Son of the Morning (33 page)

He stood in the street for a good half an hour and, other than one gentleman complimenting him on his good looks and asking him if he was plying for trade, no one spoke to him. Dow had felt sorry to disappoint the man and tell him he had no trade and had nothing to sell or offer in the way of service. The man had been quite insistent that Dow had
something
to sell and had taken some persuading to go away. Dow had thought to lead him away and try to rob him, but he wanted to stay near Orsino. Besides, the man had a friendly manner quite unlike the contempt he was used to from gentlemen and nobles.

Orsino emerged smiling. ‘Right, Greatbelly it is,’ he said, ‘although you’re missing a trick there, boy. Several tricks, in fact.’

They walked down the length of the narrow alley.

‘This is Gropqwente Lane,’ said Orsino, ‘we want Puppekirty.’ He asked a passer-by, who directed them.

This lane was even meaner and narrower than the others, not nearly wide enough for them to walk two abreast, dark, despite the ribbon of blue sky visible above them.

‘Ah,’ said Orsino, pointing to a sign that showed a man in a bath which had a large rose on the side, ‘this I believe is the Rose stewe.’

The doorway was low and a thickset man sat on a stool just inside it. The place was rank, even compared to the stinking street outside. ‘Two free, one fat, one skinny, take your pick.’

‘Joanna Greatbelly,’ said Orsino, ‘for the boy.’

Dow was aware he was trembling slightly. He didn’t know if he’d be able to get what he wanted. The man raised his eyebrows. ‘This your first time, son?’

Dow said nothing. The town made him nervous, the stewes more so, robbed him of speech.

‘Hell of a way to start,’ said the man. ‘Upstairs, pay her before. If she goes on top you won’t be in a fit state to reach your purse after.’

They climbed the narrow stairs. There was a small landing on the top with two rooms either side, privacy provided by dirty yellow curtains.

‘Joanna.’

‘In here, my darling.’ The voice was low and rough. It came from the room on the right.

Orsino ducked in and Dow followed him.

A woman had just discarded a linen wrap and stepped into a big, low wooden tub. She was completely naked, big breasted, her belly white and puckered like a plucked hen’s.

‘Hello, lads,’ she said, reaching down to splash water on her breasts, ‘two at a time is cheaper as long as you’re quick.’

Orsino wore a look of surprise. ‘This is the one you want?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sixpence straight, ninepence for sins carrying a three year penance, a shilling for acts unnatural and damnable,’ said Greatbelly.

Orsino seemed to find this rather funny. ‘I’ve seen you face down a demon, kid, but I think you might have bitten off more than you can chew here,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come back and take on that lithe young piece we saw earlier.’

‘This is the one that I want,’ said Dow.

Orsino shrugged and reached inside his tunic for his purse. ‘How much shall I pay her? You heard the price list.’

‘Two shillings,’ said Dow.

Orsino took on the open-mouthed look of a man who has come down to his stable to find his horse has turned into a unicorn.

‘You young lads,’ he said. He pressed two shillings into Dow’s hand.

‘I’ll meet you downstairs,’ he said, and left the room.

Dow stood looking at Greatbelly for a few moments. Her face was pretty, he thought, or had been once. He admired her keeping a roof over her head and growing so fat through her hard work. Whores did work hard, he had heard it said. Abbadon had an expression ‘working like a market-day bawd’.

‘I don’t want to do it,’ said Dow.

‘I still want paying. If you like I’ll just take the money and you can tell him downstairs what you like.’

‘Osbert the pardoner sent me.’

Now the prettiness left her face and a hard, spiteful look replaced it. ‘Well,’ she said, stepping out of the water and picking up her sheet, ‘have you come to pay me what he owes me?’

‘What does he owe you?’

‘Five shillings. I paid him – in kind – for a cure for my little Betsy. The child’s as sick as the day I sprinkled the oil on her. What’s wrong with your tongue?’

Dow stuck out his tongue to show her the fork.

‘My God,’ she said, ‘I always said the Devil’d come for him in the end. What happened to you? The priests get you?’

‘Yes.’

She wrapped the sheet around her. ‘They’re the ones who go for tongues.’

Dow didn’t know where the words came from. ‘Where’s your daughter?’

‘She’s not available.’

‘If she’s sick. I’d like to see her.’

‘And you a friend of Osbert! I’ve given up paying frauds and cheats.’

‘I don’t want paying. I cured a boy once. I’m not saying I could cure her but I could try.’

Greatbelly looked him up and down for a second. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘but any funny stuff and I’ll gut you myself. You’ll believe me when I tell you that you won’t be the first. Come on.’

‘I need something. Osbert said you could give me something to make a man sleep.’

She padded to the back of the room and opened a second door that descended a staircase. ‘Suck him off and ask him to tell you he loves you,’ she said.

‘Osbert said you would have a philtre.’

‘Did he? Where is he?’

Dow said nothing, just looked at the floor.

‘Too scared to come here himself, is he?’

‘He’s in prison.’

‘For debt. Best place for him. Two shillings.’

Dow walked across and put them into her hand.

She went to the back of the room and opened a chest.

She took out a wrap of hessian.

She gave him the wrap. ‘It’s a bit gritty sometimes, so stir it in well and put it in something strong like wine.

‘If you get anything worth having – any loot, any plunder, come back to me. I know someone who can shift it for you without getting you hanged. Now do you want to see my daughter?’

‘Yes.’

The woman rearranged her sheet around her, picked up a key off a low table and opened a door at the back of the room. They descended another narrow staircase which brought them out by a back entrance into another tight alley.

Greatbelly led Dow barefoot down the alley and turned left into a wider street. Five doors down they came to a small house with a thatched roof. It had one front door with an iron handle and lock on it. Greatbelly unlocked it with the key and the door opened.

It was a small but clean room which had a big bed in it, along with a couple of mattresses on the floor. There was a table with some knives and bread plates on it, two chairs and a fire burning in the centre of the room – most of the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. It was like a cleaner, better furnished version of a poor man’s cottage on the moor, thought Dow.

Lying in the big bed was a girl of around ten years old, very thin and pale with a vivid purple growth as big as a turnip at her neck.

‘It’s the King’s Evil,’ said Greatbelly.

Dow walked over to the bed. ‘I’ve seen this before.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘it’s only worked for me once.’

Greatbelly exhaled, looked down at the floor. ‘Once more than for most of the doctors I’ve had to her, I should say.’

Dow didn’t know what to do. The baby he’d cured in his village had had a lump like that and Dow had just held his hand and said, ‘I wish you’d be well in Lucifer’s name.’ He’d imagined him growing up, big and strong, playing stick fighting as Dow loved to do. And that was it.

The next day, the child was cured, Dow was the talk of the village and the priest had begun his hunt for him.

The swelling at the girl’s neck was cold when he touched it. She moaned and turned away from him.

‘She sleeps a lot,’ said Greatbelly.

‘What does she like to do?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Does she have friends?’

‘Yes, she plays with a girl called Rose. Or she used to.’

‘What did they play?’

‘I don’t know, what do kids normally play?’

‘What does Rose look like?’

‘A dark little thing. Black hair all of a mess. Why are you asking this?’

‘Do you remember a time when your daughter was very happy?’

‘We had a nice bit of cake a couple of Christmases ago and she found the bean.’

‘What bean?’

‘If you find the bean in the cake you’re queen or king of the bean. Where are you from you’ve never heard of that?’

Dow held the child’s hand. He thought of her, whole and well, spitting the bean from her mouth in delight as she found it in her slice of cake, showing it to a girl he could not see but envisaged as a mess of dark hair.

‘I wish you’d be well,’ he said, ‘in the name of Lucifer, Son of the Morning.’

‘Oh my word, a demon!’ screamed Greatbelly, ‘get out, get out!’ She picked up a knife and started waving it about as if trying to fend him off, despite the fact Dow was still holding the little girl’s hand.

Dow said nothing and walked from the house back round to the brothel.

He stuck his head through the door.

‘Go on,’ said Orsino, ‘tell me what you paid for that meant you ended up in the street. Has she got some rare treat tucked round the corner? You sly dog, you weren’t after her at all, were you? I bet there’s some fresh young thing you’ve heard about and want to keep to yourself.’

‘Let’s go back,’ said Dow.

There was a shout from up the street.

‘Demon! Fiend!’ It was Greatbelly, looming into the alley as if drunk, still swinging the knife.

Orsino laughed. ‘We’d better go. I think you’ve annoyed her.’

The two men hurried down the dark alley as Greatbelly came rolling after them, still shouting abuse.

‘Run,’ said Orsino, ‘I’ve fought in many wars but I’ve never taken on anything that fearsome! We can’t outfight her, but we can definitely outrun her, come on!’

By the time they reached the bridge Greatbelly was well out of sight, and Orsino had to stop for laughing. He put his hand on Dow’s shoulder. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘you have to tell me what you did or said that disgusted a whore of her experience. Really, I must know. I can’t guess, I lack the necessary power of the imagination. What can it be?’

Dow smiled. ‘I spoke to her about the morning light,’ he said.

Orsino stopped laughing and pointed his finger at Dow. ‘You need to come to God,’ he said, ‘or at least to learn to keep your mouth shut before you’re burned for your heresies.’

‘You are not of God,’ said Dow.

‘How do you make that out?’

‘You are kind,’ said Dow. ‘Only serving him makes you cruel.’

Orsino crossed himself. ‘Let’s get back to the house,’ he said.

6

Montagu had heard that Hanley Castle had been burned quite badly, though its walls still stood. The village underneath it had become a poor affair with the castle’s decline, though there was a school there. It had been set up by Despenser’s wife Eleanor, it was said, as some compensation for razing one of the area’s main employers.

As they moved through the countryside towards the castle, they saw doors locked against them, people huddled indoors in houses and inns. This wasn’t the normal reception a royal entourage received. Normally it would have pulled in hawkers and gawpers like a travelling fair but here no one waved, no one came to greet them.

‘Extraordinary behaviour,’ said Montagu as they passed through a little village in the March green of the Malvern hills.

‘It may help if I lower my pennant,’ said George, ‘my father is still remembered here, I think.’

‘Won’t hear of it, old boy,’ said Montagu, ‘won’t hear of it. Was he that cruel to his own people?’

‘Not just them, I think.’

It was a warm day and Montagu was sweating on his horse. ‘Lower it a bit when we get to the next village,’ he said, ‘I would like to be offered a cup of ale without demanding it.’

Montagu hated to travel now because he had become a nuisance to his men, always cajoling them, criticising the state of their kit, the speed at which they deployed their pavilions, even the way his barber cut his hair. So slow too – with the full royal train in tow. He had to be busy, had to nag and worry his retinue because, with want of things to occupy his mind, he thought only of her. Isabella. He loved to say her name to himself and wanted to write to her, tell her how he felt. He wished dearly he was free to follow his heart – and was then consumed with guilt thinking of his wife. Poor Catherine, there at home. She had been nothing but loyal to him and Montagu was quite aware he didn’t deserve her, didn’t deserve to draw breath, not for what he had done – any husband could lie with another woman, that was no sin. His betrayal was in how he felt. He loved Isabella, more than he loved Catherine. It was commonplace for men to say they would die for women. Montagu, raised on chivalry and the romances, could think of no higher calling than to give his life for that lady. He thought of it constantly and he knew why. In dying he would express his love for Isabella as deeply as he could and he would receive the punishment he deserved for the betrayal of his wife. But no such luxury as death could be afforded him. He was a servant of England and England needed him to live.

Hanley Castle was a mess. The outer walls were breached, the living quarters and outhouses ruined. The keep had not been demolished, but a great hole had been torn into its side and it looked unstable. Montagu and Despenser walked across the ash of the courtyard. Why burn such a valuable property? People said Lady Eleanor had suffered at Hugh’s hands there and the memory of the place was hateful to her.

‘I’m sorry, George, but I did need to come here.’

‘Means nothing to me,’ said Despenser. ‘I’ve been here once and then for too long. My father and I didn’t get on. I reminded him of his mortality, my mother said.’

‘He would have done well to remember it while he was urging the king to folly. He received a stark enough reminder when they ripped out his guts.’

‘Indeed,’ said Despenser.

‘Did he have much loyalty from his followers here?’

‘Only that from terror, I think. My father was a cruel man. My mother suffered at his hands but his retainers certainly took their share. Why are we here, sir?’