Читать книгу The Black Rose - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 9

The riot which ensued on that damp evening in the year of our Lord 1273 would be remembered as long as there were students at Oxford to recall the excitements of the past. To Walter it would always be memorable as the occasion of his meeting Tristram.

He had played a part in many pleasant little melees with the town watch, but he saw at once that this was going to be different. The students raced down Queen Street until they came to the meeting of the five ways at the Quadrivium. There they encountered the watch in full force. Two of their fellows had been taken prisoner. Their arms had been trussed behind them, and meal sacks had been pulled down over their heads. The unlucky pair were still struggling frantically, but to no purpose at all.

There was a grim air about the men of the watch. They were armed to the teeth, for one thing, with heavy épaulières on their shoulders and iron morions on their heads. Their eyes mocked the new arrivals from behind a solid hedge of brown-bills, and even the ring of their cloutnails on the cobblestones had a new note of resolution about it. Some of the townspeople had taken possession of the tower of St. Martin’s and were pelting the clerks with stones and loud abuse.

The Legist said, “They’ve got Jack Punshon and Rick Standlack.”

“Stout fellows, both of them,” answered Hump Armstraung, who had assumed command of the party. “And sophisters, too. What were they doing?”

“I hear there was an argument at the Blue Baldric,” said the Legist. “Over the price of a roast goose. They swallowed their share before confessing that their pockets were empty. The landlord swore he would take it out of their hides, but Jack got hold of the spit on which Tib-o’-the-Buttery had been roasted and broke his head with it. I hear,” and there was a note of envy in his voice, “that it was a grand fight while it lasted.”

“What are they going to do with Jack and Rick?”

“Take them to Greenditch.”

“To hang them?” cried Hump, aghast. “We’re not subject to town authority. That has been established time and again.”

“They know it too well,” agreed the Legist, sourly. “So they are not going to wait for due processes of law this time. They’re going to see to it that Jack and Rick dance on thin air, and then argue the point later. What’s more, there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.”

Hump looked at the glittering ring of brown-bills which held the students back. He shook his head. “Ad impossible nemo tenetus,” he said. “They would spit us like herrings if we tried to rush them.”

More clerks were pouring onto the Quadrivium. Walter was sure they could force a rescue by sheer weight of numbers. He shouted in Hump’s ear: “I for one am not content to stand by and do nothing. By St. Aidan, get our fellows together! One rush will break their line open.”

“And will you lead the charge?”

“I am willing. But we must lose no time.”

Hump frowned and said in an apologetic tone: “You’ve never known me to run away from a fight, Bastard. But will it help Jack and Rick if we all get our bellies ripped open on the points of their pikes?”

Ninian had come along after all, looking very unhappy over the situation. He asked in a bitter tone, “Why didn’t they get to St. Giles in time and claim sanctuary?”

“They were given no chance,” said Walter. “And so now we must do what we can. You, Hump, are looking forward to your trial flights as an aspirant knight. What better chance could you seek?”

Ninian quavered, “It would be sure death.”

Hump nodded in glum agreement. “It would not be an honorable venture. What do you know of the laws of chivalry, Bastard?”

“Cowards!” Walter shouted at them.

Men of the town were now arriving in force, and it was evident they were in as determined mood as the watch. The usual battle between Town and Gown was developing, with clubs and quarter-staves as the weapons. Walter realized that while the townspeople fought it out with the students, the watch would march their prisoners off. They were moving down one of the side streets and were already so far along that the captain’s, “ ’Way there, for the King’s justice!” could barely be heard.

Walter followed them, becoming aware after a moment that someone had fallen into step with him. It was a student, he was sure, and one so tall that his own chin could do no better than hobnob with the newcomer’s shoulder. This irked him, for he was proud of his inches.

“You are Walter of Gurnie, I think,” said the stranger.

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“Tristram Griffen. I hail from your part of the country. You have never heard of me, but my father is the fletcher of Cencaster.”

It was too dark to see with any clearness, but Walter decided that he liked the voice. It was respectful enough, as befitted a fletcher’s son, and yet there was a resolute note in it as well. If he belonged to the student body, he must be a chamber-deacon; one of the despised clerks who lacked the means to lodge in any of the hospitia and so had to find quarters in the garrets of the town.

“I have watched Nat Griffen at the butts. There is no better bowman in all England,” Walter said.

“He has never made such a claim. But—well, I think there was a time when he could draw a better bow than any man living. He’s getting old, and he hasn’t the strength in his arms now.”

Walter looked at his companion. “I warrant you can draw a shrewd bow yourself, Tristram Griffen.”

“I am good enough. But I never expect to see the day when I will be my sire’s equal.”

“Modestly spoken,” thought Walter. Aloud, he asked, “Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“I am a chamber-deacon and I lodge over a bookbinder’s shop in Sheydyard Street. You have seen me, but of course you would not remember me.” This was said without any bitterness—or humility, for that matter. The tone was completely matter-of-fact.

They were passing a house whose owner had come out on the steps with a torch to watch the excitement. By the light thus provided it could be seen that Tristram Griffen was magnificently built and with the broadest of shoulders. He had a thatch of stiff blond hair and a pleasant gray eye. He smiled, in a hesitant way, as though not sure how Walter would take such familiarity on his part.

Walter smiled back. He had always been slow to make friends, but he knew on the instant that he liked the fletcher’s son in spite of the wide difference in their stations in life. There was forthrightness and good nature in his companion and the promise of a real staunchness of spirit.

The chamber-deacon was clearly very poor. His dagged surcote was of the roughest cloth known as falding, and his legs were bare from the knee down. His heavy boots were painted black, the distinguishing sign of low degree. “What of it?” thought Walter, “I like him better than any of them at the Hall.”

“We can rescue them if we take the risk,” said Tristram, nodding at the procession ahead. “I would rather have air through my ribs than stand by and see these two poor fellows taken away to be hanged.”

“I feel the same way,” responded Walter. “Can we count on any help? The rest seem content with making a lot of noise.”

“There will be plenty to follow if we lead the way.”

Tristram stopped and proceeded to take off his outer garment. Folding it carefully, he carried it to the side and laid it on the mounting-post in front of a darkened house. Then he found a loose paving stone and placed it on top.

“It’s the only one I have,” he explained with an apologetic smile. “I can afford a broken bone or two but not the loss of my warm jupon.”

The crowd had grown denser, and the watch was moving more slowly as a result, the captain brandishing a short sword at intervals and declaiming in an indignant voice, “Keep clear o’ the law, ye joltheads.”

The tall chamber-deacon rolled up his sleeves and asked, “Ready, Walter of Gurnie?”

“Ready.” Walter’s heart seemed to tighten in his chest. This would be a heady adventure, and he knew he might not come out of it alive.

“Wrap your cloak around your arm,” advised the bowman’s son. “It will serve as a shield. There is no sense in getting a pike point in your midriff.”

“You have no cloak!” exclaimed Walter.

His companion had already gone into action. Moving with speed and an amazing energy, he lunged forward and buffeted the captain so vigorously that the head of the surprised officer snapped back in its iron morion. One large paw seized the limp watch leader by the neck while the other grasped him by the knee. With little effort the chamber-deacon raised the body on a level with his head and then catapulted it into the line. Two of the watch were bowled over, leaving a gap into which Tristram plunged with such force that in a very few moments he had disrupted their formation.

Walter followed his lead. Without knowing it, he was shouting the battle cry of the Crusades, “God wills it!” He had forgotten to wrap his cloak around his arm, but it made little difference at such close quarters. There was no chance to see if any of the other students had joined in, for he found himself immediately at grips with one of the watch, a mettlesome fellow who fought like a wildcat.

It proved a brief but sultry affair. The clerks in that vicinity had charged as soon as the gap opened in the line. They surged in with such fighting gusto, and in such numbers, that they soon filled the whole space inside the ring of bills. The ranks of the watch broke. The constables were hemmed in so closely that they could make no use of their pikes.

Walter was so busy with his stubborn antagonist that he did not realize the fight had been won until Tristram came to his assistance. Taking the fellow from behind by the neck, the chamber-deacon booted him exuberantly to the side of the road.

“Jack and Rick are free!” Tristram had to shout to make himself heard. Blood was streaming down his face, but he did not seem aware that he had been hurt. He grinned at Walter happily. “They’re on their way to the chancellor now. That will be safer for them than sitting on the frith-stool at St. Giles.”

Hump Armstraung had arrived on the scene and had already managed to reassert his leadership. Most of the students formed into line behind him, shouting the order to disengage and get away. They began to parade triumphantly down the street, singing in chorus the great marching song of the Crusades, “The Old Man of the Mountain.”

“And now Hump will take all the credit for this,” said Walter bitterly.

Receiving no reply, he turned and saw that his companion had halted a few paces back. He was looking down at the mounting-post where he had left his surcote. The paving stone was still there, but the coat was gone.

“Stolen!” Tristram exclaimed. His face looked almost gray.

The garment had been of the shoddiest kind, and it seemed impossible that its loss could mean so much. Walter said, lightly, “Tenpence will buy you another, Tristram.”

“Tenpence? I have exactly that much in my pocket. But it must keep me until the end of the year.”

Walter’s expression changed immediately to one of concern. “You mean,” he asked, “that you must live on as little as that?”

“Yes. It won’t be easy, but I will manage it somehow. Many of us here in Oxford live on as little as a penny a week. Didn’t you know?”

“I knew that most of the chamber-deacons had to work in their spare time.”

“To earn the penny.” Tristram nodded. “There is no call to look so disturbed about it. None of us starve.” He looked at Walter with a cheerful grin. “It’s a little harder for me because I have two to feed. I keep a pet. A badger.”

“A badger! A curious kind of pet.”

“I got her at a badger-draw. The dogs had dragged her out of the box three times, and I could see that once more would finish her. Her front paws were broken, and blood was running from her mouth. She was a game one, but—well, I imagined it, of course, but it seemed to me that she looked at me and begged for help. It’s a cruel sport, and I couldn’t stand there and see her killed. I stepped up and told them to call off their dogs. There was an uproar, naturally, but I knocked the drawmaster down, and in the end I got her away from them.” He smiled again. “I call her Boadicea. Because she was such a grand little fighting lady.”

“But where do you keep her?”

“In my corner of the garret. She can’t get around much on account of her legs. I have to take all her food to her, any scraps I can spare. She drags herself around after me when I’m there, and she always sleeps on the edge of my straw.”

Walter’s purse was empty, and he would have no more until his next visit to Father Francis, who kept the Chest at St. Frideswide’s and paid him his two shillings at the first of each month. “You’re tenpence richer than I am at the moment,” he confessed.

“I was not asking for help! I can get along without a new jupon.”

“But,” protested Walter, “you lost it in the common cause. In all fairness we must take up a collection to replace it.”

“No, no, I will get along.” Tristram shook his head vigorously. Then he smiled again. “It may be a mild winter.”

The main body of the students had marched off down the street by this time, and Walter sensed a new danger. The townspeople were eyeing the pair of them in a way that promised trouble.

“They will pay off the score on any of us they can catch,” he whispered. “We must get away at once.”

They made off without any delay. The fletcher’s son had fallen into a thoughtful mood. “That fellow Townley, the captain of the watch, is a brother-in-law of the bookbinder I live with. They’re a surly pair. I’m afraid they will make things hot for me.”

“Then you can’t risk going back there tonight.” Walter frowned uneasily. This was a dilemma. He knew that he would not dare take a chamber-deacon to the Hall; the line there was drawn too closely for that. With some hesitation, he added: “I can’t take you home with me. What’s to be done?”

“I have couched a hogshead before this and I can do it again,” said Tristram in an unconcerned tone.

“It will be a new experience for me.”

They were in front of a tavern, and some light poured into the street through its partially opened door. Tristram squinted down into his companion’s face to see if he meant it.

“By the Rood,” he said, “that is a generous thought. But there is no need for it. I can fend for myself. You must get along now to your Hall and your own bed.”

“We are in this together,” said Walter. “If I can’t take you through the sacred portals of Butterbump Hall, I can at least share a night in the open with you. That is settled, Tristram Griffen.”

They finally found a dry spot under the outside stair of a house on the edge of the Jewry. Here the wind had deposited a soft bed of newfallen leaves. Walter detached the warm quintus, and they huddled up together beneath it.

He began to find some amusement in the situation. “All these houses have glass in the windows,” he whispered. “The Hall backs on the Jewry, and it’s a favorite evening pastime with some of our fellows to watch the girls through the glass without their plackerds on. The owner of this cloak takes a special pleasure in it. I hope he’s looking out and sees what a good use we are making of his finery.”

Something moved in the leaves near Walter’s feet, and he drew them up hurriedly. It was not going to be easy to sleep.

“I suppose,” said Tristram, after a time, “you wonder what the son of a fletcher is doing in Oxford. It must seem presumptuous to you. You may not have known it, but there are many sons of common men here.”

The thought had been at the back of Walter’s mind since the moment they met. “I cannot see how you expect to profit by an education,” he said. “Clearly you want to better your condition, but learning is not necessary for entrance to a trade guild or mistery; and what else is open to you? Do you intend to take Holy Orders?”

Tristram shook his head. “No, not that. What a waste of inches and brawn it would be to put this frame of mine into a brown frock and cowl! I belong on the land, but there will never be any land for me. I have set my mind on being a shipbuilder, and so I am on the matricula of Friar Roger Bacon.”

“Roger Bacon!” Walter sat up and whistled with surprise.

He had good reason. It was said of Roger Bacon that he had a great reputation abroad for wisdom and learning, but in Oxford he was both scoffed at and feared. It was firmly believed by many that he had sold his soul to a vicar of the devil and that in return all the secrets of black magic had been revealed to him. When he walked the streets of the town, mothers dragged their children indoors and closed the shutters, that his shadow might not fall on them. Many other things were held against him in university circles. He sometimes lectured in English instead of in Latin, and that was a most grievous departure from sacred practice.

“It’s generally believed,” said Walter, after a moment, “that all who listen to what he teaches will end up at crossroads with stakes driven through their hearts.”

“Friar Bacon,” said Tristram earnestly, “is teaching me the truth about this world we live in. I am learning about navigation and the winds and the tides and the stars; how to make things, how to cast metal, how to figure accurately. Oh, I know it’s said arithmetic should be left to Jews and couletiers, and that astronomy is only for magicians. But I need this knowledge if I am to build sound ships.”

Walter was both puzzled and disturbed. “I have never given this matter much thought,” he said. “I have always been taught to believe the so-called sciences vague and full of theory, too lacking in reality. There is no logic in science.”

“I am not a scholar,” answered Tristram. “I am sure you know now more than I can ever hope to learn. You have a fine reputation as a scholar all over Oxford, Walter of Gurnie. But I know one thing. The sciences are not vague. On the contrary they are exact. They are based on fact, proven fact.”

“Do you imply that logic, on which all our teaching is based, is not built on fact?”

“I have never studied logic, but it seems to consist of finespun reasoning, all of which goes back to the dreams of dead philosophers.”

“My teachers would call that illimitable heresy,” declared Walter, employing the word which at the moment was so much on Oxford tongues that it threatened to become threadbare at its seat of use. “I have been taught to believe that reality belongs only in the realm of abstract thought. Man changes, but humanity does not change. Material things, being of the moment, have no importance. In days to come it may not be necessary to travel, and so it is unimportant to learn how to build sound ships. We need only to learn the established, ageless realities, the truths about humanity, bequeathed to us by the inspired thinkers of the past.”

“Will you be angry if I say that seems to me nothing but illimitable nonsense?”

The wind had changed and was now blowing under the stair and dampening their faces with an occasional flurry of rain. Walter tried to protect his head by drawing up the fur-trimmed quintus, but discovered this left his legs completely exposed. He was finding it hard not to shiver openly. And yet, in spite of his growing discomfort, the debate was proving both disconcerting and stimulating.

“This has been a strange night,” he said. “I find that I like you very much, Tristram Griffen. It never seemed possible before that anything in the way of mutual liking and intimacy could exist between men of different stations in life.”

“We were born as far apart as heaven and hell,” declared the fletcher’s son. “And there must be just as much difference in what we think and believe. It puzzles me as much as it does you that you are ready to talk to me as though we were equals.”

Walter began to laugh. “You will forgive me then if I say that never before did it seem possible that a common man could have opinions that were worth listening to. In fact, I think I was sure they were not mentally capable of having opinions. Now I am all turned around in my mind. By St. Aidan, I am even beginning to suspect you are learning more at Oxford than I am!”

“Strange as it may seem, God gave minds to common men and chamber-deacons.”

They were both sitting up now, with the cloak wrapped around their knees. Walter realized that his hair was damp from the rain, which dripped down on them from the flimsy stair.

Tristram went on. “There is something I wish you would do. I will not dare show myself tomorrow, but you can do so safely enough, I think. Friar Bacon has a class at the hour of prime. Take my place there. Listen to what he has to say. It may open your mind still further.”

After a moment’s consideration, Walter nodded his head. “I came to Oxford to learn,” he said. “Perhaps I owe it to myself to listen once to this mysterious friar. I will do as you suggest. Provided, of course,” with a shiver he could not repress, “that I manage to live through the night.”