Belle's Song (26 page)

The summoner coughed and shuffled his documents. “My lords, my last witness is the Widow Chegwin,” he said.

My father jolted and for one awful moment I thought he was going to fall. A traitor from his own hearth. I prayed that the widow might die before she took to the floor. I prayed so hard that I didn’t notice my nails had dug right into my palms. The widow seemed amazed. She kept bowing.

“Are you the Widow Chegwin, who has lived with”—the summoner gave a dirty laugh—“I’m sorry,
cared for
, this cripple of a man for the last several years?”

The widow was flustered. “Cared for, not lived with, my lords. There was an accident. He needed help.”

My father’s head was bent. This was worse than hanging.

“And did this man, even after he was crippled and couldn’t walk, insist on going to the Tabard?”

“Well, he went to the—”

“He had a chair made specially, so that he could take himself. Isn’t that right?”

“A chair was made—”

“So that he could go to the Tabard. Has he been anywhere else in this chair?”

“I suppose not …”

The summoner stuck his thumbs into his belt, a new one, thick, with a shining buckle. “As I say, my lords, even after he was crippled, this man continued to plot. The Tabard is a well-known haunt of French merchants. I don’t think we need trouble ourselves further. Go and sit down,” he commanded the widow.

She began to retreat, then stopped. “But if he’s so wicked, how do you account for the miracle?” she asked.

“What miracle?” sneered the summoner.

“He’s standing,” the widow said. “His daughter went to Canterbury to pray to St. Thomas for a cure, and her prayers have been answered. How do you account for that? St. Thomas would never cure a wicked man, or so I’ve heard.”

The summoner spun round, registering for the first time that my father was indeed standing. He sucked violently on his teeth.

For the first time, too, the judges showed some interest. They looked at my father properly. “Is this true?” the Duke of Gloucester asked.

The widow answered promptly on my father’s behalf, as she was wont to do. How could I ever have cursed her for that? “It’s as true as I’m standing here.” She clutched her hands together. “God be praised!”

There was a pause and then I heard, from the bench, Master Chaucer take up the chant. “God be praised! God be praised!” He encouraged the others. The whole hall resounded.

The judges whispered to each other. Eventually, Gloucester put up his hand and after some little time, the chant died away. “John Bellfounder,” Gloucester said when he could be heard, “do you swear that after your accident, you couldn’t walk? Do you swear that there was no pretense?”

Again the widow interrupted. “He couldn’t even piss on his own, sir! What man would make a pretense about that?”

“Silence, woman!” snapped Gloucester. “John Bellfounder must swear himself.” My father said nothing. He was shaking with humiliation. Gloucester turned impatiently to the summoner. “Master Summoner! Did you ever see this man walk?”

The summoner’s face was contorted in a hideous internal struggle. He wanted to lie, but without having primed a witness to back up his lie, and with so many to deny his account, he didn’t dare. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say no. His head simply shivered a denial.

“Well indeed, if the blessed St. Thomas of Canterbury has seen fit to bestow God’s favor on a man, he will not look kindly on those who seek to take it away,” Gloucester said. His fellow judges looked nervous. “I mean, if he can make a cripple walk, he could just as easily turn us all into cripples.” They huddled together. After what seemed like an age, Gloucester stood up. “We are agreed. John Bellfounder! If you can walk over to me, you’re a free man because then we’ll really see if a miracle has taken place. If you can’t, well …” It was clear what he meant.

My father raised his head. “Walk,” I prayed, “
walk!
”

But he just stood in front of his chair. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t walk, it was as though he had forgotten how to walk. When he’d asked Peter Joiner about calipers, he’d only thought to stand. I could see this plain as plain. I moved forward, wanting to take his hand. I was prevented, so there was nothing for him to hold on to, and he looked so lonely standing there, with every eye on him. Minutes passed. The summoner began to grin. He sat down, placed his papers ostentatiously on the table, and twiddled his thumbs. His rings flashed in the candlelight. I could see sweat trickling from under my father’s hair. I longed to shout instructions—one foot first, then the other—but what good would that have done? I moved one of my own legs, trying to identify the right muscle.
How did people walk? They just did. And my father just didn’t.

Master Summoner rose. Slowly, and with purpose, he rolled the charge sheet into a ball, called out my father’s name, and threw it. The ball curved through the air. Just as the summoner intended, it was going to land short. When the ball hit the floor, my father’s fate would be sealed. I heard a small groan arise from the benches where the witnesses were seated. I buried my head in my hands. Then the groan broadened into something else, and broadened again. I peeped through splayed fingers. My father was not where he had been. He was holding the parchment ball and now he was throwing it back to the summoner; a good throw, a strong throw. It was Master Summoner who missed the catch. When the parchment ball flew over his head, some of the witnesses laughed out loud.

My father’s face was set. He had responded quite automatically to the throwing of the parchment ball, and he had Master Host to thank for that. Months of throwing bags of beans at the bottles had kept the memory of movement in his muscles. If he just thought about catching, he could move. It was thinking about moving that made him freeze. Now he raised his arms and took a step; raised his arms, took a step; raised his arms, took a step; and in this stilted way, made it to the judges’ dais. I held my breath, dreading that they
would ask him to climb the stairs. I doubt if he could have done that and I could tell from the angle of his back that the pain was already excruciating. One of the judges crooked a finger. He was going to beckon, but before he could, Master Chaucer set up a new chant: “Blessed Thomas of Canterbury, intercede for all of us sinners.” It was a clever chant, a brilliant chant. It didn’t exonerate my father, but since nobody was without sin, it joined us all to him. The judge had little choice. He bowed his head and joined in with the Master’s prayer, and the Master didn’t choose to finish his prayer until my father had jerked his way back to stand by his chair and the Duke of Gloucester was ready to deliver his pardon. Then the Master called for quiet. The words must be heard by everybody so that there could be no future doubt. As soon as the pardon was spoken, the widow ran to my father, and it was lucky she did, for he needed a shoulder to lean on.

The summoner shot dagger looks and whispered to the archdeacon, who was sitting with his hands in his lap like a small dog waiting for his dinner. I was so busy gazing at my father that I jumped when the clerk prodded me toward the middle of the hall. Just being forced to stand there, like a scarecrow in a field, was hard. I imagined myself back in my cell. I was a shell, a nothing. I wouldn’t move. I wouldn’t speak. I wouldn’t do anything.

The summoner’s charges were carefully chosen, as was the order in which he placed them. Like my father, I had also been at the Tabard and had been friendly with the French merchants who drank there. Only a month ago, in plain sight of a group of pilgrims, whose number included the summoner himself, I had danced with Sir Jean d’Aubricourt, a captured French knight whose ransom had been paid and who was on his way home. Soon after that, I had shown off the king’s ring, which I had obviously been using to add authority to the messages I was sending to France. In addition, the summoner had it on good authority that I’d recently been to see the king himself. Lastly, he said, his voice dripping with mock horror, I’d been spreading scurrilous rumors about some of God’s servants, who also happened to be London’s finest citizens. “My lords,” he added with a final flourish, “amongst those who find themselves the objects of the prisoner’s wild imaginings are some of the good men in this hall.”

The judges murmured between themselves. “Look up, girl,” ordered one of them.

I thought it best to do as I was told. I focused on the dais and could see that two of the judges had received a visitation from Walter and myself and these two were leaning forward. The Duke of Gloucester, who had not had a visit, was leaning back. I could not think that any of this was good.

The summoner called Master Pardoner as a witness against me; the rest were strangers or almost strangers. The laundress said she had known I was bad the moment she set eyes on me, although since she admitted she’d only met me once, this was poor testimony. However, several other people testified to my demonic character. A blind man told the story of my father’s crippling as though I’d cast a spell on the bell. An apprentice boy who my father had sacked said that I turned milk sour. A mute girl made peculiar mouthings, which the summoner interpreted in some nonsensical way or other. After she’d sat down, much to my surprise, my fellow pilgrims lined up in my defense. Madame Prioress, in a voice high and shrill, swore that I was a simple girl who loved animals, not treachery. She produced one of her dogs and said I’d saved its life. Dame Alison attested in lengthy detail to my spiritual devotion, citing that she’d seen me on my knees every night without fail, and that I’d always prayed aloud, and exhorted my fellow pilgrims to pray with me “for the good of the realm, my lords,
the good of the realm
.” The skinny cleric, who had been so appalled by my repeating of the miller’s story, said that I’d been a model of girlish decorum and added that the summoner probably imagined he’d seen me with the king’s ring because of an alchemist’s trick with gold he’d witnessed. Certainly, said the cleric, he himself had seen no such ring. Sir Knight also put himself out on my behalf,
gushing that I’d been so like a daughter to him on the journey that he’d willingly lent me his own daughter’s pony. “Girls don’t plot, my lords,” he said. “They marry and have babies.” Mistress Medic, still staring into the distance, said that I never spoke a word out of place. I bowed my head in shame. When the franklin and the plowman extolled my virtues, I couldn’t help looking at Master Chaucer. He was fiddling with his sleeves, watching the result of his coaching with some anxiety. Nobody must fluff their lines. When my defenders had finished, he knitted his fingers and unknitted his brow. He’d done all he could.

There was muttering amongst the judges. Because of my age and the character witnesses, they seemed inclined to leniency.

The summoner piped up at once. “That’s all well and good,” he said, “except, my lords, that this evidence changes nothing. Nobody denies that the defendant says her prayers and is kind to dogs. But she danced with Sir Jean.” He addressed the pilgrims directly. “Can you deny that?” Silence. The summoner walked to and fro. “As for Master Cleric,” he said, “
he
may have been duped by the alchemist, but I most certainly was not, not for a moment and if necessary, I can produce witnesses who saw the accused with the king. Can you deny you saw the king?” he suddenly barked at me. I said nothing. “No, I didn’t think so.” He stopped walking.
“But, my lords,” he said importantly, “even if we disregard all of these incriminating acts, the last charge I read out is by far the worst. Now, I’m a fair man and a reasonable one. I’ll not point to the accused’s red hair, or the fact that she summoned down a cloud when her horse—the horse that Sir Knight so kindly provided—bolted for no reason—”

My defenders rose as one. “Shame on you for tainting her with witchery!” called Dame Alison. “The cloud was alchemy. The alchemist told us himself, and he’ll tell you if you’ll hear him.” Luke got up.
No
, I thought,
no. Luke must have nothing to do with this
.

Happily, Gloucester intervened. “Silence!” he barked. “We want nothing about clouds here. Enough of this foolery or I’ll clear the court.”

To my great relief, Master Chaucer made Luke sit down.

“Of course, my lord,” said the summoner unctuously. “As I said, discounting everything else, it’s really what the girl has done since she came to London that proves beyond doubt that she’s the spawn of Satan.” He coughed portentously and waited until he had the complete attention of the whole hall. My father had no idea what was coming next, nor did Master Chaucer or Luke or any of the pilgrims. But the people sitting opposite did. I knew from the nervous hum amongst them that they were people Walter and I had visited.

“I can hardly go on,” the summoner said. “I will because I must. Her fellow pilgrims attest to this girl’s sanctity, kindness, and purity, but let me tell you that this witch has lodged in her imagination sexual deviances unknown to Lucifer himself.” There was a bubble of noise. “Yes,” said the summoner, “and she’s seen fit to repeat her filthy imaginings to many of the people in this hall, usually not in daylight hours, no, in the dark, when the devil can ride unnoticed on her shoulder.”

I could hear my father’s breath rasping. I was glad he was sitting again.

“Let me tell of one,” the summoner said, “just as an illustration.” He crooked a finger at a man sitting on the edge of a bench. Reluctantly, the man stepped forward. I recognized him as a guild master, the benefactor of a home for orphaned children on whom he practiced his particular vice on a weekly basis. The summoner began his description. The Duke of Gloucester shifted uncomfortably. “Do we really need to hear the details, Master Summoner?”