by C. J. Sansom
‘Thank you, sir,’ Minnie said.
‘But I would not even like to try and list the matter of release without some change in Adam to report.’ I looked at Meaphon. ‘Such a request would simply fail.’
‘Then it seems we must wait and see what the doctor says.’ He spoke quietly, but his eyes were hostile.
‘And I think I ought to visit the Bedlam, perhaps put some fear into this keeper. And see Adam.’
The Kites exchanged uncomfortable glances. ‘That would be good of you, sir,’ Daniel Kite said. ‘But I must tell you, my poor boy’s dismal frenzy is a terrible thing to behold.’
‘I have seen many sad things in my career,’ I said, though in truth I quailed at the thought of this visit.
‘We are going to see Adam tomorrow, at nine, sir,’ Minnie said. ‘Could you come then?’
‘Yes, I will have time before court.’
‘Do you know how to get there? Go through the Bishopsgate, sir, then look for the Bedlam gates.’
‘I will be there.’ I smiled at her and stood up. ‘I will do what I can. But this is a most difficult matter.’
I showed them out. Meaphon hung back in the doorway after the Kites passed into the outer office. ‘I do not think this doctor will have success,’ he said quietly. ‘God moves in strange and marvellous ways, and for all their trials and persecutions in this world, He will lead true Christians into his peace at last. Including Adam.’ The grey eyes burned beneath his shaggy brows; yet it struck me that there was something oddly actorish about him, as though he were playing Virtue in a play whose audience was all London.
‘Indeed,’ I answered. ‘I pray the poor boy may find peace.’
‘We are going to our church service now,’ he said. ‘We shall pray hard for him.’
After they had gone I returned to my desk, looked again at the papers. Then I went and stared out at the rain-drenched court. The Kites passed the window, holding on to their caps as they bent their heads against the driving rain. ‘He is not one of us,’ I heard Meaphon say. ‘He will not be saved at the end-time.’
I watched them as they crossed to the gate. One thing I was certain of in my own mind. Adam Kite was my responsibility now. I had to judge what was in his best interests, and I doubted very much whether an early release from the Bedlam would serve those, whatever Meaphon might say. Minnie Kite, I felt sure, would put her son’s interests first and listen to me.
I went back to the outer office. Barak was sitting at the table, looking into the fire, a serious expression on his face. He jumped when I called his name.
‘You look thoughtful,’ I said.
‘I was just wondering whether to go for a shave now or see if the rain stops. That vicar gave me a nasty look as he went by.’
‘Recognized you for a godless fellow, no doubt. I overheard him kindly condemning me to eternal fire as they passed my window.’ I sighed. ‘Apparently he stuck Adam Kite in a room and prayed with him for two days. Made the boy fast as well, though he was already skin and bone. I almost wonder if Bonner purging the lot of them might not be a good thing. All right,’ I added, as Barak looked at me in surprise. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ I sighed. ‘But I begin to wonder whether these people are the future, whether they are what religious reform is turning into. And that thought frightens me.’
‘But you’re taking the case?’
‘I must. But I shall be very careful, do not worry about that. I want Guy to see the boy. But first I must visit him myself.’
‘At the Bedlam?’
I sighed. ‘Yes, tomorrow.’
‘Can I come?’
‘No. I should go alone. But thank you.’
‘Pity,’ Barak said. ‘I’d like to see if it’s true the groans and shrieks can be heard across the streets, making folk scurry by.’
Chapter Three
LATER THAT MORNING the rain eased off. The sun came out and the weather grew clear and cold again. My meeting with the Kites had given me much food for thought and I decided to go for a walk. Everything seemed sharper in the clear air; the naked branches of the trees were outlined against a blue sky, patches of snow were still visible in the corners of the bare brown fields behind the houses. I walked through the nearby suburbs, along Holborn and down Shoe Lane. The Palm Sunday services were under way now, and I noted as I passed how some churches had garlands on the lychgates and church doors, and greenery spread in the street outside, while others presented only their normal aspect. In one churchyard an outdoor service was taking place, a choir of white-surpliced boys singing a hymn before a garlanded cross, where three men stood dressed as prophets in long robes, with false white beards and brightly decorated headgear. I was reminded of yesterday’s play.
I remembered the guest at Roger’s table talking of apprentices disrupting a palm-laying ceremony. There were many stories of the religious divisions in London’s forest of tiny parishes: a radical vicar in one church whitewashing over ancient wall paintings and replacing them with texts from the Bible, a conservative in another insisting on the full Latin Mass. I had recently heard of radical congregants in one church talking loudly while the sacring bell sounded, causing the traditionalist priest to lose his temper and shriek ‘Heretics! Faggots! Fire!’ at them. Was it any wonder that many, like myself, stayed away from church these days? Next weekend it would be Easter, when everyone was supposed by law to take confession. In London those who failed to attend were reported to Bishop Bonner, but illness or urgent pressure of business were accepted as excuses, and I decided I would argue the latter. I could not bear the thought of confessing my sins to my parish priest, a time-server whose only principle in the doctrinal struggle was to follow the wind and preserve his position. And if I were to confess, I knew that one of my sins was a long-growing, half-buried doubt whether God existed at all. That was the paradox - the vicious struggle between papists and sacramentaries was driving many away from faith altogether. Christ said, by their fruits shall you know them, and the fruits of the faithful of both sides looked more rotten each year.
As I walked down Shoe Lane, one set of decorated church doors opened and the congregation stepped out, the service over. These were very different people from those I had seen in the churchyard, the women in dark dresses, the men’s doublets and coats all sober black, their manner severely reverent. Meaphon’s church would be like this, the congregation a tight-knit group of radicals, for some people would up sticks and move house to find a parish where the vicar agreed with their views. If Bishop Bonner were to try to enforce all the old practices on these churches there would be serious trouble, rioting even. But he was tightening his net; a new index of prohibited books had recently been published, unlicensed preachers were being arrested. And if harsh measures were successfully enforced, I thought, what then? The radicals would only go underground; already groups of them held illegal meetings in people’s houses to discuss the Bible and bolster their radical beliefs.
I was tired when I arrived back at my house in Chancery Lane, a little way up from Lincoln’s Inn. The smell of broiling fish from the kitchen where my housekeeper Joan was preparing lunch was welcome, although I looked forward to the end of Lent next week when it would be legal to eat meat again. I went into my parlour and sat down by the fire, but even my welcoming hearth could not dispel the tension I felt, not just because the case of Adam Kite had drawn me into the threatening doctrinal currents washing through the city, but because they made it hard for me to avoid awareness of my own deepening unbelief.
EARLY NEXT MORNING I set out for the Bedlam. Under my coat I wore my best robe, and I also put on my serjeant’s coif. It would do no harm to impress the warden. I confess that I was nervous at the thought of going to the asylum. I knew next to nothing of madness; I was fortunate enough never to have encountered it among my family or friends. I knew only the doctors divided the brain-sick between those suffering from mania, who often engaged in wild and frenzied behaviour, and the melancholics who withdrew from the world in
to sadness. Melancholy was more common, and usually less serious; I knew I had a melancholic turn of mind myself. And Adam Kite, I thought. Which is he? What is he?
The inconstant weather had turned bitter again; during the night there had been another dusting of snow, which glittered in the cold sunlight. I rode out on my good horse Genesis. I was sorry to take him from his stable but the streets were too slippery to make for easy walking and the Bedlam was on the other side of the city.
I passed under London Wall at Newgate and rode along Newgate Street to the market. Traders were setting up their stalls under the looming bulk of the abandoned church of the dissolved St Martin’s friary, a few white-coifed goodwives already looking over the produce as it was laid out. As I rode past the market I heard someone shouting. On the corner where Newgate Market met the Shambles, a man in a dark doublet, coatless despite the cold, stood on an empty box waving a large black Testament at the passers-by, who mostly averted their eyes. This must be the ranter old Ryprose had mentioned at the dinner. I looked at the man: a young fellow, his face red with passion.
The butchers in the slaughterhouses behind the Shambles had already started work. Lent would be over on Thursday and already they were killing sheep and cattle. Trails of blood were trickling from the yards to the sewer channel in the centre of the frosty street. The preacher pointed to them with his Bible. ‘So it will be for mankind in the last days of the world!’ he shouted in a deep voice. ‘Their eyeballs will melt, the skin will drop from their bones, all that will be left is their blood, deep as a horse’s bridle for two hundred miles! So it is foretold in Revelation!’ As I rode off down the Shambles I heard him cry, ‘Only turn to God, and you will know the sweet joy of his salvation!’ If the constables took him he would be in serious trouble for preaching without a licence.
Along Cheapside the blue-coated apprentices were setting up their masters’ shops for the day’s trade, erecting brightly coloured awnings, their breath steaming in the cold. Some were ordering away the beggars who had sought shelter in the doorways overnight, with kicks and blows if they did not move fast enough. A host of destitute men and women had already limped over to the Great Conduit to beg from those who came for water, huddling against each other on the steps that surrounded it like a flock of starveling crows. As I passed I looked into their pinched, chapped faces. One, an old man with a shock of grey hair, drooling and trembling, caught my eye. He held out a hand and called, ‘Help an old monk of Glastonbury, sir. They hanged my master the abbot!’ I threw a sixpence to him, and he dived for it with a sudden turn of speed, before others could.
So many homeless in the streets now. To live in London since the monasteries were dissolved was to be inured to pitiful scenes everywhere. Most people simply looked away, made the sufferers invisible. Many beggars were former monastic servants, others poor folk who had come in from the countryside where much land was being enclosed to pasture sheep, their villages demolished. And the sick who had once been able to find at least temporary shelter at the monastic hospitals now lay in the streets, and often died there. I thought, I will help Roger with his hospital scheme; I shall at least do something.
I passed under the city wall again and rode up the Bishopsgate Street. The hospital was beyond the city walls, where new houses encroached more every year. I had gone back to Lincoln’s Inn the previous afternoon, and read what I could find about the Bedlam in the library. It had been a monastic foundation, but had survived the Dissolution since some of its patients came from families of means and it was therefore a potential source of profit. The King appointed the warden, currently a courtier named Metwys, who in turn appointed a full-time keeper. The man, his parents believed, who hoped that Adam Kite would die.
NEAR BISHOPSGATE I was held up. A rich man’s funeral train was passing, black horses, black carriages and poor men dressed in black following behind, singing psalms. A dignified-looking old man walked at the head of the procession carrying a white stick - the steward of the dead man’s household carrying the symbolic staff of office he would break and cast into the grave. From its great size I guessed this must be the funeral of Lord Latimer, whose wife the King apparently coveted. I took off my cap. A large carriage passed; the shutters were open. A woman looked out, her face framed by a jet-black hood. She was about thirty; a receding chin and small mouth made a face that otherwise would have been pretty, merely striking. She stared at the crowd with wide, unseeing eyes as she was borne along. It seemed to me that there was fear in them.
The carriage rumbled past, and the Lady Catherine Parr disappeared from view.
AT BISHOPSGATE I passed under London Wall. A little beyond I came to a pair of large wooden gates in a high wall. They were open, and riding through I found myself in a wide, earthen courtyard, stippled with snow, a chapel at its centre. The backs of houses formed three sides of the yard; a long, two-storied building of grey stone, which looked very old, made up the fourth. Some of the unpainted wooden shutters on the windows were open. People were passing to and fro across the yard, and I saw a couple of narrow lanes running between the houses. The Bedlam was not, then, a closed prison. And I heard no shrieks or rattling of chains.
I rode to a large door at one end. My knock was answered by a thickset man with a hard, sardonic face, who wore a dirty grey smock. A big key-ring dangled from his greasy leather belt.
‘I am Master Shardlake,’ I said. ‘I have an appointment to see Adam Kite.’
The man studied my robe. ‘Lawyer, sir?’
‘Yes. Are you Keeper Shawms?’
‘No, sir. He’s out, though he’s due back soon. I’m another of the keepers, Hob Gebons.’
‘Are young Kite’s parents here?’
‘No.’
‘I will wait.’
He stood aside to let me enter. ‘Welcome to the chamber of the mad,’ he said as he closed the door. ‘You think you can get Adam Kite released?’
‘I hope so.’
‘We’d be glad to see him go, he makes the other lunatics nervous. We keep him shut away. Some think him possessed,’ he added in a low voice.
‘What do you think, Gebons?’
He shrugged. ‘Not for me to think.’ The man leaned close. ‘If you’ve a bit of time, sir, I could show you some of our prize specimens. King Commode and the Chained Scholar. For a shilling.’
I hesitated, then handed over the coin. The more I knew about what went on here, the better.
GEBONS LED ME along a whitewashed corridor running the length of the building, windows on one side and a row of green-painted wooden doors on the other. It was cold and there was a faint smell of ordure.
‘How many patients do you have?’
‘Thirty, sir. They’re a mixed lot.’
I saw that viewing-hatches had been cut in the green doors, at eye height. Another grey-smocked attendant stood in an open doorway, looking in.
‘Is that my washing water, Stephen?’ I heard a woman’s voice call.
‘Ay, Alice. Shall I take your pisspot?’
The scene appeared civilized enough, almost domestic. Gebons smiled at me. ‘Alice is sane enough most of the time. But she has the falling sickness bad, she can be on the floor foaming and spitting in the wink of an eye.’
I looked at Gebons, thinking of Roger.
‘She’s allowed to come and go. Unlike this fellow.’ The warder had stopped at a closed door with a heavy bolt on it. He grinned at me, showing broken grey teeth. ‘Behold His Majesty.’
He opened the viewing hatch, and stood aside to let me look. I saw a square cell, the windows shuttered, a candle guttering in an old bottle on the floor. The sight within made me gasp and step back. An old man, large and enormously fat, sat on a commode that had been painted white. He had a short beard cut in the same way that the King’s was depicted on the coins. An extraordinary, multicoloured robe, made of odds and ends of cloth patched together, swathed his heavy form. He was holding a walking stick with a wooden ball jammed on the end to resemble a
sceptre. On his bald head was a paper crown, painted yellow.
‘How are you today, Your Majesty?’ Hob asked.
‘Well enough, fellow. You may bring my subject in, I will receive him.’
‘Maybe later, sire. I have to clean the jakes first!’
‘You insolent fellow—’
Gebons closed the hatch, cutting him off. He turned to me, laughing hoarsely.
‘He’s convinced he’s the king. He used to be a schoolteacher. Not a good one, his charges used to mock him, play football in his classes. Then he decided he was the king and his mind flew away from all his troubles.’
‘Mocking the King,’ I said. ‘That’s dangerous.’
Gebons nodded. ‘That’s why his family put him here, out of the way. Many lunatics proclaim many dangerous things, being loobies they forget you must be careful what you say these days. Now,’ he grinned again and raised his eyebrows. ‘Come and see our Chained Scholar. He’s two doors down. A fine educated fellow.’ He looked at my robe, mockery in his smile. ‘A doctor of common law from Cambridge. Failed to get a post there that he wanted, and attacked his college principal, half killed him. He’s all right with the likes of me, but hates seeing anyone educated. You should see his rage then. If you went into his room he’d leap at you and scratch your face off. He’s one we keep locked up carefully. But I could open the hatch up for you to have a look.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘He loves drawing maps and plans, he’s redesigning the sewers for us. You’ll note there’s a stink in here.’
‘Indeed, a bad one.’
