The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Chapter Twenty-Three

They watched while the subdued David locked the doors, then with the beggar directing them, they left him and sought a tavern.

Coppe led them to Will Row’s alehouse down an alley off the High Street, run by a pleasant woman in her fifties, who smiled with toothless gums when she saw their companion. ‘John, where have you been? I was beginning to think you’d got pissed, fallen down a well and drowned.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, Joan. Not while you were still around to tempt me back again.’

He grinned, his mouth likewise all but empty of teeth, when she playfully cuffed him over the head, cackling.

‘Come on, wench, there’s gentlemen here to be served.’

A young girl appeared, but Simon was more attracted to the wizened old woman. She shouted at the girl like a harridan, but her face was more composed of smiling wrinkles than frowns. What, he wondered, would he look like when he got to her age? Or his wife, Meg, come to that. This Joan had a calmness about her that was pleasant and motherly, while the beggar, for all his scruffiness, was clearly trusted by her.

As the two women disappeared to fetch drinks, Coppe told the others, ‘She was the wife of my best mate. I was a sailor, see. I used to have a good life going off all over the place – oh, from here to Venice I’ve been. God, some of the seas you’d see there, it was amazing that the ships lasted the trip.’

‘If you get the old sod talking about his sailing days, you’ll never get away from him,’ Joan said, returning with pots for all the men. The girl appeared a moment later with a massive jug from which she poured them spiced wine, hot and sweet.

‘Oh, give me leave to speak a moment with friends,’ John Coppe said aloofly and Joan roared with laughter before dropping into a seat nearer her fire and starting to knit.

‘Joan’s old man Will was a good sailor too. Him and me, we went all over. All along the Breton coast, and the Norman one, all the way down as far as Bordeaux. Often did that run, buying wines mainly. Then one day we were attacked by French pirates and had our cargo taken.’

‘My Will was hit by an arrow,’ Joan said, this time more quietly. She paused and let her knitting fall to her lap, sighing, then continued, her needles flying faster than before as if concentration was itself a cure for her sadness, ‘So since then I’ve made shift as best I can.’

‘And I never had a wife or a house; when I got back, I was forced to start begging to survive. At first I stayed a while with my brother, who lived over near the South Gate, but he died a while ago, and his wife had to sell the place, so since then I’ve not had a place of my own. There was no point when I was young, because I was always looking for the next ship. But if you’re wrecked like me, the masters don’t want you. Anyway, no one would have used me even if I wasn’t ruined like this. I have a bad reputation.’

Baldwin stirred his wine with a finger and sucked it. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Nicholas Karvinel. It was his ship, his cargo, that was taken by the pirates and he was sure that someone warned the French when our ship sailed, and that was how the pirates caught us. He thought a crew member gave away the ship for a bribe.’

‘Is it possible?’ Simon asked.

‘Anything is possible, but is it likely? Pirates don’t wait and ask who is their friend, they attack as soon as they can and kill everyone. Anyway, a ship saw us as we left Topsham that day to go to France, and it almost caught us a couple of times. We reached port and loaded with wine and set off for home, but then the pirate caught us out in the Channel and came at us with the wind behind him. It was quite a chase, sirs, because our master had a good head for the sea, and he could make good use of every little gust, but then our wind died, and the French paddled with oars to approach us. The wind picked up, but they caught it first, and with their ship being lighter, they catched us quick. And then it was all down to the axes and the bows.’

‘Old John here was one of three men who survived. All the others died,’ Joan said matter-of-factly. ‘So of course a lot of the merchants thought that if someone had given away the ship to the French it would have been one of the men who lived afterwards.’

John Coppe snorted in disgust. ‘How any man could have protected himself in a mêlée like that, I don’t know. If there was a spy among us, he was as like to be knocked on the head as any other. And I lost my leg and had my face wrecked like this. It’s just stupid rubbish!’

‘But Karvinel wouldn’t use any of the survivors again?’ Simon asked.

‘Oh, he did better than that,’ Joan was with wry coldness, but Coppe held his hand up with impatience.

‘Karvinel couldn’t use me – look at this,’ he said, tapping his stump. ‘Anyway, he’d lost his ship and with it much of his wealth. Up until then he was a powerful man here in Exeter, but from that moment nothing he’s touched has come good. No, I think he told his friends about his suspicions and now none of them will use me.’

‘What happened to the other two?’

‘They’re dead. This is going back a few years, sir. I’m talking of five or maybe seven years ago. One died two years ago in a brawl in a tavern, the other froze to death in the winter during the famine, God bless them both.’

‘Talking of famines,’ Baldwin murmured, but just then the girl returned. She had run to the Cook’s Row, and her pale features were pleasantly flushed. ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking a large pie from her apron and dropping coins onto the table.

Simon meditatively watched Coppe as he ate voraciously. ‘It’s some time since your last meal, I’d guess.’

‘Other than Cathedral bread, aye,’ came the response, with a few crumbs. ‘But they bake a good loaf. Adam delivers some at the gate on his rounds.’

Baldwin sipped at his wine. ‘What else do you know about Karvinel?’

‘He’s not far from being in the same position as me. He owns little now that isn’t pawned. All his high hopes to recover his losses with the last shipment have been dashed, and I don’t know if he’ll be able to afford any of the city posts. His friend the Steward might try to help him, but I don’t know if he’ll succeed. I hope not!’

The last words came out with a cruel hopefulness, but the fire of hatred which had flared so briefly in his eyes, quickly subsided and Coppe finished his pie, picking at the crumbs on the table top before him.

‘What of le Berwe?’ Baldwin prodded. ‘How is he looked upon in the city?’

‘He is respected, I suppose. He’s one of the stewards… more than that, he’s the Receiver: in charge of all records, seeing that justice is upheld, visiting all the markets and fairs within the city to make sure the victuals are wholesome as well as collecting all the city’s rents and money due.’

Joan sniffed. ‘He would be well looked upon. He has the money to buy influence and friends.’

‘You think he doesn’t deserve such treatment, Mother?’ Simon said with a grin.

‘No, he doesn’t. He’s a sharp, calculating devil that one, and some day the Devil will come and take his own.’

‘Why do you say so?’ Baldwin in some surprise. He didn’t much like the Receiver himself, but the old woman’s loathing went further than mere dislike.

‘Because he uses people and breaks them when he has no more use for them, that’s why. Like his first wife. There’s enough people in the city reckon he killed her, poor little chit. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could spit!’

Hawisia rose from her needlework when she heard her husband return.

Their marriage was undergoing some strain, it was true. She had expected that the expressions of love which Vincent le Berwe had used to woo her were proof of undying devotion, and yet now she rarely saw him except to entertain others. He spent so much time with his business, especially now he was the Receiver.

Hawisia wondered sometimes whether he had been the same with his first wife. She had died very young, just before giving birth to her first baby, and Hawisia asked herself whether Vincent had been always so busy while she was alive. Certainly his business had suffered after her death. Vincent had been forced to try to rebuild it, or so he had told Hawisia.

The muttering against him was caused because his dead bride was so young. At only fourteen, many people thought his interests in wedding her were suspicious. In some areas that sort of age was considered all right for a wife, but here in Exeter people were more conservative. And when she died, rumours began to circulate about him. It had taken some little while for him to rebuild his business interests afterwards, for many customers faded away and sought new suppliers.

It had taken all of Hawisia’s diplomatic skills to help him build up his business interests again.

‘My love?’ she called.

Vincent appeared in the doorway. ‘I have to go out for a while. Amuse yourself, dear. I shouldn’t be very long,’ he said, and was gone.

‘But you’ve been away all…’

She stopped herself. He was already out of the door and in any case there was no point in making a fuss. He had business to attend to, didn’t he? Of course he would have to go out every so often. She only wished she could be of more use to him. Rather than sitting back in this insipid manner she should try to help him more… except she had no idea how.

Hawisia was the daughter of a happily married couple whose lives had been filled with joy. She herself was the fourth daughter, and her father, a furrier, would have liked to have had a son, but he never showed disappointment in his children. Each was to him a wonder and perpetual source of entertainment. And his love for his wife, Hawisia’s mother, was no less obvious. He and she hugged each other and could often be caught kissing in the street like young children but they never displayed any shame, only laughed, and her mother smoothed her skirts and tried to look solemn while he coughed and then grappled with her when he thought she least expected it.

That was how a marriage should be, to Hawisia’s mind, but she knew that her man was so worried about his work that he had lost interest in the marital bed and in her. That was the simple explanation.

She only wished she could help him more.

Brother Gervase was in his room working on a heavy, leather-bound tome of music when the banging came at his door. The interruption was welcome: the piece he was working on should in theory have worked well during an interval while a priest was holding up the offerings for the miracle of transubstantiation, but somehow he couldn’t get the music to work in the way he had hoped. Perhaps if he came back to it later… he thought, and set the book down as he went to his door.

It was cold, but that wasn’t the reason for the greyness on the messenger’s face. ‘Brother Adam has been poisoned.’

Gervase gaped, then grabbed a heavy cloak which he threw over his shoulders as they hurried together down the row of Canons’ houses.

Entering Stephen’s house, Gervase was immediately greeted by the retching figure of Adam on the floor. ‘My God!’

The boy was past caring about what he looked like. As his body attempted to eject the poison from his system, he writhed, his tongue protruding with each spasm, his arms wrapped about his torso, his legs drawn up to his chest in the foetal position.

Nearby was Stephen, who shook his head in rejection of this hideous sight, counting his rosary and muttering a low prayer. Feeling a shudder of revulsion pass down his back as another shaking-fit caught the frail-looking youth’s body, Gervase came to a decision. He pointed to Stephen’s Vicar. ‘You! Fetch Gilbert from the apothecary in Waterbeer. Tell him a man has been poisoned, and he should bring all that is needful. Don’t delay, man, run!’

The startled Vicar’s mouth fell open, and then he was off, haring up the road towards the middle of town like a deer which has seen the hounds behind him.

Gervase slapped the beads from Stephen’s hands. ‘Have you helped him, Stephen? Canon! Have you heard his confession?’

The only response he was given was a blank, horrified stare. Then Stephen looked down at his beads and picked them up again, his lips moving once more as the wooden spheres passed through his hands.

‘God’s blood!’ Gervase swore, and crouched at the side of the injured man. ‘Adam? Adam, listen. You may be about to die. If you are, you must confess to me. Understand? You have to confess to me in case you die. And you must give me the seven responses to the seven interrogations. Can you hear me?’

Adam opened his eyes and gazed up, but another jabbing pain in his bowels made him clench his jaw and snap his eyes shut, the lids compressing as he tried to hide from the pain. And from his mouth broke a high, keening sound, like a rabbit caught in a trap.

The apothecary arrived at a cracking pace, rushing into the room with a small cloth sack which he dropped to the floor as he entered the hall. ‘Christ Jesus!’

‘Do not blaspheme,’ Stephen said severely. He had begun to come to his senses in the time since Gervase had knocked away his rosary. Now he could watch as Gervase held Adam’s hand, the Succentor weeping as he tried to comfort the groaning lad.

Stephen was transfixed; petrified. Never had he expected to act as host to a man who expired at his table. It was revolting – incomprehensible. Adam was no scholar, was not, if truth be told, of great use to the Cathedral, but to see him suddenly collapse like this was an atrocious shock.

He walked shakily to his chair and waved to his servant. ‘Wine,’ he commanded. Watching while the apothecary shook his head, studying the youth, he was suddenly convinced that Adam would die and the only thing that he, Stephen, would be remembered for from now on was that he had served a meal that poisoned a Secondary. It would overshadow all his achievements, smothering reports of his financial probity, hiding his successes behind a veil of rumour and vicious slanders.

‘How could this have happened?’ he moaned.

Gervase moved to allow the apothecary to approach with his knife and a bowl. When he stepped out of the way, his foot touched something. Bending, he picked up a small flask of orpiment. He studied it with a frown, but then the apothecary was asking for help. On a whim, Gervase put the flask in his scrip. Both men gripped Adam’s arm firmly enough to let a little blood flow. The apothecary dipped a finger in it, holding his reddened forefinger up to the light, smelling at the bowl, then tasting a little on his tongue thoughtfully, stirring the blood as it thickened in the bowl and shaking his head.

‘I think that should be enough,’ he said and bound the arm, tightening a tourniquet and applying a styptic. He placed the bloody bowl on the table and reached into his bag again. ‘Fetch me salt and water, please.’

Gervase watched while the apothecary withdrew a long clyster tube and a pig’s bladder from his bag. ‘Right, first we have to force the salted water into his throat, to make sure he’s brought up all the poison, and then we need to empty his bowels as well,’ he said, in the bright tone of one who had never yet performed such an operation.

Jeanne and Edgar were in the High Street, passing down the long line of trestles upon which were laid all manner of choice goods.

They had not yet lunched, and as they walked along the road Jeanne became aware of a faint light-headedness. Looking up at the sun she realised how long it had been since she heard the Cathedral bells toll for the midday service. Her hand went to her belly and the growing child. She must try to remember to eat more regularly. That was one thing that Simon’s wife had told her, because the dizziness of hunger could attack at any time. ‘I need some food, Edgar,’ she said.

He grinned and led them back the way they had come to Carfoix, the meeting of the four main roads, then right along the street of cooks. The smells were enough to tempt the most jaded palates. Roasted honeyed larks and pigeons, pies of good beef and lamb, hot pies, cold pies, pies filled with vegetables, pies with strong spices, pies with sweetened custards filling them. Jeanne picked a roasted pigeon and a pie filled with sweetened almond custard while Edgar, who didn’t have a sweet tooth, selected a strong-smelling beef and onion pasty which had much garlic added, from the odour.

The smell made Jeanne wince. She had taken a dislike to garlic recently. Usually, like most people, she loved the flavour for, after all, it was one of the most common herbs used to strengthen a pottage or soup, but since becoming pregnant, she had found the stink of it turned her stomach. Accordingly she stood upwind of Edgar while he ate his pie with every appearance of relish.

While standing there, they were jostled by two clerks who erupted from St Petrock’s and ran past laughing. Shortly afterwards a red-faced porter came out of the church and glared up and down the streets before throwing up his hands as if in despair and returning.

‘I think the revels are beginning early this year,’ Edgar noted laconically.

Jeanne agreed and they made their way to a tavern. Jeanne was feeling a little chilled so she had a mulled cider, sweetened with honey and scented with cinnamon, ginger and galingale. It sent its heat shooting straight to her toes and fingertips, scalding as it passed down her throat, but filling her with glowing delight when it reached her belly.

Outside they strolled idly along the Northgate Street, and soon saw the two youths who had run from St Petrock’s. They were walking up behind two men, obviously important fellows, for they swaggered as they walked, their feet in step but at a pace too slow to be dignified as a ‘march’. Giggling, the two boys darted up to the two older men, there was a burst of angry shouting, and the youths pelted back past Edgar and Jeanne, laughing like idiots, one gripping a bowl, the other a handful of what looked like rags.

The two men looked at each other, shrugged, and continued on their way. And Jeanne saw that both had a large patch of coloured material stuck to their back. The boys were glueing patches of cloth on unsuspecting citizens as a joke.

Jeanne giggled to herself and glanced at Edgar. He too was smiling, but he wasn’t looking at the men. His attention was on a large copper pot hanging above a nearby trestle. Edgar had recently married, much to Baldwin’s oft-stated astonishment, for Edgar had been a noted philanderer ever since he and Baldwin had left the Knights Templar, but there it was: Edgar the bachelor was now Edgar the married man. He had given his vows before everyone. Jeanne saw his peering study of the pot and was touched that he should be thinking of his new wife even now, miles from home. Not that he or she had need of a pot that size. If he ever wanted something to cook in, there were plenty of large coppers in Baldwin’s kitchen.

Jeanne was about to suggest that he should borrow one of theirs, when Edgar whirled. Jeanne squealed with alarm as a boy in clerical garb fell in front of her, and when she turned to look, the second was wearing his bowl of glue, sitting unhappily in a large puddle.

‘Should we return now, do you think, my Lady?’ Edgar said imperturbably.