‘But, Mam,’ Ben wailed, ‘my friends’ll see me there among all the cripples and gammers. They’ll torment the life out of me.’
‘A bit of teasing won’t do you any harm. You and that father of yours were getting far too high and mighty, lording around in that play as if you were the King’s minstrels. And it’s no use you sulking. If you hadn’t made up one of your stories about gold coins and set the men against each other none of this would have happened. Now you see you get to the front and don’t let the others push you aside. Be sure to tell the monk you’ve three little brothers and sisters at home all going hungry.’
She grabbed Ben’s shoulder and marched him out of the door, and with a light cuff around his head she sent him off in the direction of the hill that led up to Heyrow. Ben knew, without turning round, that she was standing in the doorway of the tiny cottage, her arms folded, watching him.
In the past, when his mother had sent him on a errand he didn’t want to perform, he’d run off to play instead, refusing to think about his mother’s wrath until he was finally forced to return home, but no such temptation entered his head now. Ben didn’t need his mother to remind him that it was his fault his father had been arrested. He’d been blaming himself ever since it had happened. He hadn’t made up that story about the half-noble. He had seen it, he had! But if he’d only kept quiet, the men would never have argued, he would still be performing the play and his little brothers would not be whining with hunger. Of course, he didn’t for one moment believe that his father had killed Martin. He couldn’t have. But suppose no one believed him? Suppose they hanged him anyway? That too would be all Ben’s fault. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and tried desperately to think of something else.
By the time he had reached Steeple Gate, a large crowd of beggars were squatting on the ground before the thick wooden door. They were mostly cripples and the old and frail whose faces were as wrinkled as last year’s apples. One man, whose face was half covered in filthy bandages, gripped his crutches tightly as if he feared even these poor things might be snatched from him, while a young hollow-cheeked woman, with a grizzling baby, continually batted at the hands of a small girl to stop her picking at the yellow-crusted sores on her scalp. Ben attempted to step round the prone figures and edge his way to the front, but a hand shot out and caught his leg in a painful grip, dragging him back.
‘Here, where do think you’re going, brat?’
The man was crouching on a low wooden cart. He’d lost both his legs and the knuckles of his hand were covered with thick pads of brown skin where for years he had used them to propel himself along the ground. He might not be able to walk, but the muscles on his arms were harder than those of the paggers who humped loads down at the quayside. Ben wasn’t going to argue with him. He obediently crouched down where the man thrust him.
‘That demon will be hunting again tonight,’ the cripple on the cart said to the old man beside him. ‘You want to make sure you’re back inside your shelter long afore dark. Killed two already, but he must be getting hungry for some more by now.’
All the heads lifted as one, glancing apprehensively up towards the cathedral tower.
‘Two, is it now?’ The old man chewed on the news.
‘Aye, first was that fellow who played the angel, then that Ely boy, Luke. It’s his head they found up on top of the tower.’
‘So we’ve nothing to be afeared of then,’ an old woman cackled. ‘The monster’s only going for the tender, pretty ones.’
The beggars grinned, but their smiles quickly faded and their eyes kept swivelling back up at the grey skies as if they expected any minute to see the creature swoop down.
‘Luke,’ the old man said. ‘His uncle’s one of those they locked up. I knew his brother once, the one that ran off. He-’
‘Shouldn’t be keeping them locked up,’ a woman with a withered arm interrupted. ‘Speaking that cursed play. It’s them who’s to blame for calling up the demon. What they want to do is to hang them from the top of the tower and leave them there for the demon to eat.’
‘No!’ Ben yelled. ‘It’s not their fault. It was the monks that give them the cursed words. They’re written down, they are, on a scroll. The monks keep it hidden in the priory.’
‘Aye,’ said the women, ‘but a curse doesn’t work until it’s spoken aloud for all the imps of hell to hear.’
‘Well, there wouldn’t be any curse to speak if monks didn’t have that scroll,’ Ben retorted, scarlet with indignation.
‘Lad’s right,’ the old man said. ‘Who knows what other curses they’ve got written down on their bits of parchment. Someone should go in there and burn the whole lot of it, every last scrap, just to make sure they can’t call up something worse.’
‘And who do you think is going to do that?’ the man on the cart sneered. ‘You going to volunteer, you old fart?’
‘Whole town will,’ the woman said sourly, ‘and they’ll burn the cathedral down too if the demon that haunts that tower snatches another soul.’ She swivelled to face Ben. ‘Here… I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? You’re that brat played Isaac, aren’t you?’
An angry rumble ran through the beggars. The woman started towards Ben, clambering awkwardly over the beggars sitting between them. Several of the other beggars were also trying to heave themselves up. Ben scrambled to his feet and fled.
He was already several yards away when he heard the creak of the wooden gate opening behind him and the sudden clamour for alms. He stopped and cautiously turned around. The beggars had forgotten him in their desperation to attract the attention of the two monks in the open gateway. The brothers were handing out loaves of bread from one basket and kitchen scraps from the other, a random assortment of whatever the almoner had cajoled from the cook or gardener. An onion was dropped into one begging bowl, a small measure of withered beans into another, a lump of cheese into the next. The favoured ones were given pork bones, albeit with much of the meat cut from them, but still with enough remaining to make a coveted addition to the cooking pot. Those who had received only beans howled with envy.
Ben jiggled anxiously from foot to foot as the beggars stowed the food in sacks or under threadbare cloaks and shuffled off, glancing warily around them as if they feared cutpurses might be lurking to snatch their loaves from them. Even the man on the little cart had managed to claim his share by dint of ramming his cart hard and repeatedly against the ankles of those in front. The monks’ baskets were emptying fast.
Ben made up his mind and rushed forward, trying to wriggle his way to the gate. But the beggars, even the old ones, were well practised in the art of blocking those behind them, while thrusting forward their own bowls. When Ben finally reached the front he was dismayed to see the monk preparing to close the gate. He clutched at the monk’s basket.
‘Please, I need a loaf and some beans. I’ve a sister and two little brothers at home – my mother too. We’ve no food left and my father…’ he hesitated.
He wasn’t convinced that the monks would share his mother’s view that if they’d imprisoned his father, they should be feeding his family. Besides, there were still a few beggars remaining, pressing forward like him, their ears wagging.
‘My father’s dead,’ he finished in a rush and was immediately seized with a terrible panic, as if now that he had said the words they would come to pass.
‘Too late, it’s all gone, lad,’ the monk said, tipping the bread basket to prove to them all not a crumb remained. ‘He had the last loaf,’ he said, indicating with a jerk of his chin the man on crutches with the bandages over his eye hopping away from the gate. ‘Give thanks to the Blessed Virgin you’re sound in limb, boy. At least you’ve a chance of finding work to help your mother. Poor wretches like him haven’t.’