The Cross of Lead Page 9

  He looked at me curiously. “You’re right,” he said with a rueful smile, and commenced to teach me that as well.

  At two places where we performed, we learned more of the search for me. Though we discovered nothing new, it meant that they were still looking.

  One night, just before he lay back to sleep, Bear said, “Crispin, tomorrow we’ll enter Great Wexly.”

  “What will happen there?” I said.

  “Only God in his Heaven knows,” he replied. “But,” he added, “if you pray tonight, Crispin, not know first.”

  That put me in mind of the images of the demons in the church at Lodgecot. “Bear,” I asked, “what do you think the Devil looks like?”

  “I suppose the Devil has as many faces as there are sins. At the moment however, I think of him as Lord Furnival.”

  “Why him?”

  “So much of the land we’ve passed through—and the misery—belongs to him. He treats his people badly.”

  “Bear, you … you won’t betray me … will you?

  He gave me an angry look. “How can you even ask?”

  “Forgive me,” I said. “But… it has happened.”

  “And do you think I will?”

  “I … don’t want it.”

  Frowning, he considered me for a while. “Crispin,” he said, “you must know I care for you. Perhaps you remind me of what I once was. And as the Devil knows all too well, liking goes many leagues with me. True, you’re as ignorant as a turnip—or perhaps a cabbage—but you’ve a heart of oak, small acorn though you are.

  “What say you to becoming my apprentice? I’ll teach you as much as I know, the juggling, singing, and dance. The music making. I’ll be your teacher, not your master. Would you care for that?”

  “Very much,” I said, barely able to speak.

  He extended his great hand to me. I grasped it. “Then it is done,” he said. “You are henceforward my true apprentice.”

  Then he lay down and went to sleep.

  I could not.

  Though I was excited by Bear’s promise, I was very nervous. Should I or should I not trust him?

  I fumbled for my cross and was about to pray for guidance, but found myself pausing. I had already asked God for much, and he had given in abundance. Perhaps it was time for me to make the decision for myself.

  With that thought I put the cross away and took a deep breath. I would trust Bear. The decision would be mine and mine alone. But I would stay alert for all that might yet come.

  That decision made, I lay down and stared at the stars until I fell asleep.

  33

  WE SET OUT EARLY THE NEXT day beneath gray skies and scudding clouds. The road was muddy, the air moist and cloying. I was very anxious. Though Bear tried to wear his customary cheerful face, I sensed that there was unease on his part, too. Of this, however, he gave no voice.

  At first we traveled, as we usually did, alone. By midday, however, people began to join us on the narrow road. As we drew closer to Great Wexly their numbers increased.

  To see so many added to my disquiet. Bear, who had come to know my humors well, worked hard to calm me. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “You’ll be safe. In the name of Jesus, I’ll see to that.”

  As the road began to widen, it became more and more crowded. Knowing how ignorant I was of everything, Bear tried to explain some of what we passed.

  “That one is a pilgrim,” he said, pointing to a man walking very slowly, his head down. “Notice his gray robes, as well as the heavy metal cross around his neck. With his hood up and his eyes cast upon the ground, he’s surely reflecting on his many sins. From the look of it he’ll probably need to go all the way to Avignon to see the Pope in his French palace or perhaps go as far as Jerusalem.”

  A closed wagon came by, its wheels rimmed with iron, something I’d never seen before and marveled at. Pulled by large horses, it was surrounded by a group of men armed with glaives. The wagon, Bear assured me, contained, “some rich lady, in search of a wayward husband.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m only guessing.”

  “Could it be a rich man?”

  “It could,” he said with a laugh. “And he looking for a wayward wife.”

  There were many peasants with baskets and sacks upon their backs. One woman I saw bore two buckets, each one dangling from a shaft, the shaft balanced on her shoulders. Some folk walked beside their wagons. Others pulled them. Children were equally engaged.

  Bear pointed out London, Flemish, and Italian merchants, identifying them by their particular garb or badges. There were also a great variety of priests, nuns, and monks.

  One monk wore the black robes of the Benedictine order. A Dominican—"They preach well"—was in white. Still another was in rough brown robes and sandaled feet. “He’s a begging friar of the Franciscan rule,” Bear said. “They take their sacred vows of poverty to heart. May God always look kindly on him and his kind.”

  He made me give the friar a penny.

  Some officials were, he said, from the county. One or two, on horseback, he claimed had come from the royal court in Westminster, close to London.

  “Have you been there?” I asked.

  “I have,” he said, as if it were a common thing.

  There were tradesmen, traders, tinkers, masons, and carpenters, hauling goods of one kind or another.

  Bear indicated a doctor, a lawyer, and an apothecary. One man, astride a great horse was, he said, a tax collector. He was closely guarded by armed men. Just to see him made Bear irate.

  By the roadside were scores of people crying goods for sale or trade. Their offerings were laid out in stalls, low tables, on pieces of cloth, even on the ground. For the most part they were dressed more poorly than others I had seen.

  Once a troop of helmeted soldiers passed us by. They were chanting raucously, pushing people aside as they came. In their hands were long yew bows. Quivers of arrows were on their backs.

  Aside from the sheer numbers of people, what struck me most were the many ways people dressed, along with the great variety of colors to their clothing, colors I had never seen before, nor could even name. It was as if rainbows had come to earth, draped themselves on these folk, and paraded along the road. I soon realized it was not just words I had to learn to read, but what people wore as well.

  “The town will be crowded,” Bear said. “You’ll see. People come from great distances.” He seemed pleased.

  Though all but overwhelmed by what I saw, I was fascinated. To be sure, I stayed close to Bear as he strode forward with his great swagger. When people saw him coming they hastily stepped aside, gazing at him in awe once he went by. It made me feel proud. And safe.

  But now the market town of Great Wexly loomed before us, as if it had sprung from the ground. Its brown stone walls were immense, stretching away for as far as I could see.

  “Where do those walls go?” I asked, for I had never seen anything so vast.

  “They surround the town in a great circle,” Bear said.

  “Why a circle?”

  “To keep all enemies out.” Then after a pause he added, “And in.”

  Above the walls I observed spires—some with crosses—from which hung a host of multicolored pennants tossed and turned by breezes. It may seem odd, but it made me think the town had long hair, and each strand blown by wind was yet another color. I saw many housetops, too. It all seemed immeasurable.

  By now the people upon the road had swollen to such great numbers, the press became intense. A constant clamor filled the air. I kept turning about, trying to see and hear the all of it, asking Bear what this or that might be. But he, no longer of a mind to answer my endless questions, strode on silently. I found myself reaching out to touch him, lest I fall behind.

  As we drew closer to the walls, people began to squeeze together tightly. I wondered why, until I saw the town’s entryway before us. Built into the great wall, it was a deep tunnel that revealed just ho
w thick the walls were.

  “The Bishop’s Gate,” Bear said.

  This entryway consisted of two massive black wooden doors, each one studded with iron bolts. The doors had been swung open and pushed back against the walls. Behind them, a portcullis had been raised halfway up, looking like teeth prepared to bite.

  Above the entryway was a design with markings on it that looked like a shield. Black cloth was wrapped around it. Bear was gazing at it intently, but when I started to ask him what it meant, I realized he’d shifted his gaze to the gate.

  I followed his look. Soldiers, their chests covered with iron plates, were guarding the entry-way. Pointed metal helmets were on their heads. Tall glaives were in their hands, swords at their sides, daggers on their hips. Atop the walls were other guards. What’s more, the soldiers were allowing only a few people in at a time.

  Remembering the men at the bridge, I grew alarmed. “I think,” I whispered, my mouth dry, “they’re looking for someone.”

  34

  BEAR PUT A HAND ON MY shoulder. “Crispin,” he said softly, “try to show less worry. The worst disguise is fear.”

  “What if they stop me?”

  “I don’t think they will. But if they do, always remember what I told you; run away. Head into a crowd. Your size will hide you.”

  Watching intensely, I saw that those trying to get into the town had formed two lines, which pressed through a gauntlet of soldiers. As we slowly made our way forward, I could feel myself becoming increasingly timorous.

  “Here’s a better way,” Bear said into my ear. “When I tell you to—when we’re close to the gate—start playing the pipe. I’ll dance.”

  “But won’t that make them pay more attention?” I said.

  “Do as I say,” he said, but in so tense a fashion I dared not question him.

  Instead, we edged along. Just as we approached the gate—and the soldiers—Bear said, “Begin.”

  I hastily made the sign of the cross over my heart, called on Saint Giles to protect me, and with trembling fingers took up the recorder and began to play. Bear began to beat his drum and dance. People turned to look. There were smiles on their faces, and from some, applause. That included the soldiers.

  We fairly well danced our way up to the gate and through the town walls with not so much as an unkind look from anyone.

  “Well done,” said Bear with a palpable sigh of relief as we entered Great Wexly itself.

  If I had been amazed by what I’d seen on the road, I was more astonished once within Great Wexly. For we had hardly passed through the gate, when I saw more people—men, women, and children—in that one moment than I had seen in all my life together. Just the din that burst upon my ears was beyond belief. People were shouting, calling, arguing, laughing, selling their wares to any and all from where they stood. Wandering water carriers were proclaiming what they sold. So were those who offered apples, lavender, or ribbons.

  It was hard to know who was talking to whom. It all appeared to my eyes and ears like a flock of crows screaming at one another in a crowded field of new-threshed wheat.

  No, it was more like a dense forest, not of trees, but people. For we could not walk straight, but had to weave our way along, constantly bumping, banging into others.

  In Stromford Village you could not pass anyone without knowing them and receiving some nod of greeting, perhaps a grunted word or two. Even I received such notice. There, strangers were as rare as shooting stars, and just as portentous. But though Bear and I were strangers to Great Wexly—and I a wolf’s head—no one seemed to care, though they did glance at Bear, if only on account of his size.

  Still, what assaulted my senses more than anything—aside from the sheer numbers of people of all ages and the ensuing cacophony—was the stench that filled the air: rotting goods, food, dung, manure, human slop, and swill, mixed together into such a ghastly brew as to make me want to swoon.

  In my village, refuse was heaved behind our houses. In Great Wexly, foulness lay on the wide road where we walked. This road was no longer dirt and mud, but laid out in stone. A filth-filled gutter—like an open gut—ran down its middle. Even as we passed, I saw house shutters opened and muck heaved out on the street, sometimes dousing passersby, to the hilarity of those watching, arousing fury from the victims.

  Nor was it only people I saw, but animals: pigs, chickens, geese, dogs—and rats—all of which scurried among the crowds with as little thought to people as the people seemed to give to them.

  Pressing in on the crowded, narrow streets were looming walls of close-built buildings, structures two, sometimes three, stories high, with slate, not thatch, roofs. These houses were, for the most part, built of timber beams with pale mortar filling in between the wood. Here and there stood stone buildings of even grander proportions. Many houses had their upper stories built so that they extended over the narrow streets, blotting out the sky.

  The houses had countless windows, mostly with shutters but some with glass, more than I had ever seen before. As for doors, I did not think the world had so many. These people, I thought, must live their lives by little more than entries and exits.

  And again, on many places there was black cloth draped with intertwining ribbons of blue and gold. I asked Bear what it meant.

  This time he replied, “Someone important has died.”

  From numerous buildings hung great wooden images of things: a pig here, a helmet there, a fish, a jacket, a hoop, even a sheaf of wheat. These—as I was to discover—were emblems to inform passersby of the nature of the business or goods made or sold therein. Tradesmen simply lowered their shutters onto the streets, making a kind of shelf from which they marketed their goods. As for sleeping and eating, people did that in the second-or third-floor solars.

  There was so much to see, I barely looked at one thing but felt compelled to look at yet another. Indeed, there were so many objects to look at that if I had had ten eyes I could not have seen them all. It made my head ache.

  More than once Bear had to haul me in, or yell, for, dumbfounded by what I saw, I would halt in my tracks and stand in danger of being knocked down and trampled by the swarming people. For instance, I saw a bakery that sold bread that was swan white, something I had never seen before. And meat. I swear, by Jesus’name, there was more meat than the whole kingdom could consume. I had always known that Stromford Village had little enough to eat, but assumed it was no different from the rest of the world. Now I discovered how poor my village was.

  On and on we went, until Bear unexpectedly grabbed me by my arm and swung me around.

  “Look,” he said.

  We were in front of a building from which a straw-stuffed man, painted all in green, dangled from a pole.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “It’s the Green Man tavern. Where my affairs will be conducted.”

  Bear boldly pushed through the doorway. Though I followed on his heels, I was more than a little hesitant, knowing his business—as he had said himself—was dangerous.

  35

  WE ENTERED INTO A LARGE room in which a few small tallow candles had been stuck into crannies in the walls. Despite the sputtering light, it was a dim and smoky place that reeked of bad ale, stale bread, and sour wine. Trestle tables and benches, more than I had ever seen in one place, stood beneath a low beamed ceiling. The floor was made of thick wood slabs, strewn with dirty rushes. To one side stood a kind of counter, upon which sat rows of wooden tankards.

  Behind this counter stood a large, buxom woman. Dressed in a brown, grease-spotted kirtle, she had a lopsided white linen cap upon her dark and gray-streaked tresses. Around her waist was a belt of glassy rosary beads, from which dangled a leather purse. Wooden pattens were on her feet. As for her face, it was a flushed and rosy red. Her nose was flat, as if it had once been broken. Her cheeks were sunken, too. Withal, she cast off a brimming, bustling force.

  When we came forward, she squinted to see who was there. As Bear loomed lar
ge before her, a grand grin spread upon her face, revealing not just joy, but a complete lack of teeth.

  “God’s wounds,” she cried with lisping, spittle-spraying laughter, “it’s the Bear set loose among us again.”

  “And on my honor,” Bear said, his voice booming, his arms spread wide, “it’s the Widow Daventry.”

  The two embraced in the middle of the room.

  “Welcome back to Great Wexly,” the woman said, pushing Bear away even as she looked him up and down. “I was wondering if you’d come. But you’ve been true.”

  “Fair lady.” Bear laughed, making a mock bow. “I always keep my word.”

  “But once again, sir, I fear you’ve not come to court me,” she said.

  “Alas, it’s my other business,” said he.

  Then, to my astonishment, the woman smote him hard in the chest with a tight fist, a blow which only made him laugh even more. Not content with that assault, she pulled his beard and tweaked his cheek. “And what escapades have befallen you since you were here last?” she asked, laughing with such delight I could not keep from grinning too.

  “Many an adventure, you can be sure,” he said. “And there stands one of them.” Bear pointed at me.

  The woman turned and considered me with squinty eyes. “Is he yours, or did you find him in some swamp?”

  Before he answered, Bear looked around. What he might have been searching for I don’t know, for only the three of us were there.

  “It was God’s sweet grace that let him find me.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “We met in an abandoned village. He had fled his village.”

  “Did he?” the woman said and looked at me with new interest. “For what reason?”

  “In search of a grander world,” said Bear.

  “And what of his father? His mother?”

  “Both gone to a better world.”

  “An orphan then. And not pursued?” she asked, clearly relishing the tale.

  “That’s another matter,” Bear said with a frown. “But by the laws of this realm,” he said, “he’s fully bound to me now. My apprentice. And a likely lad.”