P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

Mr Newton tutted gently. ‘Dear me, sir, that won’t wash ’ere, we know your little game. Now come along and let’s do the paperwork, there’s a good gentleman.’

‘Ye’ve got the wrong man,’ Dodd ground out between his teeth. ‘I’m no’ the one ye want. There’s nae point in putting me in gaol, I’m no’ Sir Robert…’

‘So you say. But we was warned you’d come it the northerner once we caught you, so we know all about that. So why don’t you give it up, eh? It’s not dignified.’

Dodd gave a mighty heave and tried to trip the bailiff who was still wrenching his arm. Newton moved in close and rammed the end of his cosh into Dodd’s stomach a couple of times. Dodd bent and whooped and saw stars for a few seconds. A horny thumb and forefinger gripped his ear.

‘I don’t want to have to give you a hiding, Sir Robert, I know the proper respect for me betters, but I will have order in my gaol, do you understand me? If I have to, I’ll chain you, Queen’s cousin or no, so don’t make trouble. Now let’s go and do the paperwork, eh? Get you settled in.’

Unable to do more than stay on his feet and wheeze, Dodd went where they pushed him into the guardchamber of the gatehouse.

***

It so happened that Nan was down on her hands and knees polishing one of the brasses, the one with the knight in armour and his lady wearing long flowing robes, when the handsome gentleman in the lily-embroidered trunk hose came sliding quickly and softly into the empty church, breathing a little hard. He paused as he shut the door to squint through the narrow gap for a minute, then let it close. He looked all around him at the brightly coloured tombs, the whitewashed walls that writhed with carved vine-leaves and fat bunches of grapes, the headless saints, and the high altar with its beautiful cloth and its empty candlesticks with no sanctuary lamp burning. He took a long stride to come up the aisle, but then paused as he remembered himself, took his hat off reverently. Nan began to warm to him, despite the lurid high fashion of his clothes, as she peered around one of the box pews, to see him walking up to the altar rails where he knelt, sighed and bent his chestnut head in prayer, although she was disappointed to see he didn’t cross himself.

Her sight wasn’t good enough to make out his face clearly, though he seemed a well-made gentleman, very tall and long-legged, but Nan felt she approved of him. She finished polishing the lady’s face and thought about slipping out the sacristy door to find the vicar.

‘Goodwife, I’d be grateful if you didn’t fetch anybody. I won’t be here long,’ said the gentleman, without looking round.

She heaved herself up from the floor, folding her duster, and rubbing her creaking knees, then waddled round the box pew to curtsey to him.

He was standing by the altar rails now, bowed in return, smiled faintly down at her.

‘I promise I’m not after the candlesticks, goodwife.’

‘And much good they would do you if you were, sir,’ she said tartly, ‘since they’re chained to the wall.’

‘Ah.’

She blinked critically at him. He looked pale and there was a sheen of sweat on him which wasn’t totally explained by his velvet doublet since the church was cool and dim. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, with another little curtsey.

‘I very much doubt it.’

Nan shook her head. People always thought that because she was round, short and old, she was useless. ‘Well, if you’re here for a rest from the sun, which is certainly powerful for September, come into the pew and sit down, sir.’

He hesitated, then shrugged and let her open the door of the churchwarden’s pew, usher him into it. His clothes were too fashionable to let him sit comfortably, so he leaned diagonally on the bench.

‘Can I fetch you anything, sir?’ she asked. ‘Would you like some wine?’

‘Communion wine?’ he asked, sceptically. She grinned at him.

‘I always replace it.’

‘Ah.’ He passed his tongue over his lower lip which did look dry. ‘Well, why not?’

She trotted out into the aisle and went into the sacristy where she had a spare key to the locked cupboard where the vicar kept the wine. She came back with two plain silver goblets on a tray which held mixed water and wine since she believed in the curative properties of wine but could not afford to replace too much. ‘The water is from St Bride’s well itself,’ she said, as she gave one of the goblets to the gentleman. ‘It’s clear and pure as dew, sir, and sovereign against all kinds of troubles: shingles, the falling sickness, leprosy, and scrofula too.’

‘A pity I don’t suffer from any of those things.’

‘Now you never will, sir.’

He toasted her, and drank. ‘How does it do against plague, cowardice and debt?’

She sat herself down on the bench with a sigh at the ache in her old bones, and drank from her own goblet.

‘Oh, and idiocy,’ added the gentleman.

‘Who was chasing you, sir?’ Nan asked. Well, if an old woman couldn’t ask nosy questions, who could?

The gentleman shut his eyes briefly. Up close, Nan could see they were bright blue and also rather bloodshot. Something about his face was familiar, the beak of his nose, the high cheekbones, but she couldn’t place it. She was quite sure she had never met him before.

‘Bailiffs,’ he said. ‘Waving warrants for debt.’ He sighed again, rubbed elegantly gloved fingers into his eyesockets. ‘I let them arrest a friend of mine, one of the most decent and loyal men I’ve ever met, and I ran like a bloody rabbit to get away. Nice, eh?’

‘And the plague?’

‘My servants have it and my lodgings have been sealed.’

Nan tutted sympathetically and poured him more of the watered wine from the flagon. ‘And the idiocy, sir? You don’t look like an idiot.’

He raised winged eyebrows at this cheekiness and smiled shortly. ‘I’ve been acting like a damned idiot ever since I got to London, goodwife. Looks aren’t everything.’

‘No indeed, sir. What will you do now?’

He puffed out a breath. ‘I haven’t the faintest bloody idea.’

She leaned forward and patted his arm. ‘Please, sir,’ she said. ‘This is God’s house. Don’t swear.’

‘Sorry.’

Despite her opportunities, Nan drank very little, preferring the life-giving water of the well. The wine was beginning to go to her head slightly and she waved her plump work-hardened hand at the church above and around them. ‘I know it doesn’t look like it any more,’ she confided. ‘You should have seen the church before the change in the boy-King’s reign, when it was all painted with bright colours and the roof beams were gilded and stars painted there. Oh, it was beautiful, with the light through the glass. Noah’s Ark was on that wall, before they whitewashed it, with elephants and striped horses too, and on this wall was the marriage at Cana and St Bride at the well, giving the child Jesus a drink. The same water from this very well, sir, Our Saviour drank from it, almost where we’re standing.’

‘When did Jesus Christ do that?’ asked the gentleman.

‘When he flew here as a child and got lost, and St Bride gave him her water and so he could fly back home to Our Lady in Palestine.’

The gentleman blinked a couple of times, but didn’t laugh as one over-educated Divine had in the past. ‘Oh?’ he said.

‘And certainly, if he didn’t, he could have, so perhaps he did.’

‘Ah. It’s not mentioned in the Bible, though.’

‘No, well, sir, if you read it, you’ll find many things not mentioned there.’

The gentleman coughed. ‘Er…yes.’

‘The New World, for instance. Though I heard once that St Bride travelled there herself, in a silver boat.’