Chapter 3: Canterbury Town

Swein holds onto the horses while the Lady and I dismount and together we venture into the most impressive building I have ever seen in my life. I swear you could fit four large city churches within its walls and its ceiling was impossibly high. Swein had said much of his work had been making, dismantling and repairing scaffolding which scaled these walls both inside and out. The very thought of scaling those heights weigh heavy in my stomach, worse than on the river, empty of vittals though my gut may be.

Inside, compared to the orange light of the late afternoon, it is as if the cathedral was made up of dark and light bands, where the warm sunlight through the coloured windows sends shafts of multicoloured light beams onto the floor and splashing across opposite walls or columns. It was really most affecting, so that even I, a rare churchgoer away from home by choice, was awestruck by the spectacle and the mastery of stone demonstrated by masons in the round.

There were few pilgrims inside the cathedral at this hour, no doubt others like me were looking forward to an evening repast to fill the empty space that was agnawing at my ribs.

So it transpires that I see Father Andrew, among a sea of shorter, slighter clergy preparing for some evening service, who, when our eyes cross, I see he readily recognises me, once upon a time his young pupil in the humble chapel high on the hill above the hamlet of Oaklea.

“Young Robin, how are ye?” Father Andrew booms. His voice ever did, whether he was preaching from his pulpit or lecturing us boys in the legibility of our letters, or even greeting an acquaintance in this fabulous building devoted to the God that called upon Andrew to serve Him late in his life, after he had experienced so much as a soldier of both state and his own fortune. “In last of all places expected I to bump into ye here, young man, so far ye be from home. I guess you was near here for the Great St Michael’s Mass Fair upon the sporting Fields of London?”

“Aye, Father Andrew, indeed I was there this morning but was ... sidetracked by another competitor, one who also be of your acquaintance.”

I stand to one side revealing the Lady Elinor, smiling upon him in all her beauty.

“Lady Elinor, upon my soul!” He laughs and joyously embraces her, then pulls me into the three way huddle. He almost squeezes all the life out of both of us before we are released.

Father Andrew is a large man, perhaps half a head shorter than I but he is both twice as broad and thrice as deep. His face is ruddy in complexion, his head mostly bald with a close-cropped halo of white hair extending about a thumb’s thickness above his ears around his head.

“Well, children, this is a happy reunion, indeed. It does my heart good to see you both together in harmony, as I oft think of you both as the next dearest couple to my heart —”

“Except for my parents, Father Andrew?”

“Aye, but there is nought but a parchment thickness betwixt thee, my boy, my Lady. Anyhow, I must take part in this next Evensong Mass as without me guiding these tyros through the service they are liable to get it all awrong. But I will send a minor cleric who will not be amissed from the service to fetch your parents in haste from their nearby lodgings.”

I laugh at his words, he is after all just a humble priest in a tiny, though vibrant village, tucked miles away in the wilderness, far from these hallowed walls, the home of bishops, archbishops, and clerics of deep learning in the history and traditions of the holy church. Yet I smile as he peels off one of the youngest clerics, only a boy, and whispers long, precise instructions in his ears, the frequent bobbing of the boy’s head denoting he understands each point, the movement of his lips evidence that he can prove his comprehension by repetition of the Father’s orders to the priest’s satisfaction. Then he is sent as a messenger to fetch my parents, or at least inform them of my arrival. I watch the boy as he walks away as quickly as he can without losing the dignity of his clerical dress.

“Robin, look.” Lady Elinor says.

I turn and watch as Father Andrew conducts this service. He is indeed leading the service, with the other clerics following his lead, in a far more elaborate service than I am used to in our rude home chapel on the hill. Then a choir of boys, that I had not seen before, gathered close in a stall by the side, begins to chant and sing and they fill that place with an unearthly sound that makes my spine tingle from neck to tail. At last I understand why masons work for decades to built such places of stone that can capture and echo such wondrous sounds as these!

I am still enthralled, standing in that space with a few other travellers, who all stand stock still, struck in awe at the chants, when I feel a hand upon my shoulder. It is my father, come as summoned from his nearby lodging-house. We hug silently, not wishing to talk in competition to the wonderful sounds echoing around us. In turn Lady Elinor and I exchange hugs with Will and then Alwen, my adopted mother and beloved half-sister. I indicate to my father that we move outside, and I lead the way to the entrance that we first came in.

Standing patiently outside is Swein, although of our horses, there is no sign, seeing nowhere to tie them up, and not sure even in this holy place, if it is wise to leave horses unattended, whatever the city we be in. I assume, correctly as it turns out, that Swein has already stabled them at his brothers’ nearby establishment.

“This is Swein, father,” I introduce, “He is the first mate on a ship that Lady Elinor has chartered to Brugge, where we hope to pick up the trail of the missing Rebecca, as the Lady fears she has been kidnapped.” I watch Alwen’s reaction to my words, but her countenance remains as serene as it ever is. I continue, “And Swein, this is my father Sir William Archer, Shire Reeve of Bartonshire, and my mother Lady Alwen Archer of Oaklea.”

Will and Swein shake hands and Alwen nods and curtsies briefly, while Swein bows his head to the Lady.

“Come, let us go eat, we can have supper at our inn,” says Will.

Swein grins, “And how is the fare at your inn, The Piebald Mare, isn’t it, Sire?” he asks.

“It be fair enough,” Will answers warily, “for inn fare ... it is not home cooking.” Will glances at Alwen with a trace of a smile on his lips.

“Then be my guests at my brothers’ establishment, The Willow Staff, I can assure you that the fare is as good as home cooked. And it is just around the corner.”

“All right. We need to wait for Father Andrew, as the singing has started he will be no longer than a few moments. There are few people who put the Scriptures before Supper, and we can count Father Andrew as one who loves his church but a hastened service doesn’t spoil anyways as much as does a hot dinner growed cold. And we must fetch young Hugh too, he be around here someplace, though religion be not his fare.”

“Hugh is here?” I gasp.

My childhood friend Hugh, is the youngest of the two blacksmiths who work the forge next to my father’s, now my archery workshop in Oaklea. I had no idea that he had made the pilgrimage to Canterbury alongside my parents. He is the last person I would expect to see on any pilgrimage to the Holy Seat of the English Church!

“Aye,” Alwen says, “Hugh was so crestfallen that his best friend travels all about the realm without him, and now that Will and I were considering travelling to this city, that the master blacksmith let his recently qualified smith apprentice away for a whole week. He said that if he didn’t allow him his leave of absence he was certain that he would hear nothing else from Hugh for months to come!”

Hugh is my oldest friend, he saved my life once when we were teaching ourselves to swim as youngsters in the mill leet and I got out of my depth. He was always getting into mischief as a boy, saddled with the reputation of being lazy and will-full, and accused of all manner of things that he couldn’t possibly have been guilty of. I always stood by him and, when my father returned from his long absence after travelling around the country and beyond as a nomadic archer, he took me in as his longbow apprentice and also arranged for Hugh to be indentured to Old Smithy, the blacksmith at the forge next door to our archery workshop.

At first Hugh didn’t take to the work, as he found it was too arduous for his undernourished boyhood frame, but he lost his heart to a dear friend of ours, Mary Margaret, another daughter of the time in the village that we now call “the Blessing”. It wasn’t always thought so, and we children born at that time were all tarred as “bastards” and our mothers shunned as if it was their fault that the menfolk were away at war and the village undefended and all the womenfolk were defiled by a band of outlaw strangers, against which the village had no means of defence.

No, the change in attitude towards the crop of fatherless children came about when Sir William Archer came to our village as inheritor of the Lordship of the estate, and was appointed by the King himself on the very day he knighted Will Archer to become the Shire Reeve of the County. Although Alwen has run the estate in the main, my father ensured that each of the children from the Blessing were given a proper trade for the boys and a generous marriage dowry for each of the girls, as he declared to all at the time, “The sins of the fathers were not the sins by the mothers and the children are innocent of any sins at all and should be given a place among us that is useful and gives them reason to be proud of our village and so be our village in turn be proud of them”. In this way he became a “father” to all the bastard children of the village.

At the Blessing of his marriage to Alwen, my half-sister, the guardian who had raised me after my birth mother had died during my birthing, Sir William declared that he adopted me as his and Alwen’s son and that I would be the principle heir to his and Alwen’s estate.

Later, Alwen and Will told me that I was a result of the union made in gratitude and affection between Will and Alwen’s mother, my grandmother, and not at the hands of the marauders, but because I was born early and neither the last born of the many, and with Alwen’s father Robert the Innkeeper still away at the time of conception, I had been included in the general group of bastards. Only Father Andrew knew the truth, he owned me with the truth when he thought I was old enough to understand.

So sweet Mary Margaret, who works in the Oaklea Inn as a maid, found herself with a dowry to use if she ever felt the inclination to use it to secure a good marriage for herself. She was 17 annums then and told Sir William that she had no intention of ever marrying because, though she was a friend to many, being such a sweet girl everyone loved to be her friend, she loved no one man in particular over any other. Sir Will said he would hold her troth in trust until she was ready to take it or hold it for a pension for when she needed it.

It appears that Will, Alwen, Hugh and Father Andrew are staying at an inn near the cathedral, the first mate has found out, and they each have their own mounts stabled within their inn. Although Hugh accompanied them on their journey down to Canterbury, since arriving they had seen little of their companion except for meal times, for the past two days. Father Andrew has a suggestion that he might be found by the castle stables. He gives me directions to follow, as clear as those given to his young cleric. It is starting to get dark out now and I must not tarry if I do not wish to miss my own supper.

Hugh is indeed engrossed in sport at the castle stables. I find him playing horseshoes with the stable lads. In the middle of the stable a short iron spike has been driven into the ground and the stable lads have been tossing horseshoes at the spike, it seems for some while, as more lamps are being lit with tapers to throw more light on the game in issue. They are very competitive and, it appears from explanations to other newcomers, that each thrower is attempting to get three horseshoes in a row around the spike. This is no mean feat as even landing on the iron spike, oft means bouncing off, to the frustrated ire of the throwers. A wooden spike might soak up the energy of the iron horseshoe and slow it down, but the hard iron spike seemed to repel the horseshoes as would the wrong end of a charged lodestone.

Hugh is taking part, pretending to be a poor player and the pot of silver coin was clearly growing, as each round entered cost a penny, and so far no-one was able to get all three in a row. He managed one out of his three shoes to spin about the rod and slip away, so only one had stuck. As he walked away, he grimaced in apparent frustration at his unsuccessful endeavours.

“Hail, Hugh,” I say as he walks aby me. He blinks, before recognizing a familiar visage afore him.

“Rob! What in All is Holy are thee abiding here?” he exclaims.

“I am here to see you, Hugh,” putting on my most serious countenance, “and keep you out of mischief. Looks like my long journey was not one taken in vain.”

“Tosh!” he retorts with a sniff, then his eyes narrow, “Why are you really here, Rob?”