These did not pipe.
They were as leathern as his sack. If they sang they sang coarse
ancient songs with swive in them. Pastores. The good shepherd.
But this raising of shepherds predated Christ searching for lost
lambs, he who became a lamb to be slaughtered. Theocritus and
Virgil. Why this need to purify them into Damon and Lycidas?
No fleece oil on their hands, their smocks white. Clean Mr
Thomas Walsingham sat on a knoll, piping. Swive in deep
grass while the sheep cropped and occasionally went baaaaa.
He ate his bread and drank spring water at Shepherdswell
or Shepherdswold, the name was uncertain. Lydden, Temple
Ewell, Buckland, another ruined abbey. Then the castle was
ahead and the salt was on his lips. A jumble of dwellings whose
dwellers preyed on the sea and its travellers. He found the inn
named the Luce (fish or flower?) on a sidestreet sheltered from
the strong Channel wind. He asked a roundly chewing dirtyaproned sweeper who swept ill, for Mr Robert Poley. The two
London gentlemen? Two? One of them appeared, clattering
down the stairs. He was not Mr Robert Poley. He called
himself Nick Skeres.
There was a room where they were to take supper. Skeres
opened the door to it with a kind of blind familiarity, his black
eyes on Kit. From the white of Theocritan shepherds to the
black of the dirty world. Skeres was dirty to match that world.
It seemed not the casual dirt of the careless, rather as applied as
Alleyn had applied white and lines to his young face to render
it ancient. I will be a dirty man for all to wonder at. Skeres
wore with pride long dirty hair, and the hairs in his skewed
nose had trapped scraps of dry mucus. The teeth conceded to
a lighter colour, but not white. His slops were dirty but he had
a clean-bladed dagger which he had taken from its sheath at his
belt. He juggled with this in his long dirty fingers.
- Well, we will sit, he said, and wait for bonny sweet
Robin. He is a clean man (and he tapped the clean as to
emphasise his own dirt) and washes himself from toes to scalp
in clean cold water. It is the way he is. And you?
The accent was, Kit thought, from the south-west. He
had heard from Alleyn what he called the Sir Water Devonian.
Skeres burred and rasped.
- Am I clean, you mean? Some would say we were bent
on a dirty business. I do not say it, but some would say it.
You’re a young beginner. You know nothing of it. But
you will keep at the business and learn. A dirty business for
keeping clean the realm, so they say. It is a trade like any other.
But once in the trade you will not be out of it. Clean Robin will
shrug but not everybody will shrug.
- Shrug at what?
- At a man’s coming and going and following his own
desires, as they call them. But he will tell you more of that.
Clean Robin appeared, a marvellous proper man, as they
would say. Of Corpus? I am of Clare. He shook hands with
vigour. Straw beard well trimmed, spotless cambric, silk under
the slashes of the trunks, doublet well tailored, well pressed.
The face cheerful, guileless even, as if he had shunted guile on
to Skeres. The eyes even merry, the white smile welcoming. He
asked if the fish had been ordered. Skeres nodded direly, as if
this were a code for a killing. Poley said:
- Fresh Dover fish, flat and overhanging the dish at either
end. It is worth coming to Dover for the fish. So, Marley or
Morley, we are to go over together on the morning tide, Skeres
and I then ride to Paris, you not.
- Not by way of Paris? I had a mind to see Paris.
- Another time. You marvel at Nick here, I can see it
in your eyes. They fear Nick, but they do not fear me. They
fancy that he is all malevolence. And so he is, so he is.
He spoke cheerfully and even laid a clean affectionate hand
on dirty Skeres. When the fish came in, brought by a shy maid at
whom Skeres, as if taught to do so in some stage comedy, leered,
the dirty fingers were delicate about dissecting it, the
They were as leathern as his sack. If they sang they sang coarse
ancient songs with swive in them. Pastores. The good shepherd.
But this raising of shepherds predated Christ searching for lost
lambs, he who became a lamb to be slaughtered. Theocritus and
Virgil. Why this need to purify them into Damon and Lycidas?
No fleece oil on their hands, their smocks white. Clean Mr
Thomas Walsingham sat on a knoll, piping. Swive in deep
grass while the sheep cropped and occasionally went baaaaa.
He ate his bread and drank spring water at Shepherdswell
or Shepherdswold, the name was uncertain. Lydden, Temple
Ewell, Buckland, another ruined abbey. Then the castle was
ahead and the salt was on his lips. A jumble of dwellings whose
dwellers preyed on the sea and its travellers. He found the inn
named the Luce (fish or flower?) on a sidestreet sheltered from
the strong Channel wind. He asked a roundly chewing dirtyaproned sweeper who swept ill, for Mr Robert Poley. The two
London gentlemen? Two? One of them appeared, clattering
down the stairs. He was not Mr Robert Poley. He called
himself Nick Skeres.
There was a room where they were to take supper. Skeres
opened the door to it with a kind of blind familiarity, his black
eyes on Kit. From the white of Theocritan shepherds to the
black of the dirty world. Skeres was dirty to match that world.
It seemed not the casual dirt of the careless, rather as applied as
Alleyn had applied white and lines to his young face to render
it ancient. I will be a dirty man for all to wonder at. Skeres
wore with pride long dirty hair, and the hairs in his skewed
nose had trapped scraps of dry mucus. The teeth conceded to
a lighter colour, but not white. His slops were dirty but he had
a clean-bladed dagger which he had taken from its sheath at his
belt. He juggled with this in his long dirty fingers.
- Well, we will sit, he said, and wait for bonny sweet
Robin. He is a clean man (and he tapped the clean as to
emphasise his own dirt) and washes himself from toes to scalp
in clean cold water. It is the way he is. And you?
The accent was, Kit thought, from the south-west. He
had heard from Alleyn what he called the Sir Water Devonian.
Skeres burred and rasped.
- Am I clean, you mean? Some would say we were bent
on a dirty business. I do not say it, but some would say it.
You’re a young beginner. You know nothing of it. But
you will keep at the business and learn. A dirty business for
keeping clean the realm, so they say. It is a trade like any other.
But once in the trade you will not be out of it. Clean Robin will
shrug but not everybody will shrug.
- Shrug at what?
- At a man’s coming and going and following his own
desires, as they call them. But he will tell you more of that.
Clean Robin appeared, a marvellous proper man, as they
would say. Of Corpus? I am of Clare. He shook hands with
vigour. Straw beard well trimmed, spotless cambric, silk under
the slashes of the trunks, doublet well tailored, well pressed.
The face cheerful, guileless even, as if he had shunted guile on
to Skeres. The eyes even merry, the white smile welcoming. He
asked if the fish had been ordered. Skeres nodded direly, as if
this were a code for a killing. Poley said:
- Fresh Dover fish, flat and overhanging the dish at either
end. It is worth coming to Dover for the fish. So, Marley or
Morley, we are to go over together on the morning tide, Skeres
and I then ride to Paris, you not.
- Not by way of Paris? I had a mind to see Paris.
- Another time. You marvel at Nick here, I can see it
in your eyes. They fear Nick, but they do not fear me. They
fancy that he is all malevolence. And so he is, so he is.
He spoke cheerfully and even laid a clean affectionate hand
on dirty Skeres. When the fish came in, brought by a shy maid at
whom Skeres, as if taught to do so in some stage comedy, leered,
the dirty fingers were delicate about dissecting it, the
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