Vixen

What a dungheap you go to, John had said when the Bishop divided up the parishes between we new priests. He was given the Staple with its fine harbour and cobbled streets; its church with silver and gold and paintings on wood and wall. I had laughed then, and I laughed now, joyful in my heart to be amongst simple, unlettered folk. Did Our Lord not do the same? My church boasted no pillars, nor aisles, nor benches. A barn of a place rather, fit for gathering a harvest of souls who offer fruits of praise. I smiled at the neat thought: perhaps that would suit today’s sermon. The Lord had not seen His way to giving me a theme as yet.

Besides, my church had its own prize: the shrine of the Saint, hallowed with his bones. My feet whispered a path to where it swamped the chancel, pinnacles piled up like sugar loaves nibbled by greedy children, pierced with windows through which could be seen the plain grey hulk of the tomb. I spat on my sleeve-end and rubbed at a thumb-mark, no doubt left by a careless pilgrim.

‘Guide me, oh Lord,’ I prayed. I heard God knock at the door of my soul once, twice, and I shouted, ‘I am here, Master!’

‘Father?’

I twisted about. A man stood at the rood-screen, banging his knuckles against the wood.

‘Father!’ he bawled. ‘Shall I ring the bell? It is time.’

I blinked myself back into this world, waited until I was sure my voice was steady.

‘Edwin, you do not need to ring the bell. I am content to do it myself.’

‘I am the bell-ringer. Father Hugo chose me. I cannot be unchosen. Do I not do it well, Father Thomas?’

‘Yes, Edwin, you do it very well,’ I sighed.

He folded his arms. ‘You have chosen no deacon yet, Father? You have been here this quarter-year.’

‘No deacon, Edwin.’

‘Not even a chaplain? A priest needs a chaplain.’

‘I strive for God,’ I said. ‘It is my joyful duty to be about His work, however humble.’

‘Father Hugo had a chaplain. And two church-wardens.’

‘That Reverend Father was content to let others toil for him,’ I said. And he did many other things I would not, I thought privately. ‘I will not set myself above you.’

‘But you’ve made William your steward. And Lukas. Do you favour them?’

‘I do not,’ I sigh.

I had had little choice in the matter, although Edwin did not need to know about those colourful discussions.

‘You work too hard, Father,’ he muttered; disappeared up the tower steps and the bell clanged out its welcome.

Soon, I must open up to the pilgrims. I propped the ladder at the west window and peeped out. Even through the glass I could hear them, buzzing like bees in a pot. Like bees to the hive for the honey of the Saint and his sweet miracles. Perhaps this was the right idea for my sermon. I let it bloom in the soil of my mind, planted there with God’s grace. It came to me that a honeycomb with its many cells was like a psaltery, each of the cells a psalm dripping with the treacle of God’s word. The hive was the community of this church, the congregation bees who laboured for their queen, bringing tithes of nectar and offering them freely.

I was delighted with these clever notions. Here was a fine Saint’s Day sermon to instruct as well as dazzle the people. But a worm twisted in my mind: if the priest was the queen, then that made me a female. If I saw it, so would they. I imagined them snickering behind their hands and my enthusiasm stumbled.

I revived myself hastily; the remainder of the idea was sound, especially the part about the tithes. Then I remembered that bees had stings and used them on whoever tried to take the honey. Also, they were as like to desert a hive and fly to a better place if they had a mind to it. My idea, so clever, crumbled. Perhaps God did not speak to me after all. I shook off the prick of disappointment.

An idea would come to me. The pilgrims were here. They had heard of the pious priest who tended the relics. I would make them love me, would take the leaden blank of this day and stamp my impression upon it. I wanted them to carry away a clear picture of their new priest, not Father Hugo. I was tired of hearing how bold he was, how strong, how jolly, how wild. I wanted them to return home with my name on their lips and in their hearts. Oh, that Father Thomas, they would say round their hearths. You should have heard him preach! Not like Father Hugo, and that’s a good thing. Next year, I would be greeted like an old friend.

I sighed. I could delay no longer. I climbed back down, pulled open the great west door and turned to greet the pilgrims with a broad smile.

Straightaway, they swarmed towards the shrine: clawing the stone, kissing and licking and begging to be cured of the itch, the flux, the ague, the earache, the falling sickness, the fever. All of them weaving their limbs in and out of the openings until the shrine could barely be seen for the bodies wriggling upon it, the onion reek of their breath so strong it heaved my stomach.

One man, very grandly dressed, approached the shrine on his knees. It was only when he passed that I noticed that the flagstones behind him were smeared with blood. Exhaustion had ploughed deep furrows upon his face. When he reached the chancel steps he paused and lifted one leg in an effort to climb the step. I approached and took his arm. He shrank from the contact.

‘Don’t touch me!’ he growled, only then noticing my liturgical garments. ‘I beg forgiveness, Father,’ he moaned, balled his hand into a fist and clouted himself on the side of his head.

‘My son,’ I said. ‘I offer succour. It is Christian charity.’

‘I said, do not touch me,’ he replied, only a little less angrily. ‘I have vowed to undertake this pilgrimage with no help from any man. Do not thwart me when I am so close.’

Tears rose in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks into the grim stubble of his beard. I made the sign of the Cross over his head.

‘The Lord forgives you, my son.’ I spoke most earnestly, for his pain had moved me.

‘How do you know?’ he snapped. ‘How dare you speak for God?’

I gasped at his intemperate speech, only to gasp louder when he tore away his tunic. The flesh of his back was raked with gashes. Where they had scabbed over they had been torn afresh so that new scars lay atop the old. Now I understood why the ground about him was smeared with blood.

‘This is too much, my son,’ I said gently. ‘The Lord does not demand such—’

‘Such what? Such shows? How do you know what God has demanded of me?’

The cause of his wounds was clear: about his middle was a girdle of iron, tight-fitting and barbed with teeth that pierced his skin every time he breathed in. Fresh blood soaked into his hose. As I watched, he removed this cruel belt and struck himself over the left shoulder: once, twice, thrice; then over the right, tearing fresh wounds. There were gasps of wonder from those standing around. He uttered not the smallest sound, teeth gripped together, face set like stone.

‘You have no idea what sins I have committed,’ he grunted. ‘What God and my priest have ordered as repentance.’

When he finished flogging himself, he fastened the belt once more and put on his over-tunic. Without so much as a glance at the shrine, he turned and, still on his knees, dragged himself back down the nave. I walked at his side. No one else would stand close to him and I grieved for his loneliness.

‘Absolution awaits all who truly repent,’ I said.

‘Do you presume to see into my heart?’

‘I am a man of God,’ I declared. ‘Be careful how you address me, however noble you may be.’ I strove to make my voice tender again, for he was a soul in torment. I had never seen one so undone by his sin. ‘Surely you may stand now that you have completed your pilgrimage?’ I said quietly.

‘Completed?’ he said, bitterness dripping from the word. ‘I am but a quarter way through.’

‘My son—’

He interrupted me. ‘I am charged to visit every shrine in England, on my knees. Then Wales, then Ireland. Then Saint James at Compostela.’

‘God grant you peace,’ I said.

He turned empty eyes to mine and hauled himself away, huffing and puffing, swinging the stumps of his legs one after the other. All heads turned to follow him on his painful journey out of the church. Two servants awaited him, a grim-faced old man and one much younger of the same stamp: I guessed father and son. When they saw me they bowed their heads with the precise amount of reverence due an insignificant parish priest and not one whit more. It was difficult to tell if they succoured their charge or watched to see if he reneged on his vow.

‘What did he do, Father?’ said a voice at my shoulder, so unexpectedly that I jumped.

I turned stern eyes upon my questioner, a youth from the village whose name I did not remember.

‘That is for God to know, and not for men to gossip about.’

‘It must’ve been something very wicked,’ he mused, as though I had not spoken.

I fixed him with a disapproving stare. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and sauntered out of the church towards the great yew, where a clutch of young hatchlings gathered, lounging against each other and whistling at the girls who had flocked from the surrounding villages.

He pointed his finger at the retreating penitent and their heads drew close as they whispered who knew what sort of nonsense. I considered marching across and chiding them for treating this holy day with so little respect. However, when I raised my eyes to the west window, the Saint looked down with such loving kindness that I relented. I counselled myself that it might be better to bring them to godliness through mild words rather than cruelty. Perhaps kindness should be the watchword for my sermon.

The pilgrims were much affected by the agonising spectacle of the penitent on his knees. Their weeping increased in intensity, as if it was not already deafening. One woman fell to the floor with a particularly piercing wail. She was helped back up by her companions, but struggled against them, falling once more. They tried to lift her but each time were defeated.

I hurried to assist, for the disturbance was distracting the pilgrims from their devotions as they queued to touch the shrine. In the time it took to reach her, the woman had started to babble noisily and everyone was stretching their necks to get a better view.

‘This is not our doing,’ hissed one of her companions, before I had even had a chance to open my mouth.

‘She has been moved by the spirit of repentance!’ cried a stranger from a few yards away.

The noisy woman’s friends looked at each other doubtfully, weighing up if this might be the case.

‘Let me kneel!’ the woman yelled. ‘I beg forgiveness!’ She tore at her coif and a long strand of hair tumbled out, a fat black worm sprinkled with salt. ‘I am a sinner!’ she gargled, sinking to the floor.

Her companions glanced at each other over her head and frowned.

‘Come now, mistress,’ I said sternly. ‘The Saint does not demand that you shout. He can hear the quietest of prayers.’

One eye flipped open and peered at me. It looked me up and down, testing the weight of my words. Then it closed and she began to bemoan her sins even more fervently. I arched my eyebrow at her friends, who caught the significance of my gesture. They picked her up by the armpits and dragged her towards the shrine with as much grace as a sack of beets, her blubbering the whole while.

A number of pilgrims muttered complaints that she was carried to the front of the queue while they had to wait patiently. I made pious comments about the Saint’s ears being dinned in by the screeching, and how it would be a shame if he grew deaf to the prayers of others as a result. They saw sense straight away and helped her up the chancel steps.

She had fainted clean away by the time they brought her down; exhausted by her exertions or some kind miracle, I could not tell. She was carted out of the west door with much flapping of kerchiefs in her face.

Her bothersome performance infected the pilgrims: some fell to their knees at the west door, some as far back as the lychgate. Most contented themselves with dropping at the rood screen and made the last few yards of their journey grunting and puffing. An uncharitable part of my soul wondered if they thought the Saint could only see them after they passed through its thick gateway.

I told the first ones that it was not necessary; the Saint did not demand it of everyone. I was given looks of disbelief that a priest should ask for fewer penitent gestures rather than more. In the end I left them to it and counselled myself that if God willed this, then so be it.

I wondered if word would get around and at the next festival the whole lot of them would approach thus. Perhaps leaden tokens in the shape of knees would be sold; perhaps Brannoc would garner a reputation as a healer of ailments of the leg and there would be a rush of pilgrims afflicted with diseases of the ankles.

These were distracting thoughts. What might happen next year was in the hands of the Almighty. I sighed and rubbed my fingers on the point where my brows met. The commotion was driving a nail into my brains. William strolled by.

‘Why are you not at your post?’ I asked.

‘Clearing out a piece of rubbish,’ he laughed, clapping his hands. He dipped inside his tunic and drew out a small leather bag. ‘See?’ he said, waving it in my face.

‘What should I see?’

‘The ties are cut,’ he replied, slowly, and I had the strong sense he was speaking as you would to an idiot. ‘I found a lad lightening a gentleman of his possessions. Scabby little snip of a – begging your pardon, Father.’

‘Where is the boy? I must counsel him.’

‘He doesn’t need any more of that, Father. I’ve given him a right good counselling.’ He laughed again. ‘He’ll not be back.’

He sailed out of the west door, tall and straight as a mast. He waved the money bag above his head and bawled for its owner to claim it. I leaned against the rood-screen to gather my tattered senses together. I still had no sure theme for my festival sermon and there was very little time left.

Two young women giggled and clutched their kerchiefs to their noses as they passed. For a moment I wondered if I was giving off a noisome smell, but it was only the silly shyness of girls when faced with a man.

‘Do not jostle me so, Margret,’ hissed one of them. ‘Father Thomas,’ she cooed, dropping a curtsey.

The female called Margret cupped a hand round her friend’s ear and whispered something too quiet to overhear. Whatever it was, it earned a fierce glare from her companion.

‘Father Thomas,’ said Margret. ‘We should like to welcome you to this parish. Shouldn’t we, Anne?’

‘Yes,’ agreed the maiden named Anne, in a flurry of further curtseying.

‘The new priest is a blessing, is he not?’

‘Yes,’ twittered Anne. Her cheeks flushed so pink it was little wonder she attended the shrine. Such an excess of choler was not healthy in a woman. Much as I applauded their modest blushes, I wearied of their chatter, so with a polite God be with you, I stepped away. But the encounter had not been without value: modesty in women was the perfect subject for a sermon.

Finally, I had my theme, and not before time, for I must be quick and deliver the Mass. I hurried to the treasury. A boy was there, William’s son, I didn’t doubt. He held up the festival cope with as much grace as you would a day-old herring.

‘Higher, boy,’ I said. ‘I can’t get into it if you drag it across the floor like that.’

He huffed, hoisted it and I poked my head through the narrow opening. I declare I staggered under the sudden weight, although I hid it well and he did not notice.

‘You are an idiot,’ I muttered. ‘You may as well send your sister next time. She’d do a better job.’

He bore my terse words meekly, but his lips were tight, and angry spots reddened his cheeks. No doubt he would grumble about me to his companions.

‘Go to, go to,’ I commanded in a kinder voice, for he was not a bad child, merely untutored. ‘Tell the choirboys we are ready.’

I smiled, but of course the lad did not understand such niceties. I wondered briefly if he might be worth instructing; he seemed attentive. He could hardly be worse than the previous boy, who sang in the bell-tower and was found in the churchyard with his hand inside a girl’s bodice.

I wriggled inside the fussy cope. It was ballasted with gold stitching and pearls, heavy as a stack of logs. I did not hold with all this panoply. If I had the choice, I’d leave that to peacock priests. But I did not have a choice: the Bishop made that clear when he heard – I know not from whom – that I conducted my Christmas Mass in plain shirt and hose. I endeavoured to explain I meant no disrespect: I wished to emulate the simple dress of our Lord, not to ape my poor flock. He lectured me with some force that I had no idea how Christ clothed himself and I would dress as commanded. Grandly, as befitted my station.

He told me that I insulted my parishioners by pretending to be the same as them. You’re a priest, by God, he thundered. Act like one. I could not believe he should so mistake my humble intentions. So today, I sweated in gold and garnets. I contented myself with the knowledge that God saw my inner humility. If men needed pomp to bring them to penitence, so be it. I was commanded, therefore I would obey, uncomplaining as a lamb.

The procession began. The choirboys tumbled in through the west door, picking their noses and gawping at the pilgrims. They sang lustily, but to them the words were sounds only and they quacked them with as little comprehension as ducks. I strode ahead, robes trailing behind me. I tolerated their rude manners, their cracked voices that tore the psalms to shreds. I calmed myself with the knowledge that my reward was to read the Divine Office in solitude, tomorrow and every day after it.

I breathed relief. A high Mass such as this took place mercifully few times in the year. And at last, I had my sermon.

ANNE

For three days, we are a city. The world comes to our hamlet and brings its finery, its marvels, its smells, its terrors, its tragedies. For three days I stretch my eyes wide open and do not close them once, not even to blink. A handful of days, but crammed with a year’s worth of new sights and sounds, fresh riddles and do-you-remembers unsurpassed. These days supply me with every tale with which I’ll entertain myself for the remainder of the year.

The churchyard is too small to encompass these wonders, so the field behind Aline’s alehouse blooms thick as daisies with tents, blankets, fires. Every trestle for five miles about finds its way there; tables spring up and are loaded with bread and cheese. The air is riotous with the scent of bacon, for John the butcher always has a pig fat and ready for the Saint. In return the Saint makes sure his purse is heavy afterwards, and the world carries away the memory of the best pork in the shire.

So tumble in the girdlers, purse-makers, skinners, tanners, cap-makers, smiths, pewterers, glovers and net-makers; behind them the scullions, reeves, nuns and shoe-makers, brewers, cooks, archers, glass-blowers, knights, goldsmiths, silversmiths and gem-polishers.

Next come in the ploughmen, the sailors, the sea-captains, fishermen, pig-men, shepherds, dairywomen, alewives, spinners, weavers, high ladies and low women. Here are the barbers, the saw-bones, men of physic and midwives, wise women and charlatans. We have fools, clerks, schoolmasters, pullers of teeth, bone-setters, knife-grinders, matrons, virgins, peddlers, tinkers and trench-diggers.

It is a small Heaven upon earth: a lion of a soldier fresh from the war comes to thank the Saint for his deliverance and lies down with the lamb of a carpenter come to pray for the soul of his son, who was not so lucky. The crook-legged man upon his wheeled tray prays for the straightening of his limbs. He slumbers chastely beside the beautiful young wife, who aches for her husband’s seed to take root in the parched earth of her womb. For three days no one is troubled by lustful dreams.

Margret and I walk through the crowd. Heads turn, but I am grown enough to know that none of them turn for me. Margret is the lady now and I am the wench dragged in her wake. There is whispering also, and not all of it kind. I catch snatches of it, sticking to our skirts like teasels.

That is John of Pilton’s woman.

A priest’s woman is no goodwife, but a harlot.

You hold your tongue in check, Edwin Barton. You are the bell-ringer. Have some respect. This is the Saint’s day.

Mama, what is a harlot?

I hear it; Margret hears it. When the sneering grows too loud to ignore, Margret stops and stares down the man who called her harlot.

‘Why, Edwin,’ she says, all kindness.

‘Good day,’ he mutters.

‘How fares your mother, Edwin?’ she enquires.

‘Well, missus. Well,’ he mumbles, tugs his cap so hard it slips over one eye. But there’s no hiding from the press of Margret’s courteous questions.

‘And your brothers?’ she continues. ‘How fare they?’

‘All well, to be sure, missus.’

‘The Saint be praised.’

Margret’s smile is so sweet I am surprised butterflies do not alight upon her head and lick her with their coiled tongues. But it is too early in the year for butterflies. ‘Let me see,’ she muses. ‘Tell me if my recollection falters. There’s Arthur?’

‘Yes, missus,’ he says.

‘Bartholomew? Sam? Peter?’

He bobs his head at each name, declares each brother hale and hearty.

‘I have forgot none, have I, Edwin?’

‘Oh no, missus. None.’

‘All of you so different in looks. By the Saint, who would have thought one father could bring to bear a redhead, a black-haired lad, one tall, one short.’

Her face is all concern for the welfare of Edwin’s brothers. Yet I know the truth of their parentage, as does every man and woman here, their mother being an accommodating woman. Edwin grows red in the face, so dark a hue I think he might burst. Margret pauses for a long moment, her eyebrow lifted. Then she picks up the corner of her skirt and folds it over her arm. It is fine kersey, more shillings to the yard than I could hope to afford in a year, and exceeding beautiful. She bows her head politely and Edwin bows in response. She walks on without another word.

I pause for a moment, less time than it takes to pour a cup of beer, but time enough to hear the giggles begin. I watch them, helpless with the need to keep respectful silence within sight of the church door, yet burdened with the equally pressing need to void their laughter at Edwin’s expense. John the butcher chokes on his mirth and must be thumped on the back.

‘She’s got you there, Edwin, and right enough,’ he splutters, to much cheerful agreement.

Edwin smiles as best he can. He is not a bad man. It is only his tongue that runs forward and escapes his mouth. I quicken my pace to catch up with Margret.

I find her within the church, gazing up at the painting of the Saint. He is planted on his knees before the Virgin and wears a look of avarice. Mary is the size of a child’s poppet. She floats on a cushion just out of the Saint’s reach, throwing sticks out of the ends of her fingers and aiming them at the Saint’s head. I know they are supposed to be shafts of heavenly light, but they look like the poles you set up for beans. When I share these thoughts with Margret, she smiles again.

‘Shh,’ she whispers. ‘That is the Virgin.’

‘I do not insult our blessed Mary,’ I hiss, curtseying as I say her name. ‘I insult the hand of Roger Staunton, who imagines he can capture her on a cob wall. He is not as good a limner as he thinks.’

Margret heaves her shoulders up, then down.