The Lord Of Misrule (24 page)

Even on London Bridge with the shelter of the buildings and the warm jostling press of daily traffic the breath of Lord Frost made the sensible and well provided huddle deeper into cloaks or fur trimmed gowns. That was when merchants thanked the saints they weren’t having to suffer the slow plodding chill of the carters and pack trains, faces reddened by the cold and hands wrapped in woollen rags as they urged their reluctant charges along with whips and foul oaths. Even in the midst of the twelve days of Christmas the needs of the city had to be met, cattle, sheep and plump capons for the market by the Newgate Shambles or sacks of corn and barley for the ever hungry brewing vats and baking ovens.

Hugh shivered in the cold and winced as he touched the bruises on his cheek. Today they needed no coloured unguents to simulate the artifice of injury or blight. While cuffs and curses were the usual lot of beggars at any time, he still hadn’t expected anything like this morning. Pushing the frightening memory aside he hobbled along the snow covered street at a fair pace. He had to get to the chantry hospice attached to Greyfriars by Newgate Wall as fast as possible. Considering how he’d gained this burdensome duty it would be best if he didn’t transverse the usual haunts of the begging fraternity. Hugh panted at the effort. He was restricted to the back ways, and what with the snow and streets blocked by broken carts, it was worse than his journey to Pissing Lane the other day.

He’d over half the city to transverse and as he’d found the other day, for all the chill of winter and the festivals of Christmas, the streets were still too crowded for easy passage. If anything the snow made the usual London congestion worse, red faced arguing carters screaming at each other over accidents, not to mention beasts suddenly expiring from the chill and extra strain. So much for an easy day of begging at St Paul’s. As if! That’d been cut short all too quickly and brutally. Hugh shrugged. He supposed it was typical during Misrule’s reign when all was topsy turvy, even beggars.

Starting all the way down by the Thames at New Fish Street hadn’t made this attempt at a hobbling sprint any easier. Curse his crutch and limp! The morning chimes had rung not long before he’d been grabbed, and he’d have to make Greyfriars Hospital afore the noon time bells rang out. Hugh shivered and not just with the cold. He’d been warned about the consequences for the failure of this assigned task. Luckily his knowledge of the small byways and crooked lanes that cut through the wards and parishes was unequalled by any of the begging fraternity which despite his infirmity made him the favoured messenger of Old Bent Bart.

Skirting the edge of Lombard Street he managed to cut up past Grocers Hall into Cheap Ward. Here it became a little trickier making him loop up towards Moregate and head west to avoid the usual cluster of watchers at Guildhall. So he was wet with chilled sweat and panting by the time he’d made it to the narrow two storey building between Greyfriars church and London Wall. Sometime in the past it’d received some donations from a queen so that Londoners deserving charity could be cared for. Hugh used to beg outside when he was young so he knew the layout well.

It cost him a tuppence bribe to get past the chantry hospital porter and a penny more to acquire a pallet at the front of the room by the door. He’d have sighed at the expense, but at least he was warmer here than his usual post by St Paul’s. All he had to do was to wait and his assigned task would be over…or so he earnestly hoped.

In the meantime Hugh made himself comfortable and sent up an almost silent but earnestly felt prayer that his newly vacant bed hadn’t been made so by the dreaded Sweats or the Plague. He felt sore and feverish as it was, but that had to be due to his recent rough visitation, didn’t it? As a distraction Hugh surveyed the rest of the room. There were some twenty beds or pallets, ten odd a side and they mostly contained only one inhabitant. Compared to the cramped quarters of his room in the ruined house opposite the Labours of Ajax which held over a dozen and where three sharing a pallet was normal, this was positively luxurious. For the first time this week he was actually warm. The fireplace at the end of the room even had a pair of timber benches for the patients to sit at. Hugh was stunned, all this for the ill. He should be half as lucky for the halt and lamed, it’d be like heaven itself.

As for the blessed denizens of this delightful place, they appeared as diverse a gathering as one would find in the less salubrious care of Newgate Goal. Several were racked by the phlegm ague that was so common this winter season. Two suffered from broken limbs since their leg or arm was strapped and splinted. Others suffered from maladies that couldn’t be readily identified but left them groaning or comatose. Surreptitiously Hugh crossed himself and made a few gestures to avert bad luck and illness. The air was thick with the slightly bitter scent of wormwood so maybe that banished the stenches that brought on sickness. Settling back into the unexpected comfort of his pallet Hugh waited and reflected over his dramatic change in fortunes over the past few days.

His most treasured memory hugged close for its warmth was still yesterday at the Bear Inn in Southwark. He’d been accorded the rank of herald and trumpeter for the retinue of his master, Old Bent Bart. It still gave him a deeply warming thrill that he, a lowly hobbling beggar, was allowed to witness the greatest meeting of the Masters of Mischief of London in decades. It had been whispered by many at the
Labours of Ajax
that this could see the crowning of the Upright Man, the absolute lord of all beggars, rogues and players of cozenage within and without the city. Common tales said that there’d been one long ago, before the time of old Henry Tudor who’d battled for the throne. Simon Clifford had been his name, a fellow so canny and skilled he could charm gold out of a Guild master’s purse. But onset of the Sweats and plagues had scythed their ranks and broken them into the many groups, now beset with rivalry and suspicion as he knew only too well. Or so their master had said.

The meeting though had been an eye opening spectacle for a lad like Hugh. Earless Nick was such a generous host full of solicitous courtesy. He imagined this was how the great lords and churchmen must act. The Lord of the Liberties had presented even lowly Hugh the sweetest wine then made the most amazing offer. Hugh still tingled to think of the opportunity it offered his master. To be acclaimed the Upright Man, a sworn compact of all the captaines, lords and masters present signed and witnessed by a legal notary! It was the stuff of tales and legends like old Thomas Crunner used to tell the children. All that was required was the successful conclusion of a certain peculiar commission. Simple really. His Master, Old Bent Bart, had been if not ecstatic at least satisfied with the results of the
Comfit of Rogues
as he’d called it. A sweet morsel it would be indeed for the winner.

Hugh though had been dizzied by the prospect. He knew he stood high in his master’s esteem. There was now a chance he’d be elevated from begging to become a personal servant to Old Bent Bart, so as the Upright Man the prestige and rewards would trickle down bountifully to the most loyal and closest.

The ringing of a small chime brought Hugh out of his happy reverie and the rest of the inhabitants of the hospice shifted with a sudden surge of energy, at least most of them. Several continued to moan or twitch locked in fever or delirium. Hugh sat up though, still clutching the thin coverlet over his legs and looked towards the entrance.

A small group came in lead by a monk in the common robes of the Greyfriars. It consisted of three men and a young girl. Hugh recognised them all and devoutly wished he didn’t. After the bald–pated monk in the grey robe the leading member of the company was tall and rangy with a puckered scar across his face that gave his features a mean and predatory cast like that of a wolf pacing out his domain. Those fierce eyes gave the assembly a long steady inspection as if weighing each one up for disposal in the Fleete Ditch. Hugh tried not to cower or cross himself. The tales of ‘Hawks’ and his bloody savagery in brawl and affray had been enough to set the younger beggars whimpering with fright. The second fellow was dressed more like a gentleman in a dark doublet and a matching heavy fur–trimmed gown. Hugh wasn’t even close to being intimidated by him, a lad of about sixteen, tallish and thin with straggly, buttery yellow hair that hung limply over the collar of his gown. If Hugh knew anything at all of the fine art of cozenage this one was the veriest cony. His washed out grey eyes and weak chin just begged to be led into a skimming game of cards and dice.

However it was the final gentleman bringing up the rear of the party that really pulled at Hugh’s attention. He was maybe a shade under six feet tall, of promising build, not as lean as ‘Hawks’ though with a good set of shoulders. Unlike the more sallow potential gaming coney, he had well combed locks of golden red hair about neck length and a spread of freckles across his face and long nose. The fine quality gown and doublet automatically had Hugh toting up a worth closer to that of the gentry. At a guess it’d be worth a few pounds. He didn’t really need the description. All the beggars of London had heard of Red Ned Bedwell and his battle in the Paris Gardens baiting pits. From the glowing tale of his feats Hugh had expected some strapping giant like the Duke of Suffolk, not this. Hugh shook his head. Old Bent Bart always said clothes gave you the measure of a man’s purse, not his worth. He found it hard though to credit that this apprentice lawyer had set such a flea in Earless Nick’s collar to have declared Bedwell the crowning prize of yesterday’s arrangement. However two of the other Masters of Mischief had been ready enough to agree to the details of the compact even with, as Hugh viewed it, a certain amount of vindictive eagerness.

It was the last member of the party that drew his real attention. She was some five foot tall and even with winter padding of velvet trimmed gown and cloak was a tasty morsel. She was wearing those fashionable pearl fringed caps he’d seen at the Guildhall pageants and looked every inch the young daughter of a prosperous merchant. No wonder those other two were playing such close attention. She’d be a fine catch for any marriage bed. A girl like that was hard to miss and Hugh had seen her around the city over the last week. It was said by the other beggars that the apprentice of Williams the apothecary was a blessing to an ill man, better than any barber surgeon or doctor of physick. By Saint Jude he’d feel enormously improved with that fair face and bosom by his bedside. Slowly the girl went from one patient to another starting on the opposite side from Hugh, so he had an excellent opportunity to watch his mark.

Now as a beggar he had picked up more than a few tricks and skills of the trade. As Old Bent Bart was wont to say, you could get all the hints you need for a successful cozenage just by watching how the cony moved and acted in company. This particular company was so packed full of moods and tension that Hugh was wishing he could pull some ploys of his own just to see which way they jumped. For instance the mousey looking gentleman in dark cloth with the watery eyes seemed to be desperately searching for a way out of the room. To make his task more challenging whenever possible he kept his distance from Bedwell and Hawks, almost treading on the hem of the apothecary’s kirtle. As for Bedwell, frequently when he thought no one was looking he’d twitch his lip in a disdainful sneer at the turned back of Hawks. The girl though, she retained most of his attention and by the acclaim of his codpiece she deserved it.

Eventually the soft swish of the kirtle stopped by his pallet and that delightful face bent down solicitously towards him. “I don’t recall you being here at my last visit. What malady ails you friend and how can we help?”

Hugh was suddenly struck with an unaccustomed bout of shame regarding his deformed limb and flushing a deep red dropped his head with an embarrassed mutter.

“Now, now friend, don’t be like that. The same lord God made us all and shared his son even with the most afflicted.”

Encouraged Hugh allowed her to view his clubbed foot gently tracing her fingers over his long time infirmity. Made bold by this solicitude Hugh tapped his nose and spoke in a low voice. “Bless y’ mistress but I’ve a message fro’ over Southwark way.”

“What is it?”

The question from the mistering angel was asked in the most normal tone of voice as if, Hugh mused, she received secret missives every day. He closed his eyes for a moment and moved his lips in silent recitation, then in what he thought a fair imitation of the original growling accent gave over the message. “Fra Southwark wards a family friend says Lord Frost’s blessing tis a fertile field ta plough ta seed o’ ta spirit.”

The face of the girl went blankly still for a moment then she nodded and bent closer whispering in his ear. “Anything else friend?”

At the warm and scented puff of her breath Hugh felt a sudden urging in his ragged codpiece and all the hairs on his neck vibrated delightfully. It took a deep calming breath for him to come back from the paradise he’d briefly visited. “Oh ahh…yea. Ahh, he also said that ye should recall Matthew fourteen, ahh seven and ahh eleven.”

Those beautiful blue grey eyes blinked at him and Hugh could have sworn he’d melted into the pallet.

“So, Matthew fourteen, seven and eleven, is that right?”

“Ahh…ahh yea.”

“Did the messenger say why?”

Hugh waggled his head to get his thinking back together. He didn’t have a clue what any of that was about. However he wasn’t a measle brained tosspot and could put a few simple facts together. His eyes quickly darted towards the approaching figure of Bedwell and he pushed himself nervously back against the wall.