Belle's Song (24 page)

I watched the king digest this. Then he said, “You’re quite right, Walter. He is a great man. He’ll be remembered long after either of us. Now go.”

Walter bowed, and after all the outbursts and tantrums, we left the king lost in thought. If I hadn’t before known the meaning of mercurial, I knew it now.

15

To give the man his due and not to skimp,
He was a thief, a summoner, and a pimp

Walter and I set off directly to London, and this time our journey wasn’t filled with either Luke or silence. It was filled with something disgusting: the summoner’s book. I knew that if we were to deliver London to the king, blackmail was our best hope. Walter argued against it, but in the end he gave in and took Dulcie’s reins as I digested the long lists of depravities, immoralities, obscenities, gross indulgences, and deviations, both sexual and financial, all unpardonable and inexcusable, and all with the names of archbishops, bishops, priests, judges, franklins, deacons, knights, magistrates, and guild masters attached. Nobody, not even fellow summoners, had escaped Seekum’s repulsive attentions, and everything, including dates and circumstances, was marked down, mostly with sums of money attached, some paid, most still due.

A few of the expressions the summoner used I didn’t understand and didn’t want to. Some I did understand and also didn’t want to. Children in charitable institutions were mentioned in connection with clerics
and judges. Also other men’s wives. Nuns. Mistresses. Prostitutes. Animals. And of course boys. The book was a hellish portal to an underworld whose joining fee was the trappings of worldly power. Most damning of all were the witnesses, who had signed their names clearly and, so they had attested, willingly.

I didn’t want to read more than I had to, so I read only the pages under the heading “London.” Nor do I want to tell you the next bit, but I must. There was a charge against Master Chaucer. It was rape. There were dates and a name. Cecilia Champain, 1380. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. But I knew this was the reason, that morning by the well, that the Master wouldn’t tell me he had no more secrets. I dreaded seeing his name again. Fortunately I didn’t.

Walter and I didn’t cling together on these nights. When he salved my legs I couldn’t look at him. This was nothing to do with the boys in the book and the endless lubricious descriptions of what men did with them. Walter was not like these men. Never. Never. It was me who was rank as an unwashed pot.

We did speak, of course, but only of practical matters. For a start, we had to calculate the best way to go about the dirty duties we must perform. Walter insisted that when we made our visits, he would do the talking. If I, a young and supposedly pure girl, articulated the sins, I would open myself up to accusations of debauchery.
Just having said the words would be enough to convict me. I didn’t want to agree but knew Walter was right. Yet if Walter was to speak, he must memorize the sins, because we couldn’t have the book in our hands in case it was seized and destroyed. He tried to learn the memory tricks Luke had taught me, but though he practiced and practiced, he always forgot something; either the date or the amount or the name itself. In the end, I had to take over. We’d only get one chance. We couldn’t risk a sudden lapse. It was vile. “We’re as bad as the summoner,” Walter said sadly as London grew nearer and my memorizings more fluent.

“We’re saving the king,” I said fiercely, “and the king will save my father.” Neither he nor I asked whether the king was worth saving. His value was a matter for others.

Luke would now be at St. Denys. The abbot would have heard the coded message but when he didn’t find the king’s ring where he was expecting it, he would have discounted it.
Better safe than sorry
, he would have thought. If King Richard was serious, another message would come. I wondered if Luke was tonsured yet, all that lovely hair shorn into a ruffle around a hideous bald circle. I saw his eyes reflected in his spectacles. I saw them looking at me. I blotted them out. Thinking of him would cause madness … or pumicing. The pilgrimage already seemed like another life.

As soon as we reached London’s straggling outskirts, I hid the book in the one place I thought nobody would look. Borrowing a needle and thread from a tinker, I sewed it inside Poppet. It was an unimaginable thing to do but I couldn’t think of anywhere safer. After I’d sewn her up again, she looked much the same, only slightly fatter, but a lump arose in my throat. It was like filling her with excrement.

We entered the city proper on a wet afternoon and Walter insisted that our first job was to purchase clean clothes, and richer ones for me than I’d ever had before. I protested. This was extravagant nonsense, but he knew what he was doing. Appearances count for a great deal, as was evident as soon as we began our visitations. When we arrived at a palace, an abbey, or a house and asked to see the named man, it was our clothes and the horses that secured us entry. Even though I was a girl, if I adopted my haughtiest expression, we looked just the kind of affluent and influential people the archbishop, abbot, priest, or guild master would want to see. The named man always greeted us quite warmly—Walter’s whole demeanor encouraged that. But the warmth lasted only a moment, for we didn’t indulge in small talk. I would first name the place listed in the tally book, or sometimes the amount of money. That alone was enough for a rapid cooling. A pattern emerged. The man would carry on smiling, but blink and usually raise his
hand. I would stop. Any retainers or servants would be dismissed. Walter and I would wait patiently and then, in a flat voice, I’d continue. The man would keep blinking, then bluster denials, expostulate about my wickedness, and threaten us both. We would listen. Eventually proof would be demanded. Walter would say that we had proof, written proof, but it was hidden. The man would begin to grin, sensing an advantage. His tone would become patronizing. I would then repeat the name of a sworn witness, sometimes two. After that, though it might take a little time, there would be a general collapse. Blustering would tail into silence. Curses would erupt, then dissolve. Less often, there would be tears and pleading. All of the named, from greatest to least, asked us how we had come across the information. We didn’t answer that. All of them wanted to murder us, but without first finding and destroying the proof, we knew they wouldn’t dare.

Then Walter would offer a proposition. You have influence over the city, he would say. You have at your command armed men. You could do your bit to ensure the king’s safe and, indeed, triumphal return to London. If you do that, our proof may well vanish, though if we hear of any reprisals against the witnesses we’ve revealed, our proof will mysteriously reappear. We didn’t wait to hear their agreement. We knew we’d won when we left their yards unmolested.

After our third visitation, we were followed. At first it was easy to get lost in the crowds, but after four days and ten visitations, we had to part with the horses. Walter left them with a cobbler and paid him well to keep them safe. I hated leaving them, Dulcie whinnying after us.

Now we did our visitations in the dark, like thieves, and slept in a different hostel every night. Our reputation preceded us. Nobody refused to see us. The visitations became vile in a way I hadn’t expected. Wielding power over people is chillingly seductive. Watching those big men quail and quiver, as squalid in their pleading as they were in their depravities, excited and sickened me simultaneously. I, a girl of no account, held these men’s reputations, indeed their very lives, in the palm of my hand. I felt like God. When you have power like this, you don’t have to count to three or pumice your legs. You are invincible. Afterward, I was filled with self-loathing. Perhaps I was no better than these men after all.

It was a relief when, in the end, we were simply met at the door with a nod. But I insisted we continue to visit. Richard’s return to London must be more than a passing triumph. It must be solid and unshakable. If I was making myself the summoner’s deadly enemy, the king’s writ must run so completely that my father would be safer than the Tower of London.

We heard of my father’s arrest from a laundress. She was full of gossip, as laundresses are. London was turning
against the commission, she said, because God was leaving messages in churches that he was on the king’s side and London never wanted to be on the wrong side of God. I forced myself to hear her out. There were those who said that the messages had been planted by a bell founder who pretended to be crippled and then flew about at night, disguised as a crow. Now I cried aloud. “There, there, dear,” the laundress said, completely misunderstanding. “They’ve got him in Archdeacon Dunmow’s dungeons, so he’ll not be flying anymore. He’s to be tried and he’ll be condemned. Pretending to be crippled, indeed! The cowardice of it!”

I grabbed Poppet and struggled into my clothes, wet as they were. “I’ve got to go to him. He won’t know what on earth’s going on, although he’ll guess it has something to do with me. What happens if he’s tried and condemned before the king comes to London? What happens if our blackmail doesn’t work or it’s all too late?” I rushed blindly into the street. Walter flung coins at the astonished laundress and rushed out behind me. “We’ll go straight to Archdeacon Dunmow’s house,” I shouted. “We haven’t visited him yet. Now’s the moment.”

“Wait!” Walter cried. “That may not be the wisest thing to do.”

I wouldn’t wait and Walter could do nothing but follow me.

It was roughly two miles, I reckoned, to the Dunmow residence. We wound through the streets, half running, half walking, dodging the throng until I ran slap bang into Sir Leather Strap. I hardly recognized him at first, he looked so disheveled. His nose had been broken. He knew me, though. “Ha! I knew I was right,” he cried. “I saw you yesterday and I’ve been following you. Where’s your bespectacled friend? I’ve a bone to pick with him! Several, in fact.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Get out of my way.” I couldn’t bear a moment’s delay.

“You know full well what I mean. I was duped. Base metal into gold! That elixir was nothing but dog dirt and dust. Look at me! It’s been my ruin and somebody should pay.”

“You’re mistaken,” I shouted at him. “I don’t know who you are.”

He pointed at my hair. “Oh, you’re unmistakable, and I’ll be paid well for your miserable carcass because I know somebody who wants it. But I don’t care about you. I want that white-faced, lying alchemist.”

“He’s where you can’t find him.” I tried to push past.

“Well then, you’ll have to do.” He grabbed my hair.

“Walter!” I couldn’t help shrieking.

But Sir Leather Strap had a knife. “Get away, squire. I’ll not be done out of my dues twice,” he said. “I got into big trouble because of your friend. He kept the
real elixir for himself and palmed me off with rubbish. I know he did. But my men, cretins all of them, wouldn’t believe it. Not at all. They beat me within an inch of my life and called me a liar and a thief. I only managed to stop them murdering me by saying that I’d find that damned alchemist and get that elixir if it was the last thing I did. I was on my way to Canterbury to find him but guess who I met journeying home? Your very own party! Your father’s very angry with you”—he stabbed the knife momentarily at Walter—“and Summoner Seekum’s very angry with you.” He jabbed the point of the dagger into my neck. I felt the ooze of blood. This seemed to alarm Sir Leather Strap, who spat on his thumb and dabbed. “They said the boy had gone overseas. I didn’t believe them. Then the summoner said if I brought you to him unharmed, he’d give me gold. And here you are.” He began to shove me forward, holding me so close I could barely breathe.

“Let go. I won’t run away,” I said. “I want to go to the archdeacon’s house.”

“Oh, don’t think I’ll be fooled twice. I know your sort. Tricksters all.” He held me closer, as though he thought I might use some magic spell to evaporate. Walter followed helplessly as I was pushed up and down streets both familiar and unfamiliar. At last we arrived at an extensive stone building with a new front door of thick oak and thicker iron bars. Half palace,
half hovel, the archdeacon had obviously taken it over from somebody rather grander than himself who’d fallen on hard times. Sir Leather Strap kicked at the door, which was opened eventually by a servant in a stained apron.

“Get Seekum,” Sir Leather Strap said.

The servant had barely stepped back into the dark when the summoner himself appeared. I think he’d been waiting. He scarcely looked at me to start with, just chewed on a chicken leg as Sir Leather Strap made his demands. Then he gestured with his head to the servant, who brought a bag. The summoner crunched the chicken bone and weighed the bag in either hand before tossing it to Sir Leather Strap. “I’ll hold on to her until I’ve counted it,” Sir Leather Strap said, when he had the bag secure.

The summoner didn’t bother to answer. He had no more interest in Sir Leather Strap: his eyes were fixed on me. I didn’t know how to appear: defiant? submissive? terrified? bold? “I want to see my father,” I said, in a mixture of all four emotions.

With exaggerated courtesy, the summoner opened the door wide. I pulled away from Sir Leather Strap, held my head up, pressed Poppet to my side, and went in. There was a kerfuffle behind me. “Not you,” I heard the summoner say. Walter was frantic. “I’m going with her.”