Dissolution

As I passed down Ludgate Hill, I noticed a stall brimming with apples and pears and, feeling hungry, dismounted to buy some. As I stood feeding an apple to Chancery, I noticed down a side street a crowd of perhaps thirty standing outside a tavern, murmuring excitedly. I wondered whether this was another apprentice moonstruck from a half-understood reading of the new translation of the Bible and turned prophet. If so, he had better beware the constable.

There were one or two better-dressed people on the fringe of the crowd and I recognized William Pepper, a Court of Augmentations lawyer, standing with a young man wearing a gaudy slashed doublet. Curious, I led Chancery down the cobbles towards them, avoiding the piss-filled sewer channel. Pepper turned as I reached him.

'Why, Shardlake! I have missed the sight of you scuttling about the courts this term. Where have you been?' He turned to his companion. 'Allow me to introduce Jonathan Mintling, newly qualified from the Inns and yet another happy recruit to Augmentations. Jonathan, I present Master Matthew Shardlake, the sharpest hunchback in the courts of England.'

I bowed to the young man, ignoring Pepper's ill-mannered reference to my condition. I had bested him at the bar not long before and lawyers' tongues are ever ready to seek revenge.

'What is passing here?' I asked.

Pepper laughed. 'There is a woman within, said to have a bird from the Indies that can converse as freely as an Englishman. She is going to bring it out.'

The street sloped downwards to the tavern so that despite my lack of inches I had a good enough view. A fat old woman in a greasy dress appeared in the doorway, holding an iron pole set on three legs. Balanced on a crosspiece was the strangest bird I had ever seen. Larger than the biggest crow, it had a short beak ending in a fearsome hook, and red and gold plumage so bright that against the dirty grey of the street it almost dazzled the eye. The crowd moved closer.

'Keep back,' the old woman called in shrill tones. 'I have brought Tabitha out, but she will not speak if you jostle round her.'

'Let's hear it talk!' someone called out.

'I want paying for my trouble!' the beldame shouted boldly. 'If you all throw a farthing at her feet, Tabitha will speak!'

'I wonder what trickery this is,' Pepper scoffed, but joined others in hurling coins at the foot of the pole. The old woman scooped them up from the mud, then turned to the bird. 'Tabitha,' she called out, 'say, "God save King Harry! A Mass for poor Queen Jane!"'

The creature seemed to ignore her, shifting on its scaly feet and eyeing the crowd with a glassy stare. Then suddenly it called out, in a voice very like the woman's own, 'God save King Harry! Mass for Queen Jane!' Those at the front took an involuntary step back, and there was a flurry of arms as people crossed themselves. Pepper whistled.

'What do you say to that, Shardlake?'

'I don't know. Trickery somewhere.'

'Again,' one of the bolder spirits called out. 'More!'

'Tabitha! Say, "Death to the pope! Death to the Bishop of Rome!"'

'Death to the pope! Bishop of Rome! God save King Harry!' The creature spread its wings, causing people to gasp with alarm. I saw that they had been cut cruelly short halfway down their length; it would never fly again. The bird buried its hooked beak in its breast and began preening itself.

'Come to the steps of St Paul's tomorrow,' the crone shouted, 'and hear more! Tell everyone you know that Tabitha, the talking bird from the Indies, will be there at twelve. Brought from Peru-land, where hundreds of these birds sit conversing in a great nest city in the trees!' And with that, pausing only to scoop up a couple of coins she had missed earlier, the old woman picked up the perch and disappeared inside, the bird fluttering its broken wings wildly to keep its balance.

The crowd dispersed, muttering excitedly. I led Chancery back up the lane, Pepper and his friend by my side.

Pepper's usual arrogance was humbled. 'I have heard of many wonders from this Peru the Spaniards have conquered. I have always thought you cannot believe half the fables that come from the Indies – but that – by Our Lady!'

'It is a trick,' I said. 'Did you not see the bird's eyes? There was no intelligence in them. And the way it stopped talking to preen itself.'

'But it spoke, sir,' Mintling said. 'We heard it.'

'One can speak without understanding. What if the bird just responds to the crone's words by repeating them, as a dog comes to its master's call? I have heard of jays doing such things.'

We had reached the top of the lane and paused. Pepper grinned.

'Well, 'tis true that the people in church respond to the priests' Latin mummings without understanding them.'

I shrugged. Such sentiments about the Latin Mass were not yet orthodox, and I was not going to be drawn into religious debate.

I bowed. 'Well, I fear I must leave you. I have an appointment with Lord Cromwell at Westminster.'