The Lost Prophecies Read online

  ‘It was fortunate that His Grace was present in Exeter today, for much of the time he is away dealing with his various political interests,’ said de Alençon with a touch of sarcasm.

  It was well known that the bishop was one of Prince John’s supporters in his long-running campaign to unseat his brother Richard from the throne. Henry Marshal had come perilously near a charge of treason over the prince’s abortive rebellion when the Lion-heart was imprisoned in Germany.

  However, today’s problem was untainted by politics, and the bishop had no hesitation in requiring the sheriff to hand over the three clerical culprits to his custody for trial by his consistory court, instead of the usual machinery of the criminal law.

  ‘So they’ll not hang, that’s for sure,’ said de Alençon. ‘But our court will undoubtedly be hard on them, for the dead victim was one of our tonsured servants – and, of course, they also assaulted a priest, your clerk Thomas. My poor nephew always seems to be in trouble of some sort!’

  ‘He spends much of his time trying to make sense of that damned book that is partly at the root of this trouble,’ observed de Wolfe. ‘What happened to it, by the way?’

  ‘It was found in Ranulf’s house when it was searched early this morning,’ replied the archdeacon. ‘It proves that they were the ones who robbed little Thomas. The book is back in the archives, now locked away by Jordan le Brent, who seems frightened by it.’

  ‘What will happen to it, I wonder?’

  ‘Canon Jordan intends to dispatch it to Westminster as soon as possible. It seems the bishop has decided that Hubert Walter should see it first, as he spends more time there running the country than attending to the affairs of God in Canterbury.’

  Once again a sarcastic note entered de Alençon’s voice.

  De Wolfe drank some more of the archdeacon’s excellent wine before ruminating about the men he had arrested.

  ‘It seems odd that an ordained priest and two in lesser holy orders should have embarked on a campaign of violence and robbery,’ he observed.

  ‘As its says in Paul’s epistle to Timothy, “the love of money is the root of all evil” ’, replied the archdeacon sadly. ‘Our calling is no different from any other trade or profession, John. We have all types of men, some saintly, others pushed into the role because they were orphaned into the care of the Church as infants, rather than being called by God.’

  ‘Have these men confessed their guilt?’ asked the coroner.

  De Alençon shrugged. ‘They could hardly deny being involved, being caught digging and with that Black Book in their possession. But they claim that the proctor accidentally fell down the stairs, though you say that his wound was a deliberate blow. They also protest that digging for treasure is no crime, as if they had found anything they would have declared it to the sheriff.’

  ‘A likely story!’ rasped de Wolfe. ‘And what about robbing Thomas and assaulting the bailiff of Clyst St Mary?’

  ‘They flatly deny being anywhere near that village, but I suspect that a few weeks in the dismal cells the proctors use will create such discord between them that one of them will start blaming the others.’

  ‘And poor Thomas?’

  It was so often ‘poor’ Thomas, as the woebegone little clerk seemed to engender pity wherever he went.

  ‘They say they only wanted to borrow the book and that as it was Church property they had every right to see it. Once again, they claim that Thomas tripped and fell, quite accidentally.’

  ‘Too many folk become accident-prone when those three are around!!’ grunted the coroner cynically. ‘It’s fortunate for them that they didn’t contrive their accidents in Tavistock, for the abbot there has his own private gallows!’

  By the end of the week, Thomas de Peyne had had enough of the Black Book of Brân. Though restored to the library, it remained locked in one of the iron-banded boxes until such time as Jordan le Brent could arrange for it to be sent to London, so Thomas worked from the copy he had made. Poring over the text occupied all his free time, as he wrestled with the challenge of the obscure quatrains.

  His initial enthusiasm to decipher the verses had gradually changed into frustration, as no matter what new ideas he applied to the meanings, nothing remotely satisfactory emerged. With no idea of the timescale over which the prophecies ranged and no clue as to whether they were consecutive in relation to the passing of the years, he had nothing concrete to work with.

  His only conclusion, which was little more than an intuitive guess, was that the quatrain that contained the phrases ‘three golden beasts’ and ‘bishop’s rule’ must surely refer to the present reign, but, even if true, which year was involved?

  In irritation, for anger was not an emotion that came easily to the mild-mannered clerk, he closed his copy of the book and banged his fist upon the cover.

  ‘This is sheer nonsense!’ he muttered to himself. ‘I am wasting the precious time that the Almighty gave me to praise Him and study His works in fretting over the ravings of an ancient madman! I could write such verses myself that would contain as much or as little sense as these pointless babblings.’

  On an impulse he opened the book again to the last page and drew his pen and ink bottle towards him.

  After a moment’s thought he dipped his quill into the little well and began writing in his impeccably regular script.

  Though portents dire do fill with dread

  And great significance implanted here,

  Take care to always use your head,

  Seek out the lie, for then your way is clear.

  When he had completed the last line, he laid down his pen and sat back, feeling slightly guilty but also elated that he had struck a small blow for common sense in warning off any future readers of this farrago of nonsense that presumed to anticipate the predestination that God had ordained for man.

  Three weeks later, after Canon Jordan had insisted that his copy be sent with the original to London, Thomas wished that he had not been so precipitate in interfering with the prognostications of that venerable Irish monk.

  Henry de Furnellis had been on his twice-yearly pilgrimage to Winchester, taking the county ‘farm’ to the Exchequer, the taxes that his agents had extracted from the reluctant inhabitants of Devonshire. This time, in addition to the thousands of silver pennies in panniers on the packhorses’ backs, he had included the two valuable hoards unearthed in the recent wave of treasure-hunting around Exeter.

  However, it was not news about this that the sheriff brought back but of sensational tidings that had reached Winchester from its twin capital, London. On the day that he returned, Henry called his friends and officials together in the hall of Rougemont’s keep. De Wolfe was there with his officer and clerk, together with Ralph the constable, several archdeacons, Rufus the chaplain, the two portreeves who headed the city council, a number of the more prominent burgesses and merchants and several of the sheriff’s senior clerks.

  Though travel-weary after his days on the road, the old sheriff was still able to give them a dramatic account of what had been going on in London. The only way in which such news travelled across the country was by word of mouth like this, though sometimes it was conveyed by official heralds sent by the Curia Regis to inform the county sheriffs of important events.

  With his audience sitting at benches around the trestle tables or leaning against the walls, de Furnellis stood with folded arms and delivered himself of a speech, his bloodhound face more animated than usual.

  ‘England – or at least London and the surrounding counties – has just narrowly escaped a massive revolt of the common people against authority. It seems that only drastic and determined action by Hubert Walter, the Justiciar, averted a blood-bath! However, he has not come out of this well, especially amongst the ecclesiastical community, for the memories of old King Henry and Becket are still lingering.’

  He stopped to gulp from the ale-pot in front of him, and there were some subdued murmurings of expectation from his listen
ers.

  ‘To cut to the quick of it, the merchants and common people of London and nearby towns have been becoming more and more resentful of the increasing taxes imposed on them by the king and his council. They became even more hostile when a new tax, the taillage, was imposed – because the amount each citizen was made to pay was decided by a jury. But it seems this jury was made up only of the richer folk, who conspired to virtually exempt themselves and lay most of the burden on the more lowly citizens!’

  There was a revival of the outraged murmuring in the hall, though some noticed that the two portreeves kept their mouths closed. Henry de Furnellis was now into his stride as a storyteller, though de Wolfe was not sure whether the sheriff, as the king’s representative in the county, was more in sympathy with the oppressed Londoners than with his liege lord, King Richard.

  ‘Well, a couple of months ago they found a champion, a strange fellow known as William Longbeard, though his real name was William Fitz-Osbert. He was a lawyer, but had followed the king to the Holy Land as a soldier. Anyway, this man, with a black beard down to his waist like some latter-day prophet, started rousing the rabble in London, holding meetings in the street and denouncing the authorities who were crushing the populace with their unfair taxes.’

  There was a growling amongst some of the audience in the hall, especially from the clerks and servants. ‘Maybe we need a man with a long beard in Exeter!’ called an unknown voice from the back. Undeterred, the sheriff carried on with his tale from the big city.

  ‘It seems that William began organizing resistance on a large scale, forming groups of rebels and secretly smuggling in large quantities of arms from outside the city. There were alleged to be fifty thousand in his underground army, with district leaders and secret codewords. Longbeard even went across to Rouen to lay their grievances before the king, but it seems that Richard took no heed of his pleas.’

  ‘What was the Justiciar doing all this time?’ asked Ralph Morin, a staunch royalist.

  ‘He was well aware of what was going on, for Hubert has spies everywhere. He began secretly drafting in large numbers of troops from outside London and drawing up plans to fight any insurrection. He let Fitz-Osbert go so far, then decided that he was becoming a real danger to law and order. Just before the revolt was due to flare up, he sent a party of men to arrest him, and in a fight in the street Fitz-Osbert fatally stabbed the leader of the guards. Then they ran and sought sanctuary in the church of St Mary le Bow. The Chief Justiciar sent a large force to capture him, but they barricaded themselves in the church.’

  The men in the hall were riveted by Henry’s story; good drama was hard to come by in Devon, especially when true, like this one and from the new capital itself.

  ‘Don’t say that they broke sanctuary, as with Thomas à Becket!’ shouted Brother Rufus, aghast at the thought that a repetition of the great scandal of the previous reign might be repeated. But the sheriff nodded gravely, as he continued.

  ‘Even worse, he ordered that piles of straw be stacked around the church and set on fire! The rebels retreated to the tower, but eventually the smoke and flames drove them out, when they were attacked and Longbeard suffered a sword-thrust through the belly. Then Hubert Walter, who had taken up quarters in the Tower, ordered an immediate trial of the ringleaders and condemned them to be executed the very next day.’

  He swigged another mouthful of ale as the listeners waited in dead silence for the end of his tale. ‘William Fitz-Osbert, wounded as he was, was stripped naked and tied to a horse’s tail, then dragged from the Tower across the miles of cobbles and stony streets to Tyburn, a new execution site to the west of the city, where his mangled and dying body was trussed in chains and hanged from the branches of a great elm tree, along with all his accomplices in the failed revolt.’

  Thomas de Peyne, who had listened breathlessly to the sheriff’s account, was suddenly assailed by a dreadful revelation.

  This was that quatrain come to fulfilment! It was the words ‘the budding elm’ that triggered his recognition, for it was April now, when the new shoots would be appearing on the trees. Now the words ‘a bearded champion fought oppression’s realm’ made complete sense, as did the rest of the verse.

  He crossed himself repeatedly as he bitterly regretted adding his own foolish sneer to the copy of Brân’s Black Book, rashly warning other readers not to believe everything they read. If the warning from centuries ago about Fitz-Osbert’s actions and the further desecration of sanctuary – by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself – was true, what other terrible portents were forecast and would eventually come to pass?

  Shaking with remorse, he forced himself to listen to the end of Henry de Furnellis’s account.

  ‘Though the Justiciar had effectively destroyed the rebellion, he is being reviled in London by both common folk and churchmen alike for his high-handed actions, and there is talk that the king will be petitioned to have him removed from office.’

  He shook his grey head in despair. ‘This was a bad time for England. The hatred of the population for harsh authority and the ruthlessness of the king’s officer have weakened the bonds of loyalty to a king, who appears unconcerned with what happens this side of the Channel. The feelings of the men of London were shown by the way in which they acted at the execution site, this place Tyburn, which was used instead of Smithfield as the traditional place for the dispatch of traitors.’

  ‘What d’you mean, sheriff, what actions of the populace?’ asked de Wolfe.

  ‘During the night, the bodies of Longbeard and his men were taken down by the saddened citizens, and the very chains in which they were hanged were broken up and distributed to the sympathizers as talismans of their respect. Not only that, but hundreds of common folk came to retrieve handfuls of earth from under the elm, below where the men had died. By next day there was a huge hole under where they had swung, such that Hubert Walter had to station troops to keep more folk away.’

  When the story was rounded off, with admonitions from the sheriff to watch for similar signs of unrest in Exeter, the coroner’s trio went back to their chamber in the gatehouse and sombrely discussed the sheriff’s news.

  Thomas decided to keep his revelations about the prophecy in Brân’s Black Book to himself, mainly because of his regret at having rashly added such a dismissive verse. With both the original and the copy now gone to London – and, who knows, perhaps onward to Rome – he felt it best to keep quiet about his stupid and immature action.

  ‘Let other generations decide about the quatrains for themselves,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Let God’s will be done in His own time. We have no business in trying to anticipate what the Almighty has in store for us!’

  He went back to sorting out the archives, a chastened but wiser man.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The abortive revolt organized by William Fitz-Osbert was the first of a line of rebellions in England rousing the common man against oppressive authority – later came John Ball, Wat Tyler and others. Much of the severe ill feeling against Archbishop Hubert Walter was not so much for his ruthless suppression of the revolt but for his breaking of sanctuary at St Mary le Bow, too reminiscent of the traumatic quarrel between Henry II and Thomas à Becket in 1170.

  Some accounts claim that Fitz-Osbert was hanged at the Smithfield elms, but it was on the Tyburn elm that he expired, probably the first of thousands to die there for almost six hundred years up to 1783.

  ACT TWO

  Tartarus’ hordes irrupt through Alexander’s gate.

  Six Christian kingdoms crumble in a breath.

  Though Latin traders use long spoons to eat,

  It won’t protect them from a demon’s death.

  I snatch the kumiss from the Tartar’s hand and, tipping the leather sack up, I throw my head back. The raw, milky-white fluid gurgles out of the sack and hits the back of my throat like a well-aimed arrow. I relish the sting on my tongue and the fizz as the kumiss gurgles down. Drinking half-fermented m
are’s milk is an acquired taste, but one to which I have adjusted. When you’re thousands of miles from a good Rhenish, and the craving’s on you, you’ll drink anything that’ll guarantee to get you legless. Too much of it, though, and you end up seeing stars. Still and all, that’s better than sharing your quarters with a dead man.

  I should explain. The year is Ren-Xu – the Tartar year of the dog – and the year 660 for Mohammedans. To you and me it is the ninth year of Doge Renier Zeno’s governance of Venice, the second year of Pope Urban the IV’s reign, and one thousand two hundred and sixty-two years since the birth of Christ. Or at least I think it is. I have been away from civilization for too long now. And I have lost count of the days that have passed, like a sailor lost at sea. The mare’s milk brew hasn’t helped in keeping my head straight either. All I can say for sure is that it is several months since Friar Giovanni Alberoni, a fellow Venetian (albeit from that sharp, shingle strip that edges the lagoon), picked me up out of the gutter in Sudak.

  ‘Niccolo Zuliani? Is it really you? I can hardly recognize you.’

  ‘No, I’m not . . . who you say. My name’s . . . Carrara, Francesco Carrara.’

  ‘Nonsense. I know Francesco Carrara. He’s at least twenty years older than you, and considerably larger in girth.’

  I was so addled at the time that I didn’t quibble any further over my embarrassment at being found in that state. Nor about the friar’s reinstatement of my real name, which I had avoided using for some time. In Venice it was the name of a wanted man. Alberoni always calls me Niccolo in that formal, stuffy way of his. My true friends use the more familiar Nick just as my English mother did, but for the moment I was glad to be Niccolo again at least. He helped me get to my feet and supported my enfeebled body.

  ‘I’m glad I found you. I have a proposition for you.’ So it was that the gutter in Sudak became the crossroads of my life. Sudak is in Gothia, by the way – some call it Crimea – on the northern side of the Black Sea close to the icy fastnesses of Russia, which are controlled by the Golden Horde. Its main claim to fame is as a point of contact between us Latins and those mysterious Tartars of the East. It was there the good friar nursed me back to something resembling health and fired my imagination with the prospect of plundering the fabled wealth of the Tartar Empire. Well, to be honest (a trait some say I lack, though they tend to be prejudiced, having been outwitted by me in some deal or other) – to be honest, I was the one wanting to do the plundering. Alberoni wanted to penetrate the distant depths of the Empire in order to spread the word of God to the heathen.