Lamentation

I write in haste from St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where I do voluntary work. A man, a Scotchman, was brought in two days ago suffering from bad knife wounds, and is like to die. He is delirious, and has spoken all manner of strange things. Among them he has mentioned your name. Could you come, as soon as you get this note?

Guy

This had to be McKendrick, the only one of the Anabaptist group to escape the fight at the wharf. He must have been attacked after his flight, and very recently by the sound of it. I stood up at once, then as I walked to the stable, realized that Guy had simply signed his name, not prefixed it with the customary farewell of good fellowship, Your loving friend.

I fetched Genesis and rode up to Smithfield. I had not been there since Anne Askew’s burning over three weeks before. I remembered noticing then how what was left of the old monastic precinct of St Bartholomew’s was hidden by the new houses built by Rich.

It had been market day at Smithfield, and the cattle-pens were being taken away, boys with brooms clearing cow dung from the open space. Farmers and traders stood in the doorways of the taverns, enjoying the evening breeze. Ragged children milled around; they always gathered at the market to try and earn a penny here or there. The awful scene I had witnessed last month had taken place right here. One might have thought some echo would remain, a glimpse of flame in the air, the ghost of an agonized scream. But there was, of course, nothing.

I had never been to the hospital, which gave directly onto the open ground of Smithfield. I tied Genesis at the rail outside, paying one of the barefoot urchins a penny to watch him, and went inside. The large old building was in a dilapidated state, paint and plaster flaking — it was seven years now since the dissolution of the monastic hospital. I asked a fellow who had lost half a leg and was practising walking on crutches where Dr Malton might be. He directed me to the main ward, a large chamber with perhaps twenty beds in two long rows, all occupied by patients. I walked to the far end, where Guy in his physician’s robe was attending to a patient. Beside him was his assistant, plump old Francis Sybrant.

They looked up as I approached. The patient in the bed was a girl in her teens, who whimpered as Guy wound a bandage round her calf, her leg held up carefully by Francis. Two wooden splints had already been bound to the leg.

‘Thank you for coming, Matthew,’ Guy said quietly. ‘I will be with you in a moment.’ I watched as he completed winding the bandage. Francis lowered the girl’s leg slowly down onto the bed, and Guy said to her quietly, ‘There, you must not move it now.’

‘It pains me, sir.’

‘I know, Susan, but for the bone to knit you must keep it still. I will call again tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, sir. May I have my rosary, to pass the time —?’ She broke off, looking at me anxiously.

‘Master Francis will give it to you,’ Guy replied. He turned to his assistant. ‘Give her some more of the drink I prescribed later. It will ease her pains.’

‘I will, Dr Malton.’

Guy stepped away. ‘I have put the man I wrote of in a private room.’

I followed him down the ward. ‘What happened to the girl?’

‘She assists at the cattle market for a few pennies. A frightened cow pressed her against the side of an enclosure. It broke her leg.’

‘Will it mend?’

‘It may, if she is careful. The bone did not come through the skin, so the leg will not go bad. I would be grateful if you would forget that she asked for a rosary. There are those who think this hospital still stinks of the old religion. Francis was once a monk here, by the way. He helps here still, through Christian charity.’

I looked at Guy in surprise. But there was no reason why his assistant should not be an ex-monk; there were thousands in England now. I replied, frowning, ‘You know I would never do such a thing as mention that child’s rosary to anyone.’

‘It does no harm to put you in remembrance that it is not just radicals who have to be careful these days in what they do, and what they say.’

‘I do not forget it.’

He gave me a hard look. ‘And for myself, I take no note of words spoken by patients who sound impiously radical. As you will shortly see.’ I took a deep breath. There was no give in my old friend nowadays.

He led me into a side ward. Like the main chamber it was but poorly equipped, a little room with a small window containing only a truckle bed with an old thin blanket and a stool. The window was open to let in air; the sound of voices drifted faintly in from Smithfield.