanted me to take into every church in Rome and rub against the saints’ tombs, or as near as I could reach. What with all the cloth pretties and crosses and dolls I could hardly close my pack.

  Then Jenny from the alehouse had me open up my scrip and she poured in all the money that she’d collected, which, along with Sir Toby’s six shillings, looked a handsome little heap. My brother Hal gave me three farthings and Auntie Eva, who Uncle Bill wheeled over in their barrow, gave me four. ‘Quite a crowd you’ve got here,’ she said and then, being the kind who loved to point out the one dirty cloud in a sunny sky, she told me, ‘Of course most of them have come from curiosity as they don’t expect to see you ever again.’

  As for Hugh and Margaret, the only folk who turned up to say farewell to them were their three boys, the idiots, and a fourth, who wasn’t such an idiot, as Hugh had had him taught his letters and who was bailiff at Asthall, which was another reason he had only two farthings to his name, so he’d told me, as it had cost him a pretty sum. And his tiny crowd said their farewells on Minster green and then turned back home while I had half of Minster walking with me on the road, all the way to the big oak tree on the Witney fork. When I bade them farewell Hal shook me strong by the hand and they all cheered so loud and hearty that I hardly knew where to look I felt so warmed.

  We’re started now, I said to Sammy when we passed over a rise in the land and they were all lost from sight behind us. I took my steps carefully, as it would be just like the devil to make me stumble and twist my ankle, so I’d never get to Rome and get my Sammy into paradise after all. After the crowd we’d been it felt quiet walking with just Hugh and Margaret. Worries gnawed at me. I hope we have God’s blessing, Sammo, I thought, as we’ll not get far on this long, hard road without it. I couldn’t feel it, though. Hugh and Margaret were brawling as she grouched that her boots hurt, which she said was his fault for going to the cheapest cobbler in Burford, though he said that wasn’t right at all and it was only that her feet were too big. After a while we stopped so she could take them off and give her feet a rest.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of friends, haven’t you?’ said Hugh as we sat there, shaking his head like I should know better than to have so many. ‘Don’t mind him,’ said Margaret. ‘He just likes riling people.’ I won’t let him rile me, my old beastie, I thought. Though he tried. He started with my pilgrim gear that Auntie Eva had m
ade. ‘That’s a strange-looking cloak,’ he said. ‘I hope it’ll keep the rain off you. And your hat’s all lopsided while that pack’s bulging fit to burst. What’ve you got in there?’ ‘I’ll be all right, don’t you worry,’ I answered. Then he wanted to see how much the others in the village had given me. ‘They gave me plenty,’ I said proudly, remembering all the coins that had been poured into my scrip. He said I should count them, which I was happy enough to do being curious myself, and I poured them into my shirt, but I didn’t find God’s blessing like I’d thought, more was the pity. Aside from Sir Toby’s five shillings for the silver cross and the vernicle, which weren’t mine to spend, and his shilling, which was, all the rest were farthings, and though there were plenty of them altogether they only came to a shilling and sevenpence ha’penny. That made Hugh laugh. ‘This won’t get you very far, Tom,’ he said. ‘I heard the sea crossing to France alone is sixpence.’ ‘I’ll manage, don’t you worry,’ I told him, though the truth was I didn’t rightly know how. So I suppose he’d riled me after all.

  But I felt God’s loving eye on me when we got to Saint Mary’s church in Witney, which was where we were to meet two of the others who Father Will’s churchmen friends had found for us to go journeying with. They must’ve been peeking out of the door and watching for us, as when we walked in I heard bagpipes playing, not handsome at all and sounding much like the groaning of an afflicted beast, but very loud, which was their greeting to us as it turned out. The piper, whose name was Oswald, was a little smirking fellow with a long curly beard, though what you noticed most about him was his hat, which had so many saints’ badges sewn onto it that there was hardly space for one more. Hugh’s Margaret couldn’t keep her eyes off them.

  As we all set out onto the road to Oxford Oswald told us he hadn’t gone to all those saints for himself but for other folk, most of them dead. He was going to Rome for Damian, a tailor from Banbury freshly buried. Years back this Damian had made a vow to go as a pilgrim to Saint Pete, Oswald said, but he never had and so, being fearful he’d have God’s ire on him, he’d left money in his will for somebody to go in his place. Oswald had a trade as a carpenter, he said, but he hardly picked up a block of wood these days as pilgrimaging was like a livelihood for him now. It had taken him to almost every spot you could think of, from Lincoln and Durham to Norwich and Walsingham, and to the three kings in Cologne and to Saint James in Spain. He’d even been to Saint Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland where he’d been walled up in the cave all night, like all pilgrims were there, so he hadn’t been able to see even his fingers for the dark and could hear nothing but the sound of his own breath.

  Rome, and Jerusalem too, were about the only places he hadn’t been to and he couldn’t wait to get to Saint Peter’s city. He’d heard a lot about the road, from others he’d met who’d been there, and his main care was the mountains that we had to cross, which were called the Alps. Because we’d left it late in the year to set out, he said, which meant we might well strike snow and blizzards. We should rightly have gone in August, as that was when most Rompetae – which is what Rome pilgrims call themselves – set off. He’d wanted to go then but Damian the tailor had been slow breathing his last breath, and when he finally had and his will was read his kin had grouched and made trouble, so several weeks had passed before Oswald finally got his shillings for the journey. That was often the way, he said, and many a time he’d been cursed and spat on by kin who said he was stealing pennies from their portion. Still he didn’t mind, as there was nothing he loved better than to go journeying as a pilgrim, striding across some piece of land he’d never set eyes on before, or walking into a town playing his pipes. And of course he found joy praying for the poor dead unfortunates who’d sent him, begging the saints to let them out of purgatory and up to heaven, which was a rightful deed. Here’s God’s blessing, I thought. He’ll look sweetly on us for having a good man like this in our party. And Oswald will guide us rightly on the road and help us stay clear of trouble, seeing as he’d been to almost every spot in God’s Christendom.

  I felt God had given us his blessing with the other newcomer, too, for all his sad looks. He was an advocate from Northampton named Jocelyn and it was no surprise he seemed doleful, as his reason for going as a pilgrim to Rome, which he told us as we plodded along, was as sorry as could be. Two years back the fiend had seized him, he told us, and held him tight between his finger and thumb like a little helpless grub. Though Jocelyn had a new young wife who was a sweet poppet of a thing, and was with child too, all that Jocelyn could think of was sin, and he’d couple with any pert female who was willing. ‘My eyes were blinded to godliness,’ he told us, sorrowfully. He’d swived other men’s wives and he’d swived brewster women and bondswomen and women delving the fields, and if he couldn’t find any who’d let him have his way he’d reach into his purse and give out to a bordel woman. He’d entice females with fine gowns or hats or pretty brooches and to pay for these he did every kind of unright in his advocating, lying and having his clients lie, taking bribes from his clients’ enemies, and getting judges to tarry over a case so he could squeeze out a few more pennies. He didn’t even care when his wife guessed it all and begged him to stop. Worst of all he didn’t shrive one word of it to his priest. ‘When I went to church,’ he told us with a doleful shake of his head, ‘and I heard what waited sinners who didn’t confess, I took no heed but laughed to myself, as if such talk was meant only for other men and not me.’

  Then one winter’s day his wife said she felt strange in her womb and she asked him to go and fetch the physician. Jocelyn rode out to do as she’d asked, but then he came to a road that led out of the town to the house of a brewster woman he knew, who was a proper weasel to the eye and who he’d couched a good few times before, and as he looked down that road the devil filled him with wicked hunger. ‘I’ll just go and see how she is,’ he said to himself. ‘I won’t be long.’ So he went and he lay with her and had his delight that day and all that night too.

  When he set out the next morning for a moment he glimpsed something by the road, pale like a shadow hanging in the air. Then it was gone and he thought no more of it. But as he rode up to his house and heard the wailing of his neighbours he knew that had been no shadow but one of Satan’s fiends come to gloat. It turned out his poor wife’s pain had been a warning and she’d gone into labour within the hour of his leaving her. There being no sign of Jocelyn, her mother had gone to call the physician and the midwife but the baby was caught and wouldn’t come, and when the physician tried to free it, Jocelyn’s young wife started bleeding and wouldn’t stop. She cried out for her husband and the whole of Northampton went searching for him but of course he couldn’t be found as he was away couching with the brewster woman. His dear, innocent wife had gone to God not an hour before he arrived home.

  ‘After that I was like an outlaw,’ Jocelyn told us, ‘scorned by kin and friends alike. Nobody would greet me in the street and nobody would take me as an advocate to fight his cause. And strange to say, I welcomed it.’ Because, too late though it was, he saw the wickedness of his ways and all he wanted was to be punished. He shunned all his women and shrived his sins in church, not once but every Sunday for a month. When the priest told him to walk to Brixham and back barefoot he walked there not once but three times and he cast his shoes aside and walked everywhere barefoot. When the priest told him to give four shillings to All Hallows’ for the roof he gave eight. When he was told to fast every Tuesday he fasted for three days every week and even on the other days he touched no meat. Yet he still felt his sin weighing heavy on him. So he asked his priest what else he might do to show he was sorry and win God’s forgiveness and the priest answered that he should go as a pilgrim to Rome. If he repented and prayed to Saint Peter and all the other saints there, then Saint Peter might look kindly on him and ask God to let him off his time in purgatory, or at least some of it. ‘And so I’m here,’ he said sadly, ‘walking for my forgiveness. If I ever can be forgiv
en, that is.’

  We all fell quiet then, as there’s nothing to stir the spirits like a story of wickedness regretted. Till Hugh, being the kind who couldn’t hear anyone’s tale without saying the wrong thing, told him, ‘That’s a good strong pair of boots you’ve got. So you weren’t tempted to walk barefoot all the way to Rome?’ But Jocelyn just gave him another sorry smile and said he would have, certainly, but his feet were in such a poor way after all his walking around the town barefoot that the priest forbade it. All the while I was thinking, God’s with us today all right, Sammy. Because Jocelyn was a sinner who’d strayed from the path and then found it again, which God loved dearly, as everyone always said, so we’d have his smile on us for our journey no doubting.

  By then I could see the walls and towers of Oxford City, where we were to meet some more pilgrims the priests had found to journey with to Rome. I wonder who these will be, Sammo? I thought. A great lord, perhaps? Or a holy man who’s all starved skin and bones from his saintliness? The sun was shining and I swear I felt God’s blessing on us as we walked through the gate, even despite Oswald playing a great blast on his bagpipes and getting us dirty looks. And then God showed his smile with my pie, because by then we were all hungry and Oswald, having been everywhere in Christendom, knew of a place nearby the gate where I got a pork one that only cost me a farthing and very tasty it was too.