The Fetter Lane Fleece (2 page)
Read The Fetter Lane Fleece Online
Authors: Gregory House
Or not.
Meg Black apparently wasn’t impressed by the gallant rescue from the foul and loathsome Fleecers. Instead she stood there in toe–tapping impatience, giving him a long measured survey from unclad foot to ahh mostly clad torso. At least after that burst of exercise Ned felt warm…well that was most of him.
“Y’know Ned, running around without clothes in this weather is perilous. You could get frostbite, and the only cure for that is chopping off the frost blighted parts.” Gruesome Roger, who’d worst luck survived the affray unscathed, gave the most evil grin and made energetic slicing motions with his dagger, while the dozen odd members of the ‘night school’ tittered and blushed at the suggestion.
Ned though was aghast and pulled his gown protectively over his most treasured possessions. “What! You mean like cut…off?”
“Why yes Ned, severed. Tis the only remedy once the black rot strikes or else you die of the spreading canker.”
Oh no this was a grim prognosis. His daemon gibbered wildly in panic at the prospective loss of privileges and usual pleasures. His angel though sternly rallied him with the advice that many a saint or worthy scholar had lost their manly attributes, for instance the famous Abelard. That reminder of the French scholar and lover of Heloise didn’t help at all. Ned winced and turned desperately to Meg, almost dropping to his knees in the snow. “Please Meg, for all the regard you may have for me, PLEASE HELP ME!”
Mistress Black regarded his kneeling and humble plea with what some would have described as a very evil glint in her eye. Smiling she patted him on the head as one would a child. “There is one remedy, but it has its…complications.”
“Yes, yes anything! Whatever it is I’ll pay the price no matter how steep, wear a duck on my head or chew leeches, whatever, but please save me!”
Meg’s smile didn’t waver. She just nodded her head in what he dimly perceived through his haze of sudden terror as… as satisfaction. “Y’know Ned, I believe for the cure I’ll hold you to that promise.”
Ned didn’t whimper or cry. His daemon was quite busy doing it for him.
Chapter Nine. Reward?
Ned huddled deeper into the mound of gowns, coverlets and cloaks, sipping the steaming posset, and luxuriating in the spreading warmth. Oh this was much better than running down Fetter and Fleete stark bollock naked, feeling his treasured assets growing numb-er by the moment as if covered inches deep in ice and hoarfrost. The fire in the private room had been stoked up with a fresh faggot and he was even beginning to sweat from the radiant heat. After the last few hours he didn’t care if this was the very image of Hell. Better the hot abysmal plains packed shoulder to shoulder with demons than the ice. Another sip of the hot spiced wine slid down his throat and Ned’s thoughts slowly stirred assembling the disparate and chaotic scenes and images into a recognisable pattern of the evening’s events.
Now he’d rescued the measle–brained Richard from his false pre–contract, that was all to the good and a fine success. His better angel interposed a rather arch comment on that regard, about how Rob had actually done the deed while Master Bedwell was pelting down Fetter Lane as bare buttocked as a wild Aethope of Affryca. Ned winced at the reminder. Well yes that did sort of happen, but in his preferred version of events, he had bravely drawn off the denizens of the Fleece with nary a thought to his own safety thus giving Rob the opportunity. That justification made Ned feel so much better. The only difficulty was that the rescue was supposed to have been by several lads from the Revels hiding out by the Wool’s Fleece privy.
Quite obviously that part of the plan hadn’t eventuated. According to a slurred and mumbled explanation by Will Davison, good intentions and firm leadership had got them to the corner of Fetter and Fleete where a stiff blast of icy winds had prompted an urgent retreat to cover. Ned had nodded in agreement about this night’s chilly conditions. However the assault might have pushed on if they hadn’t succumbed to a discussion of remedies for the cold. Damn lawyerly democracy! They voted to seek shelter for a few minutes till the winds lessened in the Red Boar. Ned had sighed over that reluctant and sheepish revelation—one draught of mulled wine by the fire so easily multiplied. Thus by fate, chance and warm spiced Rhenish was his rescue party so easily waylaid. Ahh the fortunes of war, he was sure Caesar didn’t have this problem when he was fighting the Gauls or crossing the Rubicon. He really couldn’t see some scarred veteran centurion sheepishly sidling up to Julius Caesar and with an unsteady salute pronouncing
Ave Caesar. Sorry the XIV legio didn’t show up for the flanking attack, but yea we found this really wonderful taverna with the best Falerian you’ve ever tasted…and the lads they reckoned you’d be fine so…
Decimation for such a dereliction would have been the least punishment from the Master of Rome.
However Ned wasn’t the Divine Julius. Nor could one equate this collection of drunken clerks and law apprentices to the steady dependable legionaries of Imperial Rome. So he’d offered the survivors the promised pence and praised their commitment if not their acts. His daemon though noted the most taken in drink for a later round of dice or cards.
That failure had of course led to his ahh very delicate situation with Mistress Delphina of the once flowing red hair and his sudden and precipitous exit out the window into the cold, cold night. And as he’d already discovered this worked wonderfully as a distraction. However, and damn but those ‘howevers’ slipped in so easily, his ‘rescue’ from the pursuing Fleece roisters had been somewhat humiliating and it didn’t matter how that was dressed up by his daemon it didn’t change one very simple fact. After his merry band of revellers became ‘distracted’ that left Mistress
Damn her
Black and her miserable minion Roger as his sole and unexpected source of salvation. Ned chewed over that very disagreeable memory. Given the chance she’d pulled another trick from her satchel and between that sulphurous stench and Gruesome Roger’s cudgel, the Fleece roisters had fled. That was bad enough to suffer but to there had been further humiliation to come in the shape of Meg’s amused laugh as she surveyed his mostly unclothed condition and instantly came up with a number of practical and dire problems that he was due to endure unless Master Bedwell immediately followed her strict regime of remedies.
A very diffident knock drew his attention to the doorway, and Rob cracked open the door sufficient to poke through his head. The sounds of feasting and carousing surged past reminding Ned all too fully of what he was missing. Rob made a series of lip chewing faces and Ned held up a hand and sighed deeply. “Yes Rob, I know, I know—it must be time. All right, bring them in.”
Several slightly unsteady revellers filed into the room all possessing that silly expression informing the observer that they were about to partake in the most amusing of larks.
Ned pulled up his heaped cloaks and gowns and stretched out his legs. “How much longer?” he asked.
At the clearly bitter tone of the question Rob’s face continued through a brief spasm of embarrassed contortions and the apprentice smith’s hands twisted his grasped cloth cap almost fit to tear. “Ahh Ned, I’m sorry but…but Meg said it was a sovereign remedy for this affliction. I mean its better this than calling in a doctor of physick.”
Ned scowled at the answer. He didn’t want to think about what a doctor’s cure would be, or how painful and expensive—if it worked. “All right, all right. We’ll bow to her superior knowledge of practical physick and hedge potions.”
Rob looked relieved and gathering the inebriated band in a circle around Ned then unfastening their codpieces with those dopey grinning expressions of the drunkenly amused they began Meg’s sovereign remedy. Sweet Adeline of the interesting pleasures once said there were gentlemen at the Biddle who paid handsomely for this as a diversion. As far as Ned was concerned those gentlemen were welcome to it. As the treatment began and the resulting flow of ‘liquid’ glowed red gold in the light of the fire, Ned loudly cursed Meg Black, Flaunty Phil, Delphina the vixen, the Wool’s Fleece and that stupid measle Richard Reedman!
Rob gamely tried to lighten his friend’s mood and tentatively patted him on the shoulder. “Y’know Ned, its only another day of this according to Meg, so tis better than loosing toes to the black rot.”
Ned gave back another scowl and tried vainly to draw himself way from the promised cure as it splashed over his bare legs. Damn them all to the nether most regions of Hell! Someone was going to pay for this humiliation. All he had to do now was work out just who that should be. Oh by all the cursed demons and Satan’s imps, why did the accepted remedy for suspected frostbite have to be copious quantities of warm fresh urine? At least, whispered his daemon, there was some consolation. After all it could be worse…it could’ve been his nose.
Historical Note
about Cosenage
My thanks to Robert Greene, an Elizabethan writer of some note, promising talent, and possessed of a vindictive streak a mile wide. It is from his quill that Ned suffers his more adventurous misfortunes in the doubtful repose of the Liberties. With the advent of the printing press came a flood of books and pamphlets starting of course with the Bible, in either Geneva, Coverdale or Tyndale versions, then the classical Greek and Roman works of history, philosophy and sciences. This eventually gave an opportunity and market for the folios of Master Shakespeare’s works (about whom Greene was livid since it appears he regarded Shakespeare as stealing his rightful position as the leading playwright of London). Finally there were the cheaper Tudor equivalents of penny dreadfuls—news broadsheets and small pamphlets of an improving or cautionary nature such as that fount of all mischief and lewdness;
A Notable Discovery of Coosnage 1591
and
The Second Part of Cony Catching 1592
where Master Robert Greene gives us an amusing selection of the cons and scams a country gentlemen would have to be wary of when they came to London. If only Red Ned Bedwell could have gotten hold of a copy.
Regards Gregory House
Terra Australis 2012
Religion and spirituality in the Tudor Age as portrayed in the Red Ned Tudor Mysteries
.
In this modern secular era, it is sometimes difficult to encompass how deeply religion was embedded in the words, thoughts and actions of our ancestors. The Church was for good and ill part of everyday life. Its parish and cathedral bells announced the time of day and the whole pattern of the year was structured around the calendar of religious festivals. Every individual in the kingdom understood this, starting from birth with the urgent importance of baptism to death and the saying of perpetual masses for the souls of the departed. At this point we have the emergence of the concept of ‘indulgence’ and the ability of the Pope to remit sins via payment and we know where that led to with Martin Luther. In all of this the Latin Vulgate Bible was the fount of authority and knowledge for both the King, the Catholic Church and all levels of society, which is why its translation into the vernacular was believed to threaten the very foundations of ‘their Christian society’. The sways to and fro in the Tudor Age were equally about power and belief, with the two sometimes so intermixed it was difficult to separate them, especially in the figures of Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey and their Sovereign Majesty Henry VIII. Questions of conscience or expedience determined religious attitudes and delineated a person’s position in society and all too frequently determined their rise or fall on Fortuna’s Wheel.
To make a valid attempt at presenting this internal and external conflict we have Ned Bedwell viewing his conscience as two distinct entities, his
daemon
and
better angel
. From a number of biographies, lives of saints and religious writings this division and representation of moral and ethical judgement was very common from the highest sections of society to the lowest and in many cases recorded in church courts regarding grievous sins and petitions for penance, the intercession of demons, devils and angels crop up frequently. It is in its way a very important aspect of the Tudor world view. For instance passages such as
‘the devil sorely tempted me and I gave in’
or
‘my good angel or patron saint steered me clear of the peril of sin’
, are very frequent. Even that great Tudor monarch Henry VIII used this style of Divine intercession and explanation in his public presentation of his need for an annulment, the break with Rome and his marriage to Anne Boleyn.
For my fictional character Ned, his
daemon
and
angel
serve as mouthpieces for his questions of conscience and action in his Tudor world. They give you the reader a glimpse of the inner workings of an ambitious lad beset with questions of friendship, loyalty, lust, advancement and the conflicts caused by his decisions.
During the reign of Henry VIII the value of coins varied wildly since coins were frequently recalled and subsequently reissued with a lower precious metal content to aid the financing of Henry’s expenditure on war and domestic building programs. It got to such a state that the gold sovereign coins stamped with the portrait of the king were nicknamed old copper noses since frequent handling gave them a red gold colour. Rhenish florins, Thalers and Venetian florins were the period’s equivalent of US dollars and accepted all over Europe. All other coins were evaluated to their standard.
farthing = quarter of a penny (0.25d)
halfpenny (0.5d)
1 penny silver coin
Half groat silver coin worth 2 pence
Groat silver coin worth 4 pence
1 shilling silver coin worth 12d
1 noble a gold coin worth 6s 8d. (80p, or 1/3 of a pound)
1 Angel a gold coin worth 7 shillings and 6 pence
1 pound or a sovereign gold coin worth 20 shillings,
i.e.
240 pence
1 mark was the value of 8 ounces of gold or silver; 123 4d
Ale house:
Lower in social scale and quality than a tavern. Usually a room with a few benches and a brew house out the back. In theory, they had to be licensed. These were considered by the city officials as the breeding ground of mischief and crime.
Tavern:
Equivalent to a modern British Pub or American Bar usually serving reasonable quality food and ale.
Inn:
These establishments were the Sheratons or Hiltons of their age, large buildings with a courtyard and stables used to catering to gentry and nobility.
Inns of Court:
These where not the same kind of Inns as above, instead they were establishments which housed fraternities of lawyers and clerks. The cluster of buildings also contained lawyers chambers, offices and sometimes residences as well as a library of legal texts and records and the community’s Great Hall for feasts and ceremonies. Some of the better known Inns were Gray’s, Middle Temple Inner Temple and Lincoln’s. Minor Inns included Thavies, Chancery, Clifford, Lyon and Strand.
Stew:
a brothel or a region of disreputable activities
Cony catching
: a common term for any manner of con trick or swindle
Cozener:
swindlers, fraudsters tricksters etc
Cozenage:
the art or play of a scam rort, swindle or slight of hand
Curber, hookman:
curbing the art of lifting clothes from a washing line, via the use of a hooked pole hence the term hookman and curber.
Foister:
A sometime more aggressive cozener or cozener’s offsider
Nip:
a young boy working with a foister, or cozener
Roister:
A swaggering rogue keen for trouble and brawling possibly an apprentice since they tended to have that reputation.
Punk:
a common name for a part time prostitute
Fullans and gourds:
two different types of ‘altered’ dice either weighted or hollowed.
Minchin:
a young girl in thieves or Liberties cant
Humours:
Tudor medicine believed the human body was made up of four humours and that bleeding or diet could balance the humours according to consultation with an astrological chart, this finally dropped out of favour in the mid 1800’s.
Night School:
the common name for a secret gathering of heretics, evangelicals Lollards or Lutherans meeting to study or discuss the smuggled copies of the Bible translated into English.
Candlemass:
The religious festival of the Catholic faith held on the 2
nd
February about forty days after Christmas and at the mid point between the Winter solstice and the Spring Equinox. Also Groundhog Day in the Eastern USA.
Hallowtide:
The religious festival of All Hallow’s Eve or Halloween 1
st
November.
Brandywine:
later shortened to brandy, alcoholic distillation of wine occasionally also used to describe wine fortified with brandy.
Sack:
A very popular form of fortified wine similar to sherry sometimes augmented with sugar and brandy for extra taste.
Rhenish:
as the name implies a wine from the Rhine region, very popular in England.
Scarlet cloth:
this was the common name of the finest woven woollen cloth used for gowns, kirtles and doublets and does not refer to the colour thus you can have blue scarlet or green scarlet as is described in period documents.
Justice:
the local judge or royal official charged with keeping the peace
The Common Watch:
acted as a police force and occasional fire brigade, and regarded by the Tudor citizens as next to useless and dumber than a pile of pig droppings.
Parish Ward Muster:
citizen militia of reasonable quality and equipment, usually recruited from the better classes of Londoners.
Bedlam:
the Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem a hospice for those found to be decayed in their wits, mad crazed or deluded, hence the phrase as ‘its bedlam’ or as ‘mad as Bedlam’. In the Tudor period the common term of insanity was Bedlamite.
The Liberties:
areas of the city of London and Southwark under the jurisdiction of the church and exempt from interference by city or county officials, usually swarming with punks, cony catchers, thieves, murders and forgers.
Wherry:
a small boat with one to four rowers used for transport on the Thames, the taxi of its day.