Brother Dusty-Feet (20 page)

Later that evening, after Master Pennifeather had called upon the Mayor, and they had proclaimed to the town that they were going to play the Martyrdom of St Cecilia (whose costumes had been mended long since) at four o’clock next afternoon, and had their supper in the crowded, cheerful common room of the inn, they all sat side by side along the edge of the huge stone horse-trough in the twilight, taking their ease for a little while before beginning the nightly rehearsal. Behind them in the inn there was firelight and candle-light and a babble of voices, and somebody began to sing in a loud, merry voice:

But out in the courtyard it was cool and quiet, and the after-glow was the colour of evening primroses behind the blotty darkness of the gabled inn roof and the Abbey tower that seemed to stand a-tiptoe
to reach up towards the first star. Suddenly a bell began to ring, high up in the lacy tower, lovely, slow, golden notes stealing out and dropping into the courtyard of the Sun Inn, so that Hugh felt that if he put up his hands he would be able to catch one – like a golden bubble.

‘That’s the curfew,’ said Master Pennifeather.

‘That’s Great Tom,’ said Jonathan; and he told Hugh how Cardinal Wolsey had given it to be the great tenor bell of Sherborne Abbey, in the days when he was the most powerful man in England, and how it took six men to ring it.

‘That is what is written on its side,’ said Jonathan. ‘But folks came to the Abbey a goodish long while before Wolsey’s bell called them.’

‘How long?’ asked Hugh.

Jonathan turned his face to him in the dusk, and said: ‘More than eight hundred years, Dusty. But ’twas only a little Saxon Cathedral church then; and St Aldhelm built it and was its first bishop.’

Hugh swung his heels contentedly against the side of the horse-trough, hoping for a story. ‘Tell about St Aldhelm,’ he said. ‘What did he do to be made a saint?’

‘He did a hard job of work, and did it well,’ said Jonathan. ‘It was before the Normans came, you know – long before – and in those days people didn’t get made into saints for seeing visions, as they did later, but for doing a good job of work, with perhaps a vision or two thrown in. Well, St Aldhelm was a
monk. Monks didn’t stay shut away from the world within high walls then, as they were doing when King Hal broke up the Monasteries – they went out and told people about God and how to get the best out of their crops, and tried to stop them putting dung on their sore places and knocking on the head people whom they didn’t like. That was what St Aldhelm did. He was a brown man, they say, with a deep, strong singing voice, and he could sing the songs of the countryside, just as well as he could sing the offices of the Church. There wasn’t a minstrel in the South Country, they say, to equal St Aldhelm; just plain Aldhelm he was, in those days, of course – a young monk of no importance. And when he was sent out to preach to the people, he would take up his place where there were a great many people coming and going, such as a bridge or a market square, and sing the songs of the minstrel-folk until he had gathered his crowd, and perhaps for a little while afterwards, for he loved singing. He would then lay aside his harp and tell them about God.’

Jasper Nye made a disapproving sort of noise in his throat, as though he didn’t think a monk ought to sing minstrel songs to gather the people he was going to preach to; and Nicky said, ‘Didn’t his Abbot
mind
?’

‘No,’ said Jonathan, and though Hugh could not see his face clearly, he knew that he was smiling, by the sound of his voice. ‘The Abbot was a wise man, who knew that if it is good to carve in stone or make church music or paint in azure and vermilion to the Glory of God, it is just as good to juggle with coloured balls or sing minstrel songs to the Glory of
God, if you do that better. So Aldhelm was left to gather his crowds in his own way.

‘The years went by, and Aldhelm became an Abbot himself – abbot of Malmesbury – and he did not go out singing and preaching any more, because he had too many other things to do.

‘And more years went by, and Aldhelm grew old. Then one day King Ina of Wessex sent for him to Winchester, which was the capital in those days; and that night they ate the evening meal together in the King’s Great Hall, among his house-thegns and with his hunting-dogs crouching under the table for scraps.

‘And afterwards, as they sat comfortably over their ale-horn, the King said to Aldhelm, “Aldhelm, you know that I have made a new Bishopric of Sherbourne?”

‘And Aldhelm said, “Yes, and a very unruly Bishopric it is, if all I hear be true.”

‘ “It is quite true,” said Ina. “The people are a stiff-necked crew, from the richest thegn to the poorest serf, and many of them hold to the old gods, with all the faith and loyalty that is in them.”

‘ “And for that very reason, they are the more worth winning over,” said Aldhelm. “For the more stubbornly a man keeps faith once, the more likely he is to keep faith again. Besides, that sort makes the best fighting men,” said he. “And I ever loved a good fighting man.”

‘Ina leaned forward across the table to look at the Abbot, with his chin cupped between his fists. “You’re something of a fighting man yourself, in your own way, I reckon,” says he. “How would you
like to fight Thor and Odin in the Bishopric of Sherbourne?” (Thor and Odin were the old gods.)

‘Aldhelm didn’t answer at once, and Ina pressed him eagerly. “Well – will you be the first Bishop of Sherbourne?”

‘Still Aldhelm went on thinking. He was an old man, and tired; he thought of his great Abbey of Malmesbury, the shady cloisters and the quiet life, the peach trees in the high-walled garden; and the part of him that was old and tired longed to go back there and end his days in peace; but another part of him was eager for the fight and the adventure. “Aye,” he said, “I’ll do it.” And he went out from the King’s Hall, Bishop of Sherborne.

‘But he did not go with his mitre on his head and his crozier in his hand, to take possession of his bishopric. Instead he put on the gay, shabby clothes of a wandering minstrel, and set out, carrying his harp. It was just as it had been when he was young, you see. Many years had gone by since he sang in the market-places, but he had not lost the knack, and he could still charm the heart out of those who heard him. So for a long while he lived the life of a strolling minstrel, up and down his bishopric, singing in the houses of Christian and Pagan alike. If people asked him who he was, he told them, otherwise he never spoke of it. Folks thought he was crazed, of course; a Bishop strolling up and down the countryside, singing the songs of the ordinary folk and the deeds of ancient heroes; but they liked his songs and they liked him, and they welcomed the Minstrel in to sit by their fire and eat at their table – those stiffnecked thegns, and the poor folk too – when they wouldn’t have let the Bishop across the door-sill. So
little by little, he won their trust and friendship, and when the time was ripe for it, he began to build his church . . .

‘And people said, “Well, he do sing a masterfine song, to be sure. Us’ll go and hear if he can preach as fine a sermon.” So they went.

‘It was only a little church, that first one; no tall tower, no Great Tom. I think St Aldhelm would have liked Great Tom for his splendid voice; there would have been a fellow-feeling betwixt those two.’

For a while nobody said anything, and then Hugh said, ‘You know a tremendous lot about the Abbey and the Vale, don’t you?’

And Jonathan said, ‘Why, you see, all this country is home to me. I was born and bred up yonder towards Bulbarrow Down.’

Hugh looked round at him in surprise. Somehow he had never thought of Jonathan being born and bred anywhere, only of being Jonathan, the Strolling Player; and he wondered suddenly about Jonathan’s home, and why he had left it, and if perhaps he would go back one day. If they had been alone, he might have asked, but they were not, and anyway there was no time, for at that moment Master Pennifeather got up and stretched until the small muscles cracked behind his shoulders. ‘Time we were at our rehearsing,’ he said. ‘You’ve not the least notion how to play that tavern scene, Ben, and you’ll get it right before we seek our couches for the night, if I have to break your neck
and
my own, to teach you.’

On their second day in Sherborne the Company acted the play about Sir Huon of Bordeaux, which was a particularly nice one really, funny in places
and exciting in other places, with a lot of magic in it, and a happy ending. Most of the plays about saints ended sadly, so it made a nice change. Hugh played Esclaremond, the Emir of Babylon’s daughter, in a green kirtle with hanging sleeves of rose-pink taffeta, and a wig of long golden hair. The kirtle had a long rent in the skirt where Hugh had caught it on a nail, but Jonathan (who played Oberon the Fairy King, in scarlet tights with a fantastic crown instead of the horns that usually went with them) had mended it so that it was as good as new. It was the most lovely colour, like the deep moss that grows under beech trees.

When they were changing for the performance, and more and more people were arriving every moment, Jasper Nye found that he had got the wrong stockings; brown when they should have been purple. So Hugh, who was still in his ordinary clothes, because Esclaremond did not appear until quite late in the play, was sent across to the stable where the costume baskets were, to fetch the right ones. It took Hugh rather a long time to find the purple stockings, because Argos was being helpful, as usual; and by the time he came out into the courtyard again it was as full as ever it could be. There were craftsmen and prentices, farm folk from the country round with soil caked on their boots, and merchant folk and gentlefolk, and lads from Sherborne School, who were not really supposed to be there at all, and a horse being edged through the crowd (that was one of the drawbacks of acting in inn-yards – horses having to be got in and out). It was a most glorious crush, people jostling and pushing and craning their necks for a better view, and
the sunshine slanting down on all the colours of a summer flower-plot mingling and swaying together as the throng shifted, and in the midst of it all, the rush-strewn stage, empty and waiting.

Hugh dived into the crowd and began to butt and edge and sidle his way through, with Argos at his heels. He was close under one of the crowded galleries when he heard a small, imperious voice above his head, calling, ‘Hi! Boy! – Boy-boy-boy!’

He stopped so suddenly that Argos bumped into him from behind, and looked up; and there, hanging so far over the carved gallery rail that she looked as if she might come down into the courtyard on her head at any moment, was a little girl. Just for a moment Hugh thought she might be a Pharisee, because she looked like one; a small brown sparkling Pharisee in a leaf-green kirtle. But then he saw that there was a tall brown man just behind her, who was laughing, with a hand twisted in the back folds of her skirt to make sure she did not fall on her head; and no one would do that to the Fairy-kind, because it would be disrespectful.

‘Boy,’ said the little girl, ‘are you in the play?’

‘Yes, little mistress,’ said Hugh. ‘I’m the heroine.’

Then somebody bumped into him, and he remembered Jasper waiting for his purple stockings, and went butting on through the crowd to the dim little room behind the stage, without ever noticing that the brown man had bent forward quickly, and was looking after him, rather as though he thought he knew him and wanted to make sure.

Hugh thought about the little girl and the brown man all the time he was putting on Esclaremond’s green kirtle and yellow wig; and he went on thinking
about them while he sat on his heels, listening to the others on the stage outside and waiting until it was time to join them. And when at last he climbed on to the stage, gathering the folds of his kirtle elegantly in one hand and carrying a white clove carnation in the other, he saw that the little girl was still hanging over the gallery rail. She waved to him, but of course he couldn’t wave back, and she looked dreadfully hurt until a lady standing beside her bent down to whisper in her ear; and then she understood, and stopped looking hurt.

As the play went on, Hugh had quite a lot of chances to glance at the little girl and her family, and the more he glanced at them, the nicer they seemed. There were four of them, and you could tell that they
were
a family, because they had the look of people who belong together. The little girl had just the starry look that wind-flowers have, only that wind-flowers look as though they could not be naughty if they tried, and the little girl looked as though she could be very naughty indeed without having to try at all. The brown man, who must be her father, had eyes that crinkled up into dancing slits, in the nicest way, when they came to the funny bits of the play; and the lady, who must be her Mammy, looked as though she would smell nice – of clove carnations, perhaps, or some other flower whose smell was warm and cosy. There was a boy, too; a dark boy in a crimson doublet, a bit older than Hugh, who looked just the sort of person it would be nice to have adventures with.

There were so many, many people in the courtyard, but those four stood out from among them all,
or at least it seemed to Hugh that they did; and he wished and
wished
that he knew them.

When the play was over, and the Players had changed back into their dusty workaday clothes and come out into the yard again, and all the people were gone. Hugh felt quite forlorn for a moment, because the family had gone too, and the big courtyard seemed very empty without them. Quite suddenly he thought how nice it would be to have a family of his own. Then Jonathan turned in the inn doorway below the long-winged angel, and called to him; and he forgot about not having a family, because having Jonathan was just as good, and they went in to their supper together.