by Ann Swinfen
It was after Prime that retribution came at last.
‘You are summoned to Chapter,’ Ursula said, in tones of considerable satisfaction. ‘You did not think you would go unpunished, did you?’
Emma looked at her steadily. ‘No doubt you took pleasure in telling Sister Mercy that I left, once I had finished with St Jerome.’
‘The first rule of the Benedictine Order,’ Ursula said piously, ‘is obedience.’
Emma was not sure that this was true, not that it was the first rule – surely that was to serve God? – but would not demean herself to argue. She strode away firmly to the Chapter House, although she felt a certain sickness in her stomach.
The sisters were ranged in a circle on the stone seats around the perimeter of the Chapter House, the abbess sitting on a large throne, slightly raised, facing the door as Emma entered. One nun was standing. Sister Mercy.
‘This is the delinquent novice, Reverend Mother,’ Sister Mercy said, addressing the abbess and not troubling to look at Emma. ‘She left her lessons without permission, went out beyond the enclosure, even beyond the gardens, and was seen in the river in a state of partial undress.’
So Ursula spied on me, Emma thought. All the better to ingratiate herself with Sister Mercy.
‘What do you have to say for yourself, Sister Benedicta?’ the abbess said. She was a fair-minded woman, but she would not brook disobedience.
‘It is perfectly correct that I left the schoolroom,’ Emma said, not deigning to make excuses. ‘However, I had completed all of the work assigned to us. It was very hot and I went only to cool myself by the river. I did remove my sandals. I returned as soon as the bell rang for Vespers.’ She closed her lips firmly. She would take her punishment and not plead further.
‘This is by no means the first time Sister Benedicta has shown herself disobedient, self-willed, and impertinent,’ Sister Mercy said, her lips thin with anger. ‘She has also failed to admit that she removed her veil and wimple, shamelessly baring her head. Mild words and simple punishments have proved of no avail in the past. I request permission to inflict a whipping.’
There was a stir and a murmuring amongst the sisters. Whipping was permitted in the Order, but was usually only carried out for serious crimes. Many of those sitting in Chapter may themselves have also felt a longing for cool air and an escape through the meadow grass in the present heat.
The abbess studied the mistress of the novices, then turned her eyes to Emma, who raised her chin defiantly.
‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘Twelve strokes.’
Sister Mercy turned to Emma. ‘Lower your habit to the waist.’
Emma’s face flamed with shame. She was to strip here, in full view of all the nuns. She struggled to untie the strings at the neck of her habit and to draw her arms out of the sleeves. The irritating rough cloth stuck to her hot skin, but at last she was free of it and naked to the waist.
‘Bend down.’ From somewhere Sister Mercy had produced a thin and whippy birch rod. She must have brought it with her to Chapter, in confident hope that she would get her revenge.
Emma bowed over, clenching her teeth, determined to make no sound. She clutched her knees to steady herself. However severe the beating, she would not fall to the ground.
The birch descended with a sound like ripping cloth and pain like fire burned into Emma’s back. She could not suppress an involuntary gasp, but she would not cry out. Again the whip struck. Again. And again.
It was over.
Somehow she managed to pull her habit up over her back. There was blood running down it, soaking into the folds where her rope girdle gathered the cloth together at her waist. The rough fabric clawed at the raw flesh of her back.
‘You are dismissed,’ the abbess said.
Emma turned slowly, finding that the Chapter House dipped and swayed around her. Everything seemed to have drawn very far away, the edges of the carved stonework shimmering like water, the nuns’ faces blurred and unrecognisable. Only Sister Mercy’s face was clear. Emma stared at her, and the woman took a pace back, but the novice made no move toward her. The door was there. She had only to walk through the door. It was becoming impossible to breathe here. Emma walked to the door, fumbled for the latch, and then she was through.
Chapter Two
Having promised Jordain that I would approach Warden Durant of Merton, I made my way along the High the next morning, soon after settling my two scriveners to their tasks. Despite the weather, hot and heavy, the work of the shop could not be deferred for more than one day. Walter Blunt was engaged in recording our current stock of secondhand books in the ledger, while Roger Pigot would continue to add the final colours to the illustrations for the collection of traditional tales he had copied from one of the books I had bought a few weeks ago from Widow Preston of Banbury. The original book had been cobbled together from an assortment of small books, differing in size and quality. Ours would be a great improvement on this original, written on good quality parchment, with a full page illumination at the start of each tale.
Roger’s penmanship was precise and careful, and if his illustrations had any fault, it was because they also were precise and careful. They would do very well for my prospective buyer, an elderly gentleman possessed of a small manor over near Whitney. What they lacked was the freedom, the originality, and the joyous observation to be found in the work of Emma Thorgold.
As I turned down Magpie Lane and headed toward Merton, I considered the possibility of commissioning more work from her. The approach would need to be made through Abbess de Streteley. Sometime within the next few days I would ride out to Godstow and seek a meeting with the abbess, purely on a matter of business. The great abbesses may live cloistered, but they manage estates quite as large and demanding as those of any secular lord, and like secular lords they must learn to handle complex matters of property and finance. I would put it to her as a profitable transaction – book production which would bring an income for the abbey merely at the expense of the novice’s time. I was unlikely to have the opportunity of seeing Sister Benedicta, but if the abbess approved the plan, it would be necessary for me to consult the novice about the work in future.
It must needs be work of a religious nature – prayer books, Psalteries, books of hours, meditations, and lives of the saints – though I smiled to think what the gifted novice would have made of secular material, like the illustrations for Roger’s book of famous tales. That could be no more than a fanciful dream, for the abbey could not be expected to provide books of a worldly nature, even those with an uplifting moral.
However, I would have no difficulty in finding purchasers for religious books of the quality Emma Thorgold would produce. Since the Great Pestilence, most men’s minds had veered off in one of two irreconcilable directions. Some had been terrified into intense religious observance, hoping by their prayers and their gifts to religious foundations to ward off another visitation of all-consuming death as terrible as the one we had endured four years ago. Others had lost all faith in a merciful God, for how could such a Deity have slain so mercilessly, cutting down the innocent as indiscriminately as the sinful? Why trouble to lead a virtuous life here on earth, when there was no prospect of eternal life hereafter in a blissful Heaven under a benign God?
The pious would provide themselves eagerly with holy books. However, there were stories whispered abroad that those who had abandoned God had turned to the Evil One, burning religious works and reciting the Mass backwards, amongst other vile practices, yet I could not believe any such existed in Oxford. A town of the learned might become pompous and complacent, but it was surely not so misguided as to turn aside on such a devilish path.
I frowned. How had my thoughts strayed into these dark regions? I clung to my own faith in a loving Christ, although the death of my wife had come near to shattering it. For the sake of my children I must live, and pray, and believe that goodness still survived in our torn and broken world. Although the dead no long
er lay in the streets or in houses marked with black crosses, the memory could never be quite wiped out from those of us who had lived through it.
My errand to Merton today was an assertion that goodness did indeed survive, if I could persuade Warden Durant to come to the aid of the Farringdon family. I must shake off the dark thoughts which still ambushed me unawares and concentrate on what must be done now, today, in this present world which we were trying to rebuild.
The porter at Merton sent his boy to enquire whether the Warden was free to receive me, and he returned with an invitation to me to join Master Durant in his private lodgings. The last time I had come here was to return the precious and ancient Irish Psalter, the college’s greatest treasure. Now I came empty-handed, to ask, as I put it to Warden Durant, a favour in return.
‘I am not sure whether you were aware of William Farringdon’s family circumstances, Master Durant,’ I said. ‘Following the death of his father, shortly after Christmas, William was left as the sole support of his mother, his young sister, and the orphaned daughter of his brother, who had died, like so many, of the plague.’
‘You mentioned,’ he said, ‘that young Farringdon had undertaken to copy the Psalter in order to earn enough to support his mother until he took up his Fellowship.’
‘Exactly,’ I said, relieved that he had provided me with a way to introduce my request. ‘Once he had entered into his Fellowship here, he would have been able to support them. Not lavishly, but adequately. His mother was gently born, but unassuming. There is no other male relative.’
I decided to avoid mention of the former brother-in-law.
‘After William was murdered by a Fellow of this college, his family was left destitute.’
He stirred uncomfortably at the mention of murder, but I had no intention of sparing him the truth.
‘It seems to me,’ I said, ‘that Merton has an obligation to the young man’s family, since a member of this college deprived him of life and his mother of a son on whom she was dependent.’
‘I cannot see where your argument is taking us, Master Elyot,’ he said, somewhat stiffly. ‘The college was hardly a party to the killing.’
‘No indeed.’ I inclined my head in acknowledgement. ‘However, it would be an act of mercy, of justice even, to make some provision for them.’
‘Times are hard, Master Elyot. Since the Great Pestilence, the income from our endowments of land has shrunk to barely more than half. Villein labour on our manors is in short supply. Many of our tenants are either dead or without their own labourers. The college can barely meet its own needs.’
All very well, I thought. A sad story. It does not hide the fact that Merton has been able to buy up much abandoned property, both in Oxford and elsewhere.
I made a sympathetic noise, but kept these thoughts to myself.
‘William’s family are homeless,’ I said, ‘having been turned out of their farm by their overlord, as they are unable any longer to pay the rent in labour and coin. They wish to make their home in Oxford and find some respectable means of earning a living. What they need here is a house, and preferably a house on which they need pay no rent. Now I know that Merton has been able to purchase a number of houses and shops throughout Oxford. Might there be one which you could make available to them, rent free? It would be an act of charity, and a great kindness in memory of a young scholar who would have found his future here among you.’
Master Durant shuffled a pile of papers on his desk, avoiding my eye, and said nothing for some minutes.
‘I believe there is a house in St Mildred Street,’ he said finally, ‘for which we have not yet found a tenant. There is some work still to be done on it. I understand that the roof requires repair and some of the shutters are broken. Most of the properties we have been able to rent have a shop attached, but this one does not. I assume that Mistress Farringdon would have no objection to the lack of a shop?’
‘I am sure she would not,’ I said, pleased that he seemed to be agreeing so readily. ‘But these repairs? The college would undertake them before making the house available?’
‘I will need to consult the bursar,’ he said. ‘We have a considerable programme of work in hand here in the college.’
‘They will need to move very soon. It does not sound as though these repairs will take long. Might the house be ready, perhaps, in a week’s time? And it will be rent free?’
‘As for the repairs, I will need to consult the bursar,’ he repeated. ‘But I believe we could allow Mistress Farringdon to have the house without rent. I am as aware as you are, Master Elyot, that Merton has in a sense an obligation to the young man’s family. I will speak to the bursar and send you word as to when the house will be ready for occupation.’
‘I am grateful for your kindness,’ I said, ‘as I know Mistress Farringdon will be. Most grateful. Where in St Mildred Street is the house?’
‘South of Exeter College,’ he said. ‘Two doors this side of St Mildred’s Church. It is a modest house, two storeys, but with a substantial garden behind. That is much overgrown and neglected, I fear, for the house has been uninhabited since the Pestilence. I am afraid I cannot spare any servants to tend the garden.’
I could hardly expect more. Perhaps Jordain could set some of his students to work. I thanked him again, and made my way out of the college with a lighter heart than when I had entered it. Just beyond the gatehouse, I encountered Philip Olney, librarius of Merton. We greeted each other warily. Since our encounters in the spring we had observed a neutral attitude to each other. I knew much about Olney which could damage him, should I make it public. I had no mind to do so, but I think he was not quite sure of my silence and discretion.
‘Were you looking for me?’ he asked. Fair enough question, for I often sold him books for the college collection.
‘Not today. I have been with the Warden.’
I saw him stiffen. He was still anxious.
‘I have been seeking some help for William Farringdon’s family,’ I said, to reassure him. ‘Merton is to let them have a house in St Mildred Street, as they are coming to live in Oxford.’
‘I know the house. Be sure that it is made watertight. It is damp and draughty. Not the best of our properties.’
‘The Warden has promised to see to the repairs.’ That was not quite what the Warden had said, but I chose to take the more optimistic view. ‘As for the rest, I expect many will be glad to lend a hand to make all comfortable for them – a woman, a young girl and a small child. All who can help will be welcome. All.’
Olney was not entirely without blame in the affair which had cost William Farringdon his life. I gave him a knowing glance, at which he looked alarmed, but without further words I bade him good-day. As I walked away back to the High Street, I contained my laughter. It would be good to see Philip Olney, who was somewhat too fussy about his person, clutching a brush loaded with lime wash in his hand.
On my way home I decided to see for myself this house the Warden was prepared to make available for Mistress Farringdon and the girls, so I headed west along the High, and between All Saints Church and the Mitre Inn I turned up St Mildred Street. This narrow lane, hardly deserving of the name ‘street’, led directly north past St Mildred’s Church and the newly built Exeter College to reach the town wall at a postern known as the ‘twirling gate’. Similar to the lych gates leading into some churchyards, it was a turnstile which permitted the passage of pedestrians, but of no animal larger than a dog. Horses and carts must use one of the larger gates to pass through the wall, and it also served to keep stray cattle out of the town. Some called the gate ‘the hole in the wall’, reckoning it not truly a gate, but it was useful for those who did not want to walk as far as the North Gate.
Two doors this side of the church, the Warden had said. There was no mistaking it. Timber framed, like many Oxford houses, this one was more ancient than many, its jettied upper storey dipping somewhat perilously to the left, the window frames skewed out of t
rue. As the Warden had said, the shutters were missing – all of those on the ground floor, probably stolen for firewood, only one gone from the upper floor, where they were more difficult to reach, but the rest broken or hanging askew. The windows were unglazed. The street was too narrow for me to stand back and assess the state of the roof. The plaster laid over the wattle and daub, which filled the spaces between the timbers, had fallen away in some quite large patches, and could not have been given a fresh coat of lime wash for ten years at least.
The house huddled close against the buildings on either side, a cordwainer on the right, to judge by the ancient boot hung up for a sign. On the left, it must be a herbalist or apothecary, indicated by a newly painted sign depicting a mortar and pestle. Standing as it did between two shops, it was curious that the house had no shop front itself. Perhaps at some time in the past it had served to accommodate a large family from one of the adjacent shops, too large to fit into what must be their very small living space.
I noticed that the door was not quite closed and gave it a gentle push. The rusty hinges squealed in protest, but the door swung grudgingly open and I stepped through. What greeted me was not unexpected in a house that had stood empty for four or five years. It was surprising that Merton had done nothing to restore it, but perhaps the college had concentrated all its resources on the properties which had the best chance of attracting a tenant. The apothecary’s shop looked fresh and neat; perhaps it was another recent acquisition by Merton.
The ground floor of the house consisted of two rooms, that at the front for daily living, and behind it a kitchen, which was squalid and filthy. The floor throughout was strewn with dead leaves which had drifted in through the unshuttered windows, and in one corner of the front room there was a pile of ragged brychans hopping with fleas and a sack part-filled with straw, indicating that at some time recently a vagrant had bedded down here. The hearth in the kitchen possessed a rusty grate and a hook to suspend a cookpot, but nothing else. In the far corner a stair which was hardly more than a ladder led to the upper rooms.
