The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

There was cold meat, bread and ale for breakfast. Mother Treadwell prided herself on her table. One of the others – I suspected it was Abel Glaze – must have informed on me to the landlady, for she paid me particular attention as she fussed over the breakfast items, winking and tapping the side of her nose and enquiring whether the beds of Bath were soft enough for me and telling me to eat plenty of cold meats so as to regain my vigour.

We had no rehearsal for later that day but were still required to report to the senior player in our company, John Sincklo, to ensure that there were no tasks to be done before the play itself. This was particularly necessary on tour where the stage and other gear were not kept in such an ordered state as at home in the Globe Theatre. Sincklo was staying in comfort at the Bear Inn as a favoured guest of the landlord, Harry Cuff, since we were bringing plenty of business to his establishment. Those of us at Mother Treadwell’s duly reported to John Sincklo only to be told, rather brusquely, that we weren’t needed. He was a somewhat reserved fellow, our senior, not much used to drink, and I suspect he’d enjoyed more than a few glasses with Landlord Cuff after last night’s successful production.

So we were free for the larger part of the day. I thought about returning to the Hawkins’ house in Vicarage Lane although it seemed a little too soon. In any case there was a diversion planned by my companions, which they had obviously been concocting the night before. They wouldn’t tell me what it was but dragged me with them down Cheap Street and then to the west of the great church, which I was surprised to see in the clear light of day was not yet finished. Perhaps the money had run out. The church was not our destination, however.

Beyond the church precincts was a cluster of stone buildings with steam rising from among them. Led by Laurence Savage, who promised us it would be worth it, half a dozen of us paid a penny each to a doorkeeper to be allowed into a viewing area. We climbed a flight of stone steps and found ourselves in a gallery overlooking a very large four-sided pool of water, which was open to the air and from which rose a slightly sulphurous smell as well as steam and a perceptible wave of heat. In the middle of the pool was a structure like a monstrous salt cellar, with pinnacles and jutting eaves.

Even though it was still quite early in the morning, the bath was full of folk. Some clung to the side as though afraid to venture far in, but the majority were standing in the water talking together or half swimming, half wading through it or else simply lying on their backs, buoyed up by the air trapped in their smocks and drawers. A few sat on stone recesses at the base of the great salt cellar.

Men and women mixed together without distinction. When one of the bathers made to get out, their garments clung close as an onion skin and showed most or all of what lay beneath. We gawped, of course, but it was, in truth, not much of a spectacle. Or at least it was not a stirring spectacle. The majority of the bathers were far from young and it was generally apparent why they had come to try the healing waters of Bath. Some were as rotund as the inflated bladders carried by jesters, others were so thin they looked as though they were being consumed from within. And I have never seen so many misshapen limbs, so large a quantity of bent backs, as I saw gathered together in this steamy pool. Why, if you half closed your eyes, and added a little bit of screaming and groaning to the picture, you might have imagined you were present at one of the infernal pits. The smell of the brimstone and the white, ghost-like garments of the bathers added to this impression.

Just occasionally, however, our watch was made worthwhile when a woman younger and more comely than the mass climbed from the water or sank herself slowly into it and so revealed much more under her clinging garments than would normally be considered decent. The odd thing was that these women seemed to know the effect they were having and to be prolonging their actions by a few instants. This, no doubt, was why we’d paid our pennies to the doorkeeper.

A wizened-looking individual emerged from a corner of the gallery and took it upon himself to act as our guide. He told us this was the King’s Bath, which we knew, and that the area round the pinnacled construction in the middle was called the Kitchen on account of its being situated directly over the source of the hot spring. Then he said that there were other interesting sights to be seen elsewhere at the Queen’s Bath and the Lepers’ Bath. Sights of a fleshly nature, he said, both more enticing and more grotesque than anything likely to be seen here at the King’s. If we good gentlemen would like to accompany him…

The others were ready enough but I was not in a the mood. Partly it was because I was thinking of Katherine Hawkins – one of the few younger women in the pool below had hair of a similar colour to hers, although this bather was handsome rather than pretty. I considered that now might be time to return the commonplace book belonging to her uncle. Then I might invite Katherine to attend a performance in the yard of the Bear that evening, and afterwards we could…

Lost in my warm imagination, I hardly realised that I’d been left alone in the gallery, so eager were my fellows to see the sights of the Lepers’ and the Queen’s Baths. I took one final look at the pool with its ghostly bathers and started towards the entrance.

At the top of the stairs my way was blocked by a burly individual.

‘Are you Nicholas?’ he said.

‘What business is it of yours?’

‘Nicholas of the…’ he fumbled in his mind to get the right words in the right order, ‘… of the King’s Men presently playing in this town?’

I nodded. He stuck out his doubleted chest and pushed forward into the gallery. Instinctively I stepped back towards the stone parapet, which prevented spectators from tumbling into the steam bath. I thought, I’m growing weary of being sought out by strangers with an interest in plays and players. This one did not have the advantage of being young, attractive and female.

‘You have got something that doesn’t belong to you,’ he said presently.

‘I have?’

‘A book,’ said this gentleman. He uttered the word ‘book’ as though it didn’t pass his lips very often.

I understood straight away that he must be referring to Uncle Christopher’s commonplace book. I only just prevented myself from feeling for the pocket where it was stowed.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Give it me now.’

He lumbered forward and I stepped back in equal measure with him until I felt the parapet against my buttocks. He was a big man with beetling brows and a seamed forehead. With one push he could have shoved me over into the steamy pool.

‘I haven’t got the book with me,’ I said.

‘So you do have it,’ he said. He wasn’t as slow and stupid as he looked.

He came to within a couple of inches, face to face, close enough that I smelled his meaty breath. He gripped me by the upper arms. I’m not sure what would have happened next, whether he would have manhandled me or shoved me out and over into the bath. Fortunately, we were interrupted by a shout from the entrance to the gallery. Over my new friend’s shoulder I saw an individual who was dressed in some sort of blue livery and carrying a mace.

‘We’ll have none of that filthy behaviour here,’ said this person. ‘Bringing disrepute on the royal baths. Be off with you.’

The bulky man had taken a pace back from me. I slipped out of his shadow and walked briskly to the stairs, nodding to the individual with the mace on the way. I did not stop to ask what he thought we were up to. I could guess. (Later I learned that he was the sergeant-at-arms for the King’s Bath, employed to ensure decorous conduct among the bathers and the watchers.) I clattered down the stone stairs and out into fresh air and the precincts of the great church.