‘Harry—’ Wat stopped short of a surname. As a serf Harry had no surname, he was of the land. ‘Harry … of St Albans.’
John nodded. ‘The Abbey there is hard on serfs.’
‘The whole world is hard on serfs,’ Wat said.
‘I’ll say the funeral mass for Harry tomorrow before we go to meet the King.’ John pulled out a scroll from his robes. ‘Captains. I have penned a list of our demands. It is a long list.’
‘My thinking is that we may not get all of we want but we won’t get anything if we don’t demand it.’ Thomas licked his lips. ‘If the King will agree to our main demands, and gives us charters to say it is so in law, justice will have been done, we will have changed the way we are ruled forever. We can go home with our heads held high.’
‘I’m all for that,’ Wat said.
‘Amen,’ John said. ‘If that is God’s plan...? If we have to fight for our rights are you with us, Thomas Baker?’
‘We will fight if we have to, we will fight like the very Devil.’
Part Four
So hideous was the noise, a benedictee!
Certainly, Jack Straw, and his men,
Would never have yelled half as shrill,
That day, when they would any Fleming kill,
As this day was made upon the fox.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1390)
I
Cling-clang. Cling-clang. The alarm bell rang from the bell-tower of the Priory of Holy Trinity of Christ Church, and kept ringing frantically. Brother Michael – the night watchman, a lay brother – was on the end of the rope. He had been posted by the sub-prior, Remigius, to warn the brotherhood of Cistercians should the rebels approach in strength. Remigius had heard tell of the terrible sack of the Priory of St John of Jerusalem and the desecration of the Temple and foretold doom. Brother Michael had taken a vow of silence, only spoken in signs for three whole months in the misericord. But, he had to save them all from the sword! ‘Fire, fear, foes!’ he cried at the top of his lungs, and was scared by the strength of his own voice.
Prior Phillip was arthritically struggling to put on his vestments, making ready to administer the service of Prime, when he thought he heard the bell toll. It was too dissonant to be seven of the bell, rung as part of the canonical order to summon the monks to prayer. It had to be the alarm. He had somehow forgotten the rebels were in London this morning, and yet he was somehow not alarmed. He was too old to be alarmed by anything. At eighty a man bowed down and did homage to the great leveller of all men, King Death.
Nick held back the tears as he, Wat, Abel and Ed carried his father up to the locked priory gates, but even though his eyes would not tear anymore, snot snivelled down his nose. Harry was so heavy, even by four grown men the burden of him was so hard to carry.
‘Open the gates, monks!’ John yelled. The Cistercians, known as the White Friars, were the most successful of the holy orders because they were the most worldly, corrupt and greedy. They would do anything for money. That was why he had brought Harry’s body here for funeral and burial.
With a whimper, Brother Michael ceased his ringing, and spiralled down the steep stone steps from the bell-tower to the church below. He must alert Father Phillip. He rushed into the vestry. ‘Father? The rebels are at the gates. If they get in they’ll kill us all!’
Prior Phillip shook his old head. When he was young, was he this hysterical? He thought not. ‘Let us see what they want, boy, before we rush into rash judgements.’
Brother Michael led the frail old prior out into the courtyard. The shouts of ‘Open the gates!’ caused quivers of fear in him.
At the gate, Prior Phillip racked open the slat to see who was there. It was not an armed mob but a priest in robes, by God. Leading a funeral party. ‘How can I help you, Brother?’ he said, in his most pleasant tone. It paid to be civil and it cost so little.
‘Please, sirs?’ wailed Brother Michael. ‘Do not sack our priory. It is God’s humble house.’
‘Brother Michael, do stop breaking your vow and be quiet,’ insisted Prior Phillip. ‘Let our visitors speak. Yes?’
‘We are in need of a plot to bury our friend in.’ John stepped forward and handed the prior the leather pouch Wat had given him.
Prior Phillip opened the pouch. It was full of gleaming gold coins – French ducats. ‘Do you solemnly swear that is all you have come for, Brother?’ he asked.
‘You have my word,’ John nodded. ‘The True Commons have no quarrel with you.’ That was lie, for if he had his way he would divest the monasteries, free up a quarter of the land in England – the best land at that – and end the temporal power of the church in a stroke. Soon there would be no more myriad orders of monks, nuns, priests, friars, pardoners, abbots, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes. To be poor was to be pure. Men of God would become servants of the people again, involved in the messiness of life, staring sin in the face, to get alms enough from grateful folk to keep body and soul together. But all this would come to pass later. Not now.
‘Open the gates,’ Prior Phillip instructed Brother Michael.
II
King Richard’s Bucephalus had a white star on its forehead, like Alexander the Great’s Bucephalus, but thankfully he did not have a wall eye. Wall eyes are weird, considered unlucky, sinister. He patted the stallion’s long nose, before going to the mounting block. He threw back the flaps of his red robe of state. Under his ciclatoun tunic, cloth of gold, he wore a fine shirt of mail, steel.
Sir Simon walked his charger out of the stables. ‘Are you ready, Majesty?’
‘Let’s get this farce over with.’ King Richard swung his leg over the saddle and slipped his foot into the stirrup on the far side. He spurred Bucephalus in the ribs. According to Plutarch, King Phillip of Macedon purchased the wild, untameable Bucephalus from Philonicus the Thessalian for the princely sum of thirteen talents on condition that his son tamed the beast – or repaid the debt to his father.
Alexander did not break the horse’s spirit, instead he whispered honeyed words in its ears, and shielded its eyes so that it would not be scared by its own shadow. He conquered it the way he conquered the ancient world – with his wits. His father, King Phillip, was so impressed he told the boy: ‘O my son, seek out a kingdom worthy of yourself, for Macedonia is too small for you.’
King Richard loved this story of Alexander the Great because he had been told it the first time on his father’s knee, bumped up and down, the giddiness of the horsey game.
‘Remember, Majesty,’ said Sir Simon, riding up to his side, ‘you must play the innocent boy today, do not play a king.’
‘I know,’ King Richard said. ‘This is theatre. We are a troupe of players.’
Bucephalus roared at Sir Simon’s horse.
‘Yes. Try to think of it as comedy.’ Sir Simon steered away. ‘There is only one way to deal with fools. Simply smile, laugh, agree to their terms, sign their absurd charters, their pardons. Do not rise to any provocations.’
King Richard reined his stallion in. ‘Sir Simon! I am all too aware what hinges on my performance.’
Sir Simon’s escape plan was that Sudbury and Hales were going to slip out of the Water Gate during the Mile End conference. Both men had purchased safe passage by resigning their positions. The spymaster prayed it would work as he rode down to St Thomas’ Tower to the gate, where a whole column of knights and scribes of the royal household were waiting for the King to start the procession.
When they arrived at Mile End the servants had instructions to set up the stage – a grand pavilion, so that the King could meet his subjects and the scribes could write the terms. He had no doubt the King would play his part, he was sharp and wise well beyond his years. His greatest fear was that the rebels would try to seize the King. There would be bloodshed if they tried. Comedy would turn to tragedy. It would be the ruin of all the realm.
‘Open the gates!’ ordered Sir Thomas.
King Richa
rd had made him herald of the royal party to restore something of his brother’s pride, his manhood, his knighthood, after being disarmed by the Kentish rebels. This was his chance to redeem himself, flying the royal standard from his ceremonial lance.
Sir Thomas, in his new role of Marshal of England, was the King’s Sword and rode out in front of his brother the King, out of St Thomas’ gate, onto St Katherine’s wharf and straight into the enemy – a troop of rebel archers, formed into two ranks, bows drawn in the front row, ready to shoot on the command of their tall, very hungover leader Jack.
King Richard yanked Bucephalus’s head back. He looked to Sir Simon. He looked back at the archers. ‘What new treason is this?’
Sir Thomas watched as the entire column behind the royal vanguard stopped mid-step. It was as if a spell had been cast to make everything freeze. The King’s colours seemed to be the only thing moving, lightly flapping in the river breeze. ‘Make way for the King!’ he cried.
Jack gave the order: ‘It’s the King, lads. Let him pass!’
The front row of archers stood down and bagged their arrows.
King Richard trotted into the city, trying to appear unruffled, confident, powerful. He would not show his fear. Majesty was what makes a king a true king.
‘Don’t forget to bow, lads,’ Jack shouted. He bowed mockingly low as the King went by, and swept his bow down to the ground.
III
The statue of an angel kneeling in prayer atop some dead nobleman’s crypt. Sophia stood gazing at it through tears. The Wings of Heaven folded away on the angel’s back, as if clipped. A spray of earth and stone from the maw of the grave pattered the ground by her feet. She stepped back, could not stop weeping. Her eyes and nose were winter streams. She wept for Harry. For all his suffering in life, and the unbearable suffering of his death. And she wept for his son and her love, Nick, orphaned aged sixteen. It was not fair. Life was so unfair.
‘That’s it, we’re done,’ Wat said. ‘Help me out?’
Nick stretched out his hand and helped Wat clamber up the sheer side of the hole. Wat was like a man made of mud, smeared in dirt and sweat.
Nick was covered head-to-foot in dirt himself; he’d taken his turns at digging. They had sheared through bones in the hallowed ground, human bones, he recognised a thigh, an arm, a rib. These were the bones of London’s forefathers and foremothers. This was all his father would be soon thanks to the seething worms in the hole – bones and that stink of decay. All he would be too, in no time at all. And after that, dust. Unfeeling dust. Numb and dumb.
Amongst the stone crosses, John stood vigil over Harry’s body, lying prone there – wrapped up by the graveside. He prayed for the poor serf’s soul, reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over. He would say a few choice words at the grave. “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Those were fitting words. Words to stir the poor lad Nick’s heart from grief to righteous anger. Anger at the noble Alderman who had hung him and a deeper rage at the down-casting duties and debts of serfdom. Or perhaps he would say: “Do not pay Caesar what is not Caesar’s, but pay God what is God’s.” Or perhaps it would be better to keep it simple and personal. In truth, it was difficult to know what to say in the skull-face of Death, even for a long-time priest.
Wat dusted his whip-scarred bare back down. ‘Listen to me, Sophia. I want you to take Nick back to Ruth’s place after this.’
‘No. I want to go to Mile End and see the King,’ Nick said. ‘I came all this way to see the King.’
‘You’ve just buried your father, son. That’s one of the hardest things a man ever has to do.’
Nick was adamant. ‘I will go see the King.’
‘There is a king much more powerful than the King of England, to be respected and feared by all men,’ Wat said. ‘I speak of King Death. And you should pay him his due by mourning your father this day.’
‘There is another king more powerful even than King Death,’ added John. ‘The Son of God, High King of Heaven. He too would have you pray for Harry today.’
Nick wanted to protest, but looking at the grave hollowed him out.
‘It’s the right thing, son.’ Wat reached for his vest and padding. ‘Come on, let’s say our last farewell to your father.’
Nick helped the others to lower his father’s body down into the earth, slowly, with as much dignity as they could muster, into his final resting place.
John stood at the head of the grave, and blessed the burial party with the sign of the cross. ‘Lord, we commit the body of our friend Harry of St Albans back to the earth in the sure and certain knowledge of his resurrection to a better life. We trust that he will be reborn a free man in your kingdom – where there are no serfs and only one true Lord, the God of all things.’
It fell to Nick to shovel the traditional three scoops of earth onto the body before the hole was filled. He scattered the dirt into the grave – a sound like pelting hailstones – dug some more, strength failing, turned the blade, flopped it in, a storm-shower of loneliness. He went through the same motion one last time and then laid the shovel down gently, ever so gently.
IV
Shit floats. Lumpen turds bobbling by in the brown water under his feet. The Thames was one giant sewer. Sat on the edge of the wharf, Jack flicked Nobody a titbit of cured ham he’d procured from a hawker on Tower Hill. The victuallers and vendors of London had vented their fury the day before and were out working on the great markets of Newgate, Cheap, the Stocks, Leaden Hall, doing a roaring trade feeding the True Commons this fine morning. Business was business. Londoners were coin-mad fuckers, always had been, always would be. The filthy, shitting cunts.
Nobody made a meal of the morsel, chewing, chewing, chewing, before gulping it down, but then he was greedy for more, best begging face, and the paw clawing the air.
‘Aw!’ Jack slapped the mastiff in the slobbery gob. ‘There’s no more for you.’
The dog stopped pawing, looked sulkily down at the river.
Ex-Chancellor Sudbury, dressed in the simple clothes of a parson, stepped aboard the royal barge to join ex-Treasurer Hales on the prow.
Prior Hales was disguised as a monk, but had his own fine clothes on beneath the scratchy woollen habit. It was not simply manners that made the nobleman, as William Wykeham, former Archbishop of Canterbury, was over-fond of saying, it was how one dressed. ‘So, Simon,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do in your retirement?’
Archbishop Sudbury chuckled. He was no longer Chancellor. Hales was no longer Treasurer. ‘Nothing. I think that’s the point of resignation. What will you do?’
Prior Hales smiled. ‘I’m going to Rhodes. The order has its base on the island and the sun will do my joints no end of good.’
‘The magnanimous Sir Simon de Burley gave me permission to live out the rest of my days at Kingsbridge Priory.’
The royal barge captain instructed his precious cargo to sit down by wraps of tarpaulin and coils of rope at the prow. He gave his crew the order to cast off – very quietly.
Prior Hales peered up the tunnel, to the daylight beyond the bars of the Water Gate and said: ‘At least it’s a nice day for a boat ride, eh Simon?’
A low rumbling behind Jack stirred him from the midst of a horny daydream: the two Navarese whores on their knees before him, licking his length, disappeared into thin air … to be replaced by a hellish vision of the teeth of the portcullis rising out of the brown water, the widening gape of a slavering monster mouth, spitting a barge out. He yelled: ‘To me, lads! Rally. Rally.’
Nobody barked frantically, each woof lifting its front paws off the dock.
In the time it took for Jack to string his black yew stave, the twenty archers mooching near the wharf had joined him down by the Water Gate, altogether abandoning their guard of St Thomas’ gate.
Archbishop S
udbury gasped when he saw the rebel archers. ‘Get your head down Robert!’
Prior Hales did so, but suffered from another blasted coughing fit.
Jack nocked an arrow and aimed it at the barge captain – the man at the tiller – point-blank. ‘Turn back!’
All bluff and bluster! The barge captain looked at the portcullis cranking down, shut behind him. He had no choice but to make a run for it. ‘Strike the oars!’
Jack called out louder: ‘Turn about or we’ll loose!’
As the archers picked their marks, the barge crew hesitated, fearful. But the boat kept gliding out towards the open water of the river.
‘Dear God! Don’t turn back. Don’t turn back!’ Archbishop Sudbury cried.
Jack gave the order: ‘Front rank – shoot!’
Jack loosed …
His target, the barge captain, took the bodkin in the neck was propelled overboard by the tremendous force of the hit.
All nine other crewmen died where they stood – at the keel, drawing the oars, never getting to hear the thrum of the bowstrings before the arrow hit. It was a massacre. No one could survive a volley of arrows shot from such close range.
The guard on St Thomas’ Tower witnessed the assault. An alarm bell rang out – inside the walls, alerting the garrison …
Jack watched the barge ram the wharf and wedged between wood and flow of water. ‘Here goes nothing,’ he said, and took a running leap from the dock onto the boat, hit the deck and went sprawling across it.
Nobody followed his master, with two other archers, taking a blind leap of faith onto the death-boat.
Jack picked himself up, dusted himself down and saw two men still alive huddled in balls, trying to remain unseen, up by the prow. He pulled his knife and stalked them. A terror-stricken parson, and a weeping monk – by the looks of things. ‘Yield or die – your choice?’
Three Lions of England Page 17
