Remembering these things also prompted recollection of the Weavers, to whom, I must admit, I had given little thought in the intervening months. The episode now seemed dreamlike and distant, something which had happened a very long time ago and to another person. I recalled guiltily my promise to the Alderman to make inquiries concerning his son when I reached London; but somehow, although the capital still beckoned, and remained my goal, I had not yet reached there. However, it was my avowed intention to go when I left Canterbury; but whether, on arrival, I should keep my word and search for Clement Weaver was a different matter. It now seemed not only impossible, but fruitless; a waste of time which I could ill afford. It was ten months since his disappearance, and in any case, what was there to find out which had not been discovered already? The more I thought about it, the more foolish seemed my promise to his father. I was sure that after this lapse of time, the Alderman would absolve me.
The woman beside me had risen from her knees and was making preparations to leave, motioning to her attendant as she did so. The girl caught my eye, pulling down the corners of her mouth in a comic grimace of resignation, indicating that her mistress was not the easiest of people to deal with. Indeed, the woman was fussing peevishly with the folds of her gown, smoothing and arranging them with uneasy, fluttering hands, before joining the throng of other pilgrims making their way out of the choir. The girl, following obediently, turned to smile at me across her shoulder, then was swallowed up by the press. She left me with the impression of a tip-tilted nose, bright blue eyes fringed with jet-black lashes, and dark, curling hair, judging by the tendrils which strayed from beneath her hood. Her skin was pale, made even more pallid by the black clothes she was wearing. Her demeanour suggested natural high spirits with difficulty suppressed, and there had been more than a hint of invitation in her manner. A pity, I reflected, that I would be unable to take advantage of it, as we were unlikely to meet again. I knew neither her name nor that of her mistress, nor where they lived. Besides, I had my living to make and I must start knocking on doors.
There were rich pickings to be had in Canterbury, where the constant influx of pilgrims from all parts of the country meant an unceasing flow of money into the pockets of its citizens. It had more taverns and cookshops than any other town of its size that I had passed through. And more trouble, too: the streets were rarely quiet. There were frequent disputes between the clerical and secular interests of the town; between Mayor and Archbishop, layman and priest. They quarrelled over water rights, the fishmarket, and whose authority it was to arrest wrongdoers; over ecclesiastical immunities and restraints of trade. It was nothing to see several brawls a day in the Canterbury streets, and it was not always simply fists which were used. I had been there less than a week, and already I had seen daggers drawn on more than one occasion. But then, the English have always been anti-clerical in their attitudes. They have always resented the power of Rome.
Before leaving the cathedral, I returned once again to St Thomas’s tomb, kneeling before it in prayer. I meant to seek his intercession with the Heavenly Father for abandoning my religious life, but somehow, the words would not come. I was not truly contrite. Instead, I found myself wondering what it was like to have been dead for hundreds of years, while the flesh, the only house my soul knew, rotted from my bones. I remember folding my arms around my body, seeking the solid reassurance of skin and bone. I thought of lying in the cold earth while the centuries spun by above my head, but my imagination was unable to encompass it; that drift of years, weaving its ever-changing patterns, while I, once so alive, crumbled into dust…
Like a dog shaking water from its back, I shook off my gloomy thoughts and emerged some minutes later into the bustling streets and the fragile, crystalline beauty of the autumn day. The sky was a delicate blue, rinsed at the edges to a soft, pale green, and the September sunlight was warm on my back. I was alive and young. My life stretched before me. That was all that mattered.
I met the girl again the following day.
I had done well that morning, selling needles, thread, ribbons and a length of sarsanet, which I had picked up cheap in Southampton market, for nearly twice what I had paid for it. It was gone dinner-time and I was hungry, so I bought two meat pies from a cookshop and took them down to the banks of the Stour. I ate ravenously, wishing that I had treated myself to a third, then filled my leather bottle from the river, washing the food down with clear, cool water; Adam’s ale, and on some occasions nearly as satisfying as the proper thing.
It was quieter outside the city walls, and I had chosen a secluded spot beneath some overhanging willows. Sunlight sparkled on the water and everywhere there was the sharp, dank smell of early autumn. A faint breeze rippled the grasses silver and green, and from where I sat, I could see the track leading to the West Gate. While I watched, two horsemen passed, their mounts blowing gustily through flaring nostrils, sweating hides glittering like polished metal, raking at the bits as they were reined in to a walk for their approach to the city. But that was the only sign of life that I saw for quite some time, and I began to nod. For the past few nights, since coming to Canterbury, I had slept in the dormitory of the Eastbridge Hospital, but my fellow guests had not made good bedmates. There was the inevitable snoring and wheezing one got in such places, but one man also suffered from a most distressing cough. No sooner, it seemed, had I dropped off to sleep, than he began hacking again, with a persistence that woke the rest of the room and sent one or two sleepless souls into a positive frenzy. Last night it had only been through my intervention that the poor man was saved from a beating. So, what with one thing and another, today I was tired, and before I knew what was happening, had begun to doze…
I was awakened by a hand on my shoulder and started upright, feeling very foolish. I felt even more foolish when I saw who it was: the young girl I had seen in the cathedral. I had thought her pretty yesterday, but this afternoon, without her mourning and dressed in a gown of home-dyed blue bysine, she looked even prettier. The colour of the dress enhanced the blue of her eyes, and she had dragged off her hood to reveal a profusion of hair at once darker and curlier than I had imagined it.
The hood lay in her basket, along with flowers she had been gathering. These included the feathery, flat-topped heads of fleabane, and a quantity of the plant known as Ladies’ Bedstraw, the bunched yellow heads clinging tightly to the long, pale stems. I remembered my mother collecting the self-same plants; the first, burnt, gave off an acrid smoke which was death to fleas; the second she would boil, using the flowers to make dye, and extracting a substance from the stalks and leaves which could be used as a substitute for rennet.
The girl sat down beside me and took off her shoes and stockings, dipping her toes into the water. ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she breathed after a moment, turning to smile provocatively in my direction. ‘My feet are so hot and tired.’
‘It’s a warm day,’ I said feebly, not knowing what other answer to make. I was not used to girls taking off their clothes in front of me, and found to my dismay that I was blushing.
She saw it too, and gave a little crow of delight. ‘I do believe you’re embarrassed, a great, well-set-up lad like you! Haven’t you ever had a sweetheart?’ She put her head on one side, consideringly. ‘No, I don’t believe you have.’ She added, with a frankness which took my breath away: ‘You don’t like boys, do you? Instead of girls, I mean.’
‘N-no, of course not! ‘ I stammered hotly. I knew that such practices existed: they had existed among the monks, at Glastonbury, even though they were anathema to the Church and the punishment for sodomy was death. (A great deal was overlooked by the Superiors of enclosed orders; whether wisely or not, who can tell? I am certainly not fit to sit in judgement.) No, it was not this which shocked me, but the revelation that a woman — and so young a woman — knew about these things and was, moreover, prepared to discuss them openly.