Kate Sedley: The Hanged Man

He nodded brusquely, and had started to demand my business in the city, when he paused, peering more closely at me. 'You look ill, my lad.' His gaze sharpened with suspicion. 'Anything serious."

I sneezed violently and shook my head. 'A rheum, that's all, through sleeping in the open.'

'At this time of year?' His voice echoed the disbelief of the friar.

'I'm a pedlar,' I snapped. 'I peddle my wares around the countryside.'

'There's no need for that tone!' he retorted. 'Most travellers I've ever met go to ground in winter, if they've any sense.' He subjected me to further scrutiny, finally deciding that I was suffering from nothing more serious than I had claimed. He jerked his head at the opposite archway.

'You can pass. But I'd find a good soft bed for the night if I were you. You look as though you need it.' I nodded briefly and made my way into the castle foregate. To my left, I could see St Peter's Church and Hospital, but instead of making for its sheltering warmth, I lurched towards the city cross where Wine Street met High Street, Broad Street and Corn Street. I remembered that the New Inn stood close to All Hallows Church and, failing that, there was the Full Moon serving St James's Priory. I kept my eyes fixed on the tower of St Ewen's, the parish church of the wealthy residential quarter of the town, which is frequented by many of the rich merchants and burgesses. Bristol then was nearly as prosperous as it is today, although now the voyages of the Cabots have poured yet more money into its coffers. Its walls house a closely knit community, whose face is necessarily turned away from Europe towards Ireland, and it has many links of trade and blood with that turbulent island.

It was almost dark. The drizzle was turning to mist, covering men's clothes and beards with drops of moisture.

Shops were being shuttered for the night, their owners retiring to the living quarters at the back or, if they were stalls, being locked and barred while the proprietors hurried away across the cobbles to more modest, but no less inviting, accommodation elsewhere in the city. The High Cross loomed in front of me and I hesitated, as much to get my breath as from indecision. I was shaking from head to foot, and a cold sweat had broken out all over my body. A torch flared with a noise like torn parchment, high on a house wall somewhere to my left. By its wavering light, I was dimly aware of two women making their way up High Street, but whether they were old or young or both, I could not have said at that juncture. I was only conscious of an overwhelming desire to lie down where I was and close my eyes on an increasingly hostile landscape which refused to stand still, shifting and swaying whenever I tried to focus my eyes. I reached out for the support of the cross and leaned my forehead against its cold stone.

A hand touched my shoulder and a high, clear, slightly childish voice called, 'Mother! Over here! I think this young man is sick.'

Wooden pattens clattered across the cobbles and a maturer voice asked, 'What's the matter, Lillis? What are you saying? It will be dark soon and we haven't any time to waste.' Then there was an exclamation of concern and dismay. Another hand, larger than the first, gripped my shoulder. 'What is it lad? Are you ill?'

I nodded, unable to speak. I could feel my knees begin to buckle and I held on desperately to my column of the High Cross in an effort to remain upright.

The second voice continued, 'Where do you live?' But the first woman, address as Lillis, must have noticed my pack.

'He's a chapman, Mother. He's probably just passing through.'

I nodded my head, foolishly opening my eyes as I did so. The world somersaulted and I was promptly sick, heaving up what little food I had eaten in the past few hours on the roadway. With a sigh, I subsided in an ungainly heap.

The older woman was giving instructions to her daughter and, at the same time, shooing back the little crowd of onlookers which had gathered to find out what was going on. Any diversion was welcome on a miserable late afternoon in winter.

'Run back across the bridge, Lillis, and fetch some of the men to help carry him home. He can't be left like this, poor lad. He's in a fever. You and I must care for him until he's better. And what are you lot gawping at? Stand clear and give him room. How can he breathe with you fools bending over him?' There was an uneasy muttering in which I caught the word 'plague'. My benefactress gave a snort of derision. 'At this time of year? There's nothing wrong with him but a rheum which has become feverish with neglect and too much sleeping rough. I've met big, strong lads like this one before. They all think themselves Samsons and take no heed of their bodies' needs until those same bodies rebel. With good nursing he'll be as good as new in a couple of weeks.' Their worst fears allayed, most of the onlookers seemed to disperse. I dared not open my eyes again to check, but I heard the shuffle of their departure and felt, rather than saw, the open space around me. But someone must have remained, for a man's gruff tones objected, 'You want to take heed of yourself, Margaret Walker, two women living alone as you and Lillis do, before taking a strange man into your home. A chapman! He could cut your throats and be off with your purse one of these nights, while you're both sleeping.'

'If we're dead, we won't be sleeping, you silly old man!' was the acid retort. 'Don't you think I've lived long enough in this world, Nick Brimble, to know an honest face when I see one?'

There was a grunt which could have indicated either agreement or scepticism: I had no means of telling with my eyes fast shut. But after a moment, the man called Brimble warned, 'I'm only thinking of you and Lillis. You've had more than your fair share of misfortune these past ten months.'

Margaret Walker, taking no thought for the dirt on the cobbles, had knelt down beside me and was gently pillowing my head on her breast, supporting my sagging body with her slender frame. From her voice, I had imagined her — insofar as I was capable of imagining anything at that moment — as a woman of ample proportions, and I was vaguely surprised at the narrowness of her bony shoulder.

Her head, which she had bent towards me, reared indignant at the man's words. 'These last ten months! You have a short memory, Nick Brimble! And me a widow for seventeen years come May! A good man and a young son lost in an accident that should never have happened!' 'The will of God,' Nick Brimble murmured piously.

'The fault of a drunken carter who was too sodden with drink to control his horse properly when the beast took fright and bolted!' Her voice was bitter with suppressed rage.

'The will of God all the same,' her friend stoutly maintained° 'But this last misfortune…' There was a pause and a sigh before he continued somberly, 'The Devil had a hand in that, whatever the truth of it, and I doubt if we'll ever know that now. Your father was the only one who could have umravelled the mystery, and he's taken his secret to the grave.'

Before the woman had time to answer, there was a call of 'Mother!' and once again the clatter of pattens on cobbles. A sudden flurry of skirts told me that the girl Lillis had returned and, judging by the deeper male tones in her wake, had brought the required assistance with her.

‘How is he?'

'He'll do, but he'll be all the better for getting to bed with a hot brick at his feet and some decent blankets over him. 'You've brought a litter. Good. Nick, if you've nothing more important to do, lend Hob and Burl a hand and get the lad hoisted. He'll be a decent weight, I reckon.

‘Girl, you take his legs and Hob and Nick his head. That's right. That's got him.'

I felt myself lifted bodily and placed on the blanket slung between two poles, which had been laid near me on the ground. I ventured a quick upward glance between my lashes, but it was now almost completely dark, in addition to which that single effort had once more started me retching. My pack had been removed from my shoulders, and Lillis was instructed by her mother to bring it with her and to stop grumbling because it was heavy.