Dissolution

'"The Lord has brought us safe through our tribulations,"' Mark quoted.

'I think we have more of those ahead,' I replied. We led the tired horses down the hill, just as a light snow began to blow in from the sea.

CHAPTER 4

We guided the horses carefully down the hill to where a road led into the town. They were nervous, shying away from the snowflakes brushing their faces. Happily, the snow stopped as we arrived.

'Shall we call on the Justice?' Mark asked.

'No, we must reach the monastery today; if the snow starts again we could have to stay the night here.'

We made our way down Scarnsea's cobbled main street, where the top storeys of ancient houses overhung the road, keeping to one side to avoid the emptying of pisspots. We noticed that the plaster and timbers of many houses were decayed, and the shops seemed poor places. The few people about gave us incurious glances.

We reached the town square. On three sides more dilapidated-looking houses stood, but the fourth consisted of a wide stone wharf. Once no doubt it had fronted the sea, but now it faced the mud and reeds of the marsh, sullen and desolate under the grey sky and giving off a mingled smell of salt and rot. A canal, large enough only for a small boat, had been cut through the mud and stretched in a long ribbon to the sea, a steely band a mile off. Out on the marsh we saw a train of donkeys roped together while a group of men shored up the canal bank with stones from panniers on the animals' backs.

There had evidently been recent entertainment, for on the far side of the square a little knot of women stood conversing by the town stocks, round which lay a mess of rotten fruit and vegetables. Sitting on a stool with her feet clamped in the stocks was a plump middle-aged woman of the poorer sort, her clothing a mess of burst eggs and pears. She wore a triangular cap with 'S' for 'scold' daubed on it. She looked cheerful enough now, as she took a cup of ale from one of the women, but her face was bruised and swollen and her blackened eyes half-shut. Seeing us, she raised her tankard and essayed a grin. A little group of giggling children ran into the square, carrying old rotten cabbages, but one of the women waved them off.

'Go away,' she called in an accent as thick and guttural as the villagers' had been. 'Goodwife Thomas has learnt her lesson and will give her husband peace. She'll be let out in an hour. Enough!'

The children retreated, calling insults from a safe distance.

'They have mild enough ways down here, it seems,' Mark observed. I nodded. In the London stocks it is common enough for sharp stones to be thrown, taking out teeth and eyes.

We rode out of town towards the monastery. The road ran alongside the reeds and stagnant pools of the marsh. I marvelled that there were pathways through such a foul mire, but there must be or the men and animals we had seen could not have found their way.

'Scarnsea was once a prosperous seaport,' I observed. 'That marshland has built up from silt and sand in a hundred years or so. No wonder the town is poor now; that canal would barely take a fishing boat.'

'How do they live?'

'Fishing and farming. Smuggling too, I daresay, from France. They'll still have to pay their rents and dues to the monastery to keep those lazy drones of monks. Scarnsea port was given as a prize to one of William the Conqueror's knights, who granted land to the Benedictines and had the monastery built. Paid for with English taxes, of course.'

A peal of bells sounded from the direction of the monastery, loud in the still air.

'They've seen us coming,' Mark said with a laugh.

'They'd need good eyes. Unless it's one of their miracles. God's wounds, those bells are loud.'

The tolling continued as we approached the walls, the noise reverberating through my skull. I was tired and my back had pained me increasingly as the day wore on, so that now I rode slumped over Chancery's broad back. I pulled myself upright; I needed to establish a presence at the monastery from the start. Only now did I appreciate the full extent of the place. The walls, faced with flints set in plaster, were twelve feet high. The enclosure reached back from the road to the very edge of the marsh. A little way along there was a large Norman gatehouse, and as we watched a cart laden with barrels and led by two big shire horses rattled out onto the road. We reined in our horses, and it rumbled past us towards the town, the driver touching his cap to us.

'Beer,' I noted.

'Empty barrels?' Mark asked.

'No, full ones. The monastery brewhouse has a monopoly in supplying the town's beer. They can set the price. It's in the founding charter.'

'So if anyone gets drunk, it's on holy beer?'

'It's common enough. The Norman founders kept the monks comfortable in return for prayers for their souls in perpetuity. Everyone was happy, except those who paid for it all. Thank God, those bells have stopped.' I took a deep breath. 'Now, come. Don't say anything, take your lead from me.'