FOR JACK,
MY FELLOW WRITER
Oxford, England
1486
Though I am but a kitchen boy, wondrous things happened to me.
All of it is true.
ONE
MY TALE BEGINS in Oxford, England, in the Year of our Lord 1486. At the time, I was living, sleeping, and forever working in a place known as Tackley’s Tavern on the High Street. The tavern was a deep, cellar place, darkful, foul, and loud-tongued so that of all the never-ending chores I was required to do, the one task I truly liked was going out to fetch the bread. Only then did I gain a bit of daylight liberty.
When I went walking out that morning, a rare, bright sun was over loft. It had rained the night before, so the city stench was but slight. The High Street was crowded with children, women, and men, plus dogs and pigs. There were scholars, beggars, clerics, soldiers, and merchants, including wealthy folk in their finery. The clothing most wore was far better than my own tattered brown tunic, and their feet were wrapped in leather, not mud as were mine. A goodly number of people were even clean. As for the dog and pigs, they, like me, were mostly skin and bones, all slubberly with soot.
The street was lined by three-story timbered houses that leaned over my head while all kinds of pretty flags fluttered. Painted and carved signs proclaimed what was being sold in shops. Keepers of stalls were crying, “New onions!” “Spices!” “Meat pies!”
Being always hungry, I would have much loved to have devoured a round dozen pies. Alas, I possessed not so much as a farthing, the smallest coin in the kingdom—one fourth of a penny.
It was as I passed before All Saints Church that I heard the swirl of pipe and beating drum. Observing that a crowd had gathered, I was curious to learn the reason why. I was always wishing to enjoy a free pastime, so I wiggled to the front.
To my great delight, what I saw was a band of players about to perform an interlude on a rickety platform before a frayed cloth. The cloth, hanging from a rope, bore a painting of a castle. Musicians stood on either side of the platform, one playing a recorder, the other thumping a tabor. A woman held up a banner with words, which no doubt explained what story was to be mimed. It mattered nothing to me that I could not read: Street interludes were usually full of jolly sport and I loved them.
Three players—all men—strode out from behind the painted cloth. They wore motley costumes, multi-patched and many colored. One man had a black beard tied to his chin, and a crumped crown—something colored gold—on his head. I guessed he was meant to be a king.
In one hand, this player king dangled a live piglet—a blue ribbon tied round its head—which squealed and twisted about in great distress. In the king’s other hand was a large sword made of wood.
Just to see it all made me grin.
Two other players, dressed as women, knelt before the king and held up their hands, as if begging.
“Oh, great King Solomon,” one of them cried in a loud, high-pitched voice. “That sweet babe is mine!”
No sooner did “she” say this than the piglet let out an unruly squeal. That sent the crowd into loud laughter, in which I joined.
Then the other pretend woman cried, “Not true, beloved King. It is my beautiful child!”
The piglet gave yet another scritching scream, which pleased the crowd even more. My empty stomach hurt with laughing.
In a loud voice, the player king proclaimed, “Since I am the great king Solomon, full of noble wisdom, it is for me to decide to which of you this child belongs. Since you both say this babe is yours, I shall cut him in twain, so each may have half.” He lifted his sword.
“Yes,” said one of the women, “that’s the wisest thing to do.”
“No! No!” cried the other woman. “Don’t do that, O great King. Let the child live whole with her, rather than cut him in two.”
“Aha!” said the king. “Surely true love always champions life. Thus, a woman who does not wish the child to die must be the real mother. I say, let her have it.”
With that, he handed the piglet to the woman, who caused the beast to squeak and wrenk so much it broke free, and the king and two women had to scuddle madly to catch it.
This prompted the crowd to the greatest crowing of all, in which I joined with utmost glee.
These players retired behind the castle cloth, but two others came forth, including yet another who was meant, I think, to be God the Father, because a halo was fastened to his head and a white beard was tied to his chin. Another man—called Noah—held a goblet and acted drunk. Though God warned him a great flood would come unless he stopped drinking, this Noah drank anyway, so God dumped a filled piss-pot over him. The crowd roared.
Oh, how I adored such jests.
Finally, two men came forward and began to do a jig as the musicians played. The most nimble was the player king. The other players—in their costumes—walked about with hats, begging for coins.
The interlude over, I pushed through the crowd intent upon going on to the bakery. The comedy had filled me with joy.
It was only when I stepped back into the High Street that I realized a friar had followed me and now stood staring after me. I recognized him as a Dominican priest, of the order known as Black Friars because they wore black cloaks over white robes.
He was a tall, sinewy man, his pate shaved on top, tonsure style. He had a smooth, narrow-headed, and sharp-chinned face, piercing eyes, a long nose, and small, somewhat pointy ears. Pale hands, which emerged from his black cloak, were clasped piously over his robes, while his delicate fingers suggested he pushed pens, not plows. On his slender feet he wore sandals.
I recalled having seen this priest at Tackley’s Tavern any number of times. He always made me think of a sleek hunter’s hound. But this time, the way he stood there looking at me suggested I was a rabbit, which he had a mind to catch, cook, and eat.
Refusing to have him dull my spirits, I gave him no further heed and continued on to the bakery. But I shall tell you true: If this priest had never seen me, my life would have been very different.
TWO
HAVING GONE TO the bakery, I walked back to Tackley’s, carrying a full basket and chewing a crust of bread. As I did, I kept thinking about the interlude, and how grand it would be to wander about the country being a player king so as to make people bow down to me. What fun to make folk laugh. How much pleasure it would give me to make my master, Einar Tackley, squeal like the pig he was!
I truly gave some thought to joining the players, but reminded myself that running away from one’s master was a hanging offense. Yet I hasten to assure you, if I had been hanged, no one would have cared.
In truth, I knew perfectly well that my life was worth little more than a flout, which is to say a mocking laugh, not merry, but mean. My every waking moment—save when I went to the bakery—was spent receiving kicks, cuffs, and curses. Oxford’s street dogs were better treated than I.
Consider my name, Lambert Simnel. No one—and that included me—had any notion how I got it: Did they, whoever who named me, mean it to be odd? It didn’t matter; Lambert Simnel is what people called me.
I might have been nine, ten, or even thirteen years of age. I wasn’t sure.
Yes, I lived in Oxford, but had no idea how I’d gotten there. No more than I knew where I’d been born or anything about my parents.
Did I have brothers, sisters, uncles, or cousins? I couldn’t have said.
As to height, I believed I was four, maybe four and a half feet tall, but in those days I could neither count nor measure.
The words I most often heard were, “Do as you’re told!” And you may be very sure I hastened to do exactly that, since I was an orphan kitchen boy, sneered at as a base scullion.
You will understand then why
my time consisted of trying to lap up every lick of life I could, though what I lapped was very little. Indeed, since each day was the same as the one before, I had no doubt that my next day—assuming I lived to see it—would be just the same. In short, my life was worth no more than a spot of dry spit.
THREE
I RETURNED to Tackley’s Tavern. Being a cellar space, it had no windows, just candle lamps to poke some little light into darkful corners. The air there was forever fogged and fumy from the hearth fire, which burned dawn to dawn. It was here I truly lived.
There were trestle tables set about with benches to serve patrons. For farthings and pennies you could buy food and drink. I managed to stay alive by eating table-leavings, and now and then some crusts of bread.
At night, I slept on the hard, rush-strewn dirt floor.
The customers at Tackley’s were peasants, yeomen, shopkeepers, traders, civil clerks, and university students. Jibes and japes were the common talk, the cruder the better.
High-class people were not welcome at Tackley’s. If, by some mishap, they tripped down our steps, they were slapped with slurs and sped away.
With so many friaries and monasteries in Oxford, priests and friars also came to Tackley’s. Usually, they kept to the tavern’s night-like niches, dipping into their drinks like dabbing ducks, dreariheaded for having been slighted by someone higher. Still, I was told I must always show respect to any cleric who appeared, even if they had drowned in their cups.
That morning, when I came down the steps hauling the basket of bread, Mistress Tackley, who was as big, round, and loud as a cathedral bell, demanded to know what had taken me so long.
“I went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury,” I said, which caused her to pull my hair, call me a sluggish skellum, and predict a quick hanging.
I gave her the bread and hastened to my work, calling over my shoulder, “You deep patch of dung!”
She shook a fist at me but I didn’t care. Insults and threats were what we shared. I went back to work.
Of all my tasks, the most important was cooking mutton. Before an open fire, I had to slather the mutton with butter, dredge the chunks with salt and flour, spear them on a spit, and constantly turn that spit so as to roast the meat. While spinning the spit, I had to catch hot fat in the dripping pan, baste the mutton with those sizzling sauces, and know the moment it would melt—to be sure, not in my mouth but my master’s.
I don’t know how long I’d been turning the spit when I noticed that the friar, the very same Dominican priest who was at the interlude staring after me, was now standing in the smoky haze at the bottom of our steps.
He stood there and studied me for some long, gawping moments. This time, however, as if making up his mind, he drew close, leaned in, and whispered, “Boy, I know who you really are.”
I looked about, assuming the friar was talking to someone else. Not finding anyone near, I turned back around. “Sir Priest,” said I, “who are you talking to?”
“I said I know who you are.” His voice was low.
Perplexed, I looked at him and said, “I assure you, Brother, I’m only Master Tackley’s kitchen boy.”
He moved closer and fairly hissed, “What do you call yourself?”
“Lambert Simnel,” I said, and edged away.
The friar made a soothing smile. “Named, I trust, after Saint Lambert who preached to the pagans.”
Since all kinds of odd folks came to Tackley’s, I decided it best if I just humored the priest. “Truly, Brother, I’m no saint and I’ve never met a pagan I liked.”
“Don’t jest with me,” he snapped. “Who is your father?”
“Don’t know.”
“Mother?”
“I ran off before we were introduced.”
“An orphan, then?”
“My parents have always avoided me.”
“How old are you?”
Irritated by his persistent questions, I just shrugged.
“How did you come to be here?”
“Some bad storm blew me in.”
“But you must have come from somewhere.”
I was becoming exasperated. “Please, Brother, I’ve chores to do. Talk to Master Tackley. He’s the one who keeps me and has done so for my whole life.”
“Whole life?”
“God willing, it’s not over yet.”
“I will speak to him,” said the friar, but instead he edged even closer so that I could smell his clove-scented breath. “Boy, do you know the king of England? Know his name? When he came to the throne? How he came to it?”
Increasingly irked, I said, “Forgive me. Kings or princes don’t speak to me.”
“Ah!” cried the friar. “The two murdered princes. Perhaps you know about them.”
Not liking talk of murder, I tried to move away.
He followed, edging me into a corner. “What about the Earl of Warwick?” he demanded, his voice full of urgency.
“Earls? I only know about the eels we serve in spring. Good eating.”
“You say you know nothing about Warwick?”
“Warwicks or candlewicks?”
“There’s a rumor,” the friar pressed, “that Warwick escaped his imprisonment in the London Tower. Do you know anything about that? Where he’s hiding?”
“Believe me,” I cried, altogether infuriated, “if there’s news to know, I’m the last to learn it.”
“I am not deceived,” the brother said. “I know what you are doing.”
With that, he turned his back on me and walked away, leaving me quite baffled.
FOUR
I WATCHED THE friar stride to where Master Tackley stood at the back of the tavern, pouring drink into cups and bowls.
This master of mine, Einar Tackley, husband of Mistress Tackley, was a bald, fleshy man of middling years. He not only owned the tavern, but brewed the drink. Looking like a large pig, he had a face to match and a neck so wide it was no neck at all. His speech was as foul as a trish-trash ditch and his fists heavy as hammers, which he was more than happy to pound on me.
He and the friar talked, their glances now and again slinking toward me. Praying I was not in trouble, I tried to hear, but there was too much clitter-clatter in the air for me to catch any of their words.
When their conversation stopped, the brother withdrew into shadows, but kept watching me. I went back to my fire, pretending to ignore him. When he finally quit the tavern, I was relieved. Thinking him outlandish, I wanted nothing to do with him.
No sooner had he gone, however, than Master Tackley lumbered over and looked down at me with his wet, pink eyes as if trying to see me in a new way.
“Boy!” he said. “What did that Black Friar say to you?”
Wearied by all these pointless questions, I said, “He thinks I’m a fool for working here.”
“Tell me what he said!”
“He claimed to know who I was, Master.”
“What did you tell him?”
This being the kind of banter I was used to, I replied, “That I was a rich merchant on my way to Bartholomew Fair.”
“Don’t trifle with me!” cried Tackley, lifting a fist.
I backed away. “He asked me, sir, if the king of England was my friend.”
“What did you say?”
“I told the truth. No one of quality ever visits Master Tackley’s tavern.”
Tackley lashed out with his thick fist, but having sensed he would do exactly that, I ducked under his arm, dashed into the busiest part of the cellar, and leaped upon a crowded table. “Oh, help me!” I cried in mockery. “My master is about to slay me!”
“Fight! Fight!” came a chorus of cheers and jeers from the patrons.
Master Tackley, his face as ruddy as the reddest rose, stormed over to the table. “Want-wit!” he roared. “Mudsill! Boiled bootlicker! Get down!” He kept trying to grab me with his massy hands.
Dancing about the table beyond his reach, I jeered, “You old gundy-gut! Come and get me!?
??
The boisterous patrons began to bang their tankards on the tables. “Fetch him, Tackley! Slap the boy down! Break the baby’s bones!” A shower of bread bits, drink, and meat were flung at me.
Furious, Tackley tried to climb the table, but his clumsy bulk made him fall on his bum. The uproar grew greater.
Tackley hauled himself up, glared at me for a moment, then abruptly yelled, “Never mind! I’ll spill no sweat on someone who’s a splat of spittle on my left boot’s heel. Don’t think you’re anything, boy. You’ve got no kin. No brains. You’re a nobody!” he fairly shouted. “Do you hear me, boy? A nobody!” With that he turned his back on me and lumbered off.
Tackley’s furious screeches silenced the inn, but every eye in the room was upon me left standing alone on the table. As I stood there, a sense of my nothingness filled me with deep shame.
My eyes tearing, I somehow managed to climb down, and slunk back to my work, trying to act as if my heart felt no pain. Not so. I vowed I’d have my own on Tackley.
Except I had no idea how I could do it.
FIVE
LATE AT NIGHT the same day, and outside, a steady rain was bucketing, the water trickling down our stone steps and seeping over the floor, turning it to mud. Candles were all but gutted, so only little light lingered. In the tavern’s dullest corners a few cup-shot men slumbered. Though my yawns were bigger than my head, I was still at cleaning chores when the Black Friar came down the steps.
His bald pate was glistening wet, his black cloak dripped. In the demi-dark his face seemed as white as a ghost. A manservant was with him, holding up a flaming torch.
When the brother reached the bottom, he paused and looked about, only to fasten his eyes on me. Though unhappy to see him, I acted as if I didn’t notice. All the same he approached and said, “Where’s your master?”
“Back room, I think, Brother.”
“Fetch him.”
When I hesitated, the friar said, “Do as you’re told.”