Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  And it is not only for its fine buildings and bustling commerce that Dartford is known. It has also earned its own place in our recent – and bloody - history, for it was in this very town, I should explain to those who may have forgotten, that Wat Tyler himself was born and raised. And in case there be any of my readers who have also forgotten what it was that Tyler did to earn his fame, I will explain that, too.

  It seems that the poll tax collector had called at Tyler’s house one day to demand a groat for every soul living under that roof. Tyler himself was absent, but his young daughter was not. The tax collector, deciding to grasp the opportunity when it was presented to him, commenced a sexual assault the girl which might have ended in rape had Wat Tyler himself not chosen that moment to come home.

  Tyler, ever the loving father (and a man of action rather than of words) did not try to remonstrate with the tax collector. Instead he raised his heavy hammer, which being a tool of his trade, he had immediately to hand, and reduced the tax collector’s head to a bloody pulp - an action which would have been applauded by most Kentish men even without the excuse of an insult to the family honour.

  News of Tyler’s act of tax evasion spread rapidly throughout Kent, and was to be the spark which ignited the Peasants’ Revolt. Soon the men of Gravesend and Canterbury – and of countless other towns and hamlets – were converging on Dartford, and it was from there that they marched on London to put their demands to the king.

  I found it difficult, at that moment, to believe that such dramatic events had occurred only six years earlier. Yet they had. So there must still have been women living in the town who had seen their husbands and brothers strung up. And young men - now grown to full adult strength - who had been no more than children when they watched their fathers die. And though the river we had to cross to enter the town was shallow and slow, I imagined that beyond it still flowed streams of hatred which were both deep and furious.

  As we began to ford the river – the knight, of course, leading the way – my thoughts returned once more about the two riders who had been following us for most of the day.

  One, I remembered, had been astride a dappled grey, while the other had been mounted on a fine chestnut. Were they still on our tail, I wondered, or had they now branched off to follow some business of their own?

  I turned my head, expecting to observe either both of them or neither, and discovered that while the one on the dappled grey was still with us, there was no evidence of the other man.

  What did that mean, I asked myself? That the second rider had fallen far behind? Or that he had overtaken us – a feat which, given our leisurely progress, was easily within his means?

  And then I turned my attention back to the task in hand, for a man who fords a river while his mind is elsewhere will soon find himself out of the saddle and talking to the fishes.

  *

  We forded the river with little difficulty, and rode up the High Street to be greeted by a veritable multitude of people. Shopkeepers, on hearing the sound of our horses’ hooves, swarmed out onto the street, attempting to sell us pewter pilgrims' badges and lead ampoules filled - so they loudly proclaimed - with holy water. A beggar – always a sign that a town is wealthy – tugged at my stirrup and implored me for alms. Urchins ceased their games in order to wave at us and ask from whence we had come. A leper, ringing his bell to inform the unwary of his presence, scuttled across our path and into the shadows…

  A leper!

  What business did a leper have being out on the streets of Dartford? Lepers did wander the streets of other towns for lack of anywhere else to go, it was true. But did not Dartford have its own lepers’ hospital, which had been built with no other purpose in mind than to keep poor dying souls such as him from contaminating the rest of the populace?

  I reined my horse to a halt, waved the other pilgrims to pass on either side of me, and took another look at the leper. There was not a great deal to see, for his hood masked his disfigured face and the sleeves of his robe covered hands which, by now, had probably lost several of their fingers. Yet even though so much of him was shrouded, I could not suppress a feeling that there was something about the man which was not quite as it should have been.

  Was it his stance which raised this growing tide of suspicion within me? I asked myself.

  Perhaps – for it was undoubtedly true that whilst for most lepers the weight of simply carrying their disease was enough to make them hunch forward, this man was standing as straight as a pikestaff.

  But even more curious was the way he conducted himself. As the leper’s body decays, so does his interest in the rest of the world - for his own misery is so great that it leaves little scope for concern over anything else. Yet this man seemed to have a keen awareness of what was happening around him, and though I could not see his eyes, I would have been prepared to swear that they were darting hither and thither.

  I determined to urge my horse closer to the man – though not close enough to allow him to breathe his pestilence on either of us – and to question him as to why he was on the street and what he hoped to see there. But it was not to be. The leper looked down the street, gave a brief nod to someone he saw there, then scuttled off down an alley.

  I turned to look down the street myself, and saw the young man on the dappled grey – one of the two who had been following us since we left Southwark. Our eyes met for but a second before he turned away, yet even that short time was enough for me to read his face.

  The man was a complete stranger to me, I was sure of that. But I was no stranger to him, for what I had seen on his face - in the brief moments I had to study it - was a look of recognition.

  Day the Second

  Evening

  We had no sooner unsaddled our horses in the stable of the Cock-on-the-Hoop (a well-appointed inn which, like many others in the town, was owned by the priory) than the rougher elements of our pilgrimage were calling loudly to the tapsters for ale. I considered joining them, for I knew that I would have to study them at close quarters before our journey was done, but then, like a swimmer who dips only his toe in the water at first, I decided I would spend this evening in the company of the clerical party.

  The clerics were a mixed bunch, ranging from the prioress at one end of the table to the poor country parson at the other, and as I took my place I determined to say little, but to listen and learn instead.

  As chance would have it, it was the poor parson who happened to be speaking as I took my seat.

  ‘We are indeed privileged to be here, are we not?’ he said. ‘For a man might live his whole life and never see monuments to holiness such as the fine buildings which grace this noble town. I must go and pray in the chapel in the Holy Trinity Church which, as you all should know, is dedicated to the blessed St Thomas. Will you come with me, Brother?’

  He was addressing this remark to the friar, who, it turned out, was named Hubert. This friar, I should tell you from the beginning, was not like any of the friars who you may have seen in your town or wandering along the highways. His gown was not made of the rough cloth which so scratches that it makes a man feel he is covered with fleas even when he is not. No, this gown was cut from the finest double-worsted. Nor did the friar have the hollow-cheeked look of those of his brethren who live on what scraps others can spare them. His face was round as a ball, his lips both full and sensual, and his eyes twinkled in a manner which could scarcely have been called devout.

  ‘I asked you if we should pray in the chapel together, Brother,’ the poor parson repeated.

  The friar shook his head. ‘Devotion is a fine thing in its place - but it is very hard on the knees,’ he said. ‘Besides, that is not the mission for which God has placed me on this earth.’

  ‘Indeed?’ the poor parson asked.

  ‘Indeed,’ the friar replied. ‘It is my vocation to minister to lost souls.’ He licked his fat lips. ‘And in a town as rich as this one, there will be many who need the solace of my words.’


  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ the parson agreed. ‘Perhaps, instead of praying in the church, I should accompany you to the lepers’ hospital.’

  A look of distaste crossed the friar’s face for the briefest instant, and then was gone.

  ‘Thank you, but it is not the lepers I am intending to visit,’ he said. ‘There are many priests who can deal with the sick – some who can do little else, if truth be told - but it is my particular vocation to hear the confessions of merchants and landowners – and, of course, of their wives.’

  ‘Indeed?’ the parson asked, for a second time.

  ‘Did I not just say so?’ the friar asked, showing a sliver of irritation. ‘I speak their language and understand their failings much better than do most other priests. In my own district there is no one to whom the rich and powerful would rather confess their sins.’

  ‘Yet I trust that their exalted position does not cause you to soften their penance,’ the parson said.

  The friar smiled, his irritation gone, his good humour returned. ‘You need have no concern on that account, good parson,’ he said. ‘I make them pay for their sins, all right. I make them reach deep into their pockets ... their souls, I should say. I make them reach deep into their souls.’

  The parson nodded, as if he easily pardoned such a slip of the tongue, then turned his attention to the other clerics sitting around the table.

  ‘Will you, then, come with me, Madam?’ he asked, addressing himself to the prioress.

  The nun simpered, as a lady at court might have done were the poor parson a knight in full armour, who had just asked permission to carry her emblem into battle with him.

  ‘But that I had other duties to attend to, I would willingly come with you,’ she said.

  ‘Other duties?’

  ‘I believe it would show a lack of courtesy and gentility on my part if I did not visit the priory while I was here,’ she replied.

  It may seem to my readers that ‘courtesy and gentility’ were perhaps strange words to use to describe a prospective visit to her sisters in Christ. Certainly the parson seemed to consider them an odd choice. But then the reader will never have seen the prioress, and the parson - though he had seen her - had not looked beyond the veil.

  I, on the other hand, had seen beyond it, and though as a Christian I am duty bound to respect those in holy orders, as a writer I must be honest about what I saw.

  The prioress was, I was sure, a very devout lady, but it seemed to me that she was often more concerned with being a lady than with being devout. Her table manners, I had already noted, were so genteel that they would have put the queen herself to shame. Her dress was skilfully arranged to show her off to the best advantage. And though I am sure that she truly loved the two small lap dogs which accompanied her, she was most likely to make some show of that love when she was aware that others were watching how prettily she did it.

  ‘Yes,’ the prioress continued, still talking to the parson, ‘I must certainly pay a call, for I have heard that one of the nuns there is Princess Bridget, who, as you must surely know, was the favourite daughter of our late king, Edward.’

  If the parson had known he gave no sign of it, but instead wondered aloud whether anyone else at the table might care to go with him on a short spiritual excursion.

  The other nuns and the nuns’ priest declined, well aware, no doubt, that the prioress would be ill at ease visiting a princess without her retinue in attendance. The monk – the manly man who sat well in his saddle – excused himself too, saying that he had noticed some fine falcons being put through their paces as we rode into town and was now eager to watch them perform at closer hand.

  ‘And you, good sir?’ the parson asked me.

  But I had other pilgrims to observe, and hence pleaded tiredness.

  The parson left first, soon to be followed by the prioress and her party, and finally the hunting monk. I turned my gaze towards the other tables. At one the guildsmen were sitting in a tight knot, looking grave and serious, and perhaps plotting municipal politics. At a second sat the sergeant at law, the merchant, the franklin and the doctor. At a third, the good wife of Bath was entertaining the knight and his party - though it seemed to me that the young squire was far more amused by her words than was his father.

  But it was the fourth table which caught my interest particularly. The miller and the reeve sat at this board, as far from each other as was physically possible, and between them were the manciple, the guildsmen’s cook, the pardoner and the summoner. It was the pardoner, rather drunk, who was holding the floor.

  ‘I despise the amateur rogue with all my heart,’ he was saying in his bleating goat’s voice.

  ‘Aye, the world is indeed too full of them,’ the reeve interrupted, looking directly at the miller. ‘If I had my way I would see them all hanging from the nearest gibbet.’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ the pardoner said. ‘It is not all rogues I object to, only the ones…’

  ‘Are you calling me a rogue?’ the miller demanded.

  ‘I spoke of no one in particular, but if the cap fits, I see no reason why should not wear it,’ the reeve said.

  The miller rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘If I chose to, I could snap you like a dry twig,’ he told the reeve.

  ‘Not before I had run you through with my sword,’ the reeve countered.

  The miller swayed uncertainly, as if he were deciding whether or not to make his way to the other end of the table and match his brute strength against the reeve’s rusty sword.

  Then he shook his head. ‘You are not worth the trouble your death would cause me,’ he said.

  He turned, and walked away from the table. I followed his progress with my eyes. That he was drunk there was no doubt, yet I gained the distinct impression that he was not quite as drunk as he appeared - and I found myself wondering if any other part of his behaviour during that first day of our journey had been to some extent nothing more than an act.

  ‘Well, now the table is free of roguery,’ the reeve said complacently.

  The pardoner laughed. ‘Certainly there is one less rogue than before,’ he said, ‘but there is roguery enough left sitting here.’

  ‘Are you saying that I am a rogue?’ the reeve said.

  ‘I am saying that we all are. Of course you cheat your lord. You would be a fool not to. But I’m sure you are clever enough to do it in such a way that he will never notice - and that, I applaud. It is, as I was saying before you interrupted me, the amateur rogue who I despise.’

  ‘The amateur rogue?’ the manciple repeated, clearly confused.

  ‘Yes,’ the pardoner replied. ‘Did you see what those scallywags of shopkeepers tried to sell us we rode into town?’

  ‘I do not know what they tried to sell you, but they offered me vials of holy water,’ the manciple said.

  ‘Holy water indeed!’ scoffed the pardoner. ‘It may be holy – but only if a saint has pissed in the river from which it was drawn. Only an imbecile would waste his money on such things – and there are too few real imbeciles around for a man to make a decent living off them. Now the relics which I offer are a different matter. Some of the cleverest men in the kingdom have parted with good money to possess one of my relics.’

  ‘So they are real?’ the cook asked.

  The pardoner laughed. ‘If all the bones of St Sebastian that I have sold were genuine, then the good saint would have needed to have a dozen feet and a score of hands,’ he said.

  As he was speaking the pardoner was absent-mindedly stroking the thigh of the summoner, who was sitting next to him. I did not find it a pretty sight, for even had I been inclined towards sodomy I would not have chosen the summoner – who had a face which would frighten even the bravest child – as my partner.

  ‘It is not the relics themselves which are important – the trick lies in the way they are presented,’ the pardoner continued. ‘I preach against greed, yet at one-and-the-same time, I pander to it. Why do men buy the shoulder-bo
ne of the sheep which I say once belonged to a holy Jew? Because they are devout? No! It is because I tell them that if they dip it in their cattle’s drinking water, their herd will multiply. Why do they buy my Papal pardons? Not to redeem them from their past sins, but to give them license to commit more in the future. No pardoner ever got rich by appealing to the virtuous side of other men’s nature – it is in the venal side that the profit lies.’

  The summoner had been devoting all his attention to squeezing one of the countless pimples on his blotch-covered face, but now he seemed to decide that the time had come for him to do some bragging of his own.

  ‘You live only by your wits,’ he told the pardoner, ‘but I have the power and majesty of the church behind me. When they see me, sinners tremble, for they know that if I wish it, I can summon them before an ecclesiastic court in less time than it takes a man to fart. But I do not always wish it, you understand. If a man with a concubine has money in his purse, he will find me most willing to look the other way. And no man living need fear excommunication if he has me on his side, for I am no silver-tongued charlatan, but a man who speaks with the authority of Mother Church.’

  ‘And so do I have authority,’ said the pardoner, his voice suddenly hardening and his hand lifting itself clear of the summoner’s thigh. ‘Have you not seen my bulls and scrolls, signed by the Pope himself?’

  The summoner sniggered. ‘But which pope?’ he asked. ‘The one who lives in Rome, as the blessed St Peter himself did? The one whom our king recognises as his spiritual master? Or are you referring to the one who lives in Avignon, and is nothing but a dupe – the hapless puppet of the French monarch? If it is the Frog pope you speak of, then for all the authority his bulls and scrolls carry with them you might as well use them to wipe your arse.’