'No — no, I was passing, I heard the noise and wondered what it was.'
He grinned. 'The Tower of Babel, eh, sir? Voices possessed by the spirit and speaking in tongues? Nay, just more of these birds the gentry all want now for playthings.'
'They are in a most pitiful state.'
'There's plenty more where they came from. Some always die on the voyage. More will die from the cold, they're weak brutes. Pretty though, ain't they?'
'Where did you get them?'
'The isle of Madeira. There's a Portuguese merchant there, he's realized there's a market in Europe for them. You should see some of the things he buys and sells, sir; why he ships boatloads of black Negroes from Africa as slaves for the Brazil colonists.' He laughed, showing gold-capped teeth.
I felt a desperate urge to escape from the chill, fetid air of the warehouse. I excused myself and rode away. The harsh cries of the birds, their unearthly simulacra of human speech, followed me down the muddy street.
===OO=OOO=OO===
I rode back under the City wall into a London suddenly grey and foggy, full of the sound of water dripping from melting icicles on the house eaves. I halted the nag outside a church. I normally attended church at least once a week, but had not been to a service for over ten days. I was in need of spiritual comfort; I dismounted and went inside.
It was one of those rich City churches attended by merchants. Many London merchants were reformers now and there were no candles. The figures of saints on the rood screen had been painted over and replaced by a biblical verse:
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished.
The church was empty. I stepped behind the rood screen. The altar had been stripped of its decorations, the paten and chalice standing on an unadorned table. A copy of the new Bible was chained to the lectern. I sat down in a pew, reassured by these familiar surroundings, a total contrast to Scarnsea.
But not all the accoutrements of the old ways had gone. From where I sat I could see a cadaver tomb of the last century. There were two stone biers, one above the other. On the top one was the effigy of a rich merchant in his fine robes, plump and bearded. On the lower tier lay the effigy of a desiccated cadaver in the rags of the same clothes, and the motto: 'So I am now; so I once was: as I am now; so shall ye be.'