The Midsummer Crown (36 page)

William Catesby!

‘God's toenails!' he fumed as the horse came to a plunging halt not a yard from me. ‘Do you want to get yourself killed, Master Chapman?' He uttered a few choice epithets before taking a closer look at me and stopping short. ‘What's the matter, man? You look like death.'

‘Take me up behind you,' I begged. ‘I'll tell you as we go.'

We made it to the Lud Gate just as darkness fell and the gate was about to be closed.

‘We'll go first to Baynard's Castle,' the lawyer said, ‘and get reinforcements. We can't tackle these she-wolves on our own.' He hesitated before adding defiantly, ‘King Richard has moved there to be with his mother. Queen Anne is staying for the moment at Crosby's Place.' The die was well and truly cast then. The duke's closest adherents were already referring to him as monarch. Catesby added, ‘Hold on tightly. Let's go.'

But we were going nowhere. It was Midsummer Eve, the Eve of St John the Baptist. We had forgotten the Marching Watch.

Thousands of citizens had been assembling in St Paul's churchyard since mid-afternoon, and hundreds of shops all over the city had closed early so that masters and apprentices alike could take part in the spectacle. The procession, headed by members of the twelve great livery companies were just now moving off towards Cheapside followed by the guilds in all their glory of scarlet and gold. Everywhere was light as hundred upon hundreds of cressets illumined the scene. These iron baskets at the end of long poles, each containing burning wood and coals, were carried by poor men of the city especially chosen for the occasion. Every man was given a straw hat and a painted badge (proudly worn and then stored away to show his grandchildren at some future date) and beside him walked another poor man, similarly attired, carrying a bag of coals for refuelling.

The heat and light generated by these cressets was overwhelming, but as nothing to the noise that assaulted the ears from what sounded like thousands of trumpets, pipes and drums – but were probably less than a hundred in all. It was the enthusiasm of the players that created the din. Lines of armed men guarded the processional route and the flames of bonfires leapt and warmed the crowds at every crossroad. Earlier in the day, women and children had been out in the surrounding fields picking armfuls of flowers and greenery – green birch, fennel, St John's Wort and others – to make garlands and decorate the houses. Streamers and tapestries hung from every window of those folk who could afford them, while tables groaning with food and drink stood outside the houses of the rich, each man vying with his neighbours to outdo the rest. And in the midst of all this, the Midsummer Queens of each ward were carried shoulder-high, crowned with birch leaves.

Finally, just as it seemed that the splendour had reached its zenith, came the Mayor's Watch with Mayor Edmund Shaa mounted on a magnificent roan, his armoured sword-bearer riding before him, two mounted attendants behind and torch-bearers on either side. The crowds exploded with excitement.

Every street, alleyway and lane appeared to be blocked with a solid mass of people, moving more slowly than the procession itself because of other diversions.

Catesby said despairingly, ‘We'll never get through these crowds, at least, not on horseback.' He signalled to me to dismount, then followed suit. The mare was already showing the whites of her eyes and shied nervously at a more than usually ear-splitting burst of sound. The lawyer went on, ‘You'll have to try to get to Dowgate on foot. Meantime, I'll lead Dorcas round the long way to Baynard's Castle, south by Old Change and Lampard's Hill and then turn west along Thames Street. I'll be with you again as soon as I can. Don't do anything foolish.' And with that, he was gone, swallowed up by the crowds and leaving me fuming.

Don't do anything foolish, indeed! Easy enough to say, but I was always finding myself in desperate situations thanks to my involuntary involvement in the duke's affairs. No! Not the duke's any more. The king's!

I took a deep breath and began to shoulder a path through the press of hot and sweating bodies, their owners already high on the excitement of the occasion, but also starting to get high in another sense, on all the free wine and potent cuckoo-ale that was on offer. Women were becoming shrill, men raucous and both belligerent. My determined efforts to forge a way between them soon met with an aggression that threatened my safety long before I reached my destination. But there was one good thing; my anxiety for young Gideon Fitzalan seemed to have given me a renewed strength of which, an hour earlier, I would have deemed myself incapable. The result was that I was able, finally, to outstrip the crowds and turn into Bucklersbury, head south down Wallbrook and east into Candlewick Street much sooner than I had expected. And a very few moments after, the mouth of the alleyway connecting the street with Dowgate Hill yawned on my right.

I plunged along it, my heart hammering in my chest, but taking comfort from the fact that only the length of Thames Street, at the bottom of the hill, now separated me from Baynard's Castle. I prayed fervently that Catesby had managed to get there with even less hindrance than I had encountered.

As I approached the church, I noted that Etheldreda Simpkin's house was in complete darkness, the candle which most people put in their windows to guide travellers after dark unlit. Cautiously, I tried the handle of the church door.

It was locked.

I should have been prepared for this, but for some reason it took me by surprise. For what seemed like an eternity – in reality no more than three or four seconds – I stared at the iron ring in the palm of my hand and decided that that was it then. There was no more I could do. But suddenly, very faint and far off, I thought I heard a cry. A child's cry. A cry of fear and horror. Whether I really heard it or whether I imagined it I have never been quite sure, but it spurred me into action.

The door of St Etheldreda's was old, the wood splintering in places, in others already rotting. Exerting all my strength, I hurled my whole weight against it, once, twice, three times. And at the fourth attempt, one of the planks split from its neighbour, leaving a sufficient gap for me to squeeze through.

The church itself was deserted, but I had expected that. Whatever was happening, was taking place in the chamber below the crypt. I considered lighting a candle, but decided against it. I knew my way sufficiently by now to risk the comforting cloak of darkness, so I made my way behind the altar, felt for the rope and lifted the trapdoor which fell open with its usual thud.

I stood stock still, listening, my heart in my mouth, waiting to see if the noise was loud enough to have attracted attention. Nothing happened, so I proceeded to descend the stairs into the crypt. The sound of the Wallbrook gushing along its underground bed was loud in my ears and I shivered, recalling the coldness of its water as it emptied itself into the Thames.

Carefully, my eyes now well accustomed to the gloom, I picked my way between the accumulated rubbish of other people's lives to the door which led to the lower chamber; that chamber which had once, centuries ago and if local lore were to be believed, been the Roman Temple of Mithras. It flashed across my mind that it, too, might be locked, in which case there was nothing further I could do until help arrived. This sturdy door with its iron studs had been carefully maintained and repaired. It would need a battering ram to demolish it.

I found that the hand I had extended towards the latch was trembling, and that with half my mind I was desperately hoping that the door was locked, thus relieving me of all further responsibility. But then there came another scream, high pitched and full of terror, and there was no possibility this time of it being in my imagination. This was real. My blood seemed to freeze in my veins.

I pushed up the latch without even stopping to consider any personal danger and charged down the half-dozen steps into the room below.

It was like a scene from a nightmare, and even now, all these years on and myself an old man who has seen much evil in his life, it still haunts my dreams and wakes me in the night, sweating with fear. At first my eyes were dazzled by the light that came from a dozen or more candles all concentrated in one area of the room. Shadows flickered menacingly over the damp, moss-encrusted walls and plunged the corners of the chamber into darkness. For a moment or two I was blinded, coming as I had from the gloom of the crypt into this blaze of flame and smoke, but as my sight cleared, I saw with mounting horror that there was a makeshift altar set against the far wall and to this was bound the body of a young boy, no longer drugged into blessed unconsciousness but fully awake and aware of what was happening. And grouped about him were figures robed in white, each face hidden behind a hideous bird mask of the kind used at Christmas and Easter mummings, while the figure standing closest to the altar wore a cockerel's head. And in the cockerel's upraised hand was a wicked-looking, long-bladed knife.

Somebody shouted – and I realized a second later that it was me.

I threw myself forward, reaching desperately for that hand before it could plunge downwards into its victim's heart, but if I had recovered my powers of speech and motion, so had others. Robed figures suddenly hemmed me in on all sides and I could hear the sounds of their fury hissing behind the masks.

‘Kill him!' came a muffled shout in a voice that, in spite of the distortion, I recognized as Rosina Copley's.

‘Hold him!' someone else commanded, and the grip on both my arms tightened.

The figure at the altar – which I could now see was nothing more than a double row of planks from the crypt, piled on top of one another and lashed together with rope – advanced towards me, knife held high, the light from the candle-flames reflected in its steel and giving the eerie impression that it was already covered in blood. Exerting all my strength, fear and horror lending me the energy of ten, I tore free of my captors and looked around me for a weapon. For a heart-stopping moment I could see nothing.

‘God!' I whispered feverishly. ‘Help me!'

Almost at once, a flicker of light from an errant candle-flame, blowing sideways in a sudden draught of air, illumined the statue of St Etheldreda brought down from the church and placed on a ledge of rock close to the ‘altar'; a good woman whose name, story and feast day had been appropriated by an evil sisterhood for their own bloodthirsty ends. I lunged and as I grabbed the statue, I realized with relief that not only was it made from heavy plaster but it was also weighted in the base (either to discourage theft or to prevent it being easily toppled). Grasping it by its head (a sacrilege for which I felt sure the saint would forgive me) I lashed out, catching my nearest assailant a stunning blow to the side of her chin. She fell like a stone, taking the woman directly behind her with her and pinning her temporarily to the ground.

Immediately all was uproar. The rest of the women, mad with fury, struggled to reach me where I stood with my back to the wall, lashing out with my improvised club. But it was the one with the knife I had to watch, the one I was convinced was Pernelle; my old friend Piers whose swaggering and swearing had always seemed a little unnatural and which, together with my recurring dreams of Eloise Gray, should have apprised me of the truth much sooner. Her reach was longer than that of the other women, and twice I felt the blade nick my face before managing to hit it away. To add to the confusion and general nightmarish quality of the scene, the terrified child was screaming and trying to free himself from his bonds. Suddenly, one of the knots which bound his ankles came untied.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I swung again at one of the women – hitting off her mask whose strings had become loosened to reveal the plump, pretty features of Amphillis Hill – but so did Pernelle. With a cry of rage she turned away, leaving me to the frenzied attentions of the others and raised the knife.

I remember yelling ‘No!' at the top of my voice, but in the event my cry was lost as the chamber door burst open and dozens of armed men in the Gloucester livery poured down the steps, swords and daggers drawn ready, if needs be, for use. After which I have only a hazy recollection of what happened, largely due to the fact that I disgraced myself by fainting yet again and did not recover consciousness until I had been safely conveyed back to Baynard's Castle.

I came to to find the duke himself – no, the king himself – bending solicitously over me. A cool hand was laid on my brow.

‘I understand I have to thank you once again, Roger, for your services,' he said, smiling. ‘You see, I was right to put you in charge. You have never failed me yet, even when it means putting your own life in danger. And this time you have also saved the life of a young boy, a very precious thing, and averted a very unpleasant scandal at the beginning of a new reign.' I noticed that he carefully avoided saying whose reign. ‘So how can I reward you?'

I was in no doubt about that. ‘By just letting me go home, Your Grace,' I said.

It wasn't as simple as that, of course. Nothing ever is.

As a reward, I was to be given a place, humble and obscure maybe, but a place nevertheless in Westminster Abbey so that I might witness Richard's coronation, and afterwards in Westminster Hall for the coronation banquet. As both these events were fixed for Sunday, the sixth of July, it meant that I had to kick my heels in London for almost another two weeks. This enforced delay, however, was alleviated by the discovery that I was being treated like a hero, and that even Timothy Plummer accorded me an uncharacteristic respect.

I did not enquire what was happening to those members of the Sisterhood, those Daughters of Albion, who had been arrested at the church. I'm a coward insomuch as while I uphold the due process of law, I'm reluctant to contemplate its workings, hideous as so many of its punishments are. I did ask if anyone of the Daughters was named Naomi, and when the reply was in the negative, I went so far as to visit Julian Makepeace, making him free of all that had happened and what I had learnt. He was appalled and I have reason to think that he sent Naomi away into the distant countryside for her own safety. But I felt sure that whatever had been between them was finished.