Tombland

‘Towards dinner-time. Perhaps five. You may return then, if you wish.’ She gave another ghost of a curtsey, then closed the door in our faces.

‘She could have offered us refreshment,’ Nicholas said. ‘Ordinary politeness dictates that.’

I smiled. ‘I imagine Flowerdew has given me no good report.’

‘What do we do now?’ Nicholas wiped his face, which was reddening with sunburn again. ‘I’m baking.’

‘Return at five. I’m not going back to Norwich without seeing Flowerdew.’

‘I saw a tavern in the village,’ Barak said. ‘We could get something to eat and drink.’

‘Didn’t look like much of a place.’ Nicholas was in a complaining mood. ‘I don’t fancy sitting in whatever tavern they may have, being stared at by country gruffs all afternoon.’

‘It’s only three miles to Wymondham,’ Barak said. ‘They’ll probably have the play on today.’

‘All right,’ I said, ‘let’s find something to eat at the inn, then go on to Wymondham. Damn Flowerdew, we’ll have to ride back to Norwich in the dark. Nicholas, at least let us get these hot robes off.’

We had a surprisingly good pottage and beer at the inn, but were indeed stared at by the locals, and not in a friendly way. I heard someone mutter ‘rich furriners’. And so, after the meal, we rode on to Wymondham, though the sun was now at its zenith.

Arriving there, we left the horses at the Green Dragon stables. I was surprised how many people were about now – this festival was bigger than I had thought. We passed the area where the play was being staged but nothing was happening, although the stage had been erected and covered with curtains, and the pit we had seen being dug in front of it earlier was now surrounded by stone flags, with old beams laid over it. The common nearby was now crowded with tents, and buzzing with people. Stalls had been set up along the streets. As we walked along, I marvelled at their variety; some, like those selling clothing and blocks of salt, were substantial, with coloured awnings providing welcome shade, while elsewhere families sold vegetables, cheese, live chickens in cages and the like, from the back of farmers’ carts. Craftsmen’s stalls sold everything from farm tools to shepherds’ crooks with curved cow horns at the end. One sold children’s dolls, and I bought a cloth doll with little buttons sewn on for eyes. ‘For little Mousy,’ I said with a smile. Barak bought another for his daughter. Sarcastically, he asked the goodwife serving us whether she had a doll like a witch to buy for his wife. The woman looked scandalized, stared at his metal hand, and crossed herself. ‘Just joking,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know they had such big fairs in the country,’ Nicholas observed.

‘It’s the biggest I’ve seen,’ Barak agreed. ‘Though I’ve seen others when I’ve been on summer assizes. July’s a quiet time for farmers, apart from weeding the crops.’

I saw an old woman arguing with a stallholder who refused to accept one of the old testoon coins. ‘They had to be handed in by the end of last month,’ he told her.

‘There have been so many changes, I didn’t realize –’ she said, and began to cry.

We walked on through the crowds. I caught a tension in the air, and here and there saw people talking quietly in huddles.

A sudden thunderous bang made us jump. We looked round to where a crowd of over a hundred was now gathered around the stage. Barak and Nicholas began shoving their way towards the front, and I followed. A man in the crowd was handing out printed pamphlets. I took one. Headed, ‘A True Sermon of a Faithful Bishop’, it was another Commonwealth pamphlet: ‘... sheep fields and the great parks have eaten up whole villages and towns, all for the pleasure and profit of the rich ...’

The curtains had been pulled back from the front of the stage, revealing a backcloth depicting the interior of a Roman building, copied, perhaps, from a tapestry. At the back of the stage a group of men in black robes, with long, false white beards, sat at a table counting metal discs. In the pit in front of the stage a fire had been lit, and from within came another loud bang and a cloud of yellow smoke. Barak murmured, ‘Gunpowder; I hope they know what they’re doing.’

At the front of the stage a grotesque, horned figure, clothes and face painted red and holding a pitchfork, was laughing dementedly as a man dressed as a cleric knelt before him, a woman wearing angel wings wringing her hands beside him. ‘See!’ the devil roared in a mighty voice, ‘Christ’s followers will not survive the blows of the wealthy!’ At that four men dressed as knights ran out. They pretended to thrust wooden swords through the body of the cleric, who collapsed groaning on the ground. The crowd shouted and booed. It was a representation of the murder of Thomas Becket by King Henry II, cleverly changed to a Roman setting.