* * *
The gravedigger pushed the handcart right up to the rim of the pit and lifted the handles above his head so the pestilence-blackened bodies tumbled out to land in the bottom in a tangle of limbs. One of the corpses ruptured, its corrupted entrails spilling out with a cloud of noxious fumes that made the onlookers retch through their tears. Grotesquely, one of the corpses in the cart had become wedged, and would not drop. The gravedigger called to his apprentice, who took the spade and used it to dislodge the body.
The on-lookers – the kin of those in the grave-pit – wept loudly, beating their breasts and tearing at their hair in an agony of grief and incomprehension. The pestilence seemed to have come from nowhere, slaying the just and unjust indiscriminately. They were pious people, believing that God rewarded the good and punished the bad. Now God had chosen to visit the town of Saint-Omer with the kind of punishment unknown since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or when Egypt had been visited with plagues in the days of Moses. Was Saint-Omer a den of vice and heresy comparable with those of the Biblical pagans?
Typhaine Agache, her full lips and dark brown eyes making her seem older than her seventeen years, stared down into the pit, trying to distinguish her husband’s corpse from the others. On top of the horror of death by the pestilence, this was the final indignity. The pestilence was so virulent that its victims were too many to be given the luxury of individual graves; instead they were tipped by the dozen into the fresh pits that were dug each day.
Typhaine asked herself the same question the other mourners were asking: why? What had Pierre Agache done to deserve such an early and horrible death? He had killed, it was true, but Pierre had been a soldier, fighting to protect his country against the English invaders. Was that a sin? Typhaine knew her husband had taken no pleasure in the killing. He had been a good man and she had loved him dearly. She had lost count of the nights she lay awake when he was away from her, dreading the news of his death at the hands of the feared English ‘God-damns’ with their crooked sticks. But always he had returned, each time more appreciative of life, and of a wife who loved him so much.
And now he was dead. Killed not by an arrow, but by a strange pestilence. What had he done to deserve this fate? She feared she knew the answer. Perhaps his death was as much a punishment for her as for him. It was too cruel that she should be subjected to such grief twice in one lifetime.
The first time had been after the battle of la-Roche-Derrien, a year ago. Pierre’s serjeant had returned from the battle with news of his death. Typhaine was grief-stricken, but the serjeant was on hand to comfort her. She resisted his advances at first, still mourning her husband, but the serjeant was handsome, and seemed kindly. Finally when the days had turned into weeks, she succumbed, seeking solace in the serjeant’s arms.
Pierre had returned the next day, sufficiently recovered from his wounds to ride.
The serjeant had left the house by the time Pierre arrived, but Typhaine at once broke down and told him the whole story without hesitation. He listened in silence, then kissed her forgivingly, and went out. For the next few days he was taciturn but just when life had begun to return to normal, she learned the serjeant had been murdered, stabbed through the heart.
She had never mentioned the serjeant’s death to Pierre, for fear that her worst suspicions might be confirmed. But they were never again as happy as they had been before. From that day on Typhaine had been racked with guilt: guilt at her adultery, guilt at perhaps having driven her husband to murder.
Now Pierre was paying for his sin; the pestilence was killing so many that there were not enough priests to ensure that all its victims were shriven before they breathed their last. She feared her husband’s soul would burn for eternity in the fires of hell. And she too was paying. It was as if God was punishing her by taking away the man she had loved.
‘Why?’ Typhaine’s mother-in-law turned that single word into a long, drawn-out, keening wail. ‘Why? Why did they take my Pierrot?’
‘It was the Jews,’ asserted someone. ‘Everyone knows this pestilence is their doing. They’ve been poisoning the wells.’
‘It’s not the Jews!’ Pierre’s sister pointed at Typhaine. ‘It’s her! She seduced Pierre to the worship of the Devil and now God has punished him. I curse the day Pierre chose that Breton witch in preference to an Artoisian girl. I pray that she be the next victim!’
Typhaine shook her head, too numbed by the shock of Pierre’s death to take in the sense of her sister-in-law’s words.
‘Aye!’ said someone else. ‘She’s right. It’s the Breton witch!’
‘Kill the witch! Burn her!’
Many in the crowd believed it, those whom grief had robbed of their senses; then there were others, men whose advances had been spurned by the beautiful young Breton woman, and the wives of those men, who knew their husbands committed adultery with Typhaine in their minds, and often wondered if they were not equally guilty in the flesh.
Despair easily turned to anger once an object was found, and suddenly the crowd seemed to surge towards her. She felt herself seized, and cried out in panic. The crowd was deaf to her entreaties, hoisting her aloft.
‘Burn her!’
‘No!’ screamed Typhaine’s sister-in-law. ‘Cast her into the pit! Let her be buried alive with her victims!’
This suggestion was greeted with general acclamation and Typhaine was carried to the edge of the pit, struggling and screaming. Two of the women seized her by the wrists and ankles and swung her between them.
Typhaine screamed in desperation, and then felt her body slam against something hard. Strong arms encircled her waist, dragging her from the grip of the two women. Men-at-arms moved through the crowd, roughly pushing the townsfolk away.
‘What in the Devil’s name is going on here?’ Sir Geoffroi de Chargny demanded, his voice carrying clearly through the crowd in the sudden silence.
‘This woman’s a witch!’ spat Pierre’s sister, indicating her sister-in-law. ‘It was she who brought about the pestilence. She’s poisoned the wells. She’s in league with the Devil!’
De Chargny did not glance in the direction of the woman standing trembling between two of his men-at-arms, who flanked her protectively. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘The pestilence has struck at towns and cities as far afield as Castile and the Empire. Do you suggest she has been responsible for poisoning so many wells?’
‘Anything’s possible when the Devil helps!’ shouted someone. ‘She travels abroad at night on the back of a monstrous goat which can leap a thousand leagues in a single bound.’
‘A thousand leagues in a single bound,’ de Chargny echoed, a hint of amusement in his expression. ‘Tell me, has anyone seen this monstrous goat?’
‘My brother-in-law has!’ shouted someone.
‘Everyone knows your brother-in-law drinks too much!’ called one of the more level-headed members of the crowd. Several people laughed at this.
‘Who is the gravedigger?’ demanded de Chargny.
The gravedigger stepped forward, clutching his cap. ‘I am, my lord.’
‘Then finish your work. The rest of you go back to your homes, and pray that this pestilence will swiftly pass. And no more talk of witchcraft! I had thought the people of this town rational; now you betray yourselves as ignorant and superstitious, no better than country peasants. Go back to your homes, I say!’
The crowd hesitated, but there was little it could do in the face of de Chargny and his men-at-arms. People began to wander truculently away from the side of the grave-pit.
‘What about her, Sir Geoffroi?’ The serjeant in command of the men-at-arms indicated Typhaine. ‘We can’t leave her here. They may yet come back for her.’
De Chargny glanced at her with a flicker of irritation. ‘Can you scrub linen, make a bed, sweep a floor, girl?’
Typhaine curtseyed. ‘Aye, my lord. I kept my husband’s house…’
‘Then you may work at the castle,’ de Chargny
interrupted. ‘The pestilence has killed one of my chambermaids. You will replace her. You will be safe inside the castle precincts until the pestilence has passed and this hysteria has died down.’
She curtseyed again. ‘Thank you, my lord…’
But de Chargny was already on his way to the castle that loomed over the town.
‘You’re Pierre Agache’s wife, aren’t you?’ said the serjeant, walking with Typhaine towards the castle. ‘The one he married in Brittany.’
She nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.
‘How is he?’
‘Dead.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He put a comforting hand on her arm but she shook it off, thinking of another serjeant who had once sought to console her.
* * *
A month later Chaucer made his way across the bridge to the Tabard Inn in Southwark with his son and step-son, accompanied by Kemp. They were all soaked to the skin by the time they arrived and Chaucer and his step-son sat by the log fire roaring in the hearth, supping pots of ale as they tried to get warm and dry, while little Geoffrey played noisily with Mistress Bailly’s little son Harry.
‘John Comyns is dead,’ Chaucer announced gloomily, staring into the flames. ‘Killed by some strange pestilence, they say. I was speaking to him only a few hours before. He seemed fine just before vespers, yet come prime the following morning…’ He shook his head. ‘What illness could kill a man so swiftly?’
Kemp was lost in his own thoughts. In a week’s time he would have been resident in London for a year and a day. Chaucer was already making arrangements with a notary so that the Lord Mayor and the Alderman of the Vintry Ward could confirm him as a freeman. It was hard to believe the year had passed so quickly. Soon he would be able to return to Knighton. Yet he could feel his instincts pulling him in another direction.
For the past few weeks, the king’s preparations for his next campaign overseas had been evident, with archers mustering at Smithfield, ships being converted for war before being sailed down the Thames to Sandwich, and victuallers busy purveying food supplies for the troops. Even the Chaucer household had been affected, for Chaucer himself was the deputy to the king’s butler for the port of Southampton and he had been called upon to provide a vast amount of low-quality wine for the embarking soldiers.
Kemp envied those soldiers; not because of the wine, but because of the opportunities for booty they would find on campaign. Now that freedom was almost his, it did not seem enough. He wanted more, something physical he could show to Beatrice when he returned to Knighton, to prove that in his absence he had made something of himself. He wanted to ride back into the village on a fine black courser, dressed in elegant robes, rather than skulk back on a hackney cob, dressed in his plain and simple cloak. The king’s departure for France might yet be held up a few more days; until he could join the army, perhaps. If Beatrice had indeed waited for him all this time, of course she would not mind waiting a few months more, while he…
He shook his head, dismissing the thought. At the end of the week he would set out for Knighton, just as he had been planning for the past two years. There would be other campaigns, other chances to win glory and booty.
Or so he hoped.
His reverie was broken by the sound of the door banging open with a gust of wind and rain, and the entrance of a dozen archers dressed in green and white particoloured livery. As they began to gather around the fire, dripping and shivering, their serjeant walked to the counter and waved Mistress Bailly across.
‘We need lodgings for the night, and a warm cup of mead apiece would not go amiss either,’ he told her. He had the sing-song voice of a Welshman, though his English was fluent enough. She nodded, and went to prepare their drinks.
The Welsh serjeant glanced across to his men, who were settling by the fire. Seeing Kemp, he smiled and leaned back against the counter, his hands clasped across his chest. ‘Well now, if that’s the best archer the English can muster then it’s small wonder King Edward needs must employ good Welshmen for his retinue.’
Hearing the word ‘archer’ Kemp looked up, realising that he carried no longbow and was too far away for the man to be able to see the calluses on his fingertips. He scowled to hear English archery belittled by a Welshman, but his anger melted away when he recognised the serjeant.
‘Ieuan!’ He leapt to his feet, and then swayed suddenly, as if drunk.
‘Are you ill?’ asked Chaucer.
‘Aye, the kind of malady caused by too much strong ale, I’ll warrant!’ chuckled one of the Welshmen.
Kemp felt a wave of cold dizziness sweep through him and he shivered. Wiping his brow with his sleeve, he found it damp with sweat. ‘A chill, that is all. This damned weather…’ He crossed to the counter and clasped Ieuan by the hand. ‘Ieuan, you old dog! How are you? I’ve not seen you since Crécy.’
Ieuan nodded, grimacing. ‘Aye, that was a black day, that one,’ he mused, and then smiled. ‘But we beat them, eh? And said we’d laugh about it over a pot of ale.’
‘No time like the present,’ said Kemp. ‘Can I get you one?’
Ieuan shook his head firmly. ‘This one’s on me.’ He paid for the drinks, directing one of the wenches to carry the tray over to where his men sat. He remained standing at the counter with Kemp. ‘I hear Master Richard Stamford was slain that day, though they found his body far from the fighting,’ he murmured as he raised his pot to his lips. He took a deep draught and lowered his pot, wiping ale from his moustache with his sleeve. ‘Not that you’d know aught of that,’ he added sardonically.
‘It was self-defence,’ Kemp assured him, his thoughts turning once again to Knighton where Lady Beatrice awaited him. She had been betrothed to Stamford, although Kemp felt sure it was himself she loved. Would she love him if she knew he had slain Stamford?
Ieuan was talking. ‘You remember Madog, don’t you? Madog Fychan?’
Kemp looked around in search of the big Welshman Ieuan referred to. ‘Madog? Aye, of course. How could I forget? Where is he?’
‘Saints preserve us, you’ve not been listening to a word I’ve said. Madog’s dead.’
Kemp stared at him in astonishment. ‘How?’
‘Killed by the pestilence. It did not take long, God be praised, though the end was bad. Him and thirty others it took in our village alone. And Dafydd too; he would go to tend to the sick, though he knew no cure for it. There is none, they say: ’tis the wrath of God, sent to purge the sinful from amongst us.’ He smiled. ‘Why you and I have lived for so long is but a mystery.’
Kemp grinned. ‘What brings you to London?’
‘We’re on our way to Sandwich. Most of us have relatives to visit in the Welsh quarter.’
‘You’re off to fight in France?’
Ieuan nodded. ‘And not before time, too, I might add. I feared I might die of boredom.’
The strange thing was, Kemp knew exactly what he meant.
‘How about you?’ asked Ieuan. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
Kemp shook his head. ‘Not this time. I’ve another week before I’ve earned my freedom; and then I must return to Knighton to take care of some personal business.’
‘Can it not wait?’
‘No.’ Kemp smiled wryly. ‘I have put it off too long…’ He winced as a spasm of pain racked his chest.
‘Are you all right?’ Ieuan asked with concern. ‘Your hue is pale…’
‘I’m fine,’ insisted Kemp, and frowned. Suddenly he could only see Ieuan through a purple mist. Then the whole room seemed to spin around him, and he found himself staring up at the ceiling.
‘Is he drunk?’ asked Mistress Bailly. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away.
Ieuan crouched over the younger man, fastidiously pulling back his cloak to expose the dark buboes swelling at the base of Kemp’s neck. He recoiled in horror.
‘By the Trinity! The pestilence!’ He rose to his feet, backing away hurriedly. ‘Come on, men. We’re leaving.’
; ‘But what about your drinks?’ demanded Mistress Bailly.
Ieuan tossed some coins on to the counter: enough to buy his men a dozen rounds of drinks. It was clear he had no intention of tarrying for his change.
Chaucer crossed to where Kemp lay on his back, hardly conscious of what was going on around him. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘It’s the pestilence, no doubt about it,’ Ieuan replied grimly.
‘Someone fetch a physician!’ Chaucer snapped.
‘Save your gold.’ The Welshman was hurrying towards the door. ‘He’s dead already.’
Chapter Nine
Sir John Beaumont entered the Tabard Inn at Southwark that evening, on his way to join the fleet mustering at Sandwich. He had arrived in London a few days ahead of schedule to join the king’s army so that he would have time to search for Kemp, his man Treroose having failed to trace the villein. He knew that if the churl were living in London to gain his freedom, then he could not be far short of the prescribed year and a day. But London was a large city – by English standards, at least – and one he little knew. He had reluctantly abandoned his search, knowing that if he tarried any longer he might miss the sailing of the fleet. He consoled himself with the knowledge that Kemp did not have to be a villein for him to exact his vengeance upon him.
Mistress Bailly served him truculently, slamming the flagon of ale down on the table in front of him, and reminding him why he hated London so much. At home the lesser orders treated him with the respect due to a man of his status, but here in London the wealth of the burghers made the people arrogant. It amazed Beaumont that men who had had to earn their wealth should have the gall to show contempt to men who had inherited it. Not that Beaumont was rich; countless campaigns had taken their toll and he had not had the good fortune to capture anyone so noble that their ransom would fill his empty coffers.
He glanced contemptuously at the other patrons of the inn: craftsmen and merchants for the most part, low-born men whose aspirations to belong to the nobility were exposed by their pathetic attempts to match the grandeur of noblemen’s dress. His eyes fell upon the man seated alone at the next table. Unlike the other customers he was soberly dressed, a dark grey fustian cloak wrapped around his shoulders. The pilgrim’s hat he wore lent an incongruous touch to his appearance, his head bowed so that the hat’s broad brim cast his face into deep shadow. Even though the man’s expression was hidden, there was something lugubrious about him, an air of melancholy in his stooped shoulders and his bowed head.
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