Read Online The Midnight Man by Paul Doherty - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Paul Doherty
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thoroughfares of Poultry and Cheapside swarmed Londonâs other city: the hidden world of the wandering musicians, rogues, cozeners, naps and foists, charlatans and coney catchers, all bedecked in their motley, garish rags and eager for prey. A sweaty tribe, which reeked of every foul odour, these swarmed around the hundreds of market stalls, pitting their wits against the bailiffs and beadles who constantly patrolled the markets. The officials had already caught one miscreant, a toper, his nose as brilliantly red as a full-blown rose; arrested for foisting, he was being led off to stand in the cage on the top of the tun which housed the conduit for Cheapside.
The crowd surged, broke and met again. Apprentice boys hopped like frogs, shouting for custom. Fur-gowned burgesses, arm-in-arm with their richly dressed spouses, rubbed shoulders with fish-wives hurling obscenities at each other over a cohort of men-at-arms marching down to the Tower. A market beadle proclaimed the names of two whores missing from their brothel. A juggler leading a mule decorated with cymbals stopped to ask two Franciscans in their earth-coloured, rope-girdled robes for their blessing, only to be screamed at by a group of fops, in their elegant cloaks and soft Spanish leather boots, for blocking the way. Underfoot the thoroughfare was littered with all forms of dirt and refuse. Gong-carts were attempting to clear the mess but were unable to get through. The street air, fragranced by freshly-baked bread and platters of spiced meats, turned slightly rancid as the stench curled in from the workshops of the tanners, fullers and smithies.
The two Carmelites entered the Shambles. Butchers and their boys, bloodied from head to toe, were busy slaughtering cattle. In a flutter of plumage birds of every kind: quail, pheasant, chicken and duck had their necks wrung, their throats slashed, before being tossed to the sitting women to be plucked and doused in scalding, salted water before being hooked above the stalls. The cobbles glittered in the bloody juices from all this carnage. Dogs, cats and kites fought for globules of flesh, fat and entrails. The air reeked of blood, iron and dung. Anselm hurried past on to the great concourse before the forbidding mass of Newgate prison, its crenellated towers soaring either side of the grim, iron-studded gates. An execution party was assembling. The death cart rolled out, crammed with manacled prisoners bound for the Elms at Smithfield or the Forks by Tyburn stream. Immediately the waiting crowd surged forward as friends and relatives fought to make a sombre farewell. Some prisoners screamed their messages; a few were so drunk they lay unconscious against the sides of the cart. Mounted archers beat back the mob with whips and sticks while the sheriffs, resplendent in their ermine-lined red robes, shouted for order. Anselm and Stephen waited until the execution party moved off, then pushed their way through a crowd thronging around a Dominican garbed in the distinctive black and white of that order.
âBeware,â the trumpet-voiced preacher declared, âbeware, you adulterers! In hell you shall be bound to stakes in a fiery pool; each will have to face his mistress similarly bound. And that is not all, oh no! Demons will lash your private parts with wire. You traders who cheated the poor, your fate will be sealed in a red-hot leaden casket in Satanâs own black castle. You gluttons who stuffed your gaping mouths . . .â
âI donât think this concerns us,â Anselm murmured. âNever mind gluttony! Iâm starving.â
They passed through the old city walls, turning left into the maze of alleys leading down to Fleet Street and the House of the Carmelites, the White Friars. Stephen tried to hide his nervousness. These runnels were a labyrinth of iniquity. Here lurked the sanctuary men, the wolfsheads, the utlegati and the proscribed wanted by this sheriff or that. Here the knife, the
The crowd surged, broke and met again. Apprentice boys hopped like frogs, shouting for custom. Fur-gowned burgesses, arm-in-arm with their richly dressed spouses, rubbed shoulders with fish-wives hurling obscenities at each other over a cohort of men-at-arms marching down to the Tower. A market beadle proclaimed the names of two whores missing from their brothel. A juggler leading a mule decorated with cymbals stopped to ask two Franciscans in their earth-coloured, rope-girdled robes for their blessing, only to be screamed at by a group of fops, in their elegant cloaks and soft Spanish leather boots, for blocking the way. Underfoot the thoroughfare was littered with all forms of dirt and refuse. Gong-carts were attempting to clear the mess but were unable to get through. The street air, fragranced by freshly-baked bread and platters of spiced meats, turned slightly rancid as the stench curled in from the workshops of the tanners, fullers and smithies.
The two Carmelites entered the Shambles. Butchers and their boys, bloodied from head to toe, were busy slaughtering cattle. In a flutter of plumage birds of every kind: quail, pheasant, chicken and duck had their necks wrung, their throats slashed, before being tossed to the sitting women to be plucked and doused in scalding, salted water before being hooked above the stalls. The cobbles glittered in the bloody juices from all this carnage. Dogs, cats and kites fought for globules of flesh, fat and entrails. The air reeked of blood, iron and dung. Anselm hurried past on to the great concourse before the forbidding mass of Newgate prison, its crenellated towers soaring either side of the grim, iron-studded gates. An execution party was assembling. The death cart rolled out, crammed with manacled prisoners bound for the Elms at Smithfield or the Forks by Tyburn stream. Immediately the waiting crowd surged forward as friends and relatives fought to make a sombre farewell. Some prisoners screamed their messages; a few were so drunk they lay unconscious against the sides of the cart. Mounted archers beat back the mob with whips and sticks while the sheriffs, resplendent in their ermine-lined red robes, shouted for order. Anselm and Stephen waited until the execution party moved off, then pushed their way through a crowd thronging around a Dominican garbed in the distinctive black and white of that order.
âBeware,â the trumpet-voiced preacher declared, âbeware, you adulterers! In hell you shall be bound to stakes in a fiery pool; each will have to face his mistress similarly bound. And that is not all, oh no! Demons will lash your private parts with wire. You traders who cheated the poor, your fate will be sealed in a red-hot leaden casket in Satanâs own black castle. You gluttons who stuffed your gaping mouths . . .â
âI donât think this concerns us,â Anselm murmured. âNever mind gluttony! Iâm starving.â
They passed through the old city walls, turning left into the maze of alleys leading down to Fleet Street and the House of the Carmelites, the White Friars. Stephen tried to hide his nervousness. These runnels were a labyrinth of iniquity. Here lurked the sanctuary men, the wolfsheads, the utlegati and the proscribed wanted by this sheriff or that. Here the knife, the
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