Dark Waters (19 page)

‘I am sure you will do your best. Now, I believe our business is over.'

We rose and she bobbed decorously. I gave her a bow and so departed, with the feeling that, though she had seemed to take me into her confidence, I had learned very little indeed about her.

Chapter Thirteen

S
TROLLING BACK TO
the office I had a fancy to see how Nick Oldswick was faring, and again took the cut-through to Friar Gate. The streets were all but deserted and most of the shops were shuttered. People were sequestered, awaiting news of the epidemic.

This time Parsonage allowed me into the shop. He was breathing heavily through an open mouth and I waited while he caught his breath. I could tell he had something to impart.

‘The bailiff's constable,' he gasped when he could close his lips at last. ‘Constable Mallender called. Mr Oldswick's summoned. A council in Moot Hall. All burgesses are called in. But Mr Oldswick's in no condition to—'

‘What – the corporation's meeting?' I broke in. ‘On a Saturday? What's it for?'

The corporation burgesses including the mayor and two bailiffs govern every part of the townspeople's lives. They regulate our trade, instruct us in morality, decide our disputes, give us our holidays and keep order in the streets. Oldswick, as I think I have already mentioned, was one of them.

‘All to do with this sickness, so the man Mallender said. But Mr Oldswick's—'

‘Not well enough to attend, that is obvious,' I interrupted again, remembering why I was here. ‘So how is he? Any sign of hope?'

‘No, sir, I am afraid for his life. I'm in a right blether in this house. If he dies, what happens to me?'

‘Let's think about Mr Oldswick first of all, shall we? Can he speak?'

‘Oh, aye. He can speak. But he's raving, sir. Keeps asking me the time. And says someone's trying to kill him. And when I say there's no one here to kill him except for me, he begs me to tell him the time again. He's dead afraid of dying. And he won't eat but he wants to drink every five minutes. And he can't make water easy. So it makes him dead uncomfortable, but soon I'm feared he may just be dead.'

‘Have you had the doctor back?'

‘I have that. I
had
been giving Mr Oldswick the medicine, but—'

‘What medicine?'

‘That medicine Mr Oldswick himself brought home yesterday.'

‘If he brought medicine home he must have been feeling sick already. You said he fell ill in the night.'

The servant's face went blank.

‘He said nowt to me, sir, until night-time. Any road, Dr Fidelis said I've to stop the medicine, and it was better only to keep watering him and give him a beaten egg or warm milk. Which Mr Oldswick didn't mind as he said, when he could still talk, the medicine tasted sickly sweet, but with something bitter in it too. He didn't like it.'

‘So Dr Fidelis has been back here, since I called earlier?'

‘Not him,' said Parsonage. ‘That's what he said for himself this morning. But Mr Oldswick got no better on that so I sent out for Dr Tewksbury. He came and said, what good is warm milk and egg and water? And he said this man's heart's racing and he must bleed him. So he did that, and then
he
left. But he did no good, neither. And I've not seen a shadow of a doctor since.'

‘All the doctors are very busy. But if I see Dr Fidelis, or indeed Dr Tewksbury, I shall ask him to call back.'

I walked home through unnaturally quiet streets, amused in spite of everything at the thought of the prostrate watchmaker constantly asking for the time. As Shakespeare points out, we are all dyed through and through with the colours of our trade. On my own deathbed will I be babbling questions of the law?

I entered the office, where I meant to spend the afternoon absorbed in a dispute over title to a property off Friar Gate, whose origins were 500 years old, which meant back almost to the beginning of civilized life in the town. After more than an hour reading my client's papers, it was clear I would have to look at the Burgage Rolls, and to do that I would have to cross the road to the Moot Hall.

Attempts had been made over the years to clad this ancient building with a more youthful appearance, and even to endow it with the grandeur of modern improvement: an outer covering of brick over the primitive materials used in its first construction; a portico on Church Gate surmounted by a frieze of plaques carved with the heads of worthies. But nothing could prevent the place creaking inside like an old body. Here and there beams had sagged and stanchions begun to twist as the black oaken bones of the building dried out, and its lath-and-plaster flesh grew cracked and worn.

Passing in through the empty hall, from which rose a substantial oak staircase to the council chamber, I could hear from above the sound of the burgesses arguing, their voices heated and occasionally rising to squeaks of panic. I bypassed the stair, however, and entered a passage at the back of the hall that eventually led to the vaults where the records of the corporation were kept. This was a suite of rooms behind a thick nailed door, dusty but tolerably dry, whose gatekeeper was the Clerk of the Records, Atherton by name.

There was no sign of him at his writing desk in the anteroom, so I tried the archive door itself, which was unlocked. I heaved it open, and called out the clerk's name. My voice fell dully and without echo in the labyrinthine chamber, stuffed as it was with rolls of vellum and leather-bound ledgers heaped together in a maze of racks. Getting no answer, I ventured in but found no one there. Atherton, it seemed, had deserted his post, but it did not matter to me. His function was to locate requested documents and sign them out on removal, to prevent their loss. But I knew where to find the rolls I was looking for, and I could consult them on the spot.

The Burgage Rolls were preserved in a part of the cellar space that was far from the door and out of its sight, yet fortunately close to a light through which came some pale rays of afternoon sun. By this I inspected the rolls and wrote some notes. I had almost finished the work when I felt the faint breath of a cold draught on my neck and felt sure someone had opened the door.

‘Atherton – is that you?'

There was no reply.

Five minutes later I had finished my note taking and replaced all the rolls. Returning to the antechamber I found a man sitting at Atherton's desk bent over a sheet of paper and writing, while consulting the open ledger in front of him. It was Denis Destercore.

‘What are you doing in the Records Office?' I demanded. ‘What are you copying, without the say-so of the clerk?'

‘The clerk is not here.'

‘I know he's not here, which is why I guess you are copying without his leave.'

‘I might say the same of you.' He nodded to the papers in my hand. 'I see you have been copying from the rolls.'

‘I am a lawyer in practice here in town, whereas you—'

‘Have equally legitimate business. I may be a stranger but, as you know, I am acting as agent in the election.'

‘What are you copying?'

Destercore sighed impatiently.

‘Though it is not your affair, I am not. I am proving. And I have done it before, with Atherton's approval. Look if you like.'

He laid down his pen and lifted the book to show me the gold-leaf title printed on the spine:
Liber Liborum Prestoniensis,
the register of burgesses, or freemen.

‘You are tallying the names of freemen against the voters on your lists – is that it? You are testing their rights to vote.'

Destercore only looked at me with a steady, challenging gaze, then picked up the pen once more.

‘Now, if you will excuse me,' he said, laying the volume back on its stand, ‘I need to get on.'

I left him to it, thinking that, for all I knew, he had the mayor's or a magistrate's authority to be where he was, and doing what he was doing. I gave some thought to his manner towards me. Destercore had not been impolite – the rudeness had more likely been on my part – but nor had he been imperturbable. There was a taut quality to the man suggesting that he felt threatened or was afraid that at any moment his performance would be found in some way wanting.

A little further along Church Gate, near the entrance to Water Street, were the premises of our bookseller Sebastian Sweeting. I could see even at this distance that his shop was lit, and found myself being drawn helplessly like a moth towards that welcoming illumination. I had not forgotten my musing earlier in the day about the politics of birds and, in particular, whether it was true what my father had told me of crows holding a solemn parliament or court. Still curious about the matter I entered, thinking I might find some book or information on the subject. The proprietor was seated, as usual, on a stool behind his counter with a large snuffbox before him, from which he took a pinch at intervals. He was alone. The remarkable fact about this bookseller was that one never saw him read so much as a single sentence from any book, yet he had in his head a complete inventory not just of all the volumes he held in his current stock but, it seemed, of all the books he had ever sold, with a thorough working knowledge of their matter and content. I was confident he would be able to tell me (and perhaps sell me) something on the subject of avian politics.

He greeted me with a laconic grunt, and swivelled the snuffbox in my direction. This was his invariable behaviour when a customer entered, for Sweeting projected a level appearance at all times, excited or surprised by nothing. I took a pinch, sneezed, and made my enquiry. For a moment he paused to think, then without a word wandered into the recesses of the shop, manhandled a ladder into place and ascended to a shelf almost at the ceiling, from where he plucked two fat folio volumes.

‘This has something for you,' he said, lodging the books with difficulty under his arm. He began to descend the ladder, taking elaborate care. ‘But if you want to buy it, it'll cost you.'

Arriving with his heavy freight he thumped the two books down on the counter, with a sound like distant cannon fire. The impact raised a cloud of dust and caused an atmospheric vibration that rattled the windows. On the edge of a narrow shelf above the other end of the counter a small bottle wobbled, then fell and shattered on the counter top. It had contained a syrup-like liquid, which was now oozing around the glass shards.

Sweeting quickly seized the two tomes and transferred them to a vacant chair, then went for a brush and mop-cloth. I carefully picked up the largest glass piece, which still had the bottle's handwritten label attached. ‘
Paracelsus, his Patent Preservative,
' I read,
‘supplied exclusive by Thos. Shackleberry. Firmly eschew all imitations! 6d.
' Clearly Sebastian Sweeting had been in the Market Place yesterday, and had paid his sixpence to the mountebank. This suggested there was an unsuspected side to the urbane, unruffled Mr Sweeting. I dipped the end of a finger into the spill and dabbed it onto my tongue. I tasted sweetness, with herbal and other flavours that I could not identify.

‘How is Mr Shackleberry's Patent Preservative?' I asked, dropping the glass onto Sweeting's pan as he swept the sticky glass fragments into it.

‘Oh, I don't know,' he said, mopping with his cloth at the remaining stickiness. ‘I gave some to Mrs Sweeting last night and she says it was very pleasant, and could she have some more? Well, I thought, that won't answer. There's cordials and tonics on the one hand, which is frivolous, and there's stinging galenicals and bitter pills and drenches on the other, which is serious physic. And I'm damned if I've paid sixpence for a mere bottle of sweet tonic. I took the bottle from her and told her she could have no more as I was going to return it to the fellow and demand my money back, which I have now saved myself the trouble of. Oh, well. Now, this book…'

He put on a pair of spectacles.

‘Take a look, won't you?'

I opened the first of the volumes and found the title page.

THE WORKS OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Compared with the Former Editions, and many valuable MSS

Sweeting tapped the page.

‘I swear you will find a treatise in verse here called
The Assembly of Fowls,
or maybe it's
The Parliament of Birds.
Very interested in birds was Chaucer.'

I turned the pages until I found the list of contents.

‘It's a finely printed edition in two volumes, on good paper,' Sweeting went on. ‘But there's something unlucky about it. It took years to bring it to press and killed two editors in the meantime. That was twenty year ago, of course.'

He paused, perhaps realizing that he would not sell the book too quickly with a patter like that. He began again, more persuasively.

‘But there has been nothing like this before, you know. It's the first edition of Chaucer's writing that is printed in plain Roman type, not the Gothic. Very difficult to read, is the Gothic, specially on top of the poet's antique English. So to have it in the Roman type, well, it is a great benefit.'

My finger found the item he had referred to earlier:
The Assemblie of Bryddes.
Looking further down I traced the different episodes of the pilgrims' tales, told by each one to entertain the others on the road to Canterbury:
The Knight's Tale,
The Squire's,
The Prioress's.
It was when my finger reached
The Man of Law's Tale
that I decided to buy the book.

*   *   *

‘It would be much better if that fool Tewksbury did not go about bleeding people,' said Luke Fidelis when I told him of my visit to the Oldswick house.

‘You don't believe in its efficacy?'

‘Our blood is in us for a reason. I cannot see any purpose in taking it out.'