The Lord Of Misrule (21 page)

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.

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 Streets 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.

Throughout the Christian realm of His Sovereign Majesty King Henry VIII the twelve days of Christmas was a time of celebration. Doors and lynch gates were framed with holly and ivy and the last fasting ended on Christmas Eve with a joyous feast of the Saviour’s birth in every lord’s hall, yeoman’s house and beggar’s hovel. The Black Goat on Bride Lane in the Liberties of the Ward of Farrington Without was no exception, though here they also maintained the old tradition of a Lord of Misrule. For the season some wards and parishes proclaimed a boy bishop or elevated a humble servant with complimentary ragged rogues serving as the officers of Butler and Chancellor. Here only one man held that title and the bestowal of traditional gifts and favours, Earless Nick, the Lord of the Liberties from London Wall to Temple Bar.

This wasn’t any titled demesne such as that of the Duke of Norfolk with a carefully scripted parchment heavy with gilt and seals, though like a distant Howard ancestor it was a rank gained by the practice of murder and the ready effusion of blood. Not that this distinction mattered to those in the long procession snaking out of the tavern door. Earless Nick’s whims or pleasures held them enthralled in tighter bonds than even the slaves of the Sultan of the Moors, and considering the recent debacle here at the Black Goat, Nick’s moods had tended towards the darker shades of choler. There was also another factor that held them. Past Earless Nick’s silk draped chair of state was a feast of such sumptuousness that few had beheld outside of the Cardinal’s palace of Whitehall at York Place; capons in almond douce sauce, smothered rabbits and onions, a white pudding of hog’s liver, jelly hippocras and a roasted pheasant complete with feathers. As for the sweets and subtleties, one clever cross biter whispered to his drooling friends that three pounds of blanched almond sugar went into the modelled replica of Newgate Tower alone. For fellows and punks who scrounged, begged and thieved for a bowl of warm pease and bacon potage this was a spread of foods beyond compare. A veritable paradise of pleasure…though for some surveying their skimpy gleanings, gaining a seat at the feast wasn’t their only concern.

One by one the line shuffled towards the finely dressed figure taking his ease on lordly seat, each member of the fraternity dropping to their knees and presenting their prizes for judgement. To complete the feudal scene a clerk stood beside Earless scribbling notations in an iron clasped, leather bound book as the offerings were displayed. Then if acceptable, Wall–eyed Willis, Nick’s master of rogues and veteran of fifty fights in the brawling pits, would wave one of his lumbering lads forward to take the prizes and convey them to the heavy iron strapped chest set against the wall. After this Earless Nick would stare at his grovelling petitioner for a few seconds in deep deliberation before waving them off to join the company at the back of the commons who’d partake of the feast.

However in the regard of Earless Nick not all gifts were so easily accepted. One lanky longbearded fellow in a ragged cloak stepped forward and presented a bundle of clothes. Earless Nick frowned at the offering and signalled for it to be shaken out by a waiting minion and sat there tapping his lip with a ring covered finger. “Tis a poor week for a hookman tis it, Dickon?”

The hookman cringed at the question, his beard almost brushing the floor. “Aye Master Nick. Tis the snow an’ cold. They’s keeps their shutters sealed up tighter than a bishops cellar!”

Earless Nick gave a wintery smile and nodded. “So Dickon, its latched and shuttered windows that is the cause of your miserable pickings. Hmm, two old cambric shirts and a worn patched set of hoses.”

Dickon the hook man quickly nodded and spluttered out agreement through quivering lips. “Aye Master Nick. Tis ta cold fo’ them ta hang ou’ their clothes an sa’ I can’t gets em.”

Earless Nick continued to smile as he buffed his silvered rings on a piece of damask cloth. “So it wasn’t you seen passing four fine shirts to Ol’ Simkins in Little Drury?”

Dickon the hookman gulped nervously as his eyes darted around the common room seeking out the informant. “Na’ it weren’t I Master Nick. Sum cuffin’s a lying rogue ta yea.”

Earless Nick’s smile broadened as he picked up a horn cup and dropped a pair of dice into it. “Well Dickon, it may be so. Indeed it may and I’s a fair master so according to custom yea can throw an let the good Lord decide your fate.”

The hookman’s hand shook as he took the proffered cup and the dice rattled like a gallows drummer. Covering the open mouth of the cup with a grimy hand Dickon gave a wheezing prayer then spilled the dice on the floor with an abrupt fling

“Hmm, that’s a poor cast Dickon, a two.” Earless fastidiously rubbed his fingers with the velvet damask and scooped up the dice, a quick swirl around the cup and they leapt out then rolled to a stop displaying a ‘nick’. Earless leant back in his chair and shook his head in mock sadness. “The Lord God has judged against yea Dickon.”

The defeated hookman grovelled at his master’s feet whimpering and pleading as two of Wall–eye’s scowling lads dragged him over to a close set pair of posts to which they tied his arms. Nick gave another brief wave and one of Dickon’s escorts began lashing his back with a length of knotted rope. In between the howls of pain Earless Nick cast a long slow look at the gathered members of his company. Then into the sobbing silence he spoke in a voice low and menacing. “No man cheats the Lord of the Liberties. Remember it.”

The assembly cheered with eager gusto flavoured by the fact that it wasn’t them getting the beating. Given the last reception to the head of the queue there was no complaint as a pair of figures pushed their way to the front, though they did garner a fair amount of whispered speculation. The woman from her worn scarlet kirtle and pulled down chemise had to be a punk. Only a lass interested in gathering ‘trade’ would expose that much pale breast on a chilly winter’s day. To the rest of the crowd it wasn’t just the recent flogging that had them pull back. With her long blonde hair and vivid green cap only the most blind of beggars wouldn’t recognise Earless Nick’s favoured girl, Anthea, leader of the St Paul’s punks. But favour was a tricky thing. It ebbed and flowed like the Thames and according to many a sage whisper, due to the recent disturbance, Anthea was dry beached on the shores of Nick’s ill content.

The Lord of the Liberties spent some time watching the play of candlelight on a recent present, a gold ring inset with a sapphire, before acknowledging her presence with a twitched finger. As for her guest, the cloaked and hooded figure, it was as if it were as insubstantial as a spirit for all the regard Nick gave it. “Anthea my poppet, I’ve missed yea these last days. I hopes yea have recompense for your previous failings…?”

The question hung in the air with a dreadful menace and the audience of the tavern swung their fascinated gaze towards the advancing punk. All were keen that someone other than them should suffer the further ill–humoured wrath of the Lord of Misrule. Anthea visibly swallowed then locked her arm around that of a hooded stranger before stepping forward into the empty space between the retreating petitioners and the Master of the Liberties. The punk captaine shook her long hair out of her eyes that glinted evilly in the reflected orange glow from the yuletide log. Several nips and foisters crossed themselves flinching as she passed, some making furtive gestures to avert ill fortune. Then at a pace’s distance with much bowing and grovelling Anthea threw herself down on her knees beside the chair of state and clutched at the hand of Earless Nick, rubbing her face on it like a fawning hound. “Nick my luv, I’s have a gift fo’ thee, a wonderful gift, the likes yea have not seen afo’. A sweet gift fo’ my sweet Lord o’ the Liberties.”

Nick turned his coldly impassive face toward his formerly favoured punk. The chilling interest reflected in his eyes would have set even the meanest wild rogue a trembling with fear. His lips stretched to the barest flicker of a smile. “And what of my gift…my sweetling?”

Anthea drew the hooded stranger forward. The visitor didn’t bow or kneel instead inclining a shrouded face towards Earless Nick and with a shielding hand began to whisper. The Lord of Misrule’s face remained blandly still though to those close enough to see, his eyes did appear to glitter from time to time with a malevolent spirit. Finally the hooded figure drew back and Earless Nick clapped his hands together like the snap of an harquebus and grinned with savage delight. “Oh Anthea you are my best lass, a true pearl beyond compare and this is a wonderful Yuletide gift payment and revenge all wrapped in one. Hah! No man cheats the Lord o’ the Liberties of his winnings and certainly not that lawyerly whelp!”

Earless Nick slammed his fist onto the table and grabbing his silver gilt cup thrust it in the air. “A toast! A toast! Raise high yer cups, cos a sennight hence Red Ned Bedwell will be swinging at Tyburn, or food for worms!”

The sack fuelled cheer echoed out the doorway into the winter snow and whispered in rumour through the Liberties. The Lord of Misrule was out for revenge.