by C. J. Sansom
Chapter Twenty-six
THE BELLS OF THE Minster sounded loudly as Barak and I passed it, booming through the damp night air. It was dark, and we stumbled on the unpaved streets as we headed down the Fossgate towards the corner from which Barak had seen Master Craike emerge.
‘This is the way,’ Barak said.
He pointed down a narrow lane, the sky almost hidden by the overhanging top storeys of the tumbledown houses. Doors and shutters were closed, only strips of yellow light showing through warped timbers. A white board creaked and flapped in the wind at the far end of the lane. ‘That’s the alehouse sign,’ he said. ‘The White Hart.’
I studied it. ‘Seems a mean place. You’re right, Craike wouldn’t put folk from the Progress up there.’ I wrinkled my nose at the strong stench of piss from the alley.
‘Sure you want to come?’ Barak asked. ‘This is a rough spot.’
‘I want to find out what he was up to.’ I followed him into the lane, hand at my dagger. At his suggestion I had donned my cheapest-looking clothes. I looked at the doorways we passed; I had a sense of eyes watching. But no one had followed us from St Mary’s; we had watched and listened carefully.
Barak pushed open the door of the alehouse. It was the sort of poor place I expected, merely a room set with benches and tables and a hatch through which a slatternly looking woman passed home-brewed beer to the men in ragged clothes who sat on the benches lining the walls. The floor was bare and the room cold, without a fire. A dog, belonging to a pair of young Dalesmen in sheepskin coats who sat together by the wall, growled at us then barked loudly.
‘Down, Crag.’ The dog’s master laid a big hand on its back. ‘Look, Davey, here’s gentlemen come to’t White Hart.’
Barak went up to the bar and asked the landlady for two mugs of beer. She did not understand him at first and he had to repeat his request. ‘Southrons,’ the man with the dog said loudly to his friend. ‘Crag caught their stink.’
Barak turned to them. ‘We’ve just come for a drink, my friend,’ he said. ‘We want no trouble.’
I looked around uneasily. There were a dozen Yorkers there, all glaring at us with hostile expressions. The Dalesmen, from their looks, had been drinking for some time.
The woman handed two wooden mugs through the hatch. All the benches were taken; we could have found spaces if some of the customers had moved up but they sat where they were. We stood awkwardly. The Dalesman called Davey laughed.
‘Can thee not find a bink, maisters?’ He turned to his friend. ‘Tha should make a seat for the southron gentlemen, Alan. They must be gentlemen, they don’t allow the soldiers and servants into York. We should mebbe stand in their presence.’
‘I say we’re all made by one workman, of like mire,’ Alan replied.
‘I agree,’ Barak replied cheerfully. ‘From London to Carlisle, we are all one.’
‘Nay, maister. Not in riches, when all our rents go down to London.’
‘We’ve done well enough out of them today,’ his friend said. ‘Selling those poor nawtes of sheep to the purveyors for five nobles.’
‘Ay, but when the Progress leaves prices will fall again. Our folk can’t pay the money southrons can.’ He looked at us belligerently, hunting for an argument. I took a sip of the foul-tasting beer.
‘Has tha come on business, maisters?’ one of the men on the benches asked, and to my surprise some of the others laughed.
‘Business?’ I repeated.
‘Ay, tha’ll not have come for our company.’ There was more laughter.
Just then a door opened and a tall stringy fellow in an apron appeared. He frowned at the Dalesmen then came over to us.
‘Can I help thee, maisters?’ he asked quietly.
I exchanged a look with Barak. Something more than the selling of ale was going on here.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Can you?’
The man inclined his head towards the door, and we were glad enough to follow him into a narrow passageway beyond, that stank of old beer. A candle burned in a lamp on the staircase. He closed the door. ‘I’m sorry about that, maisters. Southrons aren’t popular here.’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Now then, how can you help us?’
‘Depends on your wants.’ He scanned our faces with narrow, calculating eyes.
‘A friend of mine was here a week or so ago. An official from the Progress. A large fellow with a fringe of fair hair.’
‘Ay.’ His face relaxed into a leer. ‘I remember him. Tell you what we have here, did he?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well.’ He smiled confidingly. ‘Tell me what your pleasure is. Sharp little nips from a girl with a dagger, or a belt-thrashing from an old carrion-whore, like your friend enjoys?’ He leered again. ‘I can arrange to indulge the most sinful lusts.’
I was taken aback. Whatever I had expected, it was not this. Barak stepped in. ‘You provide girls who cater for special tastes, hey?’
He nodded eagerly. ‘Tastes the ordinary houses don’t cater for. Boys, too, if you like. Got a good network in York, going back to the days of the monks. Sinful, some of those fellows were.’
‘Tell you what,’ Barak said quickly. ‘We’re making enquiries on behalf of one of the senior officials at St Mary’s, who doesn’t care to be seen here himself. I think you have what he wants. We’ll talk to him and come back. He wouldn’t want to be seen here, perhaps some private room?’
‘Ay, sir, that can be arranged.’
‘Here’s two shillings for your trouble in the meantime.’ Barak produced the coins and handed them over. The man looked at them.
‘He’d pay well, then? This official?’
‘Handsomely.’
The pimp’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s his name, maister?’
‘Now, you know better than that. Just wait for our return.’
‘Come in the morning, before we open. You won’t be bothered by the customers then.’
‘We will. And talking of that, is there a back way out of here?’
He nodded and led us to another door that gave on to the stinking alley. We walked quickly away, and did not relax till we reached the Fossgate again. Then Barak laughed loudly.
‘So that’s it. That pompous old fellow Craike likes to be whacked about by some old doxy. Wonder if he thinks about that as he shuffles his papers on that little desk of his.’
I looked at him. ‘You handled that very smoothly. As though you knew what you were doing.’
He shrugged again. ‘Lord Cromwell had contacts among the London whoremasters, especially fellows like that who deal with those who have outlandish tastes. Often the whoremasters could come up with the name of someone at court, and then they were in my master’s power.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘If you like.’
‘And you were involved?’
‘I was Lord Cromwell’s contact with some of the whoremasters, ay.’ Barak frowned at me. ‘You know well my duties were more than running errands. I didn’t like it much, if you have to know.’ He shrugged. ‘But if men of rank choose to delve in the stews, they take a risk.’
‘They do if there are spies about.’ I snapped my fingers. ‘I’ll wager that’s why he got to know Oldroyd. To find out if there were places like this in York.’
‘Only one way to find out. Ask him.’
I was reluctant to shame Craike, but realized there was no alternative. ‘I’ll see him tomorrow,’ I said. We walked on in silence for a time, then I asked, ‘Does Tamasin know about your work for Cromwell?’
‘Not the details.’ He looked at me sharply. ‘She doesn’t need to know those. After all, you have never enquired too closely before.’
‘I suppose I haven’t.’
‘It’s just as well I was able to work out what was going on there as quick as I did. Or we might have found ourselves presented with some salty old whores with birch-rods ready to beat hell out of us, and a little report going to someone at
King’s Manor.’
I laughed. We walked on, our steps echoing on the cobbles. As Bootham Bar came into sight I asked him, ‘Have you thought any more about what we talked about? Your future?’
‘All I want now is to get safe back to London. And be sure I have one,’ he added grimly.
WE RETURNED LATE TO St Mary’s. It was eleven o’clock by the time the guard let us through the gate; everyone had retired to bed. A big, yellowish harvest moon had risen and in its dim light the helmeted soldiers continued their endless walks along the walls, more standing guard outside the tents and pavilions and the doors of King’s Manor, all its windows dark. I had heard the King was going hunting on the morrow; there was no word yet of the Scotch King’s arrival.
‘I’ve a meeting with Tamasin,’ Barak said. ‘I’ll come to the lodging house with you first.’
‘At this hour? Ah, in your secret love-nest?’ I did not mean the words to come out in the supercilious way they did. He gave me a sharp look. ‘Ay. She feels safe with me.’ ‘She will get in trouble if she is found out.’ ‘She won’t. After three months of the Progress half the servants in the Queen’s household have a dalliance with someone. And the Queen is hardly one to keep her ladies on a tight moral rein.’ He stepped ahead of me and walked briskly to the church. I realized I had annoyed him. One of the guards by the pavilions sneezed, making me jump. But I was glad of those armed men nearby. Always now at night my senses were alert for danger, for an assassin.
The monastic church was inhabited by a number of grooms who slept on blankets in the straw near the horses, their forms illuminated by candles burning in big iron sconces, five feet high. The gentlemen’s horses – over a hundred of them – stood quietly in their stalls, each stall with a paper pinned to the door with the name of the owner. It was a good system, enabling the horses owned by individuals to be readily available, while the huge herd of carthorses was left to browse in the fields. We walked down until I came to Genesis’ and Sukey’s stalls, side by side.
‘Let’s see how the horses are,’ I said.
‘All right.’
A young groom, rolled in his blanket on a pile of hay in the nave, sat up sleepily. He was a round-faced fellow in his teens, his smock covered with pieces of straw.
‘Who is it?’ He looked dubiously at our poor clothes.
‘We are the owners of these horses. We just came to see how they do.’
‘They are all well, sir.’
‘Good. Go back to sleep, fellow, we will only be a moment.’ We went over and spoke with the horses a little, stroking them. Genesis seemed happy enough in his stall but Barak’s Sukey was restless and pulled away from his hand.
‘Are you bored, here, Sukey?’ he asked. ‘Nothing to do? Well, hopefully we will soon be on our way. It all depends on the King of the Scotch.’
‘We walk them up and down the nave.’ The groom had got up. ‘We can’t take them out. There’s so much going on in the courtyard, we’re not allowed.’
‘I understand.’
‘When do you think King James will come, sir?’ he asked. ‘We are all anxious to move on again.’
‘I wish I knew,’ I said with a smile. ‘Well, we must to bed. Goodnight.’
We walked on to the open north door of the church that led to the courtyard where the lodging house and the animal pens were. Barak looked left, along to the claustral buildings at the other end of the courtyard.
‘Waiting for you there, is she?’
‘Ay.’
‘Go on. I can walk to the lodging house alone.” I felt guilty for annoying him earlier.
‘Sure?’
‘Ay. Off you go. No one’s followed us through the church, I was looking out.’
He left me, and I turned along the path to the lodging house. Beside a pen full of black-faced sheep I saw the bear standing upright in its cage, resting its clawed arms on the iron bars of its cage. As I walked past it made a whimpering sound. I stopped and looked. Poor bruin, it must be in pain from its wounds. I stopped a few feet from the cage and studied it. It made a low, angry growling sound and shifted its stance. Its little eyes glinted at me. I caught a rank smell from the thick fur.
I thought of how it would have been captured in some far-off German forest, brought over to England in a boat, suffered taunts and beatings to keep it savage, then let loose in an arena full of dogs. The King would have relished that spectacle, I thought.
I heard a creak, metal against metal. I stared round wildly for at once I thought of the spit at the camp. But no one and nothing was near. I looked back at the cage. Something was different. Then I realized the door was opening. I saw a rope was fixed to the top, it was being pulled upwards from the back of the cage. The bear stepped back, its eyes still fixed on me. There was a clang as the door suddenly crashed back on the cage roof.
The beast stepped out and stood for a moment on the path, looking straight at me. There was a frantic bleating from the sheep-pen. The bear let out a hoarse roar and waved its big forelegs at me, the moonlight glinting on its long curved claws.
I stepped backwards. My hand went to my dagger, but it would be useless against a charge by this creature. The bear dropped to all fours and began walking towards me, growling horribly. It dragged one of its hind legs, which must have been injured in the baiting before the King; otherwise it would have been upon me in seconds. Even so it moved fast, its big claws scraping on the path. I turned and ran, back to the open door of the church, and raced inside; fearing every moment to feel those claws raking my back, the terrible weight of the huge creature felling me to the earth.
Inside the church I grabbed the big door to pull it shut, but it had stood open a long time now and rain had warped the wood. It would not shift.
‘Help!’ I cried out. ‘The bear’s loose!’ I heard startled voices behind me. The bear must have halted somewhere outside, I could not see it. Perhaps the noise would drive it away.
The groom I had spoken to earlier ran up to me with a couple of others. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The bear, it’s got out, it’s out there! Help me close the door. And someone run to find some soldiers! Hurry!’ I had remembered that weapons were forbidden at King’s Manor. The grooms, still half asleep, stared at me stupidly. ‘God’s blood,’ I cried. ‘Will you help me with this door!’
One of the men stepped forward. ‘But what – oh, fuck!’ He broke off as the bear appeared in the doorway. It was a huge animal. It shambled inside, turning its massive head to look at us, its nose twitching. Everyone jumped back. The horses, catching its smell, began neighing loudly, banging against the sides of their stalls. The sudden cacophony seemed to startle the bear. It stood where it was, looking from side to side with its small deep-set eyes, saliva dripping from the corner of its mouth. It stood again on its hind legs and opened its mouth, showing us a pair of enormous canines. I saw that a long wound on its hind leg had opened, blood was dripping on to the floor. After its recent experiences the creature must be confused, frightened, in pain. That only made it more dangerous.
I joined the grooms as they retreated, step by step, everyone terrified of a sudden charge by the bear, and looking round desperately for somewhere to escape to. But there was nowhere in the stripped, empty church, nothing to climb on. The terrified horses were making an enormous din now, some of them rearing up and battering the sides of their stalls with their hooves, splintering the wood. I hoped the noise would drive the bear out but the creature dropped back on all fours again and began advancing, turning its head and looking between me and the half-dozen grooms as we retreated, its terrible human enemies now exposed in all their puny weakness. As its head swayed on its powerful neck, looking from one to the other of us, it seemed it fixed its attention particularly on me: the first man it had encountered after its release.
It seemed like an eternity, but it can only have been for a minute or so that we retreated down the church, eyes on the bear, terrified to turn and run lest we provoke a charge.
Then I slipped on some dirty straw on the floor of the nave and went over backwards. I cried out, then hauled myself frantically to my feet. The grooms had retreated farther, leaving me closest to the bear, which was staring at me from ten feet away. I saw the trail of blood from its leg ran all the way to the door. The noise from the horses as they cried out and battered at their stalls was indescribable.
The bear walked slowly forward, never taking its eyes off me. I heard the distant footsteps of the grooms, running away fast now; they had abandoned me. The bear quickened its pace. I saw, just beside me, one of the big sconces of candles, and I seized it in both hands and hurled it at the huge animal. The sconce crashed against its side and the bear jumped away with a roar, striking out at the sconce, which fell on to a little pile of straw. At once it caught light, flaring yellow. The bear stepped back, then fixed its angry pain-filled eyes on me. It rose to its hind legs again and charged. I cried out as I braced myself for the tearing claws.
Then I saw something flash by me. There was a dull thud and the bear jumped back. I looked, dizzily, at an arrow poking from its chest, the feathered end quivering. Another whistled by and buried itself in the bear’s fur, then another. It cried and thrashed the air with its claws until a fourth arrow landed in its chest, and must have pierced its heart, for with a dull grunt it crashed over sideways, landing in the pile of burning straw. It lay there, its pelt beginning to smoulder, beyond suffering at last.
I leaned against a pillar, shaking from head to foot, as a voice I recognized cried, ‘Get that fire out before it spreads! Water!’ The grooms dashed forward, together with two soldiers, beating at the fire with brooms until buckets were brought up and the flames extinguished. I stared foolishly at the red-coated soldiers, at the bows slung over their shoulders. A figure stepped before me: Sergeant Leacon.
