The Great Revolt

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ one of the sentries on the parapet walk cried out. Athelstan glanced up. Fiery streaks flamed against the night sky.

  ‘Fire arrows!’ Cranston shouted. ‘Have tubs of water at the ready …’

  Ferrour grabbed Athelstan’s arm and pulled him away even as arrow shafts shattered on the cobbles. A bell began to toll the tocsin. Men-at-arms appeared, edging out into the darkness, taking shelter where they could. At first there was confusion. Sentries shouted that they could see no one though the fire shafts continued to pepper the night sky. Cranston joined Athelstan in the shelter of an outhouse overlooking the cobbled bailey. He shouted orders, telling the men-at-arms to fall back and wait. Silence descended, then was shattered by screams of ‘Harrow!’, ‘A l’aide! A l’aide!’ from both left and right.

  ‘They are testing our defences,’ Cranston muttered, ‘as well as trying to confuse us.’ He pointed to the main gate. ‘That’s what they want. They will force it if they can.’

  Athelstan glanced to his right and glimpsed shapes emerging from the darkness. A horn blew and friary men-at-arms, shields locked, charged a group of Earthworms who were clustered with their spears jabbing. Athelstan grasped the mace Cranston pushed into his hand and followed the coroner out across the cobbles. The ominous silence before a battle had been riven by shouts, screams and cries of war. The great cobbled bailey swiftly became a battlefield. Apparently Earthworms had scaled the friary walls on both sides. They planned to outflank the defences, secure control of the fortified gate and so open a postern door for those waiting outside. Prior Anselm had prepared for this, holding back a cohort of men-at-arms to bring the Earthworms to battle and kill them.

  The struggle in front of the main gate was now the heart of the battle. Spear, sword, axe, club and mace rose and fell. Athelstan tripped over a corpse and stared down at the mashed face of an Earthworm, the cobbles around turning greasy with blood. The friary men-at-arms along with others were trying to push the Earthworms back against the walls. Athelstan glimpsed Matthias, Hugh and John, each armed with an arbalest, standing grouped together; a hapless huddle searching for a target. Ferrour and the Hangman were fighting comrades; standing together each had found a kite-shaped shield, locking them close. Bladdersmith, looking rather ridiculous with a cooking pot on his head, protected their backs.

  Athelstan closed with a spear-wielding Earthworm even as he heard the pounding of a ram against the main gate. The Earthworm dodged and feinted. Athelstan waited for his opportunity. The Earthworm jabbed his spear. Athelstan swiftly stepped aside, bringing the mace cracking down against his opponent’s hair-matted skull. The Earthworm collapsed. Athelstan was grabbed by a sword-wielding Cranston who roared at those around him to stay close. The coroner had come into his own; as swift as any dancer, he turned and twisted, sword jabbing out like a viper’s tongue.

  The crashing against the main gate now thundered above the cries and yells of the mass of fighting men who surged backwards and forwards. The cloisters bell began to toll, followed by a roar of voices, ‘A l’aide, St Dominic – St Dominic, come to our help.’ Prior Anselm, a coat of mail over his robes, led a group of friars along with Flaxwith and his bailiffs out of the darkness, a throng of fighting men whirling both sword and club. Their arrival proved too much for the Earthworms, who began to slip away, racing back into the blackness of the night, desperate to reach the siege ladders which they had left propped against the walls. Some of them became lost, unsure of the way, and they had no choice but to turn and defend themselves against bloodthirsty knots of defenders led by Cranston and Flaxwith. For a while Athelstan followed, but the struggle was now becoming a massacre as individual Earthworms were trapped and cut down.

  Athelstan retreated into a shadow-filled enclave. He crouched against the cold wall, eyes growing heavy, a feeling of utter weariness creeping through him. The strident noise of men killing each other subsided. Figures emerged out of the darkness, their blood-smeared weapons glistening in the flame of the torches they carried. Athelstan wearily rose and joined the rest gathering on the cobbled yard of the great bailey. Men-at-arms patrolling the walls reported that a great silence had descended on the blackness beneath them. No sound or sight of any enemy.

  The dead of both sides were laid out. Wounded defenders were helped off to the infirmary and hospital. Little mercy was shown to Earthworms who had been wounded or captured. Cranston, the battle fury still throbbing through him, displayed his seals of office, declaring he was the King’s own officer with the power of axe, tumbril, sword and noose. Prior Anselm, who had suffered a slight hand wound, seemed too exhausted to protest. Fieschi and his two companions, who had not been in that bloody, frenetic struggle, now appeared, quietly watchful, as if what was happening was not really their concern.

  Cranston had the eight Earthworm prisoners brought before him; stripped of their armour and weapons, they were pushed forward and made to kneel. Flaxwith and his bailiffs, cudgels in one hand, a fiery torch in the other, created a pool of light around the ghastly scene. Some of the Earthworms were wounded, two of them grievously, but their moans, groans and pleas were ignored. Cranston, holding his drawn sword by the blade as if it was a cross, intoned the solemn words of justice dealing with traitors caught in arms against their king.

  ‘By law and due process,’ he thundered, ‘you should be condemned to be drawn, hanged, disembowelled, your heads struck off and your bodies quartered. Justice, however, will be swifter. You will be hanged. Sentence to be carried out immediately. You,’ Cranston pointed at one of the friars, ‘will shrive them if they want that. Let it be swift.’ Cranston supervised the hapless prisoners being dragged to their feet and pushed up the steps to the parapet. In the fitful light from the juddering sconce torches, Athelstan watched as the Hangman of Rochester placed a noose over each prisoner’s head, the other end of the rope being lashed around one of the crenellations. The faded words of absolution spoken by a breathless friar carried on the breeze. Figures moved in the murk. Athelstan walked away as Flaxwith’s bailiffs began to toss each of the prisoners over the wall to jerk and shudder in that last ghastly gallows dance.

  Athelstan felt sick, sweat-soaked. Tiredness numbed his body whilst his frantic mind seemed dominated by macabre images. He murmured a prayer for the executed prisoners. There was nothing he could have done for them. They were guilty of rebellion, attacking church property and the slaughter of innocents. He reached his chamber in the guesthouse and sat on the edge of the bed. Undoubtedly the Earthworms intended to seize all of those sheltering at Blackfriars, especially Thibault’s daughter Isabella. However, he wondered if the attack was also connected to Fieschi’s mission here. Had they been encouraged in their assault, enticed to attack what they thought was an undefended friary, not realising that the presence of Flaxwith and others would mean fierce resistance? Athelstan tried to list what he had seen and heard, but his eyelids were growing heavy. Wrapping a blanket around him, he lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

  He woke long before dawn. He washed, shaved and laid out fresh robes. Once ready, he went down to the refectory where a sleepy servant provided a cup of watered ale. Others were also busy; Hugh, Matthias and John the gatekeeper had come from the infirmary, where Hugh cheerily declared that the dead were laid out, absolved, anointed and destined for God, whilst the wounded had been made comfortable and sent into the land of dreams with a powerful opiate. Despite their mask of good humour, all three Dominicans looked tired and drawn, but they agreed that after mass, they would take Athelstan out to God’s Acre and the burial plots of the Dunheved brothers.

  By the time they had finished celebrating mass and divested, dawn had broken, though the rising sun was still not strong enough to burn off the thick river mist which curled around the ancient yew trees, sturdy shrubs and the lines of battered crosses and crumbling tombstones of the dead. An eerie, ghostly place, God’s Acre stretched out like some blighted wasteland. Here and there, pinpricks of glowing torchligh
t and the muffled thud of mattock, hoe and spade showed where the ground was being prepared for the burial of those slaughtered or executed the night before. Crows and ravens cawed noisily, then lapsed into silence. Brother Hugh, carrying the Book of the Dead, led his two constant companions and Athelstan along the pebble-dashed path to a far corner of the graveyard and two heavy crosses, each carved with the names ‘Dunheved Thomas, Brother’ and ‘Dunheved Stephen, Brother’. Both the crosses and tumuli looked neglected, worn down by wind, rain and freezing winter. Athelstan knelt on the prayer stone between the graves and murmured the requiem, then rose to his feet.

  ‘So little,’ he declared, pointing down at the graves. ‘Here lie two men who shook throne, crown and church. What secrets died with them, eh?’ He glanced at his three companions, cowls pulled up against the drifting mist. ‘Does Blackfriars hold any records on these two brothers?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Matthias the secretarius answered. ‘Poor Roger was the authority on such matters. As you can see, Athelstan, these are two lonely tombs, and what the Dunheveds said or knew is now known only to God. Well, are you finished?’

  Athelstan stared around the mist-hung cemetery. A seed of an idea was taking root. A suspicion was beginning to surface that the dead, despite the apparent paradox, were very much active amongst the living. Odo Brecon was a relic of the past and he had been brutally killed. Pernel the Fleming woman had, in her own fey-witted way, wandered into a dark place ruled by the past and she had forfeited her life. Brother Roger, busy probing the past, had been cruelly struck down. Athelstan threaded a set of Ave beads through his fingers. Odo Brecon and Pernel were gone, murdered for what they knew, Brother Roger for what he had discovered – or threatened to. Athelstan was walking the same path as the dead chronicler. Roger had stumbled on something, so it was vital that his chamber remained sealed and guarded until the truth was discovered.

  Lost in his own thoughts, Athelstan thanked his companions, then walked out of God’s Acre and across to the guesthouse. A grim-faced, unshaven Cranston was already there, his clothes still splattered with blood. He was deep in conversation with John Ferrour whilst they broke their fast on crispy pork slices under a caraway sauce, with brimming tankards of ale beside them. Cranston, however, seemed more interested in what Ferrour was saying than satisfying his hunger. The coroner turned as Athelstan sat down on a stool beside him.

  ‘So, Friar, you know who this young man truly is?’

  ‘I certainly know what he claims to be: John Ferrour of Thibault’s household masquerading as a royal messenger.’

  ‘And a veritable source of information. Apparently the King and his council are hiding in the Tower. The rebel armies are massing to the north-east of the city. Rumours run riot, but it would seem that the King and his council are prepared to concede to the rebels’ demands …’ Cranston paused as Athelstan rapped the table and pointed at Ferrour.

  ‘How do you know all of this?’

  ‘We hanged the Earthworms.’ Ferrour’s face creased into a grin. ‘I helped the Hangman of Rochester despatch those devils into the dark.’

  ‘And he has a special knot,’ Athelstan intervened, ‘which,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘causes a swift death. You would offer this as a bribe to the Earthworms,’ Athelstan crossed himself, ‘and the Earthworms talked.’

  ‘They certainly did, like sparrows on the branch,’ Cranston declared. ‘That’s how we know, and it is serious. The rebel armies now occupy London and are preparing to lay siege to the Tower. I truly believe they intend to force entry.’

  ‘And seize the King?’

  ‘Or worse, Brother, kill him as, I suspect, a few of the rebel leaders always intended.’

  Cranston leaned against the table. His face had lost its colour, becoming thinner and, Athelstan thought, strangely younger. He felt he was glimpsing Cranston as the coroner must have been years ago, a ruthless swordsman, a warrior about to enter the lists, to joust in the tourney. However, this was no mock tournament but, as the heralds would declare, a fight to the death.

  ‘Athelstan?’ Cranston grasped the friar’s hand. ‘I must go to the Tower. The city is no longer under royal control. Master Ferrour here wants to accompany us. A good swordsman would never be refused, and you, Athelstan, must come with me. There is someone in the Tower I would like you to meet.’ He let go of Athelstan’s hand. ‘So all three of us are going, but how? To go along the riverbank would be dangerous; the quaysides and the main thoroughfares will be under the control of the Earthworms. We will have to go by boat, barge or wherry, even if I have to row it myself—’

  Cranston broke off as Fieschi, flanked by Cassian and Isidore, entered the refectory. The Italians raised their hands in salutation as they sat at the far end of the common table. Ferrour got to his feet, saying he would find a boat or barge and then return. Athelstan followed him to the door, then turned to look at the Italians clustered together talking quietly in their own tongue. Fieschi glanced up, caught Athelstan’s gaze and smiled. Athelstan stared back and, without warning, a deep coldness seized him, a feeling of creeping, crawling danger. He stood gasping for breath, wondering if his wits were wandering, yet the logic of what was happening at Blackfriars made it brutally obvious. Anyone involved in this investigation into the mysterious death of Edward II was vulnerable to vicious attack. He had been targeted, as had Pernel, Brecon and the two Dominicans, Roger and Alberic. Athelstan stared at the Italians. One or more of them could be the assassin and, if he was correct, could turn swift as a viper and lunge at another victim.

  ‘Brother?’ Cranston, grim-faced, was standing close behind him. ‘We should go.’

  PART FOUR

  ‘Truth Has Been Imprisoned Under A Lock.’

  (The Letters of John Ball)

  They left Blackfriars a short while later in a skiff rowed by Brother John and three men-at-arms from the friary. They deliberately hugged the riverbank, slipping past Castle Baynard, the Wardrobe and other riverside mansions. Cranston was correct: the city was in the hands of the mob. Clouds of grey smoke drifted up against the sky. The glow of fiercely raging fires was commonplace. The riverside gallows were heavy with corpses, whilst here and there rose clusters of poles driven into the ground, each bearing a bloodied severed head. The occasional horseman raced along the quayside. Strident cries and clamour drifted across whilst the stench of burning mingled with the usual fishy smells of the riverbank. Further along flaming plumes of smoke shot up from warehouses put to the torch. Foreigners and those marked down for vengeance had been summarily hanged just above the water line.

  Athelstan glimpsed two corpses bobbing in the swollen river, and one of the rowers claimed he’d seen three more, all chained together. A man-at-arms murmured that the Earthworms had allegedly impaled some prisoners on sand banks further down the river. Certainly fear seemed to hang over the usually busy Thames: wherries, barges, fishing boats, cogs and bumboats had all disappeared. Ships from foreign parts had slipped their moorings, moving downriver towards the safety and security of the gull-swept waters of the estuary.

  Cranston gestured towards the city. ‘They will all be there,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘They’ll have swarmed out of their dungeons of eternal night, their filthy mumpers’ castles, cellars and sewers which never see the daylight, Madcap and Mudfog, Cut-throat and Back-stabber, Daniel the daggerman and Richard the riffler, garbed in shit-strewn rags but armed with the sharpest blades. Harvest time has arrived with easy plunder and pretty pickings …’

  ‘And how do you think this will end?’

  ‘Someone, Athelstan, will have to strike, and strike swiftly, at the very heart of this chaos. Now, brace yourself.’

  The small wherry began to rise and fall on the growing swell which hurtled them towards the arches of London Bridge, its pillars and columns protected by sturdy starlings. The noise of the river grew to a constant thundering, drowning even the clacking of the mills and filling their nostrils with a salty tang which almost concealed the
rank smell from the nearby tanneries. Athelstan glanced up at the bridge: even that had not escaped the fury of the mob. He glimpsed darting flames and a moving pall of black smoke.

  ‘May the guardian angel of the bridge protect us!’ one of the men-at-arms shouted, the usual prayer of those who were brave or rash enough to shoot the turbulent, thrashing waters between the arches. Athelstan closed his eyes, murmuring, ‘Jesu Miserere’ and then they were through, aiming like an arrow towards the Tower quayside. Athelstan immediately sensed something was wrong. All the gates, windows and towers overlooking the river quayside were firmly shuttered, and he glimpsed men-at-arms behind the crenellations on the soaring walls. Smoke spiralled from braziers lit in preparation for any assault.

  On the quayside a mob was gathering, streaming down from Smithfield and Tower Hill, a surging mass of men and women, yet ‘the rabble’, as Cranston called them, seemed highly organised, being quickly marshalled under the floating black and scarlet banners of the Upright Men. Most of the rebels were well armed, many carrying warbows and quivers crammed with feathered shafts swinging over their backs. Tower archers and royal men-at-arms patrolled the different entrances uneasily, and their officers sheltered in the shade of the yawning Lion Gate, now firmly closed and barred, admission being only through narrow postern doors. The officers kept looking over the shoulders as if to make sure that, if they had to, they could swiftly retreat through one of these openings. For the moment the mood of the rebels was watchful rather than aggressive. The peasants who’d flooded in from the shires were completely overawed by the baleful majesty of the Tower, its soaring walls and menacing fortifications. Moreover, the clamour and noise, the growls and roars of lions and other savage beasts in the royal menagerie kept the peasants distracted and surprised.

  ‘For the moment we are safe,’ Cranston murmured. ‘The Upright Men who have brought them here are curious, not hostile. But I doubt that will last for long, so come.’ The coroner, cloak tightly drawn about him, his beaver hat pulled down over his eyes, shouldered his way through the crowd, Ferrour and Athelstan close behind. Cranston approached an old acquaintance, John Nettles, captain of the Cheshire archers, the King’s own bodyguard, Richard’s personal insignia of the White Hart emblazoned on his leather jerkin. Cranston whispered to him. Nettles nodded, turned and rapped the hilt of his dagger on the fortified, iron-studded Lion Gate. A postern door opened wide enough to allow Nettles, Cranston and his two companions in before slamming shut behind them.