The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Chapter Seventeen

In his thick cloak, Sir Thomas stood trying to keep out of the view of the general public. He couldn’t keep his hood up, for that would have appeared disrespectful in God’s house, so he partially concealed himself in shadows wherever he could away from the brightest candles. Then he caught sight of a figure he recognised: the Bailiff of the City, William de Lappeford. Sir Thomas retreated slightly. He knew de Lappeford only too well, and de Lappeford knew his description. All the officers involved in the law knew of Sir Thomas.

It was then that Hob gasped and pulled at his sleeve. ‘That’s them, Sir Thomas! Karvinel and his Lady.’

Following his pointing finger, Sir Thomas caught a fleeting glimpse of the couple. Although he had been responsible for stealing from the man, and even setting his house on fire, the outlaw had never actually seen his victim in the flesh. Fearing he might lose sight of them, Sir Thomas slipped away from his place of concealment and went up the side of the nave, his eye fixed upon the pair. The candles lit up his face a couple of times, but he didn’t care. He kept on going, resting at a pillar from where he had a good view of them.

And as he waited there, he saw Juliana’s gaze pass along the men at this side of the Cathedral, saw her notice him, look him over appraisingly. With a thrill of amusement Sir Thomas realised that her look was as blatant as a whore’s. Her husband didn’t look up: he was praying, Sir Thomas saw as he returned her smile. Karvinel was bending his head and murmuring quietly, crossing himself regularly.

‘As you should,’ Sir Thomas whispered to himself. ‘After you murdered Hamond.’

Brother Stephen watched the two Secondaries return to their places in the stalls. Adam stood facing him, while Jolinde was in the row immediately before him, and Stephen could look down upon his tonsured head.

The service was not as beautiful as that of the night before. The midnight ceremony, the Angel’s Mass of Christmas Eve, was intended to reinforce the notion that the light of salvation appeared at the darkest moment in the depths of winter, and because it was held by candlelight many people came to witness it, but fewer attended this, the Shepherd’s Mass. It was difficult to persuade people to go to any service at dawn, but today only the most determined and committed would come – especially if they had been up late the night before to attend the Angel’s Mass.

He sensed that the choir was lightening and glanced up, past the altar. Although there was a massive wooden partition to separate the nave from the new choir and high altar which were still being built, there were slats in the screen to allow the light to enter. In years to come he would be able to look up from his stall and behold the sunlight streaming in through the coloured glass panels of the new eastern window. He longed for that day. It would be a wonderful sight. Once he had seen it, he could die happily, for then he would know that his most important work, that of ensuring that the Cathedral could afford to pay for this rebuilding, would be almost done.

So many years of effort. Stephen sighed inwardly as he thought about it. The man with the vision had been the first Bishop Walter – Bishop Bronescombe. It was said that he had had the idea while attending the consecration of Salisbury Cathedral. That was in 1258, more than sixty years ago, and so far only the new choir’s external works had been finished. There was still at least another five or six years’ work in fittings: the reredos, the new Bishop’s throne, the pulpitum and the sedilia. Until they were all completed, the choir would remain out here in the ancient Norman nave, often singing in the dark, all waiting for the time when they could migrate beyond the wooden fence that kept them from the new building. And then all the services could be held in there, while this, the oldest remaining part of the church itself, could be razed to the ground – well, to the window sills, anyway – before being built up, layer on layer, in the new style. It would be at least another sixty years before the project was complete.

But Stephen would have succeeded in completing his task if the works could progress during and after his life. It was his duty to ensure that the funds were there.

Of course, Bishop Walter Stapledon was a good financial bulwark against the problems which invariably occurred. He took as much interest in the rebuilding as Stephen himself, walking about under the gantries and scaffoldings with the eye of a man used to overseeing such works. Stapledon had already contributed much of his own money to building a school in Exeter and a college in Oxford, for he was firmly convinced of the importance of education. He believed that all his priests should receive constant training, and he was committed to finding the best scholars from all over Devon and giving them the benefit of a true education. To Stephen’s knowledge, Walter Stapledon was the most widely travelled Bishop the Chapter had ever possessed, constantly on the move and dropping in on all the parishes within his See. He took such matters seriously, for how could a Bishop be sure that the poor souls within that See were being properly guided if he didn’t know the strengths of his priests?

And while travelling over his See, he found boys who could be of benefit to the Cathedral or used in churches. If they had the ability to learn, they could be moulded to be useful. Bishop Stapledon had found many like that. Adam was one such, as were Luke and Henry. All of them had been found and saved from lives of irredeemable poverty, educated to the limits of their abilities and trained to sing and praise God.

Luke, of course, had to be recommended to the Bishop, but Stephen couldn’t regret his actions. At the time he was convinced it was best for the boy and for the Cathedral; but he was less convinced of Adam. The boy helped about the place, it was true, but he had an unpleasant streak in his nature. Not really suitable material for the Cathedral. He was capable of making and distributing candles, delivering loaves within the Close, sweeping floors or cleaning metalwork, but he was a sad failure when it came to Latin, to writing or counting. The best that could be said of him was that he had found his niche. He would certainly never advance, whatever the Dean wished.

The Dean stood. Stephen idly considered the importance of Mass. In a normal day a priest was allowed to say only one Mass. All others were given by different priests. There were few exceptions to this rule. On Good Friday no Masses were permitted, because of the Agony of the Crucifixion, so on Easter Day two Masses were allowed, as they were on special occasions such as marriages or funerals. On Christmas Day three Masses were needed.

Funerals. Stephen thought again about the death of the Secondary. It was a shame that a man so young should have his life ended, but the fellow shouldn’t have tried to commit theft. Stephen would have to consider raising the matter in Chapter. The Secondary had committed the heinous crime of theft from the Cathedral; he couldn’t be given a funeral within these sacred grounds. Although many would argue that he deserved kindness, that he should be buried like any other cleric, that there was no proof of his guilt, Stephen had no such qualms.

Peter Golloc had deserved to die, the liar!

Nicholas Karvinel went home with his wife as soon as the service was over. They must prepare for the feast at Vincent le Berwe’s, making themselves look presentable, clean and grateful, Nick thought savagely.

Gratitude was to be his lot in future, so far as Vincent was concerned. The latter obviously thought that Nick would be thankful for whatever morsels fell from his plate. If there was something that he could give to his poor friend, Vincent’s smug attitude seemed to imply, then he would be glad to help. It was like receiving charity, and all the more frustrating and humiliating because Nicholas couldn’t complain to anyone about it.

At his door he handed Juliana inside, but then a spirit of rebellion rose in his breast and he walked out to John Renebaud’s tavern. It was near his house, a haven to which he often repaired. Vincent patronised it too, but he would be busy at home. He needed a few moments’ peace, a quart of ale or a pint of good strong wine to set him up so that he could tolerate the graciousness of the good Receiver of the City, Vincent le Berwe. For although Karvinel was out of the woods now, thanks to his little windfall, courtesy of the Cathedral, he couldn’t let anyone know. The theft was too recent. Were they to hear of his sudden wealth, they might guess at the source of it – and that would be catastrophic. No, better keep his mouth shut. He would continue paying cash from his meagre supply of coins, waiting until he saw a suitable opportunity to declare his wealth. A ship with goods for him, something that would explain the appearance of his new money. After all, any man could speculate; a glover could double his income with a lucky gamble on a shipload of spices.

If Vincent became insistent, Karvinel thought, he would definitely ask what the other man had been doing outside Ralph’s house on the day he died. That would shut the bugger up! So taken up was he with his thoughts, Nick never saw the cloaked man pausing at his door, glancing up at the sign and picture of gloves which hung above it, then smiling coldly, following Karvinel to the inn.

Hob waited after the service, confused when his master didn’t return. He left Coppe to make his own way back to his seat by the gate, then walked outside to look for Sir Thomas, but there was no sign of him. The cold began to eat into Hob’s bones.

Eventually he gave up and left for the camp, walking carefully along the road to the South Gate in the city wall, then out past the terraced fields which led down to the Shittebrook and on to Bull Meadow. He skirted past the Maudlin, where the lepers congregated, watching the gates of the colony with a superstitious dread, recalling the stories of how they could grab passers-by to rape them or eat them, but he was lucky: no one was keen on taking him and he could continue unmolested.

The trees here were much thinner. Many had been cleared for the use of the citizens, whether for building or for firewood, and there was more coppicing than old woodland.

He soon heard the sharp whistle as he hurried along the rough track. The weather wasn’t cold enough for the ruts and hoofprints to solidify, and the mud was awful. His feet were sodden as he stepped into deeper puddles which filled his boots and made him grimace with revulsion as the chilly water slopped about, squelching with every step he took.

The band was waiting near a large oak, one of only a very few which had survived the demands of construction in Exeter. About it tents had been erected, enough for the fourteen men who followed Sir Thomas. A charcoal fire was smoking in the middle, over which were spitted two ducks, a goose and a small pig.

‘So, Hob, you came back when the hunger got to you, did you?’ Jen called lightly. ‘Where’s Sir Thomas?’

‘I thought h-he’d be back already. Isn’t he here?’

Jen had been stirring at a pot but now she stopped and stood upright. ‘You lost him?’

‘He was in the crowd, but he went off to see the…’

‘He saw the merchant?’ Jen asked.

Hob was worried by her expression. Jen looked angry with him, very angry. ‘He asked me to take him there, to the big Church.’

‘That was so he could see his other son.’

‘That was last night. Today he said he wanted me to point out the merchant.’

‘You idiot! Are you mad?’

‘He told me, he told me!’ Hob asserted, his head retreating into his shoulder, gazing down at his feet. He hated upsetting his sister; she was all he had in the world, but he couldn’t help it. Sir Thomas scared him, and Sir Thomas had told him to point out the merchant if he saw the man. He couldn’t disobey Sir Thomas. He scuffed his boot in the dirt, doodling with a toe.

‘Stop that! Don’t you realise anything? Jesus! You’re so thick on occasion,’ Jen said scathingly. She threw the wooden spoon into the pot and went into the tent she shared with Sir Thomas, returning with a bonnet and thick coat. ‘You’ll have to stay here, Hob. Look after that food and don’t let it burn!’

One of the lookouts had witnessed Hob’s discomfiture from his vantage point. Now he called down, ‘Where are you going, Jen?’

‘You heard. Your leader has gone to seek the man who says he was robbed.’

‘The one that got Hamond killed?’

She looked up as she shrugged into her coat. ‘Yes. The one who had Hamond hanged.’

Luke the Chorister sat sedately as he should, waiting until the cup of wine arrived before him. He sipped slowly, holding it carefully with both hands, and even when Adam, at his side, nudged him viciously in the ribs with an elbow, Luke didn’t spill a drop.

The food was good, but not too rich. Stephen didn’t enjoy overly spiced foodstuffs, and refused to spend large sums to obtain them. Thriftiness was his watchword, as it should be for a Treasurer. He looked upon all the money spent within the Cathedral as his own, and when he spent his own, he measured his expenditure against what it could acquire for the Cathedral itself.

It was an irritation, but Luke ate politely and with silent determination. Stephen did not like disruption at his table, and Choristers who chattered were as obtrusive and annoying as a guest who rudely denounced the quality of his wine. Neither were to be borne.

Not that Luke wanted to talk. Since the shock of the night before, he had wandered about feeling quite dazed, as if someone had struck the back of his head with a club.

For years he had been told that his father was dead. His father, a knight from the Soth family, the last to live in the small manor at Exmouth, had been killed when a neighbour had attacked him, or so Stephen had told him. Why should the Canon have deceived him? His father had become an outlaw, a felon, and Luke had not even been told.

Luke moved in time to prevent another nudge from Adam forcing him to knock over the salt. He had to bite back the angry words which rose to his lips. It wasn’t fair that Adam should keep pushing him, for ever trying to make him look a fool, when Luke had never done anything to upset him. It wasn’t his fault Adam was a failure.

That was the problem, though. Luke knew it well enough. He’d even been warned about such things when he first showed promise. It was Stephen himself who drew him aside and told him that other Choristers might pick on him because of his abilities. In fact, at the time Luke was quite sure the Treasurer was letting him know that Henry would probably make his life difficult, but now Luke knew the Treasurer had meant people like Adam.

Adam wasn’t the only one. There were quite a few like him in the Cathedral precinct: fellows who had expected to move up the church’s hierarchy until they themselves ran their own See as Bishop, or perhaps became a Precentor or a Dean. So few ever seemed to appreciate that for every Precentor there were some hundred or more who were of a lower level even within his own church. No, few realised that there was every likelihood that, if there were fourteen Choristers, none of them would become a dignitary within that church. Luke himself had already seen how many boys fell by the wayside.

He broke off another piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. It wasn’t only because of bad behaviour or manners that the boys were thrown out of the choir. There had been two in Luke’s first year who simply couldn’t make head nor tail of Latin, spoken or written. Another fellow had taken to weeping each night before sleep. Lonely and miserable, he had come from a lord’s household, and suddenly being dropped into Exeter had been too much for the eight-year-old. He had been sent home before six months had passed.

But when the Choristers’ voices broke, their troubles multiplied. Then they had little genuine reason for remaining within the cloister, apart from trying to better themselves, learning as much about writing and reading as they could so that they might prove their value as clerics. If they were successful, they would be able to continue in this manner, as Secondaries, before they gradually received enough attention to be promoted. Some would then remain at the lowest levels, perhaps after many years of striving achieving the status of a Chaplain, while those who were lucky might progress from Deacon to the exalted heights of Vicar or Annuellar.

Being a Vicar was probably best, Luke judged reflectively. A Vicar had all his food and lodging provided by the Canon he served, and when there was a gap in the number of Canons, there was the possibility of promotion. There was also much to be said for being an Annuellar, a chantry priest. These men were appointed by the Dean and Chapter and lived in rented chambers in the Close, but were free for much of their lives. They did not have to go to their Canon to obtain food or lodging, they were given an annual stipend, and from that they could buy what they needed. Nor were they forced to turn up at all services in the way that Secondaries and Vicars were. The only people free of compulsion to attend were the Canons, who could ignore the bells’ summons if they wished, and the Annuellars. The latter had the one duty, performing a Mass every day at a specific time and at a specific altar.

Luke rather liked the idea of becoming an Annuellar. It might not offer so much potential for advancement, but with his ability to read and write, it would be an easy life.

Many Secondaries failed; usually because of laziness on their part, Luke reminded himself. He had heard that sage comment passed by another Secondary talking about Jolinde, and was privately convinced that the same applied to Adam. He was not suited to the Canonical life, anyway. He was a bully and a cheat.

With a wash of cold anguish, Luke recalled his father’s face from the night before. Now he had his own notoriety: he was the son of a felon, related to an outlaw. Perhaps Stephen’s deliberate concealment of his father’s survival had been intended as a kindness, Luke realised. The Canon might have considered it preferable that other Choristers couldn’t discover what had truly happened to Sir Thomas. If so, perhaps he was right. Luke shuddered as he thought how Henry would torment him, should he learn that Luke’s father had become an outlaw. It would reverse all the insults Luke had hurled at him for being lower-born. Henry could at least assert that his parents had never broken the King’s Peace.

It was a relief when Adam kicked his shin beneath the table. The cruel pain took Luke’s mind off his father.

If the stories were true, Adam had been a good Chorister, with a fine voice, but when his voice shattered during a long Psalm one Easter Day, it had destroyed his confidence. His whole existence up until that point had been built upon the solid foundation of his ability to sing, and as soon as that was taken from him, he appeared to lose all motivation. He failed in his studies and proved himself incompetent at figures. Now the strong rumour in the Close asserted that he would be lucky if he was permitted to remain in the Cathedral as an acolyte.

Some did. They stayed, hanging about the place like sad and mournful hounds who had lost their master, getting in the way of the choir as they hurried from cloister to choir to Chapter to dormitory. Many simply left while in their early twenties. There was no point haunting a place where you weren’t wanted, Luke thought, but Adam seemed to have no idea where else he could go. Pathetic.

Luke reached down to pick up his bread, but there was nothing there. Staring at the table where it had been, he was astonished to see it had disappeared. Then he saw Adam smiling derisively as he crammed the last piece into his mouth and chewed slowly, with evident relish.

The meal was finished. Arthur, Stephen’s Vicar, stood and said the Grace, and the small group left the table to go and watch the plays in the Cathedral. Luke couldn’t help but cast a regretful eye back at the table as he rose. There had not been enough food. His stomach was calling for more. Perhaps if Peter’s half-loaf hadn’t hardened to a rock-like consistency, he could eat a little of that later. He could toast it beside a fire – make it more edible.

With that decided, he was about to head for the door when he felt a foot lash out around his leg, making him stumble. He tripped, felt himself falling and grabbed at the first thing he could. It was the tablecloth. Pulling it with him, he fell to the ground, ducking as trenchers and the salt showered down on top of him.

‘Luke!’ he heard Stephen gasp.

‘I’m sorry, but I–’

‘You clumsy cretin! What in God’s name… Go! And do not return for food today. You will get nothing more from here!’

Luke turned away and averted his head as tears threatened to flood his face. He ignored the grinning face of his tormentor and left.

Simon smiled broadly as the boar’s head was carried in. This was more to his taste than a whole mix of fish dishes. Vincent le Berwe had done his best yesterday, but no matter how you arranged the dishes, fish didn’t appeal to a man with a strong carnivorous appetite like Simon. He preferred red meat every time.

And this was the way to feast, he thought. Plenty of good venison: a haunch or two of doe, one fresh, one salted, two hares and a boar that Vincent said a grateful friend had provided as the result of a little favour he had been able to perform. Simon felt his mouth water as he stared at the dishes piling up in front of them. He only wished he could do someone a similar ‘little favour’.

He grabbed at his drinking horn and drank deeply. It was a pleasant cup, with a small face moulded into the end, the whole thing glazed in green. Far better than being down on one of the other tables, where the drinkers had to share a pitcher and wipe it before passing it to their neighbour.

By the time the servants had arrived to clear the tables of their debris, Simon was feeling very relaxed. He belched quietly behind a hand, smiling apologetically to Juliana at his side.

Soon the tables were away, secreted out into the buttery or in the small yard behind, and all the guests had been moved so that their benches ringed the room; now they could rest their backs comfortably against the walls. It was at this point that the musicians entered and started singing.

Not bad, Simon thought, although by this stage he would have thought a dog’s howling contained a certain merit. There were three men playing, one with a fiddle, one with a citole and the last with a drum, which he tried to beat in time. From the glazed look in his eyes, his failure was down to Vincent’s over-lavish hospitality. The trio sang several carols, and then were joined by a dark-haired young woman who gave a demonstration of her tumbling and dancing skills.

Simon waved his drinking horn in time to the music as she sprang onto her hands and walked the length of the room, then somersaulted, landing with her legs outspread before and behind, waiting for the applause to finish.

‘By God’s Cods,’ Simon cried. ‘She’s damn good!’

She rose and continued, this time with a slower, more contemplative dance. The drummer had been persuaded to return to the buttery, and now the music was more sedate; soon the girl stopped her dancing and stood before Vincent to sing a carol. It was a popular one, and several of the other guests joined in. Simon himself did with gusto, singing the chorus enthusiastically, if not entirely accurately.

Looking about the group ranged on benches at the walls, Simon saw only delight on all faces, except when he looked to his left and caught Nicholas Karvinel watching him. As soon as Simon met his gaze, Karvinel turned away, but Simon had seen his face and recognised the self-loathing of the cuckold.