Wonders Will Never Cease Read online

  The infirmarian replies, ‘Neither of you is mad. Only the Abbot has an excessively sanguine temperament, arising from the richness of his red blood. You can see the redness in his face. This humour makes him eager for all things new and strange. Whereas, in your case, the melancholy humour has come upon you in the form of an excess of black bile which distempers your imaginative faculty. Just by looking at you, I can tell that your turds are black. But this may pass if you will follow my advice and it is this. You must seek to be only in the company of people who are young. So shun the old, the sick and the crippled. Only wear bright colours. Hawking, dancing and feasting are good for you and so is bedding young women. If you can afford it, take a jester into your service. Learn to laugh and smile, for ghosts can never appear before a man who is laughing. If you find yourself thinking deep thoughts, shake your head clear of them and instead take your horse and hounds out to exercise. Keep away from ruins, chantry chapels, processions of mourners and cemeteries. For it is written in Matthew, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

  Anthony thanks the infirmarian for his wise counsel. Just as he is leaving the infirmarian shouts after him, ‘One more thing, my lord. From henceforth you should avoid the company of monks!’

  Anthony walks over to the Abbey’s shop to purchase food for his journey. He is mounted and ready to depart when the Abbot comes staggering out, as he says, to bid farewell and give his journey a blessing. But his chief purpose is to urge Anthony to seek to return to the castle of marvels. Though the Abbot has no notion of where it is or what it is called, he believes that it has been written about in certain French books, but he has no French.

  Though Anthony listens politely, he does not care for books in any language, since he thinks that he prefers life to reading.

  He rides out from Crowland, heading back for Scales Hall and what he foresees must be a strange and difficult meeting, but he has only ridden a short distance when he encounters a royal courier. The courier is mightily relieved, for having been at Middleton Manor and not found Lord Scales there, he had been riding around asking after his whereabouts and he had only just got word that Anthony had spent the night at Crowland and the courier feared that he had already missed him at the Abbey. He carries two letters, one of which is from the King and the other from Beth. Anthony must read the King’s message first. He is forthwith summoned to London to attend the coronation and the Pentecostal hunt which shall precede it.

  The second letter is less easy to read for the writing is hasty, the pen strokes jagged and the content hard to understand:

  ‘Husband, I greet you well and beg for God’s blessing and protection on us for which we are in dire need, as I fear that I am accursed and punished for I know not what, for I never did any wrong that I should be visited by such a gory creature, against which prayers and lighted candles were no protection and he would clamber into bed with me saying that I knew him well and this had long been my desire and besides he waited for you, saying “I am his scarecrow” and then, when you entered the chamber and ran out again to your horse, the dreadful thing who once was James Butler shrugged its shoulders and said “It is no matter, for I will find him elsewhere” and, saying this, the head fell sideways and then he was gone. I know not whether this was a messenger from the horrors of Hell or something that an ill-wisher has called up through sorcery, but I beg you husband do not come near me until the horror has been exorcised and I am free of fear, for if you return to the Manor, so will it and I know not what to do and so write to me and tell me what to do. By your wife.’

  Then in a scribbled postscript, ‘A messenger from the King has just now arrived here and I entrust this letter to him in the hope that he may find you somewhere on your road.’

  Chapter Three: Gerfalcon

  Since Edward will only make his state entry into London two days before his coronation, he resides meanwhile in the Black Prince’s Palace at Kennington and it is from there that the Pentecostal hunt has been organised. Though it is still dark when Anthony and his squire ride out across Vauxhall Marshes, attendants with torches have been posted to mark the safe road through the wetland and, as Anthony rides on, he is joined by other courtiers travelling to the meet. William Lord Hastings and Humphrey Stafford now ride beside him and they exchange insincere politenesses in low voices. This is a strange sort of hunt, for all the while they will pretend to be racing after a stag the true quest is for the King’s favour.

  Breakfast is served at the meet just beyond the gardens of the Palace. Edward moves among the throng slapping men on the back and hugging women tightly to him. He is so young – only nineteen – and so tall and confident. It is evident that he too has something other than stag hunting on his mind, for he is looking for men he can trust to govern with and perhaps also appraising the bedworthiness of the women who are here.

  Edward grips Anthony by the shoulders and gazes into his eyes, before saying, ‘God give you welcome. I am heartily glad that you are with us today.’

  And now Anthony knows that Edward does not trust him.

  A little later he hears Edward muttering to Stafford, ‘That is the strange lord who was killed on the field at Towton, but who came back to life again.’

  Few of the nobles assembled for the hunt are much older than Edward. Hastings, Herbert, Somerset, Stafford, and Anthony himself, they are all young. The King’s younger brother, George will ride with them and he is only twelve. So many of the old lords have perished in battle or on the block that the prospects for advancement of these young men are excellent and perhaps, since the old had refused to make way for them, it is good that they are gone. The young lords and ladies who have ridden out to join their King are like butterflies in their bright robes. They are all rich and healthy and have the world before them. As they take their stirrup cups, Anthony and his rivals can dream of heroic feats to come, ordeals to be surmounted and fair women to be encountered. Anthony briefly thinks of the advice of the infirmarian.

  Greyhounds and mastiffs run whimpering between the legs of the horses.

  The lymerers report that a warrantable hart with a stack of antlers of fourteen tines has been sighted. This can be no surprise, for on the previous day several harts were let out from the royal deer park and driven in the direction of Kennington. The shouting of the beaters can be heard in the distance.

  The horn having been blown three times, the hunt commences. Though the sun is not yet up, it is light enough. Anthony can see strands of mist rising and thinning between the alders and willows and there is still dew on the leaves of the trees. At first the pace is slow, since the hounds are underfoot and there is marshland and narrow water channels to be splashed across. The colours of this world, that is still young, are sharply edged and unfaded. Spring rains have washed the sky clear, and the yellow kingcups and the marsh violets are like bright heraldic figures on a field vert under an azure sky. As the hunters ride on to higher ground where the vegetation is thicker and more varied the pace accelerates and the brave company race across the meadows and through the trees. Life and speed have seized them and rush them forward. Youth! Youth! Surely they will all live forever.

  The lymerers and other underlings on foot are left behind and soon also the ladies, who ride sidesaddle, begin to fall back. But the pace of the hunt begins to falter for the hart is swift and cunning and it doubles back towards the wetter ground and perhaps it has thrown off the hounds by running up a watercourse. So the spoor is lost and the riders find themselves looking over to the Thames in the distance and beyond the river the spires and battlements of London and they hear the double blast of the horn that signals that the quarry has indeed been lost. The sound of the same horn directs them to the picnic.

  The hunters’ lunch in a pleasant lodge of green boughs that has been erected in the middle of a copse. While the hunters are eating, the lymerers will go to work to track another hart. Meanwhile the hunters are served baked meats in pastry coffins, the pastry being glazed with saffron
and egg yolks and this is followed by sugared cakes. Edward is noisily holding forth to a cluster of courtiers, of whom Hastings and Herbert stand closest to him. Hunting and hawking are vital for the future of the Kingdom, Edward says, and there must be more jousting. The shadowed years of Henry’s reign – years of prayer, of chanted hymns, of mourning, and the reading of useless books – are over. Things shall be as they once were. The lists shall be remade and the deer parks restocked, for true nobility is fashioned in the open air and on horseback. Also there must be laughter at court, for Edward has decreed it.

  Though the King’s youngest brother, Richard has not been allowed to take part in the hunt, he has been allowed to join the hunters at their lunch. Now Anthony sees that a group of men has gathered round the boy who appears to be lecturing or preaching to them. Curious, Anthony walks over and joins the audience.

  ‘No, I swear to you by my faith,’ says the boy, ‘I am heartily glad to have no part in your hunt, for today is a holy day, the fiftieth day after Easter, the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples and their friends and they spoke in tongues and young men had visions and old men dreamed dreams and it is a sin to hunt on a Sunday or any holy day and those who do so are doomed to join the Wild Hunt.’

  The pious little boy looks round at his listeners, ‘Shall I tell you the story of the Wild Hunt? Very well then. Heedless of all warnings, a certain marquis went out to hunt on a Sunday. When he was told this was a sin, he replied “Who cares for bells, monks and prohibitions? Holla ho.” When a marvellous stag was sighted the marquis spurred his horse on and as he did so, he was joined by two strange horsemen, one dressed all in white and the other dressed all in black. The marquis told them he was glad of their company and they rode on apace. They chased the stag across moor and field until finally the stag bolted into a hermitage where a holy man dwelt. The horseman in white told the marquis that he should desist, dismount and go in to pray with the holy man, but the man in black just laughed at this. The marquis, balked of his prey, stood on his stirrups and cursed God. Then he raised his horn to his lips and blew upon it, but no sound came out. Instead he heard a voice from a cloud which said, “The measure of your cup is full. Be chased forever through the wood!” At which point the hounds of Hell issued from the bowels of the earth and pursued the damned marquis and they pursue him still.’

  With that Richard stumbles away in search of another pie. His audience are glad to see him go, for they are all agreed that this was not the right time or place for such a story.

  Hastings had come to stand beside Anthony.

  ‘Somebody should murder that boy as a favour to us all,’ he mutters. ‘The impudence of that child daring to lecture his elders and betters. And I hate stories with morals. If I am with a woman or I am listening to a story, I want to be entertained. I do not want to be told how to be good, since I get enough of that in church.’

  Anthony nods. He also thinks that he does not like to know how a story must end as soon as it has begun. From the first it was obvious that the marquis would ride to his doom and where was the story in that?

  At last, a new spoor having been found, that of a fallow deer, the hunt rides out again. This time the hunters strain to follow the belling of the hounds that are ahead in the distance. Once again the pace quickens and the hunters revel in their speed as they ride to the kill. The sun is low in the sky by the time the hounds overtake their quarry. The Master of the Hunt blows the prise. The killing that follows is a bloody business. The hounds tear at the carcase and lap up the blood and the huntsmen stand back a little while to let the dogs take their reward before driving them off. Then the deer, which is still just alive, is dragged over to a nearby glade where the Master of the Hunt hacks the head off, before cutting the sides away from the chine and commencing the quartering and dressing of the carcase.

  Edward and his personal retinue have already set off back to the palace where there are preparations to be made. Most of the company who have remained to watch the death agonies of the beast are smiling. It is certain that a man is never more alive than when he is watching the violent death of another creature, for then he may feel himself at one with the bloody reality of nature. Anthony thinks back to a few days earlier when he had ridden over to London Bridge just to see if Wiltshire’s head was indeed impaled at its gate. It was, though scarcely recognisable, for crows had pecked out the eyes, the flesh was gone and a kind of brown fungus grew upon the skull. In cruelly contemplating the death of another, perhaps Anthony can reflect on his own end.

  A lymerer reaches into the deer’s insides and pulls out the giblets that are traditionally left at the place of the kill as the ‘fee of the raven’.

  Anthony, looking on the passion of the deer, is asking himself how would it be to die? But then shouldn’t the question be how had it been to die?

  At that moment there is a breeze through the glade and a flutter of white on one of the trees. The whole company looks up to see a white gerfalcon landed on a branch that sags under its weight. It would be hardly more unusual to come across a unicorn in these woods and for a few moments the huntsmen are silent and marvel at the sight. Then the lymerer who has the giblets in his hand suggests to the Master of the Hunt that they offer the raven’s fee to the gerfalcon as a lure. Though the Master of the Hunt demurs, saying that it might be bad luck to offer what belonged to the raven to another bird, nevertheless the lymerer holds out the meat and, as he does so, there is a fierce beating of wings and the gerfalcon swoops down. Yet it ignores the lymerer’s lure and flies directly at Anthony who throws up his arm to protect his face and the bird drops onto the gauntlet that Anthony has held up. A cold shiver passes through him. He slowly lowers the arm on which the bird now heavily and peaceably rests.

  Once more there is silence. It is as if the whole company is under some enchantment. Then slowly the questioning and debating begin. What can a gerfalcon be doing in these woods? They breed and hunt in the far north, in Lapland and Iceland and just occasionally they have been seen in the farthest reaches of Scotland. Then what shall be done with the bird? It cannot become Anthony’s property for he is a mere lord, whereas, according to the lore of falconry, it is a gerfalcon for a King, a falcon gentle for a prince, a falcon of the rock for a duke, a falcon peregrine for an earl… all the way down to a kestrel for a knave. So then it is agreed that Anthony should present the bird to the King. One of the huntsmen produces some leather strips which will serve as jesses to keep the gerfalcon on the wrist and then Anthony, so encumbered, has to be helped to mount before being escorted back through the gathering dark to the Black Prince’s Palace.

  The High Feast of Pentecost begins with a homily from the court chaplain, ‘How passionate you all were in quest of the deer today. How much more passionate you should be in your hunt for salvation? You chase after the things of this world that dance ahead of you like will-o’-the-wisps and you ride among phantoms, hastening without knowing it to your deaths and the end of your hunt, when you have reached it, is likely to be a bloody business. You clutch at things that rot, corrupt, rust and crumble away. How will the hunt for what is perishable ever content you? While your eyes are on your quarry you cannot see that you are hastening into the yawning jaws of Eternity. This evening is the evening of Pentecost. Now call to mind how the first Pentecost was a day of marvels, for when it was come and the disciples were all in one place, then ‘suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them…’

  Edward signals that they have heard enough. But his scowl soon passes. The hunt has been a success and the remarkable finding of the gerfalcon is a blessing that has crowned the day.

  Anthony has presented the gerfalcon to Edward and now the hulking bird occupies a perch of honour just behind the King’s shoulder and from that place it gazes fiercely at the diners. Anthony is less well situated, for his t
able is far from that of the King. At the royal table under an elaborate baldachin Edward sits with his mistress Lady Elizabeth Lucy. Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick is also sat at that table, together with Hastings, Herbert, Wenlock and their wives.

  All who dine here tonight have been presented with badges of their allegiance, silver collars of suns and roses. The food – roasted swans, smoked badger ham, galantine pies, roasted salmon, Lombard custard, tansy cakes – is brought forth in a rush. The servants carrying the meats on brass trays are directed to the tables by the steward, who wears a blue hood and a long blue robe. Almost everything is highly spiced and in Anthony’s mouth those spices – saffron, cardamom, ambergris, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger – speak to him of the seductive heat and opulence of eastern parts.

  Earl Rivers, who had refused to rise so early for the hunt is at another table together with his wife, Jacquetta. Anthony finds no friends seated at his table. He is seated between Giles Cromwell and Ismania Rougemont-Grey. The talk around him is of famous huntsmen of past centuries: Nimrod, Herne, Tristan, Saint Eustace, Saint Julian and William Twiti who was Edward II’s Master of the Hunt. Anthony does not participate in this conversation. He is hoping that perhaps the King will look more favourably on him since he has presented him with the gerfalcon. Then Ismania abruptly demands to know his lineage.

  ‘I am the oldest son of Earl Rivers. He is the High Constable of England and, as Constable, he…’

  But Ismania is not interested in his father, ‘Then Jacquetta de St Pol, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, must be your mother. I have heard that there is something strange about her ancestry, though I do not recollect what it is.’

  So Anthony tells her the story of Melusine, at the end of which Ismania exclaims, ‘So you are descended from a lizard!’ And she continues, ‘What a strange thing for a family to boast about, as if one were to claim descent from a dog or a monkey! But perhaps we are all descended from animals. Does not the King truly resemble a lion? Whereas Hastings over there looks more like an ordinary cat. Which animal do you think I most resemble?’