Vixen. Rosie Garland
they passed. For a moment I wondered if I was giving off a noisome smell, but it was only the silly shyness of girls when faced with a man.
‘Do not jostle me so, Margret,’ hissed one of them. ‘Father Thomas,’ she cooed, dropping a curtsey.
The female called Margret cupped a hand round her friend’s ear and whispered something too quiet to overhear. Whatever it was, it earned a fierce glare from her companion.
‘Father Thomas,’ said Margret. ‘We should like to welcome you to this parish. Shouldn’t we, Anne?’
‘Yes,’ agreed the maiden named Anne, in a flurry of further curtseying.
‘The new priest is a blessing, is he not?’
‘Yes,’ twittered Anne. Her cheeks flushed so pink it was little wonder she attended the shrine. Such an excess of choler was not healthy in a woman. Much as I applauded their modest blushes, I wearied of their chatter, so with a polite God be with you, I stepped away. But the encounter had not been without value: modesty in women was the perfect subject for a sermon.
Finally, I had my theme, and not before time, for I must be quick and deliver the Mass. I hurried to the treasury. A boy was there, William’s son, I didn’t doubt. He held up the festival cope with as much grace as you would a day-old herring.
‘Higher, boy,’ I said. ‘I can’t get into it if you drag it across the floor like that.’
He huffed, hoisted it and I poked my head through the narrow opening. I declare I staggered under the sudden weight, although I hid it well and he did not notice.
‘You are an idiot,’ I muttered. ‘You may as well send your sister next time. She’d do a better job.’
He bore my terse words meekly, but his lips were tight, and angry spots reddened his cheeks. No doubt he would grumble about me to his companions.
‘Go to, go to,’ I commanded in a kinder voice, for he was not a bad child, merely untutored. ‘Tell the choirboys we are ready.’
I smiled, but of course the lad did not understand such niceties. I wondered briefly if he might be worth instructing; he seemed attentive. He could hardly be worse than the previous boy, who sang in the bell-tower and was found in the churchyard with his hand inside a girl’s bodice.
I wriggled inside the fussy cope. It was ballasted with gold stitching and pearls, heavy as a stack of logs. I did not hold with all this panoply. If I had the choice, I’d leave that to peacock priests. But I did not have a choice: the Bishop made that clear when he heard – I know not from whom – that I conducted my Christmas Mass in plain shirt and hose. I endeavoured to explain I meant no disrespect: I wished to emulate the simple dress of our Lord, not to ape my poor flock. He lectured me with some force that I had no idea how Christ clothed himself and I would dress as commanded. Grandly, as befitted my station.
He told me that I insulted my parishioners by pretending to be the same as them. You’re a priest, by God, he thundered. Act like one. I could not believe he should so mistake my humble intentions. So today, I sweated in gold and garnets. I contented myself with the knowledge that God saw my inner humility. If men needed pomp to bring them to penitence, so be it. I was commanded, therefore I would obey, uncomplaining as a lamb.
The procession began. The choirboys tumbled in through the west door, picking their noses and gawping at the pilgrims. They sang lustily, but to them the words were sounds only and they quacked them with as little comprehension as ducks. I strode ahead, robes trailing behind me. I tolerated their rude manners, their cracked voices that tore the psalms to shreds. I calmed myself with the knowledge that my reward was to read the Divine Office in solitude, tomorrow and every day after it.
I breathed relief. A high Mass such as this took place mercifully few times in the year. And at last, I had my sermon.
For three days, we are a city. The world comes to our hamlet and brings its finery, its marvels, its smells, its terrors, its tragedies. For three days I stretch my eyes wide open and do not close them once, not even to blink. A handful of days, but crammed with a year’s worth of new sights and sounds, fresh riddles and do-you-remembers unsurpassed. These days supply me with every tale with which I’ll entertain myself for the remainder of the year.
The churchyard is too small to encompass these wonders, so the field behind Aline’s alehouse blooms thick as daisies with tents, blankets, fires. Every trestle for five miles about finds its way there; tables spring up and are loaded with bread and cheese. The air is riotous with the scent of bacon, for John the butcher always has a pig fat and ready for the Saint. In return the Saint makes sure his purse is heavy afterwards, and the world carries away the memory of the best pork in the shire.
So tumble in the girdlers, purse-makers, skinners, tanners, cap-makers, smiths, pewterers, glovers and net-makers; behind them the scullions, reeves, nuns and shoe-makers, brewers, cooks, archers, glass-blowers, knights, goldsmiths, silversmiths and gem-polishers.
Next come in the ploughmen, the sailors, the sea-captains, fishermen, pig-men, shepherds, dairywomen, alewives, spinners, weavers, high ladies and low women. Here are the barbers, the saw-bones, men of physic and midwives, wise women and charlatans. We have fools, clerks, schoolmasters, pullers of teeth, bone-setters, knife-grinders, matrons, virgins, peddlers, tinkers and trench-diggers.
It is a small Heaven upon earth: a lion of a soldier fresh from the war comes to thank the Saint for his deliverance and lies down with the lamb of a carpenter come to pray for the soul of his son, who was not so lucky. The crook-legged man upon his wheeled tray prays for the straightening of his limbs. He slumbers chastely beside the beautiful young wife, who aches for her husband’s seed to take root in the parched earth of her womb. For three days no one is troubled by lustful dreams.
Margret and I walk through the crowd. Heads turn, but I am grown enough to know that none of them turn for me. Margret is the lady now and I am the wench dragged in her wake. There is whispering also, and not all of it kind. I catch snatches of it, sticking to our skirts like teasels.
That is John of Pilton’s woman.
A priest’s woman is no goodwife, but a harlot.
You hold your tongue in check, Edwin Barton. You are the bell-ringer. Have some respect. This is the Saint’s day.
Mama, what is a harlot?
I hear it; Margret hears it. When the sneering grows too loud to ignore, Margret stops and stares down the man who called her harlot.
‘Why, Edwin,’ she says, all kindness.
‘Good day,’ he mutters.
‘How fares your mother, Edwin?’ she enquires.
‘Well, missus. Well,’ he mumbles, tugs his cap so hard it slips over one eye. But there’s no hiding from the press of Margret’s courteous questions.
‘And your brothers?’ she continues. ‘How fare they?’
‘All well, to be sure, missus.’
‘The Saint be praised.’
Margret’s smile is so sweet I am surprised butterflies do not alight upon her head and lick her with their coiled tongues. But it is too early in the year for butterflies. ‘Let me see,’ she muses. ‘Tell me if my recollection falters. There’s Arthur?’
‘Yes, missus,’ he says.
‘Bartholomew? Sam? Peter?’
He bobs his head at each name, declares each brother hale and hearty.
‘I have forgot none, have I, Edwin?’
‘Oh no, missus. None.’
‘All of you so different in looks. By the Saint, who would