The Sempster's Tale (6 page)

‘I’ll not,“ said Master Naylor. ”You’re in my charge, and I’ll keep it.“ He fixed a brief, flat stare at Frevisse that told her he held it her fault they were here at all, and added, ”Though it’s maybe best you have your business done, and we go back as soon as may be.“

Frevisse suspected he did not mean merely to St. Helen’s but right away back to St. Frideswide’s, but she only said evenly and to Dame Juliana, “We’ll look at goods today but probably not buy. If I remember rightly, there are a great many drapers shops on Lombard Street. My thought is to see what they have on offer and then go on to the stationer shops in Paternoster Row where they’ll have whatever’s new in the way of books. Coming back through Cornhill into Bishops-gate, we can look in on more drapers if we’re not too tired by then.”

Dame Juliana was willing to all that, and they turned right into Lombard Street. Frevisse had last been here years ago but it was still mostly a street of drapers, their shops’ wide fronts open to the street, their half-timbered homes rising over them as much as four storeys tall, with timbers deeply carved into patterns of vines and fantastical animals and galloping knights, and the housefronts painted most colors that could be thought of, ranging from deep cream to cheerful scarlet. It made a brave show, and the busyness of people all along and back and forth across it only added to the pleasure of going from shop to shop, where cloths of every common kind and color were laid out on the forward shopboards, while inside on tables or else draped over wallpoles were the more costly kinds—the silks and velvets and damasks—while those drapers who dealt in the most costly cloths—the camelines, tartaires, marbrinus, and cloths of gold—would have them safe-kept in rear rooms, to be shown only to those able to buy them.

Even so, there were cloths displayed that would make a lady’s single gown worth more than all the gowns a nun might wear in her lifetime, and though Frevisse and Dame Juliana looked from outside, Dame Juliana making soft exclaims of pleasure, neither of them went in for nearer looks but were content with looking at and judging what was offered at the front of the shops. But even looking only at black cloth left them too much to see, too many choices to consider. Coarse-woven, fine-woven, deep-dyed or not. And could enough yards be supplied by one draper? Would there be advantage offered for buying in such quantity? Did the draper pack purchased cloth for travel, or would that be Master Naylor’s problem?

Dame Juliana soon understood that London merchants were hardly different from those of Banbury she often dealt with on the nunnery’s behalf, and she happily took over the questioning and judging and bargaining. Frevisse as happily let her, knowing herself not so skilled that way, but after half a dozen shops, even Dame Juliana was tiring and said, “Thank St. Frideswide we don’t have to make up our minds today. Shall we go look at books a while?”

Frevisse was willing to that but said, “The stationers are mostly gathered into Paternoster Row beside St. Paul’s and that’s somewhat of a walk from here.”

‘I’d not mind seeing the cathedral,“ Dame Juliana answered, and onward they went, crossing the Stocks Market into wide Cheapside. Here were a great many goldsmiths, and Dame Juliana’s staring at the gleaming displays of jewelry and plate slowed their going. Halfway along the street, standing in the middle of the way, was the narrow stone tower of the Standard, the grandest of London’s public conduits for water piped into the city free for the taking by anyone. Farther along was the high Eleanor Cross, likewise in the middle of the street, rich with carved stonework and painted statues; but by then St. Paul cathedral’s tower and spire—last seen clearly as they came down the Thames— were reared into view, unbelievable against the sky, drawing the eye from any lesser thing, and the four of them went aside, into the lee of a housefront, to stare their fill, Frevisse and Master Naylor, who had seen it this close before now, no less than Dame Juliana and Dickon. ”More than five hundred feet tall, not counting the golden cockerel at its top,“ Master Naylor said.

‘But we’ll save going inside for another day,“ said Frevisse. ”After we’ve tended to our other purposes.“

‘So that we can spend a whole day in it if we want,“ Dame Juliana agreed, but went on staring as they curved along the long north side of St. Paul’s churchyard toward Paternoster Row. From that near, the cathedral was like a great stone cliff, fretted with buttresses and pinnacles and stone-traceried windows, towering over even the towers and spires of the very many London churches everywhere thrusting up above lesser rooftops.

Once into narrow Paternoster Row, though, it was the stationers’ shops that took Frevisse’s and Dame Juliana’s heed. Here was the heart of London’s book-trade. Paper-sellers, scriveners, illuminators, bookbinders, and booksellers all existed together in mutual use to one another and their customers. Books of every sort were to be had, from theology in dark, dense lines of careful script—Frevisse spared a moment’s pity for the scribes who had to copy out those works—to any of Chaucer’s lightsome tales, either together or singly, depending on the buyer’s preference or purse, because books could be bought bound—in full, hardboarded, leather-wrapped covers or simply stitched into parchment or heavier paper—or unbound, if that should be the buyer’s pleasure.

To St. Frideswide’s need, that latter would be the best. Books were less costly that way and would save Dame Perpetua the work of unstitching from any cover. But that was the simplest choice Frevisse and Dame Perpetua had to make. By various borrowings from their prioress’ brother, an abbot, the priory had a sufficiency of devout works from which to copy. “Something lesser and lighter,” Domina Elisabeth had said. “But not too profane,” she had added, and after a happy time in one shop and another, their choice was come down to a small abece of children’s learning-rhymes for certain and an uncertainty between a
Siege of Troy
newly translated from the French, a collection of Aesop’s fables, and a lengthy Life of St. Katherine. “By that very learned Augustinian canon John Capgrave,” Master Colop the bookseller at the sign of the Gilded Quill was telling Dame Juliana in one part of the shop while Frevisse lingered at the front over a copy of Thomas Hoccleve’s
Regiment of Princes.
There was a directness and clarity of thought to Hoccleve’s verse that drew her, and under her breath she read:

“That gift of peace, that precious jewel,

If men it keep and throw it not away,

Sons of Christ they may be named full well…

There is no doubt that ambition

And greed fire all this debate…

Though a man be great, yet higher would he go;

And these are causes of our strife and woe.“

But it was a long work and beyond the priory’s purse and purpose, she feared and moved regretfully away from it.

‘A holy story by a well-respected man,“ Master Colop was saying, still extolling Capgrave’s St. Katherine.

A holy story, Frevisse thought wryly, of a girl defying in usually very rude terms her parents, an emperor, and several score of philosophers before going, still scornful but triumphant, to her martyrdom. It was a goodly blend of piety and daring ever widely loved and, she thought, reading some of Dom Capgrave’s prose past Dame Juliana’s shoulder, well-told here.

The Gilded Quill had choice enough, and Master Colop’s prices were none so bad, that they told him they would consider and decide and probably be back. Then, with nothing purchased but much learned, they rejoined Master Naylor and Dickon, who had been waiting in the street with at least outward patience, and started back toward St. Helen’s. Passing St. Paul’s yard again, they saw a crowd was gathered into the corner made by the meeting of the cathedral’s transept and choir, and Frevisse said, “There must be someone preaching.”

‘Preaching?“ Dame Juliana asked.

‘At St. Paul’s Cross there,“ Frevisse said. ”Anyone with words to say to Londoners at large can speak or preach from there.“

‘So long as what he has to say is not treasonous, heretical, or likely to rouse the crowd to riot,“ said Master Naylor, sounding as if he expected all of them at once and immediately.

The man there now, standing in the pulpit at the top of ten stone steps that put him well over the heads of the gathering of perhaps two dozen people, looked to be a Franciscan friar, which would be usual enough. The grey-robed Franciscans were given to public preaching, and their great London house of Grey Friars was not far beyond St. Paul’s, toward Newgate. Although this man’s voice carried over even London’s street noise, Frevisse—following Dame Juliana toward him—could not make out his words for certain until nearly to the rear edge of the crowd, and by then Master Naylor could hear them, too, and said, like giving a curse, “Lollards. He’s talking about Lollards.” Heretics who claimed that by reading the Bible for themselves they were as able as long-studying churchly scholars to determine the meaning of God’s word, and that therefore the Bible should be allowed to them in English. More than once they had brought their disagreement against the Church and royal government to such a pitch they had risen in armed revolt, attempting to force their will and ways upon everyone, so that they were a peril to men’s bodies as well as to their souls.

‘… damned to Hell’s eternal fires,“ the friar’s voice rang out, ”unless they can be brought to repent of their sins, but for most of them that will come only under the weight of the Church’s hand pressing down on their heretical hearts!“

‘Oh,“ said Dame Juliana, drawing back a step in disappointment. ”I don’t want to hear about Lollards and damnation today.“

Besides that, she looked beginning to droop with a weariness that Frevisse would soon share, and they left the friar to his preaching and took the first chance that came, on a bench under a beech tree in a churchyard not much farther along Cheapside, to sit down out of the hurry of the street. Hungry now that she took time to think about
it,
Frevisse gave Master Naylor coins, and he and Dickon went away to a nearby food stall and soon came back with savory-smelling pork pies and a leather bottle of ale that Master Naylor poured into pottery cups, complaining as he did, “I had to give the man a ha’penny more as promise I’d bring back the bottle and cups. I warrant I’ll
get
no more than a farthing in return when I do.”

His voice was stiff with something beyond ordinary complaint, though, and Frevisse—having already found that the pie tasted as savoury as it smelled—saw his face was creased with more than its usual share of worry. Even Dickon was gone intent, and she asked, “What is it?”

‘Those Kentish rebels,“ Master Naylor said grimly. ”There was a man at the stall saying he’s heard they’ve come back to Black Heath. That’s the other side of the Thames and about ten miles away, so that’s no worry.“ Which would have been to the good if Master Naylor had not, nonetheless, sounded worried. ”Still, we’re maybe best to have you back into St. Helen’s quick as might be. To leave me free to find out better what I can about what’s happening and being said. I don’t like that they’ve come back even that far off.“

Nor did Frevisse. For rebels to turn in their tracks and come back argued a lack of fear of king and nobles that was not comfortable to think on.

Master Naylor turned his head. “Listen. Word’s spreading.”

There were indeed voices rising in the street beyond the low churchyard wall, and the flow and come and go of folk in the street was changing into clots and gatherings of men and women talking hard together with gestures and alarm. Frevisse brushed crumbs from her skirts and took the filled cup Dickon was holding out to her. “I think you’re right, Master Naylor,” she said. “We’ll do well to go back to St. Helen’s as quickly as may be.”

Chapter 4

Because Bette’s bad hip was playing up, this Monday’s buying fell to Anne, who did not go out to it until late morning, intent until then on laying the ground for St. Mark’s lion with a brick-stitch in green silk. “Bread,” Bette said, handing her the deep, tightly woven market basket. “If that fellow of yours is going to be here, a chicken, too, maybe? Plucked, mind you. The day is gone far enough, I won’t have time for plucking a chicken if you want it for your supper. Or eels if you happen on any that look good. I could do an eel pie, if you think he’d favor that. And apples if you see any. I could do an apple tart.”

Anne went out smiling at Bette’s willingness to cook for Daved. A tailor who had come courting Anne soon after Matthew’s death had been given not-quite-stale biscuits on his visits, and Anne had not chided her for it, as willing as Bette to discourage the man’s interest. Now, even without the hope of Daved’s visits, she would have been loathe to give up her single life; but she did have Daved’s visits, and he had promised when he left her Saturday before dawn that he would come again on Monday.