Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  We were poor company for each other. The knight scarcely spoke at all, and but picked at the food before him. He was, I decided, deep in thought - which for him was a more difficult process by far than storming a castle under a hail of enemy arrows. The franklin, in contrast, was constantly rising from our board and visiting others. Once at another table, he would chat to the pilgrims seated there as if this was his inn – as if, in other words, he was the host. I knew very well he was doing – under the veil of geniality he was attempting to continue the day’s questioning and perhaps steal a further march on me!

  Left largely to my own devices, I contented myself with studying my fellow pilgrims as usual, though whether I was doing so as a justice of the peace or as a poet, I am, even now, uncertain.

  The wife of Bath, I noted, sat with the ‘professional’ men, as she had the previous evening, but unlike that night she seemed to have no interest at all in the young squire.

  The squire himself, sitting at the other end of the professional table from her, appeared to have lost all his considerable zest for life. Like his father, he merely played with his food, and showing no interest in his surroundings, looked neither left nor right.

  I wondered what the cause of the squire’s sombreness could be. Perhaps it was that he had been heavily rebuked by his father for spending not just one but two nights between the ample - walnut-crushing - thighs of the good widow of Bath. Or perhaps the death of a woman in holy orders had shocked him so much more than the death of the drunken miller had. And there was yet a third possibility – that the young squire had a great deal more on his conscience than his father was prepared to admit.

  At the rogues’ table, the pardoner appeared to have recovered from the shock of seeing the prioress’s body, and was once more dominating the conversation with tales of his own guile and cunning. The clerical table was much more divided. The monk, sitting at one end, kept his own counsel. The friar, situated in the middle, winked at the serving maids and made certain gestures to them which could well have been considered out of place in a man of the cloth. But it was the far end of the board which was the most interesting. The nuns’ priest, who only the day before had ceased to hide his light under a bushel, could be said to be doing little less than holding court in front of the three nuns, who, now they had no prioress to keep them in order, could allow their natural selves to emerge from under the veil.

  The franklin, having made his third or fourth tour of the common room, returned to our table.

  ‘Mankind is strange, passing strange,’ he said, as he picked up his knife and sliced into his meat.

  ‘Do you refer to our companions?’ I asked.

  ‘To them, indeed,’ the franklin said. ‘Not a dozen hours ago, they all believed that we had a murderer in our midst.’

  ‘And do they not still believe that now?’

  ‘Perhaps a little. But with each hour that passes, that belief grows fainter. And in its place, the cock-and-bull story which we concocted for the beadle – a story which even he himself did not believe – is gaining currency. Already there are those prepared to swear that the prioress was killed by a robber, and by dawn their ranks will have swelled.’

  ‘Is that not no more than natural?’ I asked. ‘No man likes to believe that he is nurturing a viper in his own bosom.’

  ‘That we pretend that we are without enemies does not ensure that those enemies will not strike us unawares,’ the franklin said.

  ‘We must post guards,’ the knight said, coming out of his reverie and speaking for perhaps the first time since the meal had begun. ‘We must maintain a watchful eye through the whole course of the night.’

  ‘And who will we trust to be part of this guard of yours?’ the franklin asked sceptically. ‘The summoner?’

  ‘No, not him,’ the knight countered. ‘Though I prefer to think ill of no man, yet I would find it hard to put my faith in him.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘We three will take turns to stand guard, and my yeoman, who is blessed with a heart of oak, will assist us.’

  ‘But not your son, the squire?’ the franklin asked.

  ‘No, not my son,’ the knight replied with haste – and perhaps a little sadness. ‘Will you fall in with my scheme, Sir Geoffrey?’

  ‘Aye, good knight,’ I agreed readily.

  Though, in truth, I was still somewhat troubled by the assumption that we three were above the suspicion which hung over the rest of the pilgrims.

  ‘And you, good franklin?’ the knight asked.

  The franklin shrugged his shoulders. ‘If it will give you peace of mind, then I can see no harm in standing guard,’ he said.

  The remark puzzled the knight, as – indeed - it puzzled me.

  ‘You would stand guard to give me peace of mind, though you think there is no need for it yourself?’ the knight asked, to make certain that he had understood correctly.

  ‘Indeed,’ the franklin agreed.

  ‘But how can you think such a need does not exist?’ the knight persisted. ‘We have been on the road for two nights, and there have been two murders. This is a third night. Why, therefore, should there not be a third death?’

  ‘Because this day was quite unlike the ones which preceded it,’ the franklin said.

  ‘True,’ the knight agreed, though he was obviously still perplexed.

  ‘In what ways would you consider it different?’ the franklin asked, a superior sneer coming to his lips.

  ‘We did not travel today, as we did on the other days,’ the knight said slowly.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nor will we sleeping in completely unfamiliar chambers tonight, for we made their acquaintance yesternight. But I still do not see…’

  ‘There will be no murder tonight because there has been no process by which the victim could be selected.’

  ‘No process?’ the knight echoed. ‘What do you mean when you say that there has been no process?’

  The franklin’s smirk widened. ‘I mean that since none of our companions has told a tale of violence today, none of them has marked himself down for death,’ he said.

  Day the Fourth

  Morning

  We left Rochester early the next morning, though having spent much of the night awake and on watch, I would have much preferred to stay in my bed for the rest of the day.

  I took a position towards the back of the column, not so close to the rogues that I could hear what the pardoner said when he spoke, but near enough not to miss the summoner’s raucous laugh at whatever his companion had said. It was a wonder that the rogues could be so lively so early in the morning, I thought. In truth, given that they had been, by a long chalk, the last of our party to go to bed – and then so drunk they could hardly climb the steps up the gallery – it was a miracle they were there at all.

  As we left the town behind us, I found myself becoming stiffer, sleepier and ever more resentful.

  I had lost a night’s sleep.

  And for what?

  For nothing, apparently, since between the rogues falling into bed and the poor parson rising before dawn to praise God, the inn had been as quiet as the grave.

  ‘Ah, but what if we had not been there?’ asked a voice in my head, which sounded uncommonly like the knight’s. ‘If we had not been on guard, the murderer might well have claimed another victim.’

  In that case, I demand grovelling thanks for what I have done, my own voice countered.

  But I knew I would not get any such thanks, for by preventing the potential victim from becoming an actual victim, we had ensured that he did not know he had even been intended to be a victim at all.

  ‘Assuming there ever was meant to be a victim,’ the franklin sneered inside my head. ‘Assuming that there could have been a killing without there being a tale first.’

  Yes, I agreed silently – assuming that.

  And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the franklin had to be right.

  We had b
een travelling for about ten minutes when the host called a halt. He had been rather subdued back at the inn, when the knight, the franklin and I had taken control, but now we were out on the open road again, he seemed to have regained his old confidence

  ‘Brothers and sisters,’ he said, ‘that our pilgrimage has been cursed with bad luck there can be doubt. That two of our brethren have perished along the way is beyond dispute. Yet we are men – that is to say,’ he glanced at the nuns and the wife of Bath, ‘those of us who are not women are men. And men do not bend to the harsh conditions which life has thrust upon them. Rather do they stand proud and fight back.’

  Where was all this leading? I wondered, noticing that my mouth was suddenly very dry.

  The host surely couldn’t be thinking it would be a good idea to…

  He surely wasn’t going to suggest that we should…?

  He could!

  He was!

  ‘So shall you now let these tragedies make us lose sight of our aim?’ the host continued. ‘Or shall you laugh in the face of fate, and each of you tell his tale as he promised in the Tabard? Isn’t that, after all, both the bravest and most sensible course to steer?’

  Men have been judged mad for making saner suggestions, I thought. Heretics have been burned at the stake for uttering words which were less likely to have come from the Devil.

  Yet my fellow pilgrims made no attempt to seize and bind him, nor did they immediately set about collecting wood for his pyre.

  Instead, they nodded their agreement.

  They nodded their agreement!

  And why, dear reader, should they have done that?

  Was it because they knew they had nothing to fear from the killers, since they themselves were all part of a vast conspiracy which been responsible for the deaths of the miller and the prioress?

  It is a tempting theory for the reader to adopt, I admit that, but I must assure you - as one who was later to learn the truth – that it has no basis in reality.

  Then was their easy compliance perhaps simply the result of their being so stupid that they had not seen the connection between the tales and the murders?

  Again, no. They were not, on the whole, fools, and at least a few of them would have been able to make the same connections as the franklin. But where they differed from the franklin, I think, was that though they saw it, they did not choose to believe it. For to believe would be to admit that the sane, organised world they knew had been taken over by one in which they simply did not understand the rules – and no man finds that an easy thing to accept.

  ‘So you wish to go on with our contest, do you?’ the host said.

  The pilgrims nodded again – some of them, perhaps, a little uneasily.

  The host smiled triumphantly. ‘Very well then. You! Good doctor! I’ll wager you have a tale which will keep us well entertained.’

  If he had truly wagered on such an outcome, his fingers would have been reaching for his purse within a minute or two of the physician’s commencing, for the doctor told of an innocent maiden who, rather than let a lecherous magistrate have his way with her, chooses death.

  ‘By Christ’s bones, that was a most depressing tale,’ our host said, when the doctor had reached his grisly conclusion. ‘I swear that just the thought of it is enough to make a man slit his own thro…’

  He stopped suddenly, an expression of horror filling his face, for even a man as poorly endowed with tact as the host was, could see those had not been the right words to utter.

  A silence fell over our company. Some of the pilgrims looked down at the ground, others raised their eyes towards the heavens. Only the poet-spy and the inn keeper kept their gazes on a level – the one to gather material for his great work, the other wildly seeking out the man who would rescue him from the deep hole he had allowed himself to fall into.

  The host’s gaze fell on the pardoner, and though I would have considered him an unlikely saviour myself, it was plain that Harry Bailey regarded the charlatan eunuch as the answer to his prayers.

  ‘You, pretty boy pardoner, it’s your turn next,’ the host called out, some of his old confidence returning. ‘Tell us a story which will lighten our souls – something to make us split our sides with laughter.’

  It was as if the words were a magic spell. The pilgrims all raised their eyes from the ground or lowered them from heaven and focussed on the pardoner.

  ‘Gladly will I tell you a tale,’ the pardoner agreed, seeming to relish all the attention which had fallen in his path. ‘But first I’ll need to wet my whistle, and, as chance will have it, I see an ale house up the road just ahead of us.’ He licked his thin lips greedily. ‘A couple of pints from there should put me in just the right mood,’ he continued.

  The guildsmen exchanged uncomfortable – and identical – stares. The poor parson exchanged knowing – and disgusted – looks with the ploughman, his brother. The wife of Bath tittered, and the nuns looked down at their bridles. They all knew exactly what kind of story they could expect from this pardoner, once he had some ale inside him.

  ‘Don’t tell us dirty jokes,’ the franklin said, unexpectedly. ‘We’ve had enough of filth already. What we need is a moral tale – something which will edify us all.’

  ‘A moral tale?’ the pardoner repeated.

  ‘If such a thing is within your scope,’ the franklin said. ‘If you can raise your tone above the level of the ale house.’

  The franklin meant it as a challenge, and that was exactly how the pardoner took it.

  ‘Oh I can raise my tone when I wish to, all right,’ he said, offhandedly. ‘I can raise it so high that you, for all your wealth and rank, will feel like nothing but a worm. But whether the tale that I tell be full of virtue or steeped in vice, before I begin it I am in need of a drink.’

  I turned towards the franklin. It could have been said that the pardoner had just insulted him, and I half-expected to see a look of anger on his sanguine face. But no such look was in evidence. On the contrary, the franklin’s expression seemed to say that he was extraordinarily pleased with himself.

  As I was speculating on why that should be, the franklin noticed I was looking at him. He smiled broadly at me, then raised one finger, tapped the side of his nose with it, and winked conspiratorially.

  I wondered what secret it was that he seemed to believe we shared.

  We stopped at the inn on the edge of the village, just as the pardoner had requested. There were tables set up outside and, it being a warm day, we chose to sit around them instead of plunging into the smoky interior.

  As we waited for the ale to be brought, I found myself scanning the middle distance for, as my reader should remember, I had still not cleared up the mystery of the two men who may – or may not – have been following us ever since we left Southwark.

  It was not that I suspected the men of murder, you understand. No, I was now firmly convinced that the killer was one of our company. Yet I could quite dismiss from my mind the notion that they were involved, in some way, in the deaths of the miller and the prioress.

  ‘Ah, the ale comes!’ the pardoner called out in his bleating voice. ‘Good ale and good company. What more could any man wish for?’

  A man could wish for a solution to the puzzle, I thought, still looking up the road.

  Though there was no sign of the young men, there was other traffic making its way towards Canterbury. A cart, loaded down with dung, trundled in and out of the ruts, swaying dangerously. A drover cursed at his cattle and hit them with his stick when they threatened to merge with the flock of sheep which was being herded in the opposite direction. And a leper made his way unsteadily towards us, perhaps hoping and praying for some miraculous cure at the shrine of the blessed St Thomas.

  No doubt my reader considers that at this point I must have been a dull-brained man indeed not to be immediately suspicious of this leper.

  For, after all, have I not mentioned a leper acting oddly in Rochester?

  And so i
s it not likely that this was the selfsame man?

  But consider this – would it not have been tiresome had I listed every leper I had seen since Southwark, including the several we had passed that very morning? Thus, in making a judgement the reader has the advantage over me at the time, for he has been seeing the world through my words instead of through my eyes. And like the painter with his brush, I have used those words to highlight objects which should stand out from the general landscape.

  So, when all was said and done, was the leper more than a leper?

  Perhaps! Wait and see! Discover the truth when I discover it myself.

  *

  ‘More ale, wench!’ the pardoner called out.

  I looked down at my beaker and was surprised to see that whilst the pardoner was ready for another drink, I had scarcely supped the top of mine.

  It annoyed me that I should be surprised. I reminded myself that I was a writer and a poet – that it was my job to see beyond the outward trappings – and that I should not have taken the pardoner’s weedy frame as proof positive he could not hold his drink.

  The pardoner rapidly swallowed his second mug and ordered a third. He was still far from drunk, yet after three rations of ale any man was likelier to have a looser tongue in his head than if he had confined himself to water.

  ‘When you look at me, what do you see?’ he asked the assembled company as he wiped his thin lips with the back of his hand. ‘Why, you see a man who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. A man who will have strong wine and good food at all times. A man who is not content without a jolly wench in every town!’

  I heard the nuns giggle at these last few words, and could not blame them. For even women who had led their sheltered lives must have found it hard to picture the pardoner as a champion ram – as a Chanticleer of the stews.

  The pardoner heard the nuns, glared at them for a moment, then turned away.

  ‘I have not tried to hide my true self from you,’ he told the rest of the pilgrims. ‘Why should I have done so? I am not about my business now. My aim is not to make you part with your money - though I could make you part with it easily enough, if I so wished. This pilgrimage is nothing but a holiday for me, among folk I will never see again. Why then, should I put on false colours?’