Pilgrims

by Matthew Kneale

  That was an anguished journey. With my every step I feared we might be stopped by a constable or a priest who’d ask us for our testimonials. We didn’t go through Canterbury but round and I kept slapping Porker’s rump to hurry him up, as if you left that beast be even for a moment he’d stop and chew at some grass. The more I saw of Brother Dennis the more I warmed to him, as I swear we could hardly have been more in accord, especially about the folk whom we passed on the way. If we met a poor fellow in drab clothes who was carrying a heavy load on his back, we’d both call out to him, ‘Good day to you, cousin,’ but if we passed a well-fed cleric, or a gentleman riding on a high horse, we’d glance at each other and Brother Dennis would growl under his breath, ‘Another of Satan’s own.’

  It was a long day’s walk to Brother Dennis’s monastery and when we finally got there my poor feet ached so that I could hardly take another step. By then it was almost dark but there was light enough for me to see that this was like no other house of God I’d cast my eyes on, being small and built all from logs so it could’ve been a charcoal burner’s hut. As we stepped inside I saw there was no danger these clerics would live too softly as it was just one room, full of smoke from the fire, and was more like an outhouse for beasts than a monastery. There was a table, stools and some dirty-looking straw by the walls for sleeping and that was all. As for the brothers, there were only six of them including the prior, and they were each as beardy and ripe to the nose as Brother Dennis. But they gave us a warm welcome and some dinner, and though it was as simple as everything else, being bread and parsnips, Beatrix and I, who’d had nothing since Margate, ate it down hungrily enough. Beatrix got into a fuss to me about the dirt, as it wasn’t the cleanest spot and there was a host of little biters in the straw so we both scratched away as we tried to sleep, and she whispered to me, ‘It’s not right, not for God’s own voice.’ I told her, ‘It’s just for a night. Tomorrow we’ll get our testimonials and we’ll be off.’

  But it wasn’t so easy as that so it turned out. The next morning I asked the prior a dozen times, can you write them out for us now then, and his answer was always to smile and tell me, ‘I will, I will, don’t you worry, I’m a little busy just now,’ though I couldn’t see what he was doing besides praying or sifting acorns and taking out the bad ones. Finally, when half the morning was gone, I understood what was what. I’d seen how the prior and the other monks would follow Beatrix around, not step by step but keeping close. Of course, I thought. They’re all hoping to hear God’s voice and they don’t want us to leave till they have. So I asked Beatrix, very quiet so the others couldn’t hear, can’t you pretend that he’s speaking, just to please them? She got quite angry, saying that it was nothing to feign, being holiness itself. But God must’ve been listening as he spoke up soon after. When Beatrix started humming, which I’d told the monks what it meant, they flew round the place like so many birds, fetching one who was outside chopping wood and another who was picking berries, and when God’s words came out they were like statues, staring in wonder. As usual he told them the last days were coming and that they must mend their ways and repent their sins, and then he said that they must help his voice and his torchbearer get to Rome as fast as they could, so he could warn the pope and all Christendom would know. Lastly he said they should give us nourishing food for the journey.

  After that things couldn’t have been easier. The prior wrote our testimonials there and then, and they gave each of us a sack of parsnips, berries, nuts and bread, and the prior gave me a piece of cheese that he said they’d been keeping for a special day and which he held out to me like it was a gold chalice. We said our farewells and set out down the hill, though the cheese, which was black all over, gave off such a stink that in the end we chucked it into a hedge.

  By dusk we were in Canterbury and full of joy, at least till the monks at the pilgrim hospital gave us some sorry news. It turned out a party of pilgrims on their way to Rome had passed through just a couple of days before. Being late in the season there wouldn’t be many others on the road, so we might be journeying alone. That was a shame, as I’d hoped we’d find other pilgrims to go with, both for companionship and also our safety, especially with close to four marks in my scrip. The next day we had a doleful walk. Autumn had arrived, no mistaking. A cool wind blew in our faces and several times we got a soaking from the rain, while, this being our third day on the road, we were both aching, me on my feet and Beatrix, who was on the donkey, on her arse. All the while my eyes were on the hedges by the roadside, as I feared a gang of brigands might jump out at any moment.

  But none did and then when we walked down into Dover town, God showed us he’d not forgotten his voice and his torchbearer. There beside the road I saw a young fellow in pilgrim gear, if you could call it that. As one who knows how to sew a seam it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. His hat was crooked and the cross on the front was all askew, his cloak sat so badly on his shoulders that I swear it might have been tailored by apes, while beneath it all he wore a set of rags as poor as any you might see. But the strangest thing about him was that, even though he could see that Beatrix and I were wearing pilgrim clothes just like him, he shook his begging bowl at us with all his might, which made a proper din as he’d filled it with pebbles to make it rattle louder. ‘Please, kindly lordlings,’ he said, ‘can you spare a penny for a poor pilgrim on his way to see Saint Pete in Rome? It’s just another penny I need to get me across the sea to France.’

  ‘Rome?’ I asked, full of hope. And so it was we learned that the group we’d heard of in Canterbury was still here. They’d been stuck in Dover for two days thanks to the wind, which was blowing from the south and had snared every ship in the harbour. The ragged boy, whose name was Tom, told us that the rest of his party were at the town’s pilgrim hospital, the Maison Dieu. He wasn’t one to give up, and as we turned to go, though we’d be his fellow pilgrims for weeks to come, that didn’t stop him rattling his bowl at us again, saying, ‘Can you spare a penny for a poor pilgrim on his way to see Saint Pete in Rome, lordlings?’ So I gave him a ha’penny, as it seemed unkindly not to.

  At the Maison Dieu we left Porker in the stables and then in we went to meet the party we’d be walking with, and though they weren’t as poor and meek as the rag boy, Tom, they seemed righteous enough, mostly. The widow from Thetford, Constance, was especially joyed when I told them our tale. It turned out her boy was afflicted with torments thanks to her own sins, and she had Beatrix put her hand to his belly, which was where his torments first struck him, she said, and she had Beatrix pray to God that the devil would leave him be. One I didn’t like the look of was the manor lord, John. Here’s trouble, I thought, and haughtiness too. But when he heard of our travails with Father Adam and Abbot Nicholas he slapped me on the back like we were old friends. It happened he’d had a squabble with an abbot who was his neighbour, whom he’d punched in the nose. So I liked him well enough in the end.

  There were a mother and daughter, Mary and Helena, whom I noticed on account of their gear, which was very tidily done. ‘Who made those?’ I asked, wondering if they’d cheated some poor tailor, but it turned out they’d made them themselves. ‘I was a gown maker before I met my dear husband the butcher,’ Mary told me. ‘And so, thanks be to Jesus, I learned stitching then.’ She’d learned well, too. Too well for my Beatrix, who was quite sour at me afterwards. ‘Why couldn’t you have made me something handsome like they have?’ she asked. ‘It’s not right that a butcher’s daughter should have finer clothes than God’s own voice. With all the silver you’ve got you could make me a dozen pretty gowns.’ As if I could start sewing gowns on the road to Rome? ‘That’ll have to wait,’ I told her.

  The one I didn’t take to at all was the rich planter with little eyes, Hugh, as the man had no respect for sacred holiness. ‘So you’re God’s throat,’ he said to Beatrix, which I was sure he’d got wrong on purpose as he’d heard me say clear as a bell that she was his voice. ‘Can I beg a fa
vour?’ he asked then, all false innocence. ‘Could you have God tell us how next year’s harvest will go? Or if we’ll have another war with the Welshmen? Or if we’ll have rain or sunshine tomorrow? Or, if those are too troublesome, perhaps you could have God tell us what number I’ll get from a throw of a dice?’ He started digging in his pack. ‘I’ve got one right here.’ I saw Beatrix looking crabbed, as well she might. ‘That’s not how it is,’ I told him sharply. ‘God doesn’t speak through her to tell throws of a dice. He speaks through her to warn his children that the end of days are coming.’ Not that that took the rotten smirk from his face.

  Soon after that the ragged boy Tom came in looking joyed and told us he’d begged his last ha’penny for the boat and even had a farthing spare for some bread for his dinner. ‘That’s thanks to Beatrix,’ said Constance. ‘She’d brought us God’s smile.’ Which was right and proper, I thought. What’s more, we then brought his smile again. First thing the next morning I was woken by a shout of, ‘If you want to get to France then you’d best come down to the harbour right now,’ and it was a shipman from one of the boats, come to tell us that the wind had swung round and we were good to set sail. As we hurried to pack up our things I couldn’t resist saying to Hugh, ‘Two days you’ve been stuck here waiting for the wind to turn, and the moment we turn up God brings it round.’ Not that it changed him. ‘A shame God didn’t tell us that last night,’ he said, ‘as then we could’ve been packed and ready.’

  There’s no troubling over fools, I thought. I fetched Porker from the stables and off we went, and though the one who had pilgrimaged everywhere, Oswald, made a nasty racket with his bagpipes, that didn’t spoil the sweetness of the moment. It was still only first light, the streets were quiet, seagulls were cawing in the sky above us, making me think of Margate, and the day had that tender feeling about it, like a newborn. Beatrix looked cheerier than she had since we’d first set out and I felt my face break into a smile. Here we were on our way to the city of Rome, off to see the pope in his great palace and to set him right about the world. The tide was in and the ships were riding on their anchors and as we waited for the little fellow who’d brought us to find a boat to row us over, I heard humming and I knew what was coming next. This’ll put a stop in you, Hugh delver, I thought, now you hear God himself speak. Then here he was. ‘My children, I bless you all,’ he said in his croaky voice, as the rest of them looked on with wide eyes. He told them to honour his voice and his torchbearer as they were dear to him, and why not, I thought, giving Hugh a smile. Then he gave us sweet news. ‘Go on in strong heart,’ he said, ‘as great good fortune will come to you soon.’ Constance piped up then, begging, or shrieking, for him to cure her boy, but I saw Beatrix’s eyes were closing and I only just had time to reach out to catch her when she swooned.

  I laughed at them all when we got aboard. You can’t grow up in a place like Margate without getting your feet wet and I’d been out on the water many a time, helping my uncle and my cousin, who were fishermen, and even Beatrix knew her way about a deck, but the rest of them were like babes in a treasure house, looking at everything and wondering what it was. ‘How strange it feels, rocking under our feet,’ Constance said. Not half so strange as it’ll feel when we get out of the harbour, I thought. It wasn’t a bad boat and the shipmen knew their work. They had us wait on the deck while they rigged up a stall below decks for Porker, and when that was done the ship’s master told us to go down and he handed us each a jute sack. Mary smiled like she’d been given a lovely present. ‘What’s this for?’ she asked. ‘You’ll soon know,’ said the master with a half smile. ‘Just try not to make a mess on the hides.’ Oswald, who’d been a passenger before, knew, and he looked at his glumly. I won’t need mine, I thought. Which was pride, I suppose.

  It was dim down below, with just a little light coming down from the hatch. Poor Porker was rigged up with ropes in his stall, tight as a fly in a web, and he gave me a mournful look. ‘You’ll be glad of it, no mistaking,’ I told him. The hides were sheep and there were so many that they filled half the space down there and they reeked. We all crammed ourselves into what was left to us. I showed the others the rings in the ship’s side to hold on to and they rattled them about as if it was all a great sport. Finally the hatch was slammed shut, putting us in darkness, and then the ship moved free a little. ‘We’re off,’ said the rag boy Tom like it was Christmas Day. ‘I’d hold on tight if I were you,’ I said, but of course they’d forgotten by the time we passed out of the harbour and struck real sea, and then they were all shouting and falling onto one another. Soon she was bucking like a mare, rising up and coming down with a crash. ‘It’s going to break,’ Hugh’s wife Margaret wailed. ‘We’re all going to drown.’ ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ I told her. ‘It’s just a bit of weather.’ Soon afterwards I heard one of them spewing, then a second, and soon we had another stink to fight that of the hides. Then they were all praying and bickering about who helped best at sea. Some said it was Saint Clement and others said it was Saint Elmo. ‘Saint Nicholas is as good as any,’ I told them, as one who knew, so they all prayed to him.

  Just weather and waves, I said to myself. But as time passed it grew worse and then worse again, till I knew this was a storm, and badder than any I’d known on Uncle’s boat. Even I had to use my sack, shameful to say, though it wasn’t easy, as I couldn’t hold it right without letting go of the ring in the side, which I wasn’t going to do. There was mess all over. ‘This is the end for certain,’ Jocelyn the advocate, who was next to me, kept moaning, and from the way the prow juddered and crashed I thought he mightn’t be wrong. Surely God wouldn’t let his own voice and torchbearer drown before they’d had a chance to do his work, I thought. Unless Father Adam had been right after all, and it had been the fiend speaking through Beatrix’s mouth? She kept praying she was sorry, though I didn’t know what for, unless it was her screaming over the hens. I started praying too: ‘Please, good Saint Nick, see us safely through this, I beg you.’ Trust that slimy fellow Hugh to make things even worse. Just then, when everyone was frightened as could be, I heard a kind of idiot cackle in the dark and he called out, ‘What I want to know is, where’s that great good fortune that was coming to us?’

  Finally I felt the ship grow a little calmer so it was easier to hold my place and I knew we were past the worst of it. Then I must have fallen asleep as I woke to find one of the shipmen was shaking me by the shoulders. ‘Up you get, cousin,’ he said. ‘We’re here.’ The hatch was open and, my legs feeling weak, I climbed up and found that it was first light again and we were riding at anchor in a little harbour. But it wasn’t Calais. The shipmen said the storm had blown us to Boulogne.

  We all went down to the water to try and clean ourselves off and then, feeling hungry from our empty stomachs, we found a market. It was strange hearing them all gabbling in words that made no sense, and were more like geese honking than real talk. The rag boy Tom rattled his bowl at anyone who came near, saying his beggar’s chant, and even though they couldn’t have understood a word he said he got a couple of coins. I suppose they were for his rags. I’d guessed Oswald would know a word or two of French from all his pilgrimaging, which he did, while Sir John knew a little too, and Jocelyn the advocate spoke it nicely enough, but the one who could say it smooth like butter, strange to say, was the woman from Gloucester, Mary. Whoever heard of a butcher’s widow speaking fine French? She was the one who helped us buy our wares, some of which I’d never seen anything like till then. There were some that looked like parsnips but were no colour any decent parsnip ever was, being yellowy red. Oswald, who’d been everywhere under the sun, knew. ‘They’re called carrots,’ he said. You could boil them or eat them raw and they were crunchy and a little sweet. ‘Have one,’ he said, but I said no. Why should I try something that I didn’t know what it was? Another foreign thing they had looked like soft cabbages and were the size of hedgehogs. ‘That’s lettuce,’ Oswald told us. ‘They eat it raw and call it salad.
’ ‘Good for them if they like it,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep to my stew and sops, thank you very much, if they have such a thing here.’

  The comely widow Constance wanted us to set out on the road straight away. They’d been a whole day in London, she said, and then two more waiting for the wind to change in Dover and if we stayed another day here we’d never get to Rome, so she feared, and her boy would never be cured. But all the others of us wanted some rest after that bad night on the boat. So we found an inn and had a sleep, though it was daytime, all aside from the rag boy Tom, who went out begging again. Then early the next morning we started out for Taruenna, which Oswald said was where we’d catch the main pilgrim road from Calais. It was a nasty day, the sky was wide and grey and mean little drops of rain blew into our faces. All the while Hugh did his best to make it worse. With every mile we walked he’d say, with that idiot smile of his, ‘I’m still waiting for that great good fortune.’

  I didn’t trouble to answer him and neither did my Beatrix, though I did murmur a prayer under my breath: ‘Dear God, your loyal torchbearer begs you, have him trip on a stone and break his shins.’ Finally, just as my feet were getting tired, I saw a crossroads up ahead which would be the road from Calais, and coming down it I saw a party approaching us, all on horses, and with a cart too. It was a good-sized group of half a dozen, two of them riding chargers, and we slowed our pace a little, wondering who they could be and if they’d do us ill. When they grew nearer, though, I breathed more easily as I saw the ones on chargers were a man and a woman, and both were wearing pilgrim clothes. She was small and dark and very comely looking, while he had long blonde hair that he kept sweeping out of his eyes.