London (65 page)

A few moments later, the door softly opened and closed.

When he awoke the next morning, it was just in time to see her flitting out of the room. She turned and smiled, briefly at him as she went.

The little crowd that had gathered outside Newgate was in a cheerful mood. The hanging of five thieves, even if they lacked notoriety, was still an event. It was a fact hard to deny that the majority of mankind like to watch a hanging. With the concourse of great folk gathering in Westminster for the Parliament, it promised to be a pleasant day of amusement.

The studded door of the prison house beside the gateway was still closed, but already the tumbrel was there. It was a funny little cart, quite low, with two spoked wheels and only a single horse to pull it. Around it ran boarded sides which the condemned men standing in the cart could hold on to. This way, as it made its slow progress the short distance to Smithfield and the hanging trees, the crowd could get a good look at them. The tumbrel from Newgate often made a little detour through the streets to give amusement.

William Bull gazed round the crowd. Immediately opposite the door he saw a group of people with sad, strangely concave faces. These, he guessed, must be the family of Martin Fleming. Near them he saw some short, solemn-looking craftsmen with large round heads that seemed too big for their stocky bodies. These must be members of Joan’s family. The day was fine; the wind had ceased, but it was chilly.

Over on the right, standing alone but with a good view of the proceedings, was a tall figure in black. This must be the Lombard, come to see justice done. Or vengeance. Bull stamped his feet and pulled his cloak tighter about him.

The studded door of the prison was opening. The crowd muttered expectantly. Some figures began to emerge. First came one of the king’s justices, a knight, who would supervise the proceedings; next one of the city sheriffs. Both strode to their horses, which grooms were holding for them. Out came a bailiff; then another. And at last, the prisoners.

Of the five men, four were poor craftsmen and one, by the look of him, a vagrant. The craftsmen all wore shirts, jerkins and woollen hose or leggings. The vagrant had bare legs and what seemed like a patchwork of rags covered his body. The five all had their hands free, but they were manacled around one ankle and attached to a chain. Silently they climbed up into the tumbrel, followed by the bailiffs. One or two voices in the crowd called out words of recognition and encouragement. “Be brave, John.” “You’ll be all right, lad.” “Well done.” Martin Fleming was the third man.

He saw his family, stared at them sadly, rather blankly, but gave no other sign. Nor, in their grief, did they cry out to him. But his eyes wandered over the rest of the crowd as though looking for something.

An ostler stepped forward, ready to lead the horse. But now, just as he did so, there was a new and excited murmur from the back of the crowd, which began to part. The sheriff glanced irritably towards the commotion, then his face took on a look of surprise. He said something to the king’s justice, who also turned in his saddle to stare. But their surprise was nothing to the look of horror and stupefaction which now appeared on the pale face of Martin Fleming as he gazed at the apparition coming towards him.

Joan walked slowly but steadily. On her head was a white striped hood, to go with the white striped dress she wore, the humiliating garb of the common prostitute. In each hand, a long, lighted candle, sign of the penitent. Her feet were bare, despite the cold, as she moved towards the tumbrel. Before it, as the king’s justice and the sheriff gazed down at her, she stopped.

“I am Joan, a whore,” she said in a clear voice that every ear in the crowd could hear. “Will Martin Fleming marry me?” And she looked at the young man, straight in the eye, with a look that said: “Remember. Remember the message. You have nothing to fear.”

The crowd, stunned, had momentarily fallen silent. Now an excited buzz began. The prisoners gazed at her. The bailiffs and ostler stared at her. And the sheriff and the justice looked at each other.

“What do we do about this?” the sheriff asked.

“Damned if I know,” the knight replied. “I’ve always heard of this sort of thing but I never thought I’d see it.”

“Is she within the law?”

The knight frowned. “I rather think she is.” He glanced down into the tumbrel at Martin, for whom he had felt rather sorry, then suddenly he grinned. “I’ll be telling this story for years.”

Now there were voices in the crowd. The knight turned. A stocky little man with a large head had stepped forward. His face was white with agitation, and he was gesticulating wildly.

“This is my daughter,” he cried. “We’re a respectable family.” There were laughs and catcalls. “She only left home a day ago.” More cries. “It only takes a night,” someone yelled. “She’s a virgin, I swear,” the painter shouted. The crowd erupted with laughter. Joan looked neither to right nor left but only stared at Martin Fleming.

Her father was right. Bull had not harmed her, and nor had Silversleeves. The plan of the night before had worked perfectly. While Dionysius was wrestling with one of the Dogget sisters in the darkness, the other had run up to the little attic room, slipped on a silk nightdress like the one Joan was wearing, and lain down on the bed, while Joan herself, entering ahead of Silversleeves, had hid under a blanket in the corner where she had stayed, holding her breath, until it was over and he had fallen asleep. It was the Dogget girl the drunken fellow had mounted in the darkness, and in the early hours of that morning, the two sisters had sat downstairs together, rocking with laughter at the joke. “It worked,” they cried. “It worked. What a jape.”

“We’ll be there to watch you save your boy from hanging,” they had promised Joan at dawn that morning. As yet, however, there had been no sign of them, for the simple reason that, at this moment, the two Dogget sisters were still happily asleep.

Looking down at Joan and her agitated father, the justice spoke firmly to the craftsman.

“Either she is, or she isn’t a prostitute,” he said. “I don’t see it makes much difference for how long.” He turned to Joan. “Can you prove you’re a whore?” he mildly enquired.

She nodded. “At the Dog’s Head on Bankside. Ask the bishop’s bailiff.”

The justice glanced at the sheriff. “We can put this boy back in the gaol until we’ve checked,” he remarked. “We can always hang him another day, I suppose, if she’s lying.”

The sheriff nodded. He was rather enjoying the scene.

Further deliberations were now interrupted by a savage cry. It came from the Lombard, who had just understood what was going on. “No,” he shouted, striding forward. “This girl,” he searched for a word. “No whore. She to marry him anyway. This is play acting.
Commedia
.” He looked furiously at young Fleming. “He is a thief. He got to hang.”

The justice gazed down at the Lombard, decided he did not like him, and turned reluctantly to Joan. “Well?” he asked.

And it was just then, unlooked-for, that help came from an unexpected quarter: a red, pimply face, grinning cheerfully, burst out of the crowd. It was Silversleeves.

No one had noticed Dionysius arrive. Indeed, he had not planned to be at Newgate at all, or even remembered that there was to be a hanging that morning. He had been walking out to Westminster, to watch the gathering for the Parliament, when just past St Paul’s he had noticed a small stream of people on their way to Newgate. He had arrived just in time to see Joan approach the tumbrel, had witnessed the argument, and now, vastly intrigued, and relishing his own part in the business, he saw his chance to make a dramatic intervention. They’ll be talking about me all over London, he thought as he stepped forward.

“It’s true, sirs,” he cried out to the justice and the sheriff. “I’m Dionysius Silversleeves, of the Mint.” Now they would all know his name. “She is a whore. I had her last night.” Catching sight of William Bull, and pointing to him, he cheerfully called out: “And so did he!” He beamed at them all, delightedly.

Joan’s face turned to horror. This was not what she had intended. She thought furiously. She knew she must make them believe she was a whore, but kindly Bull had been going to do that. Thrown off balance by the interruption she looked guilty and distressed. And then what about poor Martin, watching all this from the tumbrel. What must he think? In an agony of fear, she stared at him, willing him to trust her, to understand.

At that moment, she heard the justice speak.

“By God, we’ve forgotten something.” He turned his gaze upon Martin Fleming now. “It seems, young man, that this girl is a whore. Now then. If she is, are you ready to marry her?” He paused. “It means you go free, you know,” he added kindly. “You won’t hang.”

And Martin Fleming only stared ahead.

He could not speak. He could hardly even think. On his way to death, to which he had resigned himself, his Joan, his pure and beloved, had appeared in the loathsome dress of a whore. It was so unimaginable that for moments he had been unable to comprehend what was going on. “Nothing will be what it seems.” He remembered the message. But how was that possible? “You must trust her.” He wanted to. Perhaps, against all appearances he might have, had it not been for the look he had just seen on her face. There was no mistaking it. The look was one of guilt and confusion. And even though she was now staring at him desperately, mouthing something, he was sure he understood the awful truth.

She was a whore. She might have done it for his sake. She must have. But she was a whore. At the moment of death, for a crime he had not even committed, this ultimate horror of horrors had been sent him by a God whose great, blank cruelty he could not begin to understand. The one girl he had dared to trust was like them all. Indeed worse. It was all filth, he thought, all bitterness, all useless. As he looked up, now, into the clear, cold, blue sky, he decided: No more. I want none of it, any more.

“No, sir,” he said. “I don’t want her.”

“No!” Joan was screaming. “You don’t understand.” But the tumbrel was already moving.

“That’s it then,” remarked the justice, as he rode away.

What could she do? How could she speak to him? She tried to run after the tumbrel, but strong arms were holding her back. She tried to fight them off. “Let me go,” she screamed. Why were they holding her? Who were they? She twisted her head, to see the grave, stern face of her father and her two brothers.

“It’s over,” they said.

And she fainted.

William Bull rode swiftly.

He was not very pleased at being publicly exposed by young Silversleeves, though he did not blame the girl for that. Nor did he quite understand what had happened. Had the fellow from the Mint taken her virginity? If he had, it must have been by force. Whatever was going on, he sensed there was foul play.

But one thing he did know: he had given his word. “I said I’d help her,” he muttered. And that was enough. He would try. And the only course left now, that he could see, offered only a slim chance. “He can hang last,” the justice had told him. “I will give you one hour.”

He was going to try for a royal pardon. The Warden of London might give it him. And he was at the Parliament.

The great Palace of Westminster was thronged with people when he arrived. Magnates and lesser barons in sumptuous robes, knights and stout burgesses like himself in heavy cloaks and furs. No one stopped the doughty merchant as he strode in.

He had no plan. There was no time. “I must find the Warden of London,” he cried. “Does anyone know where he is?”

Several minutes passed as he made his way through knots of men before someone helpfully pointed to a place at one end of the palace, where a small dais had been erected, covered with a purple cloth. And there Bull saw the warden, talking to the king. “Oh well,” Bull grimaced to himself. “In for a penny . . .”

King Edward I of England gazed impassively as the large and flustered merchant stated his case to the warden, whose conversation with the monarch he had dared to interrupt. A possible miscarriage of justice. A pardon begged. Such things did happen. The fellow at the gallows now. No wonder the man was sweating. The condemned a poor man, no relation of this solid London patrician, who was prepared to pay. Most unusual.

“Well?” King Edward intervened. “Do we grant it or not?”

“We could, sire,” said the warden, doubtfully. He knew he had the king’s confidence, and did not much care for the patrician Londoner. “But the man robbed was a Lombard. He’s very angry, too.”

“A Lombard?” King Edward turned his eyes full upon Bull. They glowered so that even that powerful man blanched slightly. Then he delivered his crushing judgment. “I will not have my foreign merchants bothered. No pardon.” And he waved Bull away.

“He’s one of the patricians you wanted to break,” the warden told him as Bull withdrew. “A wise decision.”

It was no good then. With a sense of failure, and of sorrow for the girl and her luckless lover, Bull rode slowly back towards the city. He passed Charing Cross, and turned west along the lane. He hated to give up, but he could not see what else he could do. Had he been a praying man, he would have prayed for inspiration.

It was just as he reached the Aldwych that he saw the company of riders. Upon the site where his ancestors’ homestead had once stood, there was now a fine new complex of buildings. In the previous reign it had been given to the king’s uncle, the Italian Count of Savoy, and so this sprawling aristocratic residence was generally referred to as the palace of Savoy. In front of the Savoy the riders had momentarily paused to greet some others. They were, Bull saw at once, a group of London aldermen, going to the Parliament. Just those very fellows who had supplanted him and his friends. Another cruel reminder, he realized, of his impotence.

“If one of these damned people had pleaded for that boy to the warden,” he muttered, “I dare say they’d have succeeded.” He was just about to wheel his horse to avoid them, when in their midst he observed the hated Barnikel himself. “He even saw the king,” he cursed, thinking of the day before. “He could probably get anything he wanted.”