SIXTEEN
I knew that for my past sins I was going down to Hell. The only thing that surprised me was that it should be so wet. Fire and brimstone I would have expected, but who could have supposed that the road to the nether world would be by water?
My head was throbbing and I had not yet dared to open my eyes. Lights — very bright lights — flashed across the inside of my lids, and there was a humming in my ears that sounded louder than a swarm of bees. But I could also hear people shouting, distant cries which I presumed came from other unfortunates like myself who were on their way to the realm of Old Nick. I reproached myself bitterly for not having lived a more blameless life. The shades of Juliette Gerrish and Eloise Gray haunted me, together with all the other women I had lusted after. .
I was sinking lower. Water closed over my head and I swallowed a mouthful of something that smelled disgustingly of public latrines or the night-soil carts that rumbled about the city in the early morning. At the same time, a voice echoed somewhere in the depths of my mind, ‘I know who you’m talking about. I’ve seed her once or twice lately. Don’t know who she is. .’ I wanted to protest that this statement was untrue; that I had just seen the speaker, Etheldreda Simpkins, and Amphillis Hill talking together in the Boar’s Head in East Cheap as though they were old friends. I took another mouthful of water. An oar smacked me smartly on one ear — and suddenly I was fully conscious, horribly aware that I was struggling for my life in the River Thames.
I trod water as hard as I could while trying to get my bearings. A swift glance over my shoulder just before I went under again, informed me that I was not far from the bank, but I knew from experience that many of the boats and barges rowed dangerously close to the shore. Moreover, I had briefly recognized the great bastion of the steelyard where the Hanseatic merchants plied their trade; where vessels containing cargoes of timber and oil and pitch tied up ready to be unloaded, before being reloaded again with bales of the broadcloth that the Germans exported to all the markets of eastern Europe. And to the west of the steelyard was Three Cranes Wharf belonging to the vintners of the city, where ships from Bordeaux berthed.
My brain still wasn’t functioning properly, but the instinct for danger is one of the strongest we have and I knew that I was in trouble. How I came to be in the Thames and why my head hurt so much were problems that would have to wait for a solution at a later time. For the moment, all my energy was concentrated on keeping myself afloat and trying desperately to avoid the water traffic all around me. I tried shouting, but in the general din my voice was lost. I tried waving, but no one noticed me (hardly surprising I suppose as half the time I was being sucked under by the wake of whatever was passing closest to me). I tried catching at oars as they flashed by me, but my strength was ebbing rapidly and I wasn’t quick enough. Only sheer desperation and the determination to survive preserved me from simply giving up and letting the water take me. Heaven knew, I was tired enough for it to begin to seem like an attractive proposition. My mind was starting to cloud over again and reality and fantasy were becoming one. Sometimes I was at home with Adela and the children, at others in some church with steps leading down into a crypt. But whether it was St Giles in Bristol or somewhere in London, I really couldn’t tell. And what was more, I really didn’t care. .
‘Fer the sweet Lord’s sake, grab ’old of the bloody oar,’ screamed a voice from above me.
I must have obeyed this injunction because the next thing I knew I was sprawled anyhow in the bottom of a rowing boat while a vaguely familiar face hovered between me and the sky.
‘God save us! I thought it were you, lad,’ said a voice from the past. ‘What you up to now, then, eh? Poking yer nose into other people’s business, I daresay. Lie still or you’ll upset the fuckin’ boat. I’ll take you ’ome to Southwark and get you dry.’
Bertha Mendip! I recognized the West Country burr which, in spite of all her years in the capital, she had never quite lost. I had first met her twelve years earlier during my very first visit to London when I was enquiring into the disappearance of Clement Weaver, and then again some six years or so later. She had her home amongst the beggars and criminals of the Southwark stews, making a living by dragging dead bodies out of the Thames and selling the corpses’ clothes, plus any other trinkets they might have had about their persons.
From what I could see, she looked much the same; a woman who had appeared old before she was thirty, but who seemed to have aged very little since, although the unkempt hair which straggled about her skinny shoulders had, when I first knew her, been a dark chestnut-brown. Now it was completely grey and, in places, turning white. But her eyes were just the same, a brilliant blue and still full of eagerness and life.
I smiled at her foolishly, too tired even to make the effort to speak, but I think I must have mouthed the word, ‘Bertha,’ because she nodded and gave a gap-toothed grin.
‘Tha’s right, lad. Jus’ lie still and don’ try talkin‘. I’ll soon ’ave you right as rain again when I get you back to Angel Wharf.’
At least, I presume that’s what she said because the last part of the sentence was lost as I either fell asleep or fainted.
Now I knew I really was in Hell. I could feel the heat of the fire as it warmed and dried out my shivering body. But it wasn’t unpleasant; indeed, quite the opposite. Perhaps the nether world wasn’t as bad as it was painted. .
‘Comin’ round then, are we?’ There was a cackle of laughter.
I was suddenly fully conscious and in command of all my faculties. I remembered everything that had happened to me: St Etheldreda’s Church, the crypt, the lower chamber, being hit over the head and, finally, my rescue by Bertha Mendip. I opened my eyes and immediately recognized her hut on Angel Wharf with its smell of drying clothes which had been too long immersed in water and in contact with decaying flesh. They hung from poles at one end of the single room, while smoke from the fire disappeared through a blackened hole in the roof. My own decent hose and tunic were being held in front of the blaze by Bertha herself and a scrap of a girl who looked no more than about ten years of age, but who, I guessed, was probably some years older than that. I realized also that I was naked — who had undressed me didn’t bear thinking about — and that I was wrapped in a filthy old blanket which was almost certainly verminous.
‘Where’s your son?’ I croaked, saying the first thing that entered my head.
There was another cackle. ‘Lord love you, ’e’s long gone. ’Opped it the moment ’e were old enough t’ do without me. Got in with a gang o’ cutpurses working’ the city. Never seen ’im from that day t’ this. Thirsty?’
I was suddenly conscious of a raging thirst, but Bertha didn’t wait for my answer. She put down my tunic and vanished outside the hut, returning after a while with a beaker of ale which at first I sipped cautiously. But to my great surprise it tasted wonderful. Bertha picked up my tunic again and resumed her station by the fire.
‘This is good stuff, this is,’ she remarked over her shoulder. ‘Gen’leman’s stuff. ’Ow d’you come by it?’
‘It was a present,’ I answered shortly.
There was an explosion of mirth. ‘From a woman, I’ll be bound!’ I didn’t disillusion her. She went on, ‘So what ’appened? ’Ow you come t’ be in the water?’
‘Someone hit me over the back of the head. But not hard enough, I fancy. I suspect I’m supposed to be dead by now. But how I came to be in the river is more than I can fathom.’
Bertha half-turned and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘There’s a drain thereabouts,’ she said, ‘what empties into the Thames. Years gone, when I first come to Lunnon, someone told me it were a stream what had been built over, but stills runs underground.’
The Wallbrook! I had a sudden vision of the semicircular aperture I had noticed on my first visit to the chamber below St Etheldreda’s crypt. It must be a secondary pipe which connected to the main culvert. .