‘I wonder, Lord,’ he whispered, ‘do forgive me yet I truly do, if this Great Miracle has anything to do with the mischief being plotted back there …’
Thomas Pynchon, linen draper par excellence, or so he styled himself, spent his last night alive feeding and rewarding those fleshy appetites so roundly condemned by the preachers whom Pynchon half-listened to during Sunday Mass as he leaned against the wall of St Mildred’s in Bread Street. The church stood close to his three-storey town house: a fair dwelling of pink and cream plaster, gleaming black timbers and glazed windows though the top ones were covered in oil-thickened linen. On that particular night, his last one on earth, Thomas Pynchon had been trying to stifle the terrors which dogged his soul during previous evenings. He waked sweat-soaked, fearful that some boneless wraith might be rising like a plume of black smoke in the corner of his bedchamber. He sat in terror wondering if the wraith had a gripping hunger, a feverish thirst for his immortal soul. During the day, busy amongst his apprentices, Pynchon would glimpse some blonde-haired, bright-eyed girl and all his fears would blossom afresh. Once again he’d wonder if some demon, some life-thief, was stalking him. Pynchon stopped on the corner of Bread Street and gazed back at the three stout mercenaries hired to guard him. He glimpsed the tavern door under which a glow of light beckoned invitingly.
‘I will take a stoup of ale,’ he called out, ‘then I will return.’ The mercenaries grunted their agreement. Pynchon slipped into the comfortable sweet-smelling taproom and made his way over to a window seat. A slattern fetched his order, a tankard of the strongest frothy ale. Pynchon took a deep sip, leaned back and sighed. Despite his terrors this had been a most enjoyable evening. He had dined sumptuously at the Full Delight, a discreet tavern for the well-to-do bachelor about town, and Pynchon was indeed a very wealthy bachelor. He had feasted on minced chicken in almond and rosemary sauce, venison steaks broiled in vinegar, red wine, ginger and a little cinnamon, followed by quiche of fish with a green topping. Delicious sweet wafers in a hippocras sauce had finished the meal before Pynchon had climbed the tavern stairs to sample the pleasures of a generously endowed, buxom chambermaid with olive skin and hair as dark as the night. Pynchon had insisted on that. He wanted no golden-haired woman with fair skin and ice-blue eyes. Such a sight would only thresh his soul with a flail of fresh terrors. It would remind him of Isolda Beaumont standing erect and proud at the bar before the King’s Bench, glaring furiously as Thomas Pynchon, foreman of the jury, solemnly pronounced the guilty verdict. Looking back, that proud face, those arrogant eyes had invoked a curse through which all the ghastly horsemen of the Apocalypse had stormed – at least in Pynchon’s mind. At the time he had been proud of what he had done. He had boasted how he’d argued with others of the jury that a unanimous guilty verdict was the only one they could reach. Afterwards he had regaled colleagues in the Guild as well as his many customers about what he had achieved. How he had been resolute as an iron gate against any plea for mercy. Indeed, as foreman of the jury, Pynchon had attended Isolda’s execution, determined that the Carnifex show no mercy and that the crowd did not hurl blocks of wood or stone to render the victim senseless. Justice had been done and that should have been the end of the matter, but not now. The mysterious Ignifer had appeared in the city dealing out terror and death to all involved in Isolda’s execution. Two of the judges and prosecutor Sutler had perished by fire, burnt to death as easily as some rubbish heap on a sweltering hot day. More recently a similar murderous attack had been mounted against Lady Anne Lesures, with whom Isolda Beaumont had publicly quarrelled. The terror was spreading. Justice Danyel and six other members of the jury had fled to the fastness of the Tower. Three others had taken sanctuary at St Paul’s. Pynchon, however, could not leave his trade nor, after his recent pronouncements, did he want to be a laughing stock dismissed as a coward. Consequently he had hired those three stout fellows and taken careful precautions in the cellar of his town house. He had proclaimed as much, openly mocking the Ignifer.
Pynchon’s eyes grew heavy. He was sleepy from all he’d eaten and drunk, not to mention his recent bed-wrestling with that spirited wench. Pynchon drained his tankard, lurched to his feet and staggered out of the tavern, helped by his retainers, as he called them.
The linen draper made his way down Bread Street past the grim huddled figures crouching there rattling clacking dishes and whining for alms. Pynchon, as always, ignored them. He found the key to his house, opened the door and stumbled in. His swaggering bullies swept through the building. They reported all was well and retreated into the warm kitchen. Pynchon opened the door to the cellar. One of the guards came up behind him and made sure his master went carefully down the steps into the passageway. Sconce torches were lit. Pynchon reached the strong room, unlocked the door and took the lanthorn the guard had hastily prepared. Pynchon slurred his goodnights then locked and bolted the door from inside. He stood and ensured the heavy lock was turned and all four bolts were pulled firmly across. He staggered across to the table, put the lantern down and sat on a stool. He wrinkled his nose at the slight smell but gazed proudly at the comfortable cot bed, its mattress and bolster stuffed with the softest flock and covered with a gold, red-spangled counterpane. He leaned across and patted the arca, the heavy iron strongbox with its three locks. All was secure here. The cellar was of good brick and hard stone; even the timbers in the ceiling had been hidden under a thick coat of cement. A grille high in the wall let in air. He sniffed and shook his head. Perhaps he should air the room better and get rid of that strange smell. Then the draper rose and undressed, staggered on to the bed and drifted off to sleep. He awoke abruptly at what sounded like a footfall in the far corner, a sound of dripping as if there was a leak. He gazed into the darkness, mouth gaping at what looked like fireflies, one after the other, falling through the darkness. He staggered from the bed, his legs becoming tangled with the blankets. There was a sound like a rushing wind and Pynchon stared in horror at the flames which seemed to leap up from the floor. He grabbed a blanket and rushed to smother the fire. He slipped on the grease-covered floor and struggled wildly to get up even as the first searing flame licked his body. Screaming, Pynchon clambered to his feet. He stumbled towards the door but he had taken the key out and the bolts were drawn fully across. Screeching in pain, Pynchon collapsed to his knees as a sheet of fire engulfed him.
Athelstan joined Cranston in Bread Street as the angelus bell rang its message. The friar had risen early to clear St Erconwald’s and ensure Merrylegs senior was laid to rest according to the rites of the Holy Mother Church. The corpse had been removed to the parish death house suitably draped with black serge. Just after dawn, the women of the family gathered to wash the cadaver with perfumed water. Afterwards they anointed it with a little balsam, placed it in a linen shroud, sheathed it in a fresh deerskin and carefully stowed it in the parish coffin draped in a black pall with a silver cross sewn in the centre. The coffin was solemnly conveyed to rest on trestles in the sanctuary. The requiem Mass was celebrated. The coffin was blessed before being carried out in solemn procession to the far corner of God’s Acre. Athelstan committed the corpse of Merrylegs senior to the ground. ‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, in joyful hope of the Resurrection.’ Athelstan performed the rites amidst gusts of incense. He was surprised at how many attended, including Fulchard of Richmond, as well as how serenely matters proceeded. Parish funerals were usually a time of chaos, the wrong grave being dug or, as the last time, Watkin had become so drunk he’d followed the coffin into the ground and had to be hauled out with ropes.