Andrew Swanston - The King's Spy

Deciding finally that he would find out soon enough, Thomas allowed his thoughts to wander. To the bookshop and the repair work that awaited him on his return, to Polly and Lucy, whom he had left to sleep, and to his student days at Oxford. He wondered how much the town had changed. Soldiers and courtiers and their trappings no doubt, but surely still the ancient buildings, the castle, the meadows by the river, the Bodleian Library, the Physic Garden, the tennis court, the tranquillity of the colleges and, in every inn and tavern, the clamour of opinionated scholars wanting to be heard. At Pembroke, newly built in the middle of the town, Abraham Fletcher had become a dear friend. Now well into his seventies, he remained one of the few with whom Thomas still exchanged letters. It would be good to see him again.

By the time they neared Andover that evening, Thomas knew that he could not have made a worse decision. His chest and back were covered in livid sores, which incessant scratching only made worse, and he was hot, tired, thirsty and hungry. Unlike Simon, he needed food to sustain him. Simon appeared to go comfortably from dawn till dusk on a cup of water and a piece of bread. Thomas offered a silent prayer that some form of dinner would be available in the town. As for the scratching, the previous owner of the habit must either have had cow’s-hide skin or have actually enjoyed the torture of biting fleas. He would burn the loathsome thing that evening and find something cleaner to wear. Either that or go naked. Was there a Lord Godiva? he wondered.

No more than half a mile from the town, they heard horses approaching. Simon signalled Thomas to stop, and then to make quickly for a stand of elms fifty yards to their right. They had barely reached cover when the first horsemen appeared. They were Parliamentary cavalry. Thomas held his breath. They were not invisible from the road, but dared not move for fear of being noticed. They sat quite still until the cavalrymen had cantered past. ‘I daresay they’d have ignored us,’ said Simon, ‘but better not to be seen. We’ll avoid the town and stay here for the night.’

‘Here? Here I see neither food nor bedding. Are you not tired and hungry?’

‘A little, perhaps. I’ll find us something to eat, and we’ll sleep under God’s heaven.’

‘Excellent, Simon. Poisonous berries and damp leaves. Not to mention this revolting garment, home to families of voracious insects with a particular taste for the flesh of peaceful booksellers.’

‘You’d have made a poor friar, Thomas. We’re expected to rise above such trivial matters.’

‘An empty belly and festering sores may be trivial to you, friar, but not to me. Go and find food. I’ll find grass for the horses, and then try to dislodge some of the inhabitants of this infernal thing.’

When Simon returned with their dinner in a fold of his habit, Thomas, naked but for his sandals, was thrashing his habit against the trunk of an elm. ‘Take that, you devils. And that. And that. Be gone, and don’t come back.’

‘English-speaking fleas are they, Thomas? How fortunate. Here’s dinner.’

Thomas dropped the habit and inspected his next meal. It looked as if it might kill him.

‘God’s wounds, what in the name of all that’s holy are those?’

‘ Coprinus comatus , Thomas. Country people call them shaggy inkcaps. Just the thing for a man of letters. Delicious when roasted like chestnuts over a fire.’

Simon produced a knife and a flint with which he started a small fire, and set about cooking the inkcaps on the end of a stick. Thomas watched miserably. He took a tiny bite of the first one Simon offered him. It was good. He ate four more, washed down with sips of water from his flask. ‘Better?’ asked Simon.

‘A little,’ replied Thomas, ‘but I still have to put this instrument of torture back on.’

‘Get some sticks about a yard long. We’ll hang it over the fire and smoke them out.’

An hour later Thomas risked getting back into the habit. It was warm, the smoky smell was not unpleasant, and he was not immediately devoured. Somewhat cheered, he scraped out two places to sleep among the leaves, while Simon, having moved a little away, knelt to pray.

‘I have prayed for a dry night,’ he said later, ‘and a flealess one.’

Next morning, they skirted Andover before dawn, and con tinued towards Newbury. The road here was wider, enabling them to ride side by side. Simon was in a talkative mood. ‘You haven’t asked me much about myself, Thomas. Nothing, in fact. Why’s that?’

‘You’re a Franciscan friar. What is there to ask?’

‘Not all friars are the same.’

‘Yes they are. They wear flea-ridden habits, eat little, drink less and pray a lot.’

‘Ah, but what if you scratch the surface? Will we all be the same then?’

‘Scratch is the very word. Very well, Simon, do tell me about yourself. I suppose you can’t always have been a priest.’

‘I was born in Norwich. Ours was a God-fearing family. My father was a tailor, prosperous and respected. My mother died when I was twelve. I have two sisters, both older than me. One is a sister in the Dominican convent in Prouille, the other is married to a farmer.’

‘Nothing all that odd, so far. Why did you become a Franciscan?’

‘After my mother’s death, I turned away from God, left home and lived on the streets. I begged and stole and learned how to survive. I got into a fight over a girl, was badly beaten and left in a ditch. I managed to struggle to the old abbey, which like your abbey in Romsey survived, where they took me in. There I recovered my health and my faith, and eventually became a man of God. Mind you, I still don’t much like dogma and rituals. They lack humour.’

‘Yet our devout queen surely insists on all the Catholic rituals.’

‘She does, and I’m happy to advise and support her in the way she practises her faith.’

‘And you are equally happy to lure a peaceful man to Oxford without confiding in him the truth of the matter.’

‘As long as the ends justify the means, and her majesty wishes it, I am. A pragmatic approach, I think. Pragmatism and humour. Both essential to a happy and fulfilled life on earth.’

‘I do hope that my happy life on earth is not about to be curtailed. Romsey has its faults but it’s a good deal safer than Oxford, by the sound of it.’

‘Have no worries, Thomas. You will be under the protection of the king, and quite safe.’

They avoided Newbury, where Simon had seen Parliamentary infantry on his way to Romsey, and arrived that evening at the village of Chieveley. To Thomas’s relief after forty miles in the saddle, they found there a simple inn with a room available for travellers, and a landlord who thought nothing of a pair of friars arriving at his door. He had no other customers, and fed and watered his visitors and their horses without enquiring as to their business. While they ate the landlord’s eel and oyster pie with purslane, Thomas tried to draw Simon out. ‘Why would Abraham recommend me when there must be others in Oxford quite capable of encoding and decoding messages?’ he ventured.

For a moment, Simon looked thoughtful. Then, ‘Now that we’re on our way, I think I can tell you that Erasmus Pole was murdered.’

‘Good God, Simon. So I’m to replace a man who was murdered? Very pragmatic of you not to tell me that before we left. You’d have returned alone.’

‘It was a little deceitful, I admit. I have prayed for forgiveness.’

‘Anything else you’d like to tell me? Why he was murdered, for instance?’

‘That is a question to which we do not yet have an answer. Abraham knows that you can be trusted, and he thinks you might find out the truth.’