Mayflowers for November: The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (6 page)

Father rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

‘What do you take me for wife? We won’t see the King or Queen again at Greenwich ‘til Bart’s Fair comes to town. There’s loaves to spare. The King won’t want ‘em when they’ve gone stale. Now then, a little of something sweet to taste wouldn’t go amiss.’

Mother reached for a pot of plum preserve from the storage shelves around the room. ‘This needs tasting to make sure it hasn’t putrefied over the winter.’

‘It looks fine to me,’ I said, ‘I can’t see any mould.’

‘Best all have a little taste to make sure,’ Mother said, giving Father a wink.

Chapter 10

23rd August 1533

‘Keep close, Avis, for if we’re parted amongst these crowds we’ll never find each other again.’

Mother and I were in a muddy horse-trampled meadow in Smithfield where, for the second time that summer, I gazed upon Sir Stephen Peacock, lord mayor of the City of London, in all his stately splendour. Mounted on horseback and wearing his crimson gown and golden chain with a golden fleece about his neck, he made his procession towards the great gate of St Bartholomew’s church to proclaim the fair open. Before him went his sword-bearer in a marvellous, tall fur hat and, behind him, a dozen mounted aldermen attired in scarlet with chains of gold.

Would Queen Anne visit the fair? Would the mayor and aldermen escort her as they had done on the Thames for her coronation? I supposed it was too close to the birth of her child for the Queen to go abroad amongst the people.

‘Maybe the whore will come to haggle for a sow,’ Mother said. ‘Tis well known that pregnant women crave pig meat from Bartle’s Fair and I don’t doubt she’d be in good company amongst such bawdy baskets and clapper-dudgeons as you see here.’

‘Clapper-dudgeons, Mother?’

‘Aye, vagrants who come a begging to get more than they deserve, like that beggar man yonder in the patched cloak with all those fake sores upon his face.’

‘If they were real sores perhaps the King could cure him by the laying on of hands. Perhaps Queen Anne will cure the sick now that she has been anointed by the archbishop.’

‘That whore!’ Mother spat on to the sludgy grass. ‘She doesn’t have the royal blood so she shouldn’t behave as if she does. King Henry should never have let her give out the blessed cramp rings. I’d suffer the Devil’s cramps every night before I’d take a ring from her.’

‘Mistress Pudding told me that the Queen has a great list for apples.’

‘It pleases me greatly daughter, that she sets such store by you and takes you into her confidence after such a little time,’ mother said.

Mistress Pudding had given me three groats to spend at the fair. I had expected more from someone who lived in a fine house in London, shillings not pence. I had tried to look grateful, bobbed a curtsey and thanked her profusely. I was only a wench in training, mother said, not a worker, and I should be thankful to be able to watch and learn and should not expect gifts. I could buy a Bartholomew babe for the three of us with my groats. Didn’t I always look forward to a gingerbread doll at Bartles Fair?

‘Yes, when I was a child,’ I muttered so that Mother couldn’t hear.

‘Look to your purse, Avis. Is it safely tied?’

‘Pray, don’t fret Mother.’

Mother held my wrist fast as a fetter and with my other hand I felt for the small bulge under my kirtle where the coins were safely tied inside the thick hide purse hanging from the iron guard at my waist.

‘Cutpurses and rogues will be abroad looking out for pickings,’ Mother said.

Everyone surged forward and came to a standstill before the west facade of the church and I tried to hear the lord mayor’s proclamation above the braying, whinnying and grunting of animals, the whining of children and the drone of the crowd.

‘I do straightly charge and command, on behalf of our sovereign lord, the King, that all manner of persons of whatever estate, degree or condition ... keep the peace ...’

‘There will be constables abroad, Mother. The mayor has this minute spoken of stewards and the Court of Pie Powder.’

‘Pie Powder is for trying those who give bad measure or sell unwholesome food, not for vagabonds and thieves.’

‘It is the court for travellers with dusty feet. I remember Tom telling me that when we were children.’

‘Your father thought that maybe Tom might visit the fair. He has asked me to look out for him.’

‘The fair lasts for three days, Tom may not visit today if he comes at all. We don’t know where he lives since he vanished, he may be far away from London.’

‘Would you care, Avis, if he was a great distance away?’

Mother had hold of my wrist so tightly that I could not try to pull away.

‘Even if Tom is here today we might not see him amongst all these people. He isn’t tall like Anthony. In his old duds he would seem to be just another beggar.’

‘You don’t answer my question,’ Mother said. ‘If he is here today and we are alert and keep our watch mayhap he will chance upon us or we upon him. I don’t understand you, daughter. Tom was ever your good friend and yet you care little that he has vanished these last three months. Your carpenter boy is gone from Greenwich now that his master’s work is finished. Maybe now you will begin to remember old friends.’

‘Father was Tom’s friend also, perhaps he should be here to keep a look out for the rat catcher boy.’

‘There’s nothing here that your father would want to goggle at. What use has he for palfreys, pigs or trinkets.’ Mother pulled me through the crowds. ‘See how many booths there are,’ she said excitedly.’ Each year the fair spreads further and further into the churchyard and fields beyond. Come, make haste, it will take all day to look at everything.’

The vendors cried their divers wares: ends of gold and silver, buy woollen cloth, buy new leather wares, fresh Wainfleet oysters. The visitors shouted above the hubbub, some using strange dialects that stallholders could barely understand. Buyers and sellers held up their fingers to name a price, shook their heads, nodded, frowned, smiled and shook hands when a price was agreed.

Mother headed straight for a pewter booth, as I knew she would. Mistress Pudding had given her several pieces of pewter for her New Year gifts. Pewter was for better-off folks, not for outer courtyard servants. In the great kitchen at Greenwich Palace we ate from wooden trenchers with wooden spoons. Mother was very proud of her small collection of pewter ware which she kept in a little wooden casket and carried with her when the court moved from one palace to another. Her favourite piece was a mirror case which had once belonged to a pilgrim. It depicted Christ on the cross with St John and Mary either side. I wondered which shrine the pilgrim had visited and what magic charms had been captured by the mirror. My own favourite was a candlestick depicting Saint Apollonia holding her tooth in a pincer. Whenever father had a toothache, we had to burn a candle to her. Mother had bought a Bartholomew spoon last year. He always holds his butcher’s knife for he is the patron saint of butchers, leatherworkers and shoemakers.

‘It seems that there are not enough apostles to go round,’ I told Mother. ‘The divers trades have to share a saint.’

Mother picked up a larger spoon and examined it. She stroked the top of the handle where Wodewose, the wild man from the woods, was surrounded by oak leaves and carried a club.

‘You wouldn’t sleep at night with him around,’ I said. ‘How about this needle case?’ It bore an inscription which mother and I couldn’t read.

‘Mater Dei Memento, Mother of God remember me,’ the vendor told us.

‘Do you want to buy it?’ I asked Mother. ‘You already have a wooden needle case.’

‘There are so many pieces. I need to have a proper look at everything.’

Mother inspected spoons, buttons, ancient pilgrim badges and larger, more expensive pieces that I knew she couldn’t afford. She picked up a gilt-edged pomander and chain and held it against her kirtle.

‘My ladies at court might wear such as this. It is not for servants such as us in our common apparel. Pray put it back quickly, Mother, the vendor is watching you.’

‘Pewter ware is not grand enough for the Queen’s ladies,’ Mother told me,’even if there be a little gilding.’

The merchant was busy showing off a set of buttons to a lady who must have been quite well off, for she was wearing a dark gown and a gable hood. He elbowed his apprentice boy and pointed towards mother.

‘My master’s finest pewter with very fine gilt work,’ the boy told her.

‘Can you afford it, Mother?’ I asked. ‘No one we know wears a pomander so grand, not even Mistress Pudding. You wouldn’t be allowed to wear it.’

‘Of course I cannot buy it,’ Mother whispered. ‘It costs nothing to look.’

The boy stared at mother’s hand-made cloth pomander and smirked. ‘That will not offer much protection against sickness brought by London’s foul air. This pewter pomander has been blessed by a bishop. I will speak to my master. He will offer a fair price.’

‘Do not trouble your master. My family has been free from illness these fourteen years,’ Mother told him. ‘I will keep my faithful old pomander that I carried to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham nine months before my daughter’s birth.’

Mother settled upon a buckle for Father’s belt. It was prettily decorated with cross hatching and there was a matching chape for the strap end. The boy told us it had been worn by an ancient man for four score years until his demise a month ago and would bring long life to the new owner. Mother began to discuss the price. Knowing her perseverance for bartering and impatient to spend my own money, I skipped off to a nearby leather booth and shouted out to mother to seek me there.

I saw what I wanted immediately. A soft tanned purse, dyed so brightly it was almost cardinal-red. There was an extra pouch pocket at the front and both sets of drawstrings were decorated with pretty bone beads. The vendor laughed unkindly when I offered my three groats.

‘Prithee put the purse aside until my mother comes. She will pay a little more,’ I pleaded.

The trader laughed again. He was here to make his living, he said, not to give favours to pretty wenches who only had three groats. Now, if there was anything else I could offer he might be willing to do a bit o’ business behind that tall gravestone yonder by the wall if someone would mind his wares for a few minutes. Bawdy male laughter followed. A round faced, middle-aged woman standing beside me examined the purse and untied its drawstrings.

‘Cut from goatskin you say?’ she inquired of the vendor. ‘More likely a bull’s pizzle.

‘Gracious, child,’ she told me,’ I don’t know which is ruddier. Your face or this purse.’

If Father were there, he would have bartered for the purse. I knew he would. I returned to Mother who had bought the buckle and was now inspecting a large flagon.

‘Did you see anything you like?’ Mother asked whilst opening the lid and inspecting the smooth finish inside the vessel.

‘Just a purse, but it is too dear.’

‘Who says it is too dear? Traders ask more than their goods are worth, especially from a young girl. Where is this leather dealer?’

I wouldn’t take Mother to the booth. I was ashamed to have the dealer talk to me the way he had in Mother’s presence.

‘It’s no matter. Let’s go to the meadow where the conies have been set loose for the boys to catch.’

‘I suppose when you are fourteen a gaggle of apprentice boys chasing rabbits is more amusing than a pretty purse,’ Mother said.

*

It wasn’t a cutpurse who took my old hide purse. The cord wasn’t cut and, anyway, thieves don’t give you something better in return. To lift my kirtle, snatch my old purse and me unawares; a deft piece of sleight of hand. Could it have happened while we cheered the proud boys holding rabbits aloft by their ears? Or was it later, when the great bear with his angry red eyes was hauled from his iron cage and I was terrified? Amongst the shouting crowds who laid their wagers while the fierce baiting mastiffs snarled and the ancient, blind animal pounded his mighty front paws into the air, was there someone who had list to change an old purse for a new? Or did it happen in the meadow, where patient palfreys with ribbons on their tails pawed the ground and waited to be sold? While Mother and I stroked their manes, fed them apples and chose which ones we’d have if we were my ladies, mother was the bay and me the small brown mare, was it then?

The street seller handed Mother two pudding pies from the basket upon her head. It was to be my treat. I reached for my purse. Instead of shiny cracked ox hide I felt soft goatskin and smelled new leather. Hanging from the purse guard at my waist between my shift and my kirtle was the bright, cardinal red purse. I opened the drawstrings and reached inside. The purse was empty.

Mother had to pay for the pudding pies.

‘I do not understand,’ Mother said quietly. ‘Why did you not tell me of your purchase? You have never deceived me before.’

I ate my pie and said nothing. I had told Mother twice that the purse was swapped without my knowledge. She didn’t believe me. What more could I say.

‘Did the tanner ask for favours?’

‘He was lewd. A woman dressed in goose-turd green laughed in a vulgar way. So I ran away and came to you and forgot the purse.’

Mother licked her fingers clean. ‘Let me see this purse.’ She fingered the goatskin. ‘The colour will seep in the rain and ruin your shift and what be the use of this foolish little pouch at the front?’ She untied the drawstring and poked inside the pocket with her fingers. ‘Avis, did you peek inside the pouch before you bought it?’

‘I’ve told you thrice. I did not buy it. By some mystery it has appeared at my waist.’

‘By some mystery, Avis, you have lost three groats and an old purse and acquired a gaudy new purse and this,’ between her thumb and forefinger mother held a golden coin. One side depicted St Michael slaying the dragon with his spear, the other, a ship on the sea.