A Burnable Book. Bruce Holsinger

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      A collective whoop went up from young and old alike, followed by a round of sustained applause. As the claps and stomps faded and the men retook their seats, I glanced over at the upper benches, where the serjeants-at-law sat in high station. Thomas Pinchbeak, I saw, was leaning forward and speaking with some urgency to two of his colleagues. I could understand their consternation, as even the more festive moots generally treated the finer points of property and torts. A murder trial would not be unprecedented, but it would require the substitution of mere spectacle for legal rigor. I was somewhat surprised that the young men had opted for such a subject.

      FitzWilliams hopped down and grasped a corner of the drapery. ‘Servants of the law,’ he shouted, his eyes wild, ‘I give you the evening’s bench!’ In one flourish he pulled off the canvas. The applause was thunderous as the crowd took in the mock court on the wagon: the stern judges in a ponderous line, the pompous bailiff, a hunch-backed recorder, and finally the accused, bound standing to a rail by his legs and wrists, his teeth gnashing, his face twisted in mock agony at the imagined hanging in his near future.

      The most remarkable part of the spectacle was the scene laid out on a narrow platform jutting forward from the left front of the wagon. A scraggly hawthorn bush, potted in an oaken tub, suggested the outdoors, as did several inches of loose dirt spread around it. On the soil, face down, lay a young man, his torso bare, his waist and legs clad in a flesh-coloured costume, the buttocks exaggerated with padding.

      ‘Our victim, if you please!’ FitzWilliams called out over the roars of approval. The actor rose to his knees, cutting a ghoulish figure. His chest had been shaved clean and painted with wide crescents traced to suggest breasts. Between the legs of the suit had been sewn a triangle of animal pelt. And from his head, adorned with a wig of long, dark hair, a dried shower of red paint descended in a glistening path, its source a crusted wound mocked up in gruesome detail.

      I looked again at the cluster of serjeants. At least five of the powerful men were now visibly agitated, their gestures conveying strong displeasure at the subject of the performance. There was clearly some disagreement, though: I guessed that several of them wished to halt the murder moot, while others felt reluctant to take action, with all the objections this would raise. Yet why, I wondered, was this spectacle provoking their concern at all, given the usual tenor of plays at the Temple? Such pageants were notorious for their bawdy and even violent content, some of them ending in blows; this one appeared no different.

      FitzWilliams had pressed a cluster of utter barristers into service as the jury. He held up his hands.

      ‘Let us review the facts of the case,’ he said. ‘First: before us lies a young woman. A virgin, I’m told – though I have not, personally, performed the requisite inspection.’ He put a finger in the air, drawing earthy calls.

      The victim sat up, pursed his rouged lips in a kiss, then, with a wan wave, collapsed. ‘Her head crushed,’ FitzWilliams continued, ‘her fair body stripped of its dress, her raiment laid carelessly over a rock. So far a straightforward matter, no? A fair maiden wandering in a place where a woman should never venture alone. Attacked. Perhaps ravished. Surely killed.’

      An exaggerated frown. ‘But consider the complexities of the case before us. First, where did this act most foul occur? Not in London, but outside the walls – indeed in the Moorfields, hard by Bethlem Priory, where the wood are wont to wander.’

      A crowd along a side wall sent up a wolfish howl, and my skin went suddenly cold. Katherine Swynford, at La Neyte. It was a young woman … Someone skulled her, out on the Moorfields.

      My vision blurred as FitzWilliams continued. ‘The location of the crime introducing, then, the matter of jurisdiction, which some will place under the abbot of Bethlem. Others will contend that the Moorfields as a whole lie within an outer ward of the city. In what court, then, and by whose authority shall this matter be adjudicated?’

      A movement to my left. Pinchbeak had summoned two pursuivants.

      ‘More central to our purposes this evening, though,’ FitzWilliams continued, ‘shall be the nature of the crime: how are we to determine whether we are facing a killing ex malicia praecogitata, or an accidental death? Was she killed with a club to the skull? Or’ – he held up a knife, then placed the blade against his chest – ‘with a steely thrust to her heart?’ At this last word FitzWilliams plunged the knife into his chest and doubled over.

      A few shouts of alarm from the more gullible and drunk, but mostly laughter as he withdrew the wooden blade. For me the moot had lost all its humour.

      ‘Ah, but wait!’ The murmurs died down. ‘We must now reveal the identity of the accused.’ He dug a hand into a pocket. ‘Why, what’s this?’ He pulled out a parchment, waved it before the room. ‘The indictment, honourable gentlemen! Inscribed by His Honour himself, Justice Beelzebub Barnes of Brixton!’ He stood at the top of the aisle between the rows of tables. ‘In this document,’ he shouted, ‘is written the very name of the accused!’

      ‘Huzzah! Huzzah!’

      ‘As well as his profession, our next matter for rumination. And what is the profession of our accused, you may ask? A moment …’ He held the document up to the lamplight. ‘Our alleged killer is – a highwayman?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘A street vagrant, then?’

      ‘Nay!’

      ‘How about – how about a friar?’

      ‘The friar! The friar!’

      FitzWilliams shook his head, shining an exaggerated sadness around the great hall. ‘Incorrect, gentlemen of the bar, the killer is not a friar!’

      General laughter, and as it crested, then ebbed, I noticed a small stir from afar, rendered peculiar only by its timing. In the hall’s north corner Chaucer rose from his seat, nodded an apology to his benchmates, and ducked through the low doorway leading to the buttery. As the door closed to on his back FitzWilliams adopted a more serious look. ‘Our alleged murderer is not a priest, nor a bishop, nor a cardinal. He is neither a cooper nor a cordwainer, neither a mercer nor a shipwright, neither a pinner nor a—’

      ‘Let’s just have it, then, Fitzy!’ someone shouted from the back.

      FitzWilliams looked up, affecting offence. More titters. I sat forward, confused by Chaucer’s departure at the height of the apprentice’s spectacle. With a flourish, FitzWilliams gazed across the crowd. ‘Have it we shall. Our murderer is, rather, a p—’

      ‘Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!’

      Loud shouts, drowning out FitzWilliams’s revelation with the force of a gale. The serjeants-at-law, twenty strong and with Thomas Pinchbeak hobbling in the lead, rushed the pageant wagon as a single dark-robed mass, their gowns spread above their heads like bat wings as they mobbed the players. Three of the younger serjeants climbed on the wheels and proceeded to demolish the set, kicking apart the flimsy rails, ripping the robes from the judges, releasing the accused from his bonds. Two others grappled the ‘victim’ off the side platform and stripped the costume from his flesh, leaving him only in his braies, then sent him into the crowd with a jar of wine over his head.

      Utter pandemonium: screams of delight and alarm; cups, jars, and flagons flying overhead, to shatter against the walls; serjeants and apprentices alike screaming to the rafters, some enjoying the skirmish, others frightened nearly for their lives; the wagon overturned СКАЧАТЬ