Bruce Holsinger - A Burnable Book

‘I understand, my lord,’ I said. The chancellor had higher men to please.

He leaned forward, his face lined with concern. ‘St Dunstan’s Day was one thing. The attempt took place in the Bishop of Winchester’s courtyard, a site easily contained and with a few hundred in attendance. But Westminster, between the abbey and the palace yard? With three or four thousand in the crowd — and our assassin any one of them, any hundred of them? That’s another matter entirely.’

I agreed.

He stood, pacing the floor on the far side of his desk. ‘We need to know where this originated, Gower. Does this last snatch of verse refer to a native plot, another bit of deception by Oxford and Weldon? And “city’s blade” — what could that possibly mean? Are the mayor’s men involved, the Guildhall? But that’s unthinkable.’

He looked a bit desperate. I had never seen him in such a state. He said, ‘The cardinal’s delegation arrives from Windsor this evening, and the Mass is set for Sext tomorrow. We need more time. Or the answer to this damned riddle.’

I looked down at the book in question, still opened to the final prophecy and the scribbled verse. I thought of the manuscript’s recent history. Where it had been, who had held it, stolen it, read from it, peddled it. As the chancellor had pointed out, the final couplet had to have been written into the book after Clanvowe copied from it — which meant what?

I felt a twinge of something. ‘There may be another way, my lord.’

The next morning I was at the gates of St Leonard’s Bromley at first light, though I had to linger by the almonry until the Prime office had concluded before I could be escorted into the prioress’s apartments. Coals glowed on the small hearth, despite the rising heat outside. Eventually Prioress Isabel bustled in from the chapterhouse. The sight of me brought her up short. ‘What is it?’

I told her, as quickly as I could, then she sent for Millicent Fonteyn. There was a sober cast to the young woman’s face when she entered the parlour. Darkened eyes, nearly expressionless below the close-fitting bonnet worn by the order’s laysisters. As I recalled from my prior visit, she was an extraordinary beauty, though I could see what a toll the deaths of her mother and sister had taken.

Wasting no time, I removed the book from my bag and opened it to the final prophecy. I turned it toward her and pointed to the peculiar couplet. ‘Did you write these lines, madam?’

Her deep-set eyes widened at the sight of the page. She looked at the prioress, then at me. ‘I did.’

‘And why did you not tell me this before, when you showed me the cloth?’ Not accusatory, but prodding.

‘I confess I did not think it was important, Master Gower. With the prophecy of the butchers, the cloth, all the talk in the streets … these lines seemed a small nothing.’

‘I understand why you might have regarded the verse as insignificant, in the light of everything else.’ Nodding kindly, hoping to spur her memory. ‘Where did you read these lines?’

She shook her head, the loose curls at her nape tossed by her vehemence. ‘I never read them, sir. I only heard them, spoken by my sister.’

‘Agnes,’ I said, recalling the name, and her mother’s sorrow. ‘The one killed by Sir Stephen Weldon, up near Aldgate?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘When I was here before St Dunstan’s Day you told me your sister witnessed the murder in the Moorfields, yes?’

She blinked twice. ‘She did, sir.’

‘Is that where she heard these lines, on the Moorfields?’

She nodded.

‘Tell me about it now.’

‘The woman was kneeling in the dirt, Agnes said, right in the clearing. The fire was going out. He asked her some questions. She didn’t answer them, or Agnes didn’t think she did. But she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Then he raised his hammer. That’s when she screamed it.’

‘Screamed what?’

‘The verse, sir. The verse I wrote in the book. Agnes swore it was intended for her, that the girl knew she was still there. She couldn’t get it out of her head. For weeks she repeated it, kept blurting it out at the oddest times. She felt sure it meant something, though to my mind we had enough trouble with the prophecies in the book, and they sounded like a minstrel’s lines, and what could be the importance of that? I wrote them there on that final leaf, just to calm her down.’ Millicent paused for a well-deserved breath.

Something about her account was odd. I closed my eyes, thought it all through, then looked at her again. ‘You said the man was questioning the girl, but Agnes couldn’t understand a word. And yet she understood this verse well enough to repeat it to you days later. How do you explain the discrepancy?’

She stared at me, confused, then her face relaxed into a sad smile. ‘Pardon, Master Gower, I thought that part was clear. They weren’t speaking English, you see.’

‘French, then?’

‘No, Agnes would have said. She’d had enough Calais jakes to ear out French, that’s sure.’

‘What tongue, then? Did she catch any snatches of it, any words that stood out?’

She thought for a moment, her brow knit. I felt my heart sink. Then her face brightened. ‘Indeed she did, Master Gower. Doovay leebro .’

‘ Doovay leebro ?’ Something shifted inside me. ‘You’re sure?’

‘ Doovay leebro , is what Agnes said.’ Feverish nods. ‘ Doovay leebro, doovay leebro , like he was singing to her. Sounded like a lullaby, is what she said, and he kept at it until he killed her. Doovay leebro .’

Doovay leebro . And then, with a calm astonishment, I knew. ‘Where is the cheese?’ I whispered. The knowledge balanced me.

‘Where is the cheese ?’ the prioress barked, her voice an incredulous smear. ‘What on earth are you prattling about, Gower?’

‘ Dov’e il formaggio ?’ I said, the question a delicious taste on my tongue. The talgar at Monksblood’s, a snatch of Italian, a girl killed for a book.

Millicent Fonteyn stared at me in a kind of rapt confusion. My vision, too, had a clarity it only rarely achieved, and she was in that moment the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I could have kissed her; I could have kissed the prioress for that matter. Instead I bowed and took my leave, the life of King Richard hanging on the speed of my horse.

Westminster

Even if one avoids London altogether the ride from Stratford-at-Bowe to the city of Westminster is a hard and circuitous one, and as I splashed across the Lea it struck me that I might not make it in time for the procession, set to start shortly before Sext and the Mass of the day. Pushing the thought aside, I approached London on the Mile End Road at a swift gallop. Going through town, however direct the route, would slow me down considerably, so I branched off well before Aldgate and circled the city from afar, with the Moorfields to my left and the tower of Bethlem barely visible over a few low trees.

I came into Westminster from the west and posted my horse well up Orchard Street, going the rest of the way on foot at a jog, dodging around the crowds moving to the palace yard. The announcement of the papal delegation had stirred Westminster, London, even Southwark, hundreds of citizens boating up and walking over for a glimpse of the foreign officials. The crowd thickened as I neared the palace, then slowed as dozens crammed through the last feet of the lane.

The wide expanse between the palace yard and the abbey was a churning sea, a great plain of bobbing heads, lifted caps, shouts and cheers. The whole area had been cleared of hucksters and peddlers, all but a few of the fires extinguished. It appeared that the king and the cardinal had not yet left the palace, where a private service was being held in the St Stephen’s upper chapel, though judging from the anticipation in the air the procession would begin at any moment.