The Midsummer Crown (30 page)

‘Not in the church itself, but in a chamber beneath the crypt, which I think might be Roman, perhaps a part of the Temple of Mithras, which originally stood on that site.'

She nodded in concurrence. I had obviously told her nothing that she did not know already.

‘The cult of Mithras was not itself a sacrificial one,' she said, ‘although some of its followers did interpret it as such because of the cutting of the bull's throat by the god. In the Christian faith, it is, of course, God Himself who is the sacrifice.'

I had sat down again on the floor, my back propped against one of the doorposts, and I stirred uneasily at the mention of the word ‘sacrifice'. Something continued to nag uneasily at the edges of my mind.

Mistress Owlgrave went on, ‘But in fact we are not concerned with Mithras or his worship. The fact that the church of St Etheldreda stands on, or very near, the Roman site, is neither here nor there. What I am about to say to you has to do with the saint herself. Do you know her story?'

I nodded. ‘I was a novice at Glastonbury Abbey before I renounced my calling and took to the roads.'

I didn't know how much Bertha had told our visitor of my life history, but she seemed to accept my explanation without demur.

‘Very well then. You know about Etheldreda's dislike of the carnal dealings between men and women.' She shifted slightly on the stool so that she was looking directly at me. ‘But have you ever heard,' she asked with great emphasis, ‘of the thirty-three Daughters of Albion?'

SEVENTEEN

‘I-I know the legend,' I stammered. ‘But . . . but what . . .?' Audrey Owlgrave nodded briskly. ‘Very well,' she said. ‘But what you probably don't know is that there's a secret sisterhood in this country called the Daughters of Albion. A secret society of women.'

‘A woman's secret society?' I queried stupidly.

She gave me a pitying look. ‘You think women aren't capable of such a thing? No,' she went on scornfully, ‘I suppose, like most men, you think it impossible that women would, on the one hand be able to organize something without male guidance, and on the other, that they would be able to keep anything secret.'

‘Well, they haven't managed to keep it a secret if you know about it,' I retorted, nettled by her assumption that all men were crass fools in their dealings with women and underrated their intelligence. No man who had been married to a woman like Adela for as long as I had would make such a mistake.

Bertha, an interested and, for the moment, slightly puzzled listener, gave another of her laughs. ‘'E's got you there, Audrey my old acker,' she remarked, using the ancient West Country word for ‘friend'. It provoked in me such an overwhelming feeling of homesickness that, for a second or two, I was afraid I really was going to be physically ill.

Mistress Owlgrave glanced contemptuously from one to the other of us. ‘I was once a Daughter of Albion, myself,' she said. ‘Which is why you may assume that I know what I'm talking about.'

Bertha nodded slowly. ‘I always suspicioned you was mixed up in summat you shouldn't've bin. There's always bin summat secretive about you, my lady, which is why I come to you now. When Roger 'ere told me 'is tale, I thought to meself that maybe you jus' might be able to shed some light on what's goin' on. 'Course, you might not 'ave, but in that case, no 'arm's bin done. Anyway, who are these Daughters of Whatnot?'

While Audrey Owlgrave made Bertha free of the legend, I was absorbed in my own thoughts. I realized now that God had been with me, guiding my steps, from the very beginning of this adventure. He it was who had prompted my memory of the story – long forgotten by me – as I stood among the prehistoric stone circles at Avebury. And He was still trying to guide me, except that I was too stupid to see what it was He was saying.

Mistress Owlgrave had by now finished her recounting of the tale, but judging by Bertha's demeanour it had found little favour in her eyes.

‘I never 'eard so much faradiddle in all me born days,' she snorted indignantly. ‘Matin' with demons, indeed! What next? And 'ow d'you come t' know such stuff, me young master?' she demanded fiercely, turning on me.

I explained how I came by my knowledge, something which afforded her enormous amusement and completely did away with her ill humour.

‘I allus wondered what went on in them religious places,' she said, rocking herself backwards and forwards in a paroxysm of enjoyment that put all previous ones in the shade. ‘And now I knows.'

Her unrelenting ability to find amusement in every situation was beginning to pall, and I turned back to Mistress Owlgrave. ‘Tell me more, if you please, about this society. Who belongs to it? Women, obviously, from what you say, but what is it for? And why are you no longer one of its members?'

Our guest shifted her stool slightly so that one shoulder was towards her still convulsed hostess. From then on, she addressed me exclusively.

‘It's a society, as perhaps you could guess, for women who dislike men.' She hesitated, then corrected herself. ‘Not who dislike men for themselves, but who dislike the . . . the carnal relationship that follows marriage. They are women who have either refused to marry, who have suffered at their families' hands for such refusals, or women who have been forced into marriages that were distasteful to them. They are dedicated to the cult of St Etheldreda, whose Feast Day is Midsummer Eve. And they call themselves the Daughters of Albion for obvious reasons.'

I wasn't sure that it was so obvious considering what was supposed to have happened after Albia and her thirty-two sisters landed on these shores. But I let my objection go. They had, after all, freed themselves from their husbands, even if the means had been somewhat drastic.

‘How many women belong to this society?' I asked. ‘Does it exist only here, in London?'

Mistress Owlgrave shook her head. ‘Oh no! There are sisters all over the country.'

‘All over the country?' I repeated. ‘But how do you keep in touch?'

She shrugged. ‘How does anyone keep in touch? Some of us can read and write, and letters are sent by carriers or carters or itinerant friars. In the summer, travelling parties of clowns and acrobats and jongleurs will be willing messengers. Each group of women, whether in city or town, village or hamlet, has its own head, preferably someone who is literate. You must know as well as I do that almost anyone will take anything anywhere provided the fee makes it worth the trouble. But in any case –' she shrugged again – ‘members of the Sisterhood don't need to communicate all that often. Once or twice a year perhaps, or when someone has something particular to say.'

I sat silent for a minute or two, digesting Audrey Owlgrave's information. I had heard of the Brotherhood many years earlier, around the time of Picquigny when there had been an attempt to assassinate the Duke of Gloucester, but that, as I had understood it, was an organization that spread beyond the shores of this country and was not above dabbling in the affairs of the great. This so-called Sisterhood, on the other hand, appeared to be a society dedicated to a single idea: women's dislike of the carnal side of marriage and, presumably, support for those who had either resisted its bonds or been forced into them against their will.

I wondered which of the two had been Mistress Owlgrave's fate.

Almost as if she had read my thoughts, our visitor said, ‘I come of good yeoman stock, Master Chapman, and was my father's only child. In the natural course of events I should have become mistress of a sizeable holding in Lincolnshire had I agreed to marry the man of my father's choice. Or, indeed, had I agreed to marry at all, for he was not an unreasonable man and would have welcomed as a son-in-law anyone of sufficiently gentle birth who took my fancy. The trouble arose when I refused to marry anybody and so perpetuate the Owlgrave line. My father wanted, above all else, to have grandchildren, even if they did not bear his name. They would have his blood and that was all that mattered to him.'

‘What happened?' I asked.

‘I was cast out of my home with only the clothes I stood up in. I have never seen my parents from that day to this, nor have they made the slightest attempt to find me. When I reached London, I wrote a letter and, with my last few remaining coins, sent it to them by a carter from Lincoln, who knew them and where to find them. When the man returned, he sought me out and told me that my father had destroyed the letter unopened. From that moment onwards, I knew that I was on my own for as long as the good God should grant me time upon this earth. I would have starved had it not been for the people of Southwark who took me in and gave me a home. One of the first women who befriended me belonged to the Daughters of Albion and, once she knew my story, arranged for me to enter the society's ranks. I was a member for many, many years and in those days we did a great deal of good work among the whores and fallen women of this district.'

I couldn't help wondering what the ‘Winchester geese'– so named after the owner of the Southwark brothels, the Bishop of Winchester – had thought about this well-meant interference. In general, they were a noisy, merry bunch, unashamed of their calling, but doubtless there had been some among them – perhaps many – who had been grateful for a helping hand.

It was time to ask the question that had been bothering me since almost the beginning of Audrey Owlgrave's life story.

‘From what you have said, Mistress, I assume that you are no longer a member of the Sisterhood. No longer a Daughter of Albion.'

She moved her stool away from the heat of a fire to which Bertha had just added another handful of sticks. Moreover, the sun was now beating in relentlessly through the open doorway.

After a moment's hesitation, she inclined her head.

‘That is so,' she admitted.

‘Why not?' I demanded bluntly.

She passed her tongue over her mouth before replying. ‘During the last ten years or so, a different element has crept into the Sisterhood and is gradually gaining ascendancy over the rest.' Again there was a pause and again she licked her lips. ‘An element that wishes to revive the old pagan associations with Midsummer Eve.'

There was a silence this time that you could cut with a knife. Audrey seemed reluctant to continue, so at last I asked, ‘You mean . . . blood sacrifice?'

Bertha gave a scream and dropped the pair of men's hose she was holding to the flames.

I thought for a moment that the other woman wasn't going to answer. But then she drew a deep breath and said quietly, ‘Yes.'

The monosyllable was so quietly spoken that I had to strain my ears to catch it, and even then I wasn't certain that I had heard aright. I repeated my question.

Her answer this time was unequivocal and spoken with firmness and clarity.

‘Yes. Blood sacrifice is what I mean.'

‘Ye're joking,' Bertha accused her, picking up the dropped garment with hands that were not quite steady and holding them once more to the blaze.

Mistress Owlgrave shook her head and looked me straight in the eye. ‘In pagan times, at Midsummer, the Beltane fires were lit on the hillsides and people danced around them, offering up sacrifices to the god Baal; Baal Zeboub, or Beelzebub as he came to be called, Lord of the Flies.'

Beelzebub! I wondered suddenly who had named the brute at Minster Lovell. I had naturally presumed that it was either William Blancheflower or even Francis Lovell himself. But supposing it had been the now dead Eleanor? Was it possible that she had been one of the Sisterhood? Had she been unhappily married, or married against her will? If that were indeed so, the events of that night just over a week ago might have a significance that I had so far overlooked.

I told Audrey Owlgrave the story and asked her opinion. Bertha listened open-mouthed.

Our visitor shook her head. ‘I can't give you an opinion – not a definite opinion that is – one way or the other, Master Chapman. What happened may well have been simply an unfortunate accident in which you played an unwitting part. But then again, it might not. Perhaps when you saw Mistress Blancheflower in the inner courtyard, she meant, somehow, to let the animal in to attack her husband while he was sleeping. When she saw you, she hid by slipping out through the postern gate to wait until you had returned to bed. Unfortunately for her, you noticed the drawn bolts and locked her out. Her presence out of doors in the middle of the night is certainly suspicious, but offers no proof of fell intent. What makes you suddenly suspect her of being a member of the Sisterhood?'

‘It's only . . .' I paused, looking back and trying to conjure up the scene when Piers had first informed Dame Copley of Nell Blancheflower's death.

Audrey Owlgrave raised her eyebrows and waited. Bertha cursed as a stray spark from the fire threatened to burn a hole in the gentleman's hose she was drying.

I continued, struggling to get my thoughts in order, ‘It's only that when one of Mistress Blancheflower's friends was first informed of her death, she – the friend, that is – at first refused to believe it, insisting there must be some mistake. I distinctly remember her saying, “It can't be Nell! You mean it was William.” It didn't strike me at the time, but now it seems almost as if the friend had been expecting to hear of the husband's death. At one point, I thought Dame Copley was going to faint, she seemed so grief-stricken, but it could have been from shock.'

Mistress Owlgrave frowned. ‘Are you saying that you think this friend is also a member of the Sisterhood?'

It was my turn to suffer a shock: I hadn't really stopped to consider the implications of what I was saying. So did I believe that Dame Copley was a Daughter of Albion? I received another jolt when I realized that the not improbable answer was: yes. And the more I thought about it, the more it began to make some sort of sense. Piers had told me that Rosina had been forced into an unwanted marriage by her father when all she had wished to do was embrace the religious life. And yesterday – was it only yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime ago – I had witnessed her with my own eyes huddled together with Amphillis Hill and the unknown woman in the Boar's Head in East Cheap. Until that moment, I would not have said that she and Amphillis were anything other than the merest acquaintances. Indeed, by all accounts they had not known each other long, only since Rosina's arrival at Baynard's Castle two weeks previously. And, within my hearing at least, the nurse had always spoken slightingly of the younger woman.