Candace Robb: The Guilt of Innocents

By now his fellows were out of sight and it was a long way to the staithe — through the minster grounds to Petergate, out Bootham Bar and into the grounds of St Mary’s Abbey by the postern gate, and then out into Marygate and down to the landing. He shut the door behind him and took off into the fading light. Slipping occasionally on frozen mud, Jasper was breathing hard by the time he caught up with the last of the group at Bootham Bar, and his hands and ears were numb. He ignored his physical discomfort as he hurried with them across the abbey grounds, but that was just part of his discomfort now, as he noticed they were being joined by curious onlookers, adults, strangers, not their fellows. He was growing increasingly uneasy about what else might be happening, about what he might be heading into.

As shouts echoed from the staithe, he and the stragglers ran the last few yards, then slowed upon reaching the barrels and covered flats that had been offloaded from the barges. The long, flat-bottomed vessels were bobbing on the water with the movements of several dozen people darting about, shouting, waving arms. The fading light made it difficult to tell bargemen from the older boys at first, and Jasper thought he’d made a mistake in coming. Glancing around at the gathering crowd he saw fists clenched and heard tension in the voices muttering about privileged scholars and hard-working bargemen, poor lads defending their own and bullying staithe workers. This was growing into something much larger than merely recovering a friend’s purse.

‘How will we know if we come upon the bargeman who took Hubert’s scrip?’ asked one of Jasper’s companions.

He hesitated to respond, considering whether it would not be wise to make a run for home, but he resolved to stay — he was already here, and his reasons for wanting to help Hubert had not changed. ‘Ned said Drogo wears a green cap, has a much broken nose, and a tooth missing up front,’ Jasper said. Ned was one of the raid leaders.

‘Come on, then,’ cried one of the others, grabbing Jasper’s frozen hand.

They’d just stepped onto the nearest barge when someone crashed into Jasper, and the two went sprawling on the slippery wooden deck.

The human missile groaned as he sat up, rubbing his head. ‘I almost had him!’ It was Ned.

Jasper stood and brushed himself off. ‘Now what?’

Ned had pulled himself up and leaned out over the water to peer at the neighbouring barge. ‘I can’t see him now. I hope one of the others grabbed him. But I tell you, one look in that man’s face and I knew there’d be nothing left of value in that scrip. He has the eyes of a thief, mark me.’

‘The eyes of a sick man — that’s what I saw,’ said another lad. ‘He was pale as wax and stumbling like he was unwell or drunk.’

Jasper moved away from the argument that commenced, and in towards the action, remaining wary of sudden movements. He found several lads looking towards the next barge, which was wildly rocking.

‘I have it!’ someone cried from there. Voices rose in a victory shout. A splash inspired more shouting that gradually softened to anxious queries and responses.

‘Can you see him?’ a man shouted.

‘He’s gone under,’ cried another.

‘There he is, towards the stern,’ one of the boys called out.

‘I’ve lost him.’ The speaker’s voice cracked with defeat.

An icy blanket enveloped him, slaking the fire in his cheek, his neck, his arm. God be praised , Drogo thought, almost whimpering but knowing somehow even as confused as he was that he must not inhale. It did not matter that the current tumbled him for the water eased him, it smoothed away the pain, the guilt, the anger. Forgive me, O Lord , he prayed, and let me return to my Cissy and my daughters, more precious to me than gold or silver .

Jasper grabbed the elbow of his nearest fellow. ‘Who’s in the water?’

‘Drogo, the one who took Hubert’s scrip.’

‘Was he pushed?’ Jasper whispered. He could not imagine any of the older scholars taking such a risk.

‘I don’t know.’

God help him , Jasper prayed. Drogo had stolen a scrip, which to the thinking of his foster father, Captain Archer, was hardly a crime deserving death. The captain said a thief should be executed only if he’d also taken a life. Jasper didn’t understand how this evening’s worthy goal could have led to this horror.

After another splash, there was a hush, except for a whispered, ‘A swimmer’s gone in to help him.’

‘Someone fetch Brother Henry from the abbey,’ a man cried. Henry was the abbey infirmarian.

Before Jasper could think to go, he saw that two other students were already running from the staithe down Marygate. Jasper prayed for both the good Samaritan and Drogo as he followed the bargemen and scholars returning to the riverbank, all pushing, shoving, cursing as if frightened — as if as frightened as Jasper now was. The wind had picked up, adding the danger of fire to his worries. He watched a man cup his hand dangerously close to a burning taper as he lit a lantern held by his mate, cursing as the flame licked his hand. Several lanterns already illuminated the worried faces of the townsfolk, boys and bargemen who now gathered about the two men holding a rope attached to the rescuer, ready to assist him in fighting the current to the shore. Another stood close with a long pole.

‘Why don’t all bargemen learn to swim?’ one of Jasper’s companions asked.

‘Do you know how to swim?’ asked Jasper.

‘No, but the ferrywoman near our farm does. She says only a fool works on the Ouse without the knowledge.’ The boy was quiet a moment. ‘Can the Riverwoman swim?’

Jasper had never wondered that, but he could not imagine the midwife and healer Magda Digby giving in to the rushing water. The elderly woman was too wise to live on the river as she did if she feared it. ‘I’ve no doubt she can do anything she decides to do. Hush now. They’re bringing him out.’

As the swimmer climbed up the bank, the two on the rope dropped it to relieve him of his human burden.

‘Is he dead?’ folk asked as Drogo’s limbs gently swayed with the men’s gait.

They laid him face down, and the one who’d held the pole knelt beside him and went to work pressing the Ouse from Drogo’s lungs. When he coughed weakly the growing crowd cheered, but grew quiet as Brother Henry, the abbey infirmarian, pushed through to the prostrate form. After listening with bent head to the comments of the man working on Drogo, the monk turned to the crowd and asked them to pray for the man’s soul. Jasper knew Brother Henry, and he read resignation in his expression.

‘He is very weak,’ said Brother Henry.

‘We’ll carry him to the statue of the Virgin,’ said one of the abbey bargemen.

‘The Virgin! Yes, she saved my Tom,’ a woman cried.

It was custom to bring the victims of river accidents to the life-sized statue of the Blessed Mother that graced the main gate of St Mary’s, for she had worked many miracles. Jasper was glad someone had thought of that.

With Brother Henry solemnly leading the way, Jasper and his fellows, the bargemen, and the townsfolk all walked the short distance to the abbey gate. Drogo was laid before the Virgin on a pallet that had been brought out by abbey servants. Jasper found himself standing beside Master Nicholas Ferriby, the Vicar of Weston and Master of a small grammar school in the minster liberty. He’d offended the dean and chancellor of York Minster by locating it so close to their grammar school, the one Jasper attended. It did not seem to help that Master Nicholas was brother to one of their fellows, the keeper of the minster fabric. Jasper knew the Ferriby family because another brother, a merchant, was married to one of Dame Lucie’s closest friends.