Darkmans (67 page)

‘Sure.’

Kane wasn’t concentrating. He was staring over at the house. ‘So what’s this guy’s name again?’

‘Andrew Board. B-o-a-r-d.’

‘But that’s completely different.’

‘I know. That’s what Kelly thought. That’s why she had her doubts, initially. But I told her how the language was in flux back then. English was only just being established as an official tongue. Nothing was set in stone. How a name
sounded
was just as significant as how it was spelled…’

‘Board/Broad…’ Kane tried this on for size. Then his hand shot into the air – quite spontaneously – and hurled his cigarette on to the dash.

‘Shit!’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I just…’

Kane reached out to retrieve it.

‘I re-examined the Scogin text this morning,’ Winifred blithely chatted on, ‘a very early edition, even earlier than the one I photocopied for Beede…’

‘Huh?’

Kane was dusting flecks of ash from the top of his speedometer.

‘John Scogin, the jester…’

‘John?’ He glanced up.
‘John
Scogin?’

‘Yeah. I was bearing in mind all these academic theories on why it was that Board
hadn’t
written the book – and then it suddenly occurred to me, as I worked my way through it, how the story adheres – and in the
weirdest
way – to the Hippocratic theory…’

‘You’ve lost me, Win.’

Kane dabbed at his eyes again.

‘It’s a fascinating business. Kind of like solving a crime. Like unravelling a
mystery
story. All the clues are in the text and your job is simply to sniff them out.’

‘I see.’

‘I mean it’s hardly
rocket
science or anything – my reading’s simply based on the loosest possible
literary
interpretation…’

‘Win?’

‘But I think it pays off – in fact it’s actually very interesting, really
illuminating
…’

‘Win?’

‘The way I see it – and I’ll try and keep this brief – is that John Scogin – simply as a
character
– seems to personify the coming together of all these totally disparate extremes – the same way Board himself does – I mean he’s this well-educated guy who advances his path in life by pretending to be a fool – a jester – and thoughout the narrative we see this bizarre opposition between fire and water which – the way
I
choose to interpret them, anyway – kind of represent passion and
reason
– sex and
loyalty
– lust and
faith
…’

‘Win
…’

‘Just
listen,
Kane,’ she snapped, ‘and you might actually learn something…’

Kane rolled his eyes.

‘Early on – yeah? – when Board describes John setting fire to the
barn,
for example…’

‘Sorry?’

Kane froze.

‘The barn. He sets fire to the barn. For me it’s one of the standout anecdotes of the entire book. An
awful
story, by modern standards, but presented in the text as simple high jinks – just a joke…’

‘He sets fire to a barn?’

‘Yeah. He sets fire to a barn which he’s filled – at his wife’s behest – with dozens of pesky beggars from the local area who are waiting patiently inside in the misguided belief that he’s going to distribute alms…’

Alms

Kane started, involuntarily –

Arms

– then glanced down at his wrist. He’d pushed up his sleeve and was plucking at his scar –

Ow.

He quickly desisted, wincing.

‘…but instead he actually locks them in there and he sets the barn on fire…’

‘What?’ Kane was horrified. ‘He
burns
them?’

‘Sure.’

‘Does he kill anyone?’

‘I’m not sure. Boorde doesn’t say. The act
itself
is the punch-line, and then afterwards he accuses the beggars of setting fire to the barn themselves, out of pure spite…’

‘But this isn’t a true story, surely?’

‘Oh yeah. Absolutely. Exaggerated a little, perhaps…’

‘But that’s…’

‘I know. Totally fucked. The
point
is that John has this powerful association – this affinity – with fire. And it’s a very
female
vibe, somehow, a very negative, very
sexual
vibe, which is later played out fully in his warring with Elizabeth Woodville and his bizarre – almost neurotic – attacks on her honour…’

‘Elizabeth who?’

‘The queen. Elizabeth Woodville. Edward IV’s wife.’

‘So he was jester to the
king
? I mean in real life?’

‘Of course. Who else?’ Win tutted, impatiently. ‘Keep
up,
Kane. So that’s the fire side dealt with – although there’s more –
much
more – obviously: his threat to burn down his house in Cheapside as a ruse to get protection money from his neighbours, climbing into an oven and leaving his arse hanging out so he doesn’t have to stare Edward
in the face – because he’d been banned from doing so by royal edict…this was shortly after his return from France…’

‘He went to France?’

‘Yeah. He was banished there. But he was incredibly ambitious. He worked for Louis – the French king – and this uptight bishop who he alienates by making jokes about his long nose. He’s such an idiot. So arrogant. You kind of have to
admire
it, really. I mean there are no lengths he won’t go to, no lines he won’t cross. He’s a force of nature, this Dionysian spirit. This total arsehole. Utterly vicious and amoral. The absolute personification of misrule…’

‘Did they ever meet?’ Kane wondered.

‘Who?’

‘Board and this jester, this…this
John
character?’

‘Uh…I’ve no idea. Scogin would’ve been much older, but he was apparently quite long-lived, so there’s just an outside chance, I suppose. And he would’ve been a legendary figure during his own lifetime. All the top jesters were. Jesters held this very special place in medieval culture because the Motley served as a kind of protective armour. They were pretty much the only people in society who were permitted to speak their minds freely. They had a kind of intellectual immunity. This meant that humour could often be a direct route to power, and these guys knew it, Scogin more than anybody.

‘He was definitely at his creative peak during Edward’s reign. There was this astonishing kind of – I don’t know –
affinity
between them. Edward was hugely charismatic. Sensual. Very physically powerful. Brave. But ultimately degenerate. His main flaw was his love of beauty – of women, of sex. He was a terrible philanderer, and his wife tolerated it – extremely well, under the circumstances – but John wouldn’t let it go. He was like a cat with an injured bird, he kept on throwing it in her face, mocking her, deriding her, humiliating her. He put the king into an impossible position. He forced his hand. It was such an amazing period in history, so diverse and corrupt and fascinating; the very end of an age…Ends are so much more
interesting
than beginnings, don’t you think?’

She didn’t wait for him to answer.

‘So much more
telling –
everything in stasis, everything in
flux.
I mean think about it this way: John survived the Black Death, he lived on his wits, he wormed and blagged his way into the top echelons of society where he would’ve rubbed shoulders with the likes of the
legendary Jane Shore – the king’s famous whore – and the young Richard. He would’ve been a witness to the murder of those two boys in the tower. And as loyal as he was to Edward, I’m guessing he was a pragmatist at heart, that he may well’ve served Richard too – which would’ve taken a
huge
leap, emotionally,
morally…
Although huge leaps were apparently very much his
forte
…’

‘What?’

‘He loved to jump. To leap things. It was all part of his act…’

‘Oh.’

‘He may even have survived through to the reign of Henry. He was one of the last of a great breed…’

‘The last? How d’you mean?’

‘Because of the development of the printed word. Books. The growth of the English language is generally believed to have precipitated the end of the jesting profession.’

‘Why?’

‘People started
reading.
They started entertaining themselves. They became more sophisticated. And what Board actually did was to solidify that process – to actively
encourage
it – both as a writer and as a physic. He condensed all the best known elements of John Scogin’s life into a loose narrative. He created one of the first ever joke books. He pinned John down with words, skinned and filleted him,
dissected
him. He made him
tabloid.
He
sold
him. I mean we’re talking 150, 200 years before Richardson wrote
Clarissa
– the first, great English novel…’ she paused, speculatively. ‘But that’s hardly the point…’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No. Because what’s really interesting is the text itself – this all-pervasive yin/yang quality, this literary opposition – as Board describes it – between fire and water. The wet side, the
liquid
side,’ Win ran on, ‘which is
equally
important – is personified by John’s loyalty to the
masculine,
to the king – Edward IV. When he arrives at court he stands under this dripping pipe and pretends he hasn’t realised he’s getting wet. It’s rather stupid, if you ask me, but this prank – which seems to go on for many hours – causes a real stir in court. Eventually it comes to the king’s attention and the long and the short of it is that the king employs Scogin as his jester…’

‘Did Beede mention why it was that he wanted this book?’ Kane suddenly enquired.

‘Pardon?’

‘Beede. Did he ever mention
why
?’

‘No. Well,
yes.
He’s become totally fascinated by the period. And he has this crazy theory about how the British Renaissance took place – at least in part – because of the evolution of English as a language…’

‘Sure,’ Kane said flatly, ‘I heard all about that.’

‘There’s actually another book which I haven’t managed to get a hold of yet called
Tales of the Jesters.
I was chatting to this guy – this comedy journalist – who had his own copy, and he was telling me how Scogin’s final request when he died was that he should be buried beneath a waterspout in Westminster Abbey. “I ever liked good drinks,” he apparently said. And that’s exactly what happened. They buried him there, under this dripping waterspout. But only a handful of years later the king decided to build a new chapel on that spot – so the old jester’s bones were just casually unearthed. I don’t know where they ended up…’

Kane was staring out of his window again, over towards the house. ‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, finally.

‘Yeah. I mean this stuff’s a fair old hike away from my usual scholastic stamping ground, but since I’ve been studying the original texts again this morning I’ve become totally fascinated by the whole thing. Completely hyped-up. Really excited. In Board’s book we definitely see the jester ducking and hiding between words. Words are his allies. It’s like he’s at his most powerful, his most mischievous, when experimenting with the variableness of language. Does that make sense at all?’

Kane didn’t bother to answer her.

‘Many of the stories are about deceiving and then disappearing, about pulling a fast one and then doing a runner, and the language itself really seems to aid and abet him. Beede’s little hypothesis has some validity in that respect…In fact I was having a quick look at this book edited by Gamini Salgado which I noticed Beede reading the other week – it’s a collection of texts from the mid-sixteenth century – many of them totally contemporaneous with the Scogin book – and one of them in particular by a John Awdeley called
The Fraternity of Vagabonds
is basically a dictionary of the slang of the Elizabethan criminal underclass. This bizarre secret language. It’s amazingly weird. Very beautiful, too. Most of it’s probably fallacious – just a wild fabrication. But that hardly even matters, really. I mean where do words
come from anyway? What is it that gives a word its longevity, its staying power? Who legitimises it? Why? And how? I’m seriously thinking about researching further into this whole area now, creating some kind of spontaneous academic
thesis
around it. Bringing it all right up to date, too, via
patois
– my speciality – musical and urban street-slang, African prison languages…Maybe even researching another book.’

Kane snorted, bitterly, ‘Beede’ll be ecstatic.’

‘Yeah…’ (She didn’t take his bait.) ‘I mean just this idea that language is constantly changing, that it creates these weird little
loopholes
which allow people of different classes and races and backgrounds to gain ready access to an otherwise inaccessible parent culture…’

‘So I guess you had your own little epiphany, too, huh?’ Kane said. He was almost joking.

Silence

‘Uh…I hadn’t really
thought
about it that way…’

Pause

‘Yeah. How very
odd.
I guess I did…’

Kane frowned. ‘I hate to burst your bubble, Win, but didn’t you say that Kelly
wasn’t
actually related to the Board guy?’

‘No.
No,
she probably isn’t. Uh…At least I’ve certainly got my doubts…’

‘So everything
doesn’t
fit so snugly, after all…?’

(He struggled not to sound too smug about it.)

‘In one of the books I was looking at this morning,’ Winnie began rapidly paging through her notes, ‘they’d reprinted this totally bizarre attack on Board – who apparently at some point wrote something negative about beards…’

‘Sorry?’

‘Beards.’

‘Beards?’

‘Yeah. About beards – growing beards, wearing beards…He thought beards were unhygienic. He hated beards. And this caused quite a stir at the time. Beards were huge back then. Anyhow, I happened across this long kind of “answer poem” to Board’s hypothesis –
completely bloody
obscene,
coincidentally – all about the virtues of beards – which includes several side-swipes to what an acknowledged
con
-man Board is, how disreputable, what a
criminal
…’