'Help me!' I wailed.
'Piss off!' the beggar grated.
I crawled along the alley. I felt so miserable I started to pray: desperately, I swore great oaths that I would never touch another drop of wine or even think of lifting a girl's petticoat.
(You can see how low I must have fallen!)
Even the beggars stayed away from me whilst a drunk kicked me with his boot. The ropes around my ankles and wrists were tied tightly, the cord biting into the skin. At last I crawled to the steps of a church. I fainted and, when I regained consciousness, my hands and feet were freed and I was staring into the kind eyes of a friar, his weather-beaten face, greasy, straggly moustache and beard framed by his cowl.
'Help me!' I begged.
'I can do no more,' the friar replied. 'I've cut your cords.' He lifted a battered, tin cup to my lips. The wine was watered but it tasted like nectar. He pointed to some sacking on the ground beside me. 'Put this on.' He got me to my feet, helped me put the sacking over my head, and fastened it round my middle with a piece of cord. He then gave me a staff and thrust a piece of bread into my other hand. 'God have mercy on you, Brother!'
And he was gone. Ever since I have always had affection for the little brothers of St Francis. Even now, in my secret chamber, I have that piece of sacking. Moreover, on the walls of my chapel, despite the fact that my chaplain is of the reformed faith, I have had the words of St Francis boldly painted: 'GO OUT AND PREACH THE GOSPEL. PREACH! PREACH! PREACH! SOMETIMES YOU CAN EVEN USE WORDS!'
After the friar left me, I realised I was in Grubb Street to the north of Cripplegate. The sky was already scored with the red gashes of sunrise. I slipped through a postern gate into the city and made my way along an alleyway near Mugwell Street, As I walked my confidence returned. My throat was parched, the bread had long disappeared, and my belly ached for food. I thought how splendid it would be to stretch out between crisp sheets with young Lucy.
'Penny for a beggar!' I cried outside a church. 'Penny for a poor man!'
The early morning worshippers ignored me. I moved to the church of St Ursula and tried again.
'Penny for a poor Christian!' I wailed. 'On pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I was taken prisoner by the Turks, and ransomed by the Holy Father himself.'
Within an hour I had collected a shilling and, after a beef pie and two cups of wine at an alehouse, I was striding back along the alleyways towards the Flickering Lamp. Boscombe greeted me as if I was the prodigal son.
'Master Shallot.' He put his arm round me and brought me into the taproom. 'Roger, my dear.' Boscombe wrinkled his nose. 'What's that smell?'
I looked down and realised that though the kindly friar had removed some of the mud, most of it still remained. I immediately stripped and went to the pump in the yard and had the most thorough bath I've had for many a day. Boscombe provided me with new clothes, loaned me a shilling as well as half a roast chicken, some bread and a bottle of ale. Boscombe watched me eat. When I had finished, he beamed across the table.
'No more trickery for you, Roger my boy,' he declared. 'The Lord Charon has paid visits before to deliver an invitation to his underworld. No one has ever returned. If he sees you begging on the streets again, your torso will be found in the Fleet and your head in the Thames.'
'Master Boscombe.' I leaned back and patted my stomach. 'Your kindness I won't forget. As for Charon, the Lord be my witness, ‘I will repay him in kind.'
'Shush!' Boscombe waved his hand, begging me to lower my voice.
'However," I continued, 'discretion is the better part of valour and revenge is a dish best served cold.' Boscombe nodded. 'So, what do you suggest?'
Boscombe shrugged. 'You are personable, Master Shallot, you have friends in high places. Why not go to them?' I shook my head.
'I just couldn't do that. I've told you about the Poppletons and I'm convinced they would follow me. Although I am lower than a worm, I couldn't crawl to great Tom Wolsey to beg for his protection.'
(Of course that was not true: I can beg with the best of them but the problem was that the sly bastard might not favour me. But years later, when old Tom Wolsey was in disgrace, dying in his bed at Leicester and the servants had fled, taking everything that could move with them, old Tom grasped my hand.
'You should have come to me, Roger,' he whined, tears streaming down his face. 'All those times you were in danger, you should have come to old Tom Wolsey. I would have helped!'
'If you'd served me,' I retorted, 'as I have served you, you wouldn't have to say that!'
Wolsey let go of my hand and turned his face to the wall.
'If I had served my God,' he murmured, 'as well as I have served my King, he would not leave me to die like this.' And die he did.)