New Blood From Old Bones by Sheila Radley Page A

gaudy things to buy. But Will and his godfather were going no further than the parish church, and they entered quietly by a small north door.
    Lawrence’s late father, John Throssell the clothier, had been a devout man and a good citizen. He had bequeathed money to build and endow the free grammar school for the education of poor boys of the town, and also to build and endow almshouses for twelve poor old men and women. But during his lifetime he had spent much of his wealth on the parish church, enlarging it with a new chancel and a south porch, building the lofty tower, and filling the great east window with a richness of stained glass.
    In the year 1495, John Throssell had built a chantry chapel at the east end of the north aisle. Here, in a plain marble tomb chest, he had laid to rest the mortal remains of his parents to await God’s judgement day. And he had given an endowment of land, to provide in perpetuity for a chantry priest to say a daily Mass for the souls of his parents, and in the fullness of time for his own soul and those of his descendants.
    Using the chantry priest’s door – when he was not at prayer in the chapel the priest taught the youngest of the grammar school children to read – the men entered a small outer chamber. From there, first crossing themselves with holy water from the stoup by the inner door, they entered the stone-vaulted chantry chapel.
    It was divided from the chancel of the church by an open archway. The glass of the east window above the altar-cross was plain, the better to show the paintings of the saints on the plaster walls, their vivid colours shining in the light of the candles that burned before them. One wall showed the folly of earthly vanity, with three kings sumptuously attired yet skeletal beneath their jewelled crowns. And every part of the chapel’s plaster without a painting was decorated with the green of leaf-tendrils and the red of Tudor roses.
    Will was familiar enough with the chapel, and with the older memorials. What he had come to see was the brass plate in memory of his dead wife, and her father quietly withdrew to let him see it alone.
    The engraved brasses of John Throssell’s parents were set on top of their tomb chest. Later brasses – including John’s own, with his wife, and that of his granddaughter Anne – were set in the stone-flagged floor. All of them faced east, as did the bodies beneath, to await resurrection.
    Will knew from his travels that the plates were not in fact brass but latten, an alloy, cast in Flanders and shipped to London for engraving. He knew, too, that the engravers could not be expected to produce a likeness of their subject. They had no means of knowing Anne’s appearance, and all they could provide was the figure of a lady of similar years, dressed according to her rank and the fashion of the time. Will was prepared for disappointment. Even so, he found himself staring down at the brass in dismay.
    The stiff figure standing with her hands together in prayer, with a fully dressed infant praying at her feet, was older than Anne by ten years. She was a wealthy London gentlewoman, dressed far too elaborately for Norfolk. Her face and nose were long and melancholy, quite unlike those of his sweet, smiling Anne.
    Will shook his head, unmoved except by regret for a wasted memorial. It gave him no sense of Anne’s presence. But then he began to read the words engraved beneath the figure.
Here lyeth buryed ANNE ACKLAND, wyf of WILLm ACKLAND gent. of Castleacre, dau. of LAWRENCE THROSSELL, Justice of the Peace in the County of Norfolk. She dyed ye 18 of May Ao Dni 1526 aet. suae 20
    His eyes had become unaccountably dim, and he went down on one knee the better to see what he was reading.
IN YOUTHFUL YEERES I WAS BEREFT OF BRETH.
THE DEVINE POWER, OF ME DID SO DEVISE
THAT I IN GRAVE SHOULD LIE A LINGERING
    SLEEPE
TILL SOUND OF TRUMP DOE SUMMON ME TO
    RISE
    Will felt a thickening in his throat.