The Vanishing Witch (47 page)

A man grabbed his hair, dragging his head over the beam, so that his neck rested on the wood. Then another stepped forward with an axe. Screams of fear rose from the huddled merchants as they realised what was about to happen.
The man on the ground began pleading and kicking, trying desperately to escape. Two laughing women flopped down on his thrashing legs to hold him still.

Robert turned his face away, but that did not prevent him hearing the piercing shrieks as the axe sliced into the man’s neck. It took another blow to silence him, two more until, with a crunch of bone, the head was severed. Robert glanced back
to see it being brandished aloft, blood pouring from the neck, the crowd cheering their approval.

As if the sight of the head was the signal, the rebels holding the terrified Flemish merchants began dragging them forward and forcing them to their knees. Some were thrown over the wooden beam, others simply had their heads hacked from their shoulders where they knelt, with swords, axes or knives.

Those who tried to fight or run were stabbed or hamstrung, until they fell to the ground, unable to defend themselves. Their heads were sawn off without resistance. None of the rebels was a trained executioner. Those who died or were at least rendered insensible by the first blow were the fortunate ones. How many bodies were tossed onto the pile? How many heads were kicked around that crowd –
twenty, thirty? Robert lost count. Splashes of blood ran down the white marble columns of the church and spread around the feet of the crowd, a pool of ever-widening scarlet that seemed to seep into every corner of that street.

In the meantime, others were breaking down the doors of the nearest houses, dragging out boys scarcely older than Adam and men so old they couldn’t walk without a stick.
All were hauled into the space in front of the church. They shrieked in fear as they saw the pile of headless corpses.

‘Not Flemish,’ one old man wailed. ‘Not Flemish. Servant, servant!’

‘Say bread and cheese,’ his captors demanded.

The old man stared at them bewildered.

‘Say it, say bread and cheese,’ they insisted, yanking his beard.

‘B-brote und—’

The rabble laughed, and forced him to
his knees.

Then a cry of crazed delight rang out as a huge blond man dressed in a long damask robe was dragged up the street towards the church.

‘It’s him. It’s the merchant Richard Lyons! They’ve got the bastard!’

Robert stared in horror. He knew him only by sight, but he was one of the richest merchants in London. He’d once been a favourite at Court. Surely they wouldn’t dare to harm him.
But they did. Richard was a burly man and fought his captors hard, but there is only so long that an unarmed man may hold out against so many. When he finally fell to his knees in the lake of blood, his fine damask robe was already slashed in half a dozen places. Men jostled for the privilege of delivering the
coup de grâce
, as huntsmen vied for the honour of bringing down the stag.

Robert didn’t
wait to see the rusty axe blade fall; he turned and staggered back up the alley, trying desperately to fight down the nausea that was threatening to choke him. He stumbled on, scarcely knowing where he was going except that he had to go north, away from the river, north to a gate, any gate. He was vaguely aware that he must be in the cordwainers’ district. He gazed around, trying to get his bearings.
North . . . north . . . It had to be that way. If he could reach the wall he could follow it round.

‘There’s another one,’ a woman shrieked. ‘I seen him! He came from the Vintry.’

Dazed, Robert turned his head. An old woman, her skirts soaked with crimson, was leaping up and down in a strange jig, waving and gesturing. He blinked at her and turned to hurry on. Then he felt himself grabbed from
behind.

‘That’s him. Saw him there myself. He’s another of those Flemings, trying to escape the justice of the True Commons he is.’

They spun him round and Robert found himself surrounded by half a dozen men and women, all armed. His hand reached for his sword hilt, but he’d seldom in his life ever had cause to draw a weapon in defence and the movement was clumsy. His arms were pinned behind
his back before he had touched the hilt.

‘Shall we take him back to Vintry?’

‘Take him to Cheapside. They’ve a block set up there.’

‘Wait!’ Robert protested. ‘I swear I am no Flemish merchant.’

Filthy blood-stained hands stroked the fur trim on his tunic. ‘Ah, another servant, is it?’ a man said, grinning. ‘Don’t know many servants who dress in fur, do you, Peter?’

‘’Gainst the law for a
servant to wear fur. Their masters wouldn’t want them dressing like them, would they?’

‘I am a merchant. I don’t deny it,’ Robert said desperately. ‘But I’m English just like you . . . from Lincoln, in the north. I swear to you by the Blessed Virgin. I hate the foreign merchants as much as you do.’

‘That’s so, is it? What were you doing with them in the Vintry? Some deal was it, to put good
honest Englishmen out of work?’

Robert tried to think of an explanation. Telling them he was trying to send word to John of Gaunt would see him run through on the spot.

‘I was lost. I don’t know this city.’ Even to Robert that sounded feeble.

The man gave a mocking bow. ‘Lost, is it, Master? Well, there’s a shame. Let’s show this fine gentleman the way, shall we? All the way to the block.’

Hands clutched at Robert, pushing him forward. He fought them with every inch of his strength, knowing he was fighting for his life. He managed to wrest one arm free and used it to smash back hard against one of those standing behind him. Robert cried out as something struck him savagely across his back and felled him to the ground. White flashes of light burst in his eyeballs and he fought back
the pain. A boot thudded into his ribs.

‘Cut his head off here. Not worth the effort to carry him to Cheapside. We could have half a dozen or more of the bastards’ heads off in the time it’ll take to drag him there.’

Terror and pride made Robert struggle to rise in spite of the throbbing pain in his back. He was not going to make it easy for them. He was not going to lie with his face in the
mud while they hacked at his neck.

But feet pressed him down again. Someone grabbed his hair, stretching his neck.

‘I’m Robert – Robert of Bassingham from Lincoln. I’ve done no . . .’

He felt the whistle of a blade above his head, and his heart seemed to freeze in his chest.

‘Stop! Stop! I know this man. He’s English.’

The hand pulling his hair relaxed a little.

‘So he says. But he’s still
in league with the foreign merchants. He was seen in the Flemish quarter.’

‘His eldest son was murdered by the Florentine merchants in Lincoln for speaking out against them. If he was in the Flemish quarter it was to kill foreigners, not trade with them.’

There was a moment’s pause, then a gale of laughter. The feet pinning Robert down released him. He was bruised and gasping for breath, and
it took several attempts for the rebels to haul him to his feet. His legs trembled beneath him. He wiped the mud from his face and closed his eyes, swaying, as the ground tipped under him.

‘You’re sure you recognise this man?’

‘Known him since I were a bairn.’

The voice was vaguely familiar, but Robert couldn’t name its owner. His eyes were watering from the grit. He blinked several times and
tried to focus. The blurred face he saw he seemed to know, but he couldn’t grasp why.

Hands were brushing him down and patting him on the back. ‘Be off with you. Go that way, if you don’t want to run into more trouble. Go west to Ludgate. Wouldn’t do to be seen in Cheapside with that costly tunic.’

‘And if anyone challenges you, say, “With King Richard and the True Commons”. Then they’ll let
you pass.’

The rebels hurried off in the opposite direction. Robert staggered to a wall and leaned against it, no longer sure his legs would hold him up. He had a throbbing pain in his back and his ribs hurt like the devil each time he tried to suck in a breath, but the pain was almost a blessing. At least it meant he was alive. God’s blood, if that man hadn’t come along and spoken up for him
. . . He shivered. He raised his head, searching for his rescuer, but the street was deserted.

As a heretic was lifted onto the pile of wood on which she was to be burned, she blew in the face of the executioner and said, ‘Here is payment for your work.’ A hot wind passed over him. His face swelled and sores broke out upon his hands. The heretic was burned to ashes, but within days leprosy had infested the body of her executioner and he was dead.

Gunter sat with his head
in his hands staring out over the vast river. It was drawing towards evening. The heat still hung heavy in the narrow streets, but at least over the Thames a breeze had sprung up, blowing the pall of smoke and the stench of blood back into the city, as if proclaiming the river wanted no part of it.

For two days, Gunter had hunted through every street and alley he could find, but he knew that
even as he searched one street, his son could easily be walking away from him down another and he’d never know it. He’d been mad even to imagine he had a hope of finding one boy among so many.

What if his son was dead? He saw again Master Robert pinned down in the street, the rusty blade raised high above his head. The shock of hearing him shout the familiar name had made Gunter act without thinking.
But he’d seen other men, just like Robert, pleading for their lives and he had done nothing, said nothing. He’d been too afraid that the mob would turn on him. Suppose men had walked past Hankin when the crowd had him pinned to the ground, and suppose they, like him, had been too afraid to save the boy.

He shook himself impatiently. He didn’t even know for certain Hankin was here. The boy might
never have come to London with the rebels. Maybe he’d turned for home somewhere along the road and was back safe in the cottage in Greetwell. Perhaps Hankin had never had any intention of joining the rebellion. He might have run away from home to seek his fortune at sea. He’d always been fascinated by the huge ships that docked at Boston.

And all the time Gunter was in London, Nonie, Royse and
little Col were at home, unprotected, with him not earning a single penny to feed them. He had to return to Greetwell. He could do nothing more here.

As Gunter scrambled to his feet, he slowly became aware that the streets had grown eerily silent. They’d been filled with shouts and screams, the splintering of furniture, smashing glass and crashing masonry. But now the loudest noise was the screeching
of gulls overhead. A sense of foreboding made his blood turn cold. He hurried along the bank.

A beggar on crutches limped towards him. Something bulged under his ragged tunic. He stopped as soon as he caught sight of Gunter, bending over to try to disguise what he was carrying.

‘With whom holds you?’ he whined. ‘With King Richard and the True Commons,’ he answered himself, before Gunter had
a chance to say a word.

Gunter continued walking towards him.

‘With King Richard and the True Commons,’ the beggar repeated, as if it was a charm to ward off evil. He cringed away, fearing attack.

Gunter held up his hands to show he carried no weapons. ‘Where is everyone? What’s happening, do you know?’

The man cocked his head on one side and peered suspiciously at him, as if the question
was a test to which no one had told him the answer.

Gunter tried again. ‘Have the rebels gone?’

‘Gone. Gone to Smithfield.’ The beggar jerked his head to the north. ‘Gone to meet the King. He’s going to give them everything they want. Going to make Wat Tyler chancellor of England, so they say, and give him a great palace. Going to make John Ball archbishop of all England, they say that ’n’ all.
But if you was to ask me . . .’ he gave a leery wink ‘. . .
I’d say
it’s a trick to get them out of the city. You’d not catch me going there. King said he’d meet them last time, but he didn’t even land. It’s a trap, that’s what it is, and they’re the little mice all scurrying into it.’ The beggar chuckled, and was still laughing as he limped away.

Gunter hesitated, trying to think. If all of
the rebels had gone to this field then if Hankin was with them that was where he’d go too. Were the rebels really being led into an ambush? He had to find his son and get him out before it was too late. Yet if Hankin was not even in London, he himself would be walking into that trap. But he couldn’t abandon his son, not if there was any chance of finding him, any chance at all.

The beggar had
pointed directly away from the river. The field must lie in that direction, though he hadn’t said how far. Gunter gazed around. His path along the bank was blocked by the rubble of a great building, from which smoke still trickled in several places. One of the walls, which had evidently stood on the water’s edge, had fallen into the river, and the roof had tumbled inwards, bringing down several storeys
on top of one another.

Gunter clambered up on a heap of fallen masonry, which seemed to be the remains of a tower, hoping that if he got high enough he might glimpse the field the beggar had talked about. But he could see only buildings, some still standing, some in ruins or burned out. In front of the mound of rubble on which he stood there was what must once have been a garden, though now it
was filled with all manner of rubbish. Beyond that a gate lay open to the street on the other side. If he cut through the garden to that gate, it would be far quicker than trying to find a way round.

He scrambled, slipping and sliding, over the fallen masonry. Here and there wisps of smoke rose from fires still burning deep below. Some stones still glittered with fragments of gold leaf or scarlet
paint. Caught between them were pieces of cloth, bits of wood, a glimmer of silver. It was like a river in flood, where you saw things bobbing in the water that vanished before you had time to recognise them, except that this water had been turned to stone. It took him some time to cross the petrified river. He was afraid to move too quickly in case the stones shifted and snapped his wooden leg,
or broke his good one.