C.J. Sansom - Revelation

'You must come to Christ!' he bawled at them. 'You must, you must ensure you are one of the elect! The end is coming, the Antichrist is here! Please, you must pray!'

I saw Reverend Meaphon in the crowd, his face redder than ever. We shouldered our way over to him. Another cleric was standing beside him, a tall thin old fellow with a beaky-nosed face and thick white hair, well combed and clean. How well these radical preachers all seemed to look after their hair, a peacock trait above the sober clothes. Minnie clasped Meaphon's arm. 'Oh, sir, you came!'

Meaphon turned to me, and I saw the cleric was frightened. 'He has to be got down,' he said urgently. 'If he's taken I will be questioned, the whole congregation will!'

'And mine!' the other cleric said. 'I am William Yarington, rector of the next church to Reverend Meaphon's.' He spoke to me in tones of portentous seriousness, evidently assuming I was a radical sympathizer. 'Our truth, our true faith, is under threat from papists and backsliders as never before. That mad boy should have been kept shut away and secure, with someone to pray with him all the time.' He glared at Meaphon.

'He manages enough prayers by himself,' I snapped.

Yarington looked me coldly up and down, then turned away. He muttered something that sounded like, 'Another unbeliever.'

I turned to Meaphon.

'Have you tried speaking with him?' I asked.

'Yes, yes! I have ordered him down, told him to stop his shouting. I said he could put his parents in danger. But he won't listen.'

'If they find us here, if they associate me with him . . .' the white- haired cleric muttered and cast his eyes around, as though looking for escape, then fixed them again on Adam as the boy cried out that he was suffering for them all, like Jesus on his Cross.

'Word will get to Bonner soon. He'll be here!' Meaphon shook his head.

'It might be better for everyone if he fell and broke his neck,' the other cleric said.

Minnie had broken down again and was sobbing on her hus- band's breast. 'Do something, sir,' Daniel implored me. 'Please!'

There was a fresh gust of laughter from the crowd. Some wretch had brought a dancing bear to entertain the crowd and the little bruin, chained and muzzled and with strips of coloured cloth sewn into its ears, stared at the crowd in fear. Its keeper thwacked it on the nose, called 'Dance!' and the poor creature began to shift from leg to leg. The keeper put his cap on the ground for folk to throw pennies.

'Here!' someone called up to Adam. 'You dance too! Come on, give us a dance!'

Two middle-aged men in the robes of the Cutlers Guild were next to me. 'This is blasphemy,' one said angrily. 'The Common Council should be fetched, he should be imprisoned, punished for this display.'

'Someone's gone to Bonner's palace,' his fellow said in tones of grim satisfaction. 'He'll be punished all right.'

'You are right, brother!' someone called to Adam from the crowd. 'You have the spirit in you!' The crowd, I saw, was mostly good- natured, seeing this as a spectacle, a joke. But as with the costumiers' arrests, this could turn nasty.

I stepped to the front of the crowd, directly underneath Adam, and looked up at him. He had paused and was taking deep whooping breaths. He was, I saw, shivering. If he fainted . . .

'Adam,' I called. 'Please come down! Your mother is sore upset!'

He looked down at me, then shifted his gaze to the crowd. 'The world is ending!' he yelled. 'The Antichrist is here! If you do not deny Satan and come to Jesus you will all burn! Burn!'

'Speak, parrot, speak!' someone called out mockingly.

'Cure the hunchback's arm, like Jesus healed the sick! Give us a miracle!'

I felt an angry despair. There was no communicating with Adam, one might as well try talking to a brick wall. None of the hot- gospellers listened, they only ranted, and either you took what they said for God's word or in God's name they casually condemned you to eternal torment. Adam was mad but that was where his madness had grown from. The killer's, too, perhaps, not only declaring God's bloody verdict but implementing it too. I clutched my throbbing arm, feeling utterly helpless.

There was a murmur behind me. Some men were shouldering their way through the crowd. With a sinking heart I caught a glimpse of raised pikes. A moment later Bishop Bonner, in black robes and cap and surrounded by his guards, appeared. The crowd stepped away and he moved through, short and stocky and powerful, leaving me, the Kites and Meaphon exposed. The other minister melted into the crowd. Above us, Adam had started declaiming scripture, and I recognized a garbled paraphrase of Revelation: 'The fearful, and unbelieving, and whoremongers and sorcerers, shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone...'

'Cease that blasphemy!' Bonner's thunderous roar silenced the crowd and made even Adam pause and blink. Close to, the face under the dark cap was round and jowly, the large dark eyes alive with anger.

'Papist!' someone in the crowd shouted out. Bonner stared round furiously, but in the close-packed crowd there was no way of telling who had spoken. The bishop turned his furious eyes on me. 'Who are you, lawyer? Are you of his family? And you—' His gaze turned to Meaphon, who quailed. 'Oh, I know you, sir, you are a leader of the mad giddy company of schismatics.'

I had heard of Bonner's rages; his anger was fierce and once roused did not abate. 'Heretic!' he shouted in Meaphon's face. The cleric flinched, his courage visibly draining. 'It's not his fault, sir.' Daniel Kite spoke up bravely. 'He was trying to talk Adam down. Our son. He is mad, sir, stark mad—'

'God is the judge of all, Jesus will come with sword in hand.' Adam had begun again. Bonner turned to the soldiers. 'You! Go up through the gatehouse, bring him down. If he falls, it'll be no loss.'

The soldiers approached the wall, but then paused, staring upward. There was a murmur from the crowd as three figures stepped through an upper window of the gatehouse on to the wall. Guy and Barak and Piers. They moved slowly along the wall towards Adam, Barak and Piers holding their arms out for balance but Guy, behind, walking straight, his robe hitched up so his feet would not stumble on the hem. The crowd fell silent; even the furious Bonner was quiet.

'Come, Adam,' Guy called. 'Remember me. Remember we talked?'

The boy stared at him foolishly, as though wondering how he had appeared there. Barak and Piers were almost next to Adam. They looked at him dubiously, I saw fear in both their set faces. If they tried to grasp Adam he could bring all three down. 'Why are you doing this?' Guy asked.

To my surprise, Adam answered him. 'I thought I could bring others to God, it would prove I was saved.'

'But not all who are saved can be messengers to the world.' Guy waved at the crowd. 'See, look at those people, you are not strong enough to convert that heathen crowd. It is no shame.'

Adam began to cry then, and sank slowly to his knees. Some lumps of old mortar, dislodged, pattered down on the crowd. Barak and Piers knelt carefully beside him, eased him to his feet and with difficulty led him back along the wall. They helped get the boy through the window of the gatehouse. Guy stepped in after them.

Bonner clicked his fingers and walked toward the gatehouse, the guard following. Daniel and Minnie stepped hesitantly after him. Meaphon hesitated a moment, then stepped backwards and disappeared into the crowd. I watched him go. Cowardice, or the realization that his presence now would only anger Bonner? Then I tensed. I felt someone watching me, caught the merest glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Someone with a beard. I whirled round. I saw a figure turn away into the crowd, a glimpse of a brown doublet. My heart thumped. Was it him, following again? I stood rooted to the spot, realizing my anxiety for Adam had made me careless.