CHAPTER 19: PREPARATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

CHAPTER 19: PREPARATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Copyright: Thomas Hoskyns Leonard, Edinburgh, October 2017

                                                                                             

On a drizzly March evening in 1462, Captain Bagoas de Frêne ate supper with his wife Meg in Le Soldat D'Etain, after he'd spent much of that never to be forgotten day drilling a troop of fine soldiers of La Compagnie de Marseilles along the promenade.

The trout and parsnips were exquisitely cooked, and the chef, the raven-haired dwarf from Ravenna, was thrilled to bits when Bagoas asked for more, though with less parsnips and a couple of slices of rye bread.

But Bagoas suddenly turned queasy while he was nibbling the rye.

“What is it my dear?” asked Meg, in alarm, as the dwarfs watched askance.

“The bread!” choked Bagoas.

“Maybe it's been poisoned with the ergot infection,” howled the dwarf with the spike for a nose,

in dismay. “I told Ravenhead to keep the loaves in the cupboard and not on the grimy larder floor.”

“Oh no!” wailed Meg. “We must carry Bagoas to the hospital without a moment of delay.”

And Bagoas de Frêne was stricken by St. Anthony’s Fire, having been poisoned by the infected rye bread. He was violently sick and suffered great burning sores in his groin, and, despite their valiant efforts throughout that sad night, nought in the Hospital of Saint John in Marseilles could help him.

Meg, Duncan, and Countess Ruth, the three loves of sweet Bagoas's life, wept and fretted at his bedside till morning,

Bagoas rose his head briefly and uttered the words of Catherine of Siena,

“Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear; every step of the way to Heaven is Heaven.”

Bagoas was buried the following day with full military honours in the Cemetery of Saint Pierre following the well-attended funeral service in the Synagogue Beth Shalom. He was lowered in a wooden casket without nails, and Meg chose his last resting place beneath a pussy willow tree.

Duncan Le Cottier grieved the loss of his handsome lover and faithful comrade-at-arms. Countess Ruth mourned the father of some of her children. Simeon grieved the loss of his dear Papa who'd flown kites with him over the cliff-tops. But Meg de Frêne was stoic in her grief.

After the funeral, Ravenhead threw himself in desperation into the harbour. The other dwarfs leapt in after him, but none could save the guilt-ridden chef from drowning,

Several weeks after the double tragedy, Meg moved into her inn south of the harbour, with her unusually silent son Simeon, and Le Chevalier Duncan Le Cottier helped her by supplementing her income Meg ate her supper every evening at the table where Bagoas had last dined with her, though she preferred the gâteaux to the bread.

Meg was sad that she hadn't been able to give Bagoas further children, and blamed herself entirely. In the meantime, pretty Simeon's hair was turning streaky red, leaving her feeling most perplexed in her anguish.

God strikes like that, also in the grip of battle, mused Duncan, and death can come out of Heaven. But Bagoas lives on in his children, who redeem him and give him his true immortality.

Bagoas's death has got me to wondering about where my future lies, thought poor Meg, and methinks dear Duncan feels discomforted enough to consider the same.

During May of that year, Duncan once again visited the University of Montpellier, after a pleasant trip in the swift sea ferry from Marseilles. Duncan gave a talk to Professor Henri Lustiger's hundred or so students of medicine concerning the herbal remedies of the Scots, and the Sac of Nouveau Gaulle.

Following Duncan's well received presentation, he took supper with Henri in his apartment in the Jewish quarter. The conversation drifted to chit-chat about the Soutra, and Trinity College Hospital in Edinburgh, which occasionally verged on 'slagging off' or berating other people. After awhile it became ever more slap happy.

“Lord Lulach de Liddell, who I take to be your pompous nephew, has recently moved his baggage from St. Andrews to take up his position of as a master physician at Trinity College Hospital,” explained Henri, gulping down yet another large claret. “The previous incumbent from Motherwell got his knickers in a twist while trying to separate identical twins with a single head. The St. Agatha nurse skelpt his lug and put his nose out of joint because he never did seem to come to the point.”

Not that stinky, yowling brat again! lamented Duncan. Lulach would appear to have made his wicked way in the world despite his foul upbringing. But if he's a lord, my dear brother Callum would appear to be dead, gone, and buried, preferably in a swamp on the Moor of Rannoch.

“Waesucks!” exclaimed Duncan. “Lulach will have to compete with the White Witches of the Lothians. They cure the sick and mend the wounded all the way down to the Borders.”

“Some of the white witches are women of great learning on other matters,” replied Henri. “They were certainly influential on the Soutra, and we used many of their herbal remedies together with a touch of their craft. The sheriff's officers were unconcerned, by and large, as long as we kept well away from the evil Wizard of Meusdenhead and his black witches, of course.”

“Bloody Nora!” exclaimed Duncan, trying some well-blended mead. “Hummmm… I sometimes wondered whether my second wife Pigfoot McEigg was a witch. Perchance even a black one.”

“Firkins!” exclaimed Henri. “I do hope she's dead.”

Whoops! realised Duncan. I made a bit of a blunder. It must be the mead.

“I hope so too,” he replied, “I've married the dear Countess Ruth de Camando since.”

“That reminds me!” added Henri, somewhat tactfully trying to change the subject. “Your son Seth Liddell, who I now perceive was born in wedlock, has moved from the Soutra to work with Hamish Douglas, a master physician at the Strachan-Crichton Asylum for Lunatics in the Port of Leith. Hamish recently cured a man who swam in all his glory along the Water of Leith before baptising himself on the dockside as Christ Jesus. Hamish hypnotised the poor fellow with a Shamanic stare for fully ten hours on end. Now the man thinks he's Geoffrey Chaucer.”

Hamish! agonized Duncan. I wonder if he's the Hamish Douglas of my heart.

Duncan filled the already intoxicated Henri's crystal glass full to the brim with bubbly claret wine, and topped up his own beaker with claret from the warm South, instead of mead.

Duncan licked the bubbles bursting on the brim of his beaker, and slowly wiped his purple-stained mouth. “This Hamish Douglas is of interest to me. Would you be so kind as to tell me a bit more about him?”

“Gad's budlikins!” exclaimed Henri. “Douglas worked for years as assistant to the previous master physician Sir Brodie Crichton-Cruikshank. That jackass was as crooked a coot as has ever graced this earth! The fearsome Brodie trepanned a lady from Penicuik after she saw a dog in her larder. He arranged for the Duke of McFriggen to be immersed for days on end in a bath of hedge woundwort fluid in the Hospice of Herdmanflat when the dotty duke saw an apparition of a gigantic Cyclops on the church altar, and he put a lass from Pitlochrie in an iron cast for hearing Catherine of Siena telling her to set fire to the world.”

This thrice-cursed master physician is the former depute-sheriff who threatened to torture the Hamish Douglas I know to death for high treason, recalled Duncan. I wonder whether evil Brodie succumbed to slick Hamish's panderings, and set the fair youth free in return for a favour?

“How amusing!” exclaimed Duncan, with a glint in his eye, “but how fares it with sweet Hamish?”

Henri gave Duncan a look which mixed sympathy with pity. “Hamish is no spring chicken. When he began to broaden about the beam, Sir Brodie started to call him 'Sprot'. Later on their camaraderie became a touch more circumspect.”

“I understand,” said Duncan, most taken aback. “Whatever did happen to this Crichton-Cruikshank cretin?”

“Oh, Crichton-Crunchfutter, or whoever, was exiled in disgrace to the Isle of Tiree following the 'Pageboy in the Cabbage Heap' scandal in Holyrood Palace. Nowadays, he's savouring the sheep, and an occasional goat when it peers over the cliffs of Tiree. Hamish was glad to be rid of him.”

That must be my Hamish, decided Duncan, picking his ear, albeit if he has turned into a fatted calf.

Henri smoothed his untrimmed beard and tugged his side-locks, as was his wont when he wished to feel more sober. “Hamish is a pioneer when it came to treating patients with disorders of the mind with various types of sound. A tune on the lute can calm the swinging mood. The sound of buzzing bees can cure a person of the black fog, and the beating of drums sometimes takes away the mysterious voices and the colourful apparitions.”

“How intriguing,” replied the quiscous Duncan, with a sigh. “That might be worth pursuing further.”

“Should you ever return to lush Alba,” continued Henri, at pace, “then you might care to visit the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew in Rosslyn down in Mid-Lothian. There's an 'Orchestra of Angels' at the base of the curious arches which surround the altar. The thirteen geometric patterns on the cubes which jut out from the arches are said to be pictorial codes of musical scores from way back when, which, if played on the matching orchestral instrument, will cure disorders of the mind. The enigmatic Hamish Douglas and your more down-to-earth son Seth were attempting to decipher the secret codes before I left.”

“The Troubadour of Arbroath also thinks that he can cure lunatics in this strange manner,” recalled Duncan, exploring the depths of his memory. “I met the buffoon once on the road from Soutra.”

“As can many of the Troubadours of France.”

“At their peril! But does the Orchestra of Angels in Rosslyn have anything to do with the Knights Templar?”

“I don't believe that anything has anything to do with the Knights Templar anymore. That bunch of Sodomites was exterminated at the behest of Philip the Fair in 1314.”

“How philanthropic of the fine monarch! And they should draw and burn the insidious impostors who crept into Scotland. But how exquisitely wonderful this orchestra is. I am hoping to visit Edinburgh later in the year with my dear squire Xavier de Rougerie, and we'll be sure to take a ride to Rosslyn then.”

“Sweet Xavier?” slurped Henri. “I wouldn't object to a piece of him!”

I wonder whether Henri is a Knight of the Temple of Solomon in disguise? deliberated Duncan. Isn't 'slagging off' such excellent fun!

A week or so later, Duncan Le Cottier paid Count René's courier two gold pieces to do his best to deliver a message to one Samuel Hart at the address, The Apothecary Shop, Pack and Saddle Street, York, Angleterre.

Duncan was pleased to be able to give the dumpy courier that huge sum in gold. The pear-shaped misfit was badly mistreated by Count René, and paid little more than a farm labourer for his toils.

Duncan's handwriting was black and spidery, and it was intermingled with meaningless foreign symbols in place of punctuation marks. The substance of his message, which came out of his beautiful mind, was written in his own inimitable style. It was not, of course, missing a complete shilling, though maybe a couple of coppers:

Mon Cher Monsieur Samuel Hart et ton chat fou. ψ

I hope Ϛ in the most superlative of terms Ϡ that both you and Jonathan are faring well during the reign of Edward Ϙ Lord of March φ Cambridge μ and no doubt dear York λ while King Henry festers in some deep dungeon or other ώ and Margaret of Anjou spins in concentric circles like a headless chicken on the loose ζ Firk to the Lancastrians Ώ and bar humbug to the Yorkists ξ

I owe you both an immense debt of gratitude for the way you nurtured and protected me many loony moons ago when I was dead to the world and lost to the Devil β Waesucks β

I am Λ at this vital moment in the sundial of time Λ living in a state hovering between exceptional comfort and lascivious luxury Θ in my pretty château by an ever rippling stream in sweet Sephora Δ Provence Ξ much chagrined by my noble wife's six pesky piskies and the beanpole of a one-legged cheese maker who horns me ή Gad's budlikins ί My officially recorded identity in France is Le Chevalier Duncan Le Cottier Ϋ and the Dauphin himself can answer to any dispute of my title and name if the pompous dolphin can be roused from the nightmares and raving monsters of his slumbers δ I do not δ of course δ myself suffer from the DELUSIONAL IMBECILITY ΦΦΦΦ

Would that you could relay this information to my son Harry de Burgogne, if you are still acquainted with him χ and if he wishes to receive it ρ Sard β if he doesn't Φ

Would that you could also advise Harry that he may Σ if he thus desires Σ ascertain the truth of my Scottish identity by scrutinizing the mural among the three-eyed gargoyles behind the two-decker pulpit in the Kirk of Bothans in East Lothian ϗ My true name will truly appear on the mural, matched with the code name 'Horatio P' ϗ

My reason for these ever bamboozling requests is that I will be returning to Edinburgh during July of this noteworthy year with my ever faithful Ύ scrumptious squire Xavier the Provençan Ϟ God bless his tender soul ζ

Would that I could meet my dear son in either Edinburgh or York ν When I arrive in Edinburgh I will send messages by abundantly fast courier to both you and the senseless cleric in Bothans informing you both of my address ϑ which could well be in a barn in the Grassmarket ϡ or wherever ϱ My image is so bestricken with the Hellfire of Rouen that nought will recognize me Ώ

This is a sincerely expressed and bona fide letter with no exceptions made to horses' feathers Ϧ The real Ϯ stone cold dead Ϯ Duncan Cotter was born in Linton during the Summer Solstice of 1409 Ͼ and his Certificate of Birth was signed and sealed by the infuriatingly irritating Sheriff of Haddington who was later Provost of St. Giles and may well be floating in the Styx ψ but whose name slips through my memory as I grow ever older and the IMBECILITY OF THE DEATH-MASK approaches ρ

Please do not remember me to Brother Alfonso of St. Leonard's Hospital in your Nouveau Jorvik Ͽ the Eboracum of yore of Alcuin fame ϰ He is as evil as Beelzebub himself Π and may wish to dismember me Ϊ

You will always remain wedged right down there in the very deepest of my affections Ϣ

Yours in Yahweh α Baal α and the indubitable Catherine of Siena Τ as we set the world alight together to frazzle into a spinning crimson ball till fond Eternity Ώ

Duncan Le Cottier Ώ

Chevalier of France Ώ

Knight of the Sacred Orb of Jerusalem Ώ

If Hamish Douglas had seen this sprawling letter then he might well at that time have diagnosed Duncan as suffering from St. Michael's Befrazzled Lack of Attention Disorder (BLAD). But Hamish didn't see any of it, and if he had then his diagnosis could well have been out to sea.

Duncan Le Cottier and Meg de Frêne waved the dumpy courier 'au revoir' as the Pytheas de Massalia set off for London from the harbourside in Marseilles.

“I may follow you to our much sceptred isle,” said Meg, ensconcing herself on a bench. “I've become disillusioned with Provence since poor Bagoas's death. I have the option to buy an inn in the village of Tavi on top of the Moor of the Dart in lush Devonshire. It's 'cross the Taff from ancient Tawi where dear Mistress Hobson was born.”

“I'll help you to find the filthy lucre, dear Meg. In all verity, I may well decide to stay in Edinburgh if the prospects seem good. I'm getting thoroughly brassed off with Ruth, blasted Bernard Bernoulli, and the six yowling kids. If I can recover some of my property in Edinburgh and East Lothian, then I could settle there with my adorable Xavier for ever and anon.”

I'd have to redeem Sir Richard de Liddell's good reputation first, Duncan fully appreciated.

“I'll have to sell Le Soldat D'Etain, of course,” explained Meg, “and then I'm planning to call my inn in Tavi the Elephant's Nest. I'll take Shuggy and Grunt with me to serve the ale.”

“How superlatively imaginative! And what breed of customer do you expect to drink in your nest?”

“The labourers from the open cut mines, mainly, and the Bal maidens who brake up the Mundic with their hammers. They've mined copper, arsenic and tin since Roman times, and dredge silver and gold dust from the streams.”

“That will be different from fancy Marseilles!”

Will I discover who poisoned my dear Ingibiorg and loveable Cedric in 1436 when I return to Edinburgh? wondered Duncan. Sometimes methinks it was my neighbour Father Kelp Haggart after my true loves discovered the depths to which he was sinking during the Saturnic orgy in his house. But I sense in my mind that there was some other force that had been seducing poor Ingibiorg's attentions. Why, for the life of me, can't I unplug the memory that would enable me to reveal the truth to myself?

“Do you have any special plans for your new life in Scotland, Duncan?” inquired Meg.

Duncan stared into space for a full minute. “I greatly value my friendships with the Jewish people, like yourself and Bagoas, who have helped and succoured me over the years. I now plan to tell the ordinary people of Scotland about the Christianity which our Lord Jesus originally intended, the Christianity which was initiated by the Jewish activists, the liturgists of Ariel's New Way.”

Meg looked puzzled. “But why would people listen?” she inquired.

Duncan scratched his itchy nose. “Because it gets to the essence and rids itself of the humbug of the crazy St. John of Patmos and of the vindictive, false Apostle Paul of Tarsus who was ne'er e'er a saint. It is everything which St. Peter the Rock wanted all Jews to know about.”

“Bagoas will be very proud of you for that,” said Meg, as supportively as she could.

A fortnight after receiving the disconcerting letter from Duncan, Samuel Hart visited Crécy House on Micklegate with his brother, the renowned advocate Jonathan Hart, though there were matters of far greater importance to firstly discuss.

A pagegirl with riveting, pearl-shaped eyes showed the delightful brothers to the rose garden where Baron Harry de Burgogne was seated on a couch shaped like a love heart, with his newly wed, blue-eyed wife who was cuddling her remarkably quiet, green-eyed baby in her fractured arms.

The Dowager Baroness lurked in the trees in the background like the highly learned White Witch of Fulford that she was.

The retired Yorkist knight Sir Bronco Bullivant, who was blinded in both eyes at the Battleof Sandal Magna, sat on the verandah contentedly twirling his spruce moustache, as two fresh maidens brought him more and more sweet scented flowers to savour, and mugs of mead to sup.

“Good morrow, kind gentlemen,” said Lady Teresa de Burgogne, turning her still round, half-crushed face. “Do settle yourself on the Saxon chaise-longue, and a mug of warm claret embrace. My pagegirl Dionisia will tend to your various needs through her haze of innocent youth.”

“I thank you, M'lady,” replied Samuel. “Dionisia has the looks of my sister's granddaughter in Bremen.”

Jonathan Hart flickered his eyebrows impatiently; he could see a huge white bear with a feathered headdress and orange pantaloons flitting through the woods.

Lady Teresa had been advised that Jonathan's talent 'Apomonoménos eaftós', meant 'isolated self', and she was well prepared to make allowances concerning the self-made genius.

Jonathan puffed his chest like a God-striven archbishop. “I bring news of great import. The legitimacy of King Edward's birth has again been brought into question. Five honest yeoman are prepared to swear that Richard, Duke of York was taking respite in Honfleur during the entire period of Edward's conception. Moreover, Master Reg Blacksmith of Shrewsbury purports that his chubby brother Walt was in dalliance with the skinny Duchess Cecylle of York in the Castle of Rouen throughout those critical weeks of the Summer of 1441.”

“How illuminating!” exclaimed Baron Harry, looking puzzled indeed, “but how does that concern us, even one iota?”

Samuel Hart gave pretty Dionisia the twice over, and the glad eye.

“Take a well-scented bath!” she muttered, under her slightly smelly breath.

“The meaning is as clear as crystal,” explained Samuel, choosing to ignore the pagegirl's

irritating response. “Your little stepson Alfred Plantagenet was sired in true wedlock by Edmund, Earl of Rutland, said to be the second son of Richard, Duke of York, both of whom were barbarically taken from us during the valiant Battle of Sandal Magna.”

I wasn't so valiant, thought Harry, with an involuntary snigger. I deserted in advance of the battle, to cover my very own back.

Harry was so kind when he nursed me back to health after he found me unconscious in Wetherby Preceptory, mused Lady Teresa, and I was very lucky when he offered to marry me, Edmund was a real man, but Harry is pleasant, wealthy and cuddlesome. He's most unlike his rank-scented goose of a father, who was so spiteful to me, a mere peasant, before he died. It's difficult to believe that they were father and son.

“If Edward is a fils de bast and Edmund is not, then baby Alfred is the true heir to the late Duke of York's estate,” continued Jonathan Hart, with his incredible legal expertise. “Moreover, Alfred would have a better claim to the English crown than Edward or his brothers George and Richard Plantagenet their very selves.”

“Gad's zooks!” exclaimed Baron Harry. “I certainly wouldn't want to press this issue in the Chancery Court. I'd fear the risk of a pike through the grating every time I cross the Great Ouse Bridge to visit the skulls on Micklegate Bar.”

Jonathan eyed up the snivelling baby as Lady Teresa rocked him in her arms, and wondered whether he was a fledgeling Irish Leprechaun.

“It would certainly be most wise not to press Alfred's rightful claims further,” he said, nodding in agreement. “Indeed, I have it in mind to pay a gentleman of Tatecastre to steal into Wetherby Parish Church at night and to and bring Alfred's parchment of birth record back to this very house. The entire situation can thereby be buried for posterity. Your stepson will be called Alfred de Burgogne on another, albeit skilfully forged, parchment of record. How say ye to that?”

Baron Harry didn't flinch an inch. “An excellent solution! I will gladly amply remunerate everybody concerned, with an extra gold piece for good luck.”

Lady Teresa had tired of the conversation, and while she seemed pleased by the outcome, she desperately wanted to change to a more desirable topic.

“I was wondering, sweet Samuel,” she said, wiping her nose with a chequered handkerchief, “why you've never stopped to marry the girl of your dreams? Now that you're savouring the later years of your life you should find a pretty lady to wed, so that you'll have children in your declining years for your needs.”

“I am quite content fending for Jonathan, Harry's adorable sister Sylvia and their lovely family,” replied Samuel, with a yawn, “and I've never quite met a lady I fancy with enough prowess between her ears to satisfy my intellectual demands.”

“But my pagegirl Dionisia is very well educated, with a private tutor, and of noble Helmsley stock. Why don't you take a walk with her around the pond, and sort out what's what?”

“But she doesn't like me and she trembles in her lace knickers. She's much too young for decrepit me.”

At that, Dionisia took a mighty leap of faith, and landed on Samuel's lap.

“No I'm not!” she retorted, “And you' re in my frame of handsomeness.”

And so that, smelly breath and all, was that!

The ghost-like Lady Rosamund de Burgogne came out of the bushes, and gave Jonathan a luscious kiss. Thereupon, Rosamund waved encouragingly to Dionisia, and headed for her precious boudoir feeling nought was remiss.

Jonathan coughed politely, and blinked at the red lion-eagle flying overhead. He had something else to discuss.

“Anything else?” inquired Baron Harry. “I don't want any more fuss.”

“I have a delicate issue to deliberate with you, dear Harry,” murmured Jonathan, wiping his nose, “so delicate that I can only imply meaning to you rather than explicitly state it.”

“I understand,” muttered Harry, flopping his hands. “Please do go ahead.”

“Over the years since your early childhood you have told me on several occasions, that your mother keeps silent concerning a most sensitive topic and states that she'll never ever reveal the secret to you or anybody apart from her chosen relatives. That is the secret topic which I now wish to address.”

“But my comprehension is now complete! How can I solve this curious mystery of yore?”

Jonathan saw a black gorilla with a green ruffled collar strolling furtively around the pond, and snapped his eyes shut in annoyance.

“I have recently received a very weird letter from a man in France,” explained the noted advocate. “From his manner of writing it appears that the fellow may be a lunatic. I cannot therefore divulge the contents of the letter to you with any degree of legal credibility, and the supposed lunatic must remain unnamed for the time being at least.”

“How ridiculous!” exclaimed Harry. “Where does the lunatic's crass tomfoolery take us?”

“The message from the man of France has jogged a memory which had remained stored in the depths of my mind for fully a quarter century. You may ascertain the true identity of the gentleman your mother has in her consciousness, by travelling to the Kirk of Bothans in Scotland's East-Lothian.”

“What a goose chase!” yelped Harry. “Bothans sounds like the last place God made on Earth before he made reeking Brummagem.”

“Commit the code-name Horatio P. to your agile mind! The gentleman's real name will match the code when you search the mural behind the bizarrely designed double pulpit.”

“Horatio P.? Perchance the P. stands for Plantagenet! I'll bear this in mind though, and I may travel to East-Lothian, though without my good wife, at some time in the future.”

“July of this year would be an excellent choice. The gentleman in question is said to be planning to return to fair Embro during that period, and he may try to contact you further. He may be unrecognisable from before because of the searing burns and battle scars on his face.”

“I thank you for your kind advice, dear friend,” Baron Harry wearily replied. “And now it's time for a hand of rummy and a whisky blend.”

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