*
The vocal crowd must’ve been having a buoying effect on the party down the hill. Clearly pleased with their reception the company of the Wool’s Fleece headed by the gaudy, colourful figure of their master of rogues waved back at their cheering audience. Even from some thirty yards away Hugh could see the satisfied grin on the face of Flaunty Phil. It was almost like the celebration around the procession of the Misrule boy bishop. Behind them the windows were open and full of figures leaning over to catch a glimpse of the reason for the raucous cheering. More than a few joined in for no better reason than their neighbour was shouting as well. So by the time Flaunty Phil had travelled a dozen more paces up the hill over a hundred spectators had gathered in the spontaneous manner of London crowds. Usually these instant crowds were a boon for the begging fraternity since they provided a bountiful opportunity for scattered coins or cut purses. However unlike every other crowd in the city this one was totally lacking any beggars at all, save Hugh. If he’d had time to mull that fact over it might have worried him. However as it stood he was too terrified of his present company to consider the subtly ominous portents of the near future.
*
Like Hugh, Flaunty Phil was too taken up with the present moment to look any way ahead with clear vision. In contrast though his main emotions were bursting pride and satisfaction rather that codpiece drenching terror. He’d never have credited the commons of the Liberties with such an enthusiastic welcome. More commonly when the Fleecers came out of the tavern for roistering and affray the reaction of the Liberties populous was to bolt the doors and windows and hide in their houses until the screaming and moans had passed. Yet here they were in their hundreds all waving and cheering his arrival. It was then that Flaunty Phil knew his destiny lay in wearing the gold ring and silver circlet of the Upright Man. With so much acclaim and visible support both Earless Nick and Canting Michael would have to yield to his claim or face the wrath of the city.
What pleased him the most was the rank of barrels at the top of the hill, each attended by a tapster with a leather firkin at the ready. It swelled his heart near to bursting to see the loyalty of the inns and taverns of Snow Hill to his cause. Flaunty surreptitiously checked his purse for a suitable spread of pence. It always paid to be seen as generous and lordly. Also a display of munificence would make it so much easier when his lads visited later for a ‘rightful contribution’ to the Upright Man’s coffer chest. Best of all in the midst of these right worthy tapsters was Old Bent Bart’s most recent messenger, the crippled lad Hobblin’ Hugh.
If possible Flaunty Phil’s smile grew broader since the meaning of the ale was as obvious a signal as a great Gonne from the Tower. The Master of Beggars was pledging his support with this display of fealty. Once more lost in his delightful golden dreams of coming lordship Flaunty Phil’s usually sharp perception of the gritty here and now of the London streets was blurred. So it was perfectly understandable that the change in the cries of the crowd didn’t set him off to the upcoming turd in his pottage.
One moment there was Flaunty grinning and waving to the cheers. The next his bruised and broken nose was inches deep in the sloshing mire of the road. It seemed that a spring had burst forth and had drenched the road in a sudden flood and washed away his footing, tumbling him into the muddy onrush. In a suspended moment before his mind could readjust to his sudden lack of a cheering crowd, Flaunty was caught in a terrible dilemma. His body made two instantaneous demands-the first for breath, and the second the need to cradle the sharp throbbing pain of his once more flattened nose. Luckily for him at least part of his brain moved faster and instantly opted for shoving his hands into the stream of street filth and water and thus pushing himself halfway up to gulp a lungful of unmuddied air.
Phil shook his head, staggered upright and gasped as the pain roared out. “By Satan’s flaming arse wha…?”
It was probably for the best that his vision was blurred by mud and blood-he wouldn’t have been able to dodge the empty barrel bouncing its way down the hill that laid him out flat on his back. Thus Flaunty Phil was spared the final indignity of realising that the last wave of water had set him afloat in the piss channel ditch down Snow Hill.
*
Hugh, like the rest of the apprentices gained with the aid of Hawks’ silver, had helped tip up the line of water butts as Flaunty Phil approached. Half-heartedly Hugh joined in the sudden barrage of stone weighted snowballs raining down upon the drenched and tumbling Fleecers. Between the sudden flood and the missiles the rogues and roisters were completely routed either falling due to the now slippery cobbles or the wearing of a rock around the earhole. In true London fashion the crowd now switched from cheers to jeers in between the peals of raucous laughter at the staggering attempts of the Fleecer rogues to stay upright.
Beside him Hawks was the very picture of the gleeful Lord of Misrule as the Liberties knifeman aimed and launched his treacherously deceptive snowballs. At each strike he’d cry out a hurrah and then almost under his breath mutter some strange phrase. “Tumbled another pin! If’n only that were Bedwell I’d be a truly happy man.”
Hugh shivered at each downed Fleecer. That fearsome gleam in Hawks’ eye wasn’t diminished at the smiting of his foes, but rather stoked and puffed like the fire in a blacksmith’s forge. The felling of the Fleecers continued as if it were a Misrule game of bowls. Hugh fervently prayed to all and any saint who chanced to be listening that if they kept this poor soul safe till nightfall he’d swear off stealing church candles for life, as he truly didn’t want to know what cheery diversion Hawks had in mind when this game was ended.
Chapter Thirteen. Old Bent Bart’s Hazard
Stomping along Cheapside Street Old Bent Bart scowled fit to curdle milk and growled for Kut Karl to bend an ear this way. “They’s all been scoured up?”
The stubbly shaved head paused for a moment’s thought and his knifeman nodded slowly. “Ja…I means yes.”
“And the messengers they’ve all returned?”
“They’s ave, meister,” Kut Karl appeared to hesitate at the end of that answer and then abruptly continues as if spitting out wormy bread, “ Cept for Hobblin.”
Bent Bart chewed over that last morsel of news with a deeper frown, he would’ve cast a look over his shoulder to verify the report. However, firstly it didn’t serve to a leader to doubt the word of a faithful minion, well at least not quite so publicly. Secondly an action like that could be misconstrued into the suspicion that the Beggar Master didn’t trust his company to follow him. This could be dangerous, since doubt breed nervousness and hesitation which led along a very short path to treachery. Thirdly his bent back meant it was either painful or impossible to view behind without spinning right around and he’d appear the most comical buffoon, thus losing the hard won dignity of his position. So as if grinding a stone with his teeth Old Bent Bart marched on trailed by a hundred beggars he fervently hoped.
His determined appearance aside his mind was still a broil, seething with unmentioned doubts and stirred with anger and rancour. The previous night’s conversation with Prioress Abyngdon had set him a thinking over the Comfit of Rogues or Cozenage of Rogues as the Prioress sneeringly referred to it. The compact had sounded so sensible back at the Bear Inn, each lord or master with a fair chance of victory in the quest, although now he’d had time to mull it over, why had they so easily agreed to the terms of Earless Nick? Was he no better than a tosspotting drunkard? Bent Bart didn’t care a fig about the life of the Bedwell lad though his antics over the past year had been a source of great amusement. If Bedwell cony catched the so called Lord of the Liberties in his own house it was no skin off his nose or other regions of his anatomy if Throckmore bellowed and threatened.