The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Chapter Twenty-Four

Once Gervase saw how professionally the apothecary was treating his charge, his mind flew to the question of how the lad could have been poisoned. He was no trained inquisitioner, but he was no fool either, and with his University training he felt sure he could learn something. In the kitchen he asked a fearful and defensive cook about the food.

‘There was nothing in that to hurt anyone. It was fine. All he had was a dish of thin pottage. I made it last week, and there wasn’t nothing wrong with it. Good lettuce, dried peas, some cabbage and onion, garlic, barley and a marrowbone to give it some body. I swear that pottage would do any man good.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Here,’ the cook said. He scooped up a ladleful and held it out. ‘Want to taste it?’

Gingerly, Gervase sipped a tiny amount. It certainly tasted all right. A little insipid, perhaps, but there was no bitterness or sourness such as he recalled the Arabic tracts warning of.

The cook was offended by his caution. He drank the whole ladleful and then a second. ‘See? It’s fine. If there was something wrong with my soup, it was done outside of my kitchen. The idea!’

He was still muttering as Gervase hurried back across the yard to Stephen’s door. Inside, the apothecary was kneeling by Adam. He had removed his clyster from the unfortunate clerk’s mouth, and was in the process of inserting it in Adam’s… Gervase delicately termed it Adam’s posterior orifice. The sight made Gervase wince.

Stephen had left the room, and now only the apothecary and Gervase remained to administer to the unfortunate invalid. Adam shuddered and winced as the tube was pushed deeper and deeper, and then Gilbert filled the bladder with salted water and began the process of pumping it into Adam.

To distract him, Gervase spoke, trying to ignore what was going on at the youth’s nether regions.

‘Do you have any idea what happened here?’

‘It was Luke, Succentor. He poisoned me.’

‘Why should a lad like him wish to poison you?’

Adam looked away. He felt considerably better after his belly had been purged and he didn’t want to admit to his behaviour in front of the apothecary. ‘I don’t know, Succentor. Maybe he just doesn’t like me.’

Gervase patted his shoulder meditatively. He didn’t believe Adam, but he shrewdly guessed that Adam had been guilty of bullying Luke, just as he had other boys.

Gilbert finished his operation and withdrew rapidly as Adam’s bowels voided themselves.

Adam burst into tears of frustration and shame. ‘Why should he try to murder me, Succentor? Why?’

Baldwin and Simon responded instantly to the Dean’s urgent summons. They were almost back at their inn when the pale-faced and anxious Arthur, Stephen’s Vicar, ran towards them, calling for Sir Baldwin, and as soon as he had caught his breath and blurted his news, the two men turned and ran at full tilt to the Cathedral.

It was in a state of near uproar. The whole precinct was filled with the murmur of confused and worried voices. Arthur led the way past the milling throng and up to the Dean’s hall, where they found him standing and biting his lower lip in consternation, talking to the Succentor.

‘You have ahm heard the facts?’ the Dean asked anxiously as soon as they had entered.

‘Yes, although I find it extremely difficult to believe,’ Baldwin answered.

‘Sir Baldwin, you must question whomever you wish, whenever you wish, but hmm you have to find the killer. The thought that a man with murderous intentions is here within the precinct is ah unbearable.’

‘Or murderous boy,’ Gervase commented quietly. In his scrip was the small flask, which felt as if it was burning a hole in the leather. ‘It is true, Sir Baldwin. The victim has accused one of the Choristers of being responsible.’

‘Before anything else, Dean, could you answer a few more questions? First, I am not so convinced that the killer of Peter is from within the cloister. Are any of your Canons or Secondary clerics allowed out at night?’

‘Good God, no! They all must sleep in their rooms.’

‘Are any permitted to avoid services?’

‘No ahm they should all attend every service. Even the Annuellars. Only the Choristers are um occasionally exempt. We only require four or five to each service and the rest of the time they spend with the Succentor here learning their singing and writing.’

‘Of the Secondaries, would Peter have had a chance of a future as a Deacon? He seemed old to still be wandering about the Cathedral.’

The Dean licked his lips considering. ‘You are correct,’ he said at last. ‘Peter and Jolinde are both old. They failed to show the necessary skills to ahm progress to Holy Orders. Peter could have remained as an acolyte, and perhaps, if he had applied himself, he could have anticipated rising to become a Deacon in years to come. Not Jolinde, I fear. He will have to um find more suitable employment. He should go to er University.’

‘There are other lads here who are also old for their posts.’

The Dean peered at him unhappily. ‘Yes?’

‘Adam himself, for example. What does he do here?’

Gervase answered. ‘Adam is like Jolinde, a Secondary looking for something better, although he’s hardly the sort to advance himself.’

‘There is time!’ the Dean said. ‘He is young, still.’

Gervase shrugged.

‘What does he do here?’ Simon asked.

‘Odd tasks,’ Gervase said. ‘He makes candles and keeps the sconces filled so that the Cathedral is always full of light. And he delivers bread in the mornings.’

‘Interesting,’ Baldwin murmured.

The Dean washed his hands with apparent anguish. ‘You cannot suspect him of anything, surely? He is a victim, not the perpetrator.’

‘True enough,’ Baldwin said. Then something in the Dean’s tone communicated itself to him. ‘Is there something else you would like to tell us, Dean?’

‘God forgive me, but I cannot live without telling you. Ahm. It is Jolinde… Only rumours, I have to say – no one dared to allege anything serious, but even so…’

‘Something he has done?’

‘Done. Ha! You see, Ralph’s wife and child were both killed when a wagon overturned.’

‘Yes, we heard about this. But it was an accident, I believe?’

‘That is what we all wanted to believe. Yet, rumours ah abound in a city like this one,’ the Dean said wretchedly. ‘You see, Jolinde was driving the wagon and some have commented that the dead woman looked much like Vincent’s first wife. Many umm thought that Jolinde tried to kill her, to destroy the baby which would steal his inheritance.’

‘Oh, surely not!’ Simon exclaimed.

Baldwin was thoughtful. ‘As I understand it, Vincent’s wife died while pregnant.’

‘Yes. And although I never wanted to believe it, it ah remained at the back of my mind, the suspicion that he might have removed ah a competitor, as it were. Could he have umm done the same to Peter? I fear that when a competitor is removed, a man can feel more at ease. If Jolinde thought that Peter was in his way, could he not fear that poor Adam too was a threat?’

‘I understand,’ Baldwin sighed, shaking his head. ‘But how could Jolinde consider Peter a threat? Or Adam? It makes no sense.’ He nodded to Gervase. ‘Could we be taken to the room where this boy was poisoned? I wish to see where it happened, and then I should like to talk to the boy accused – and the victim.’

Gervase stood and held the door for them. As they descended the stone steps to the ground floor, they could hear the Dean still talking to himself. ‘Such a thing to happen. Terrible, terrible.’

Over at Stephen’s house, Baldwin stood in the doorway while his dark eyes took in the scene. Before him was a table, now knocked askew. At the nearer end was a mess of food, vomit and excrement. ‘My God,’ he muttered disdainfully. He would have hoped that the servants might have cleaned up the worst of the muck. ‘How, er, how is the victim?’

A voice behind him answered, ‘As well as can be expected. Sore, exhausted, dreadfully weak. The poor fellow hardly knew what had hit him.’ It was Stephen. He sat by the doorway staring at the ruins of his room. There was nothing he could do now. All was unravelling. The Cathedral would be blamed; pilgrims would avoid a place of so much disaster.

Baldwin asked him about the meal and Stephen answered dully. It was all rather irrelevant now. ‘Who could have wanted to kill him?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Do you know anything about the other two deaths?’ Simon asked.

‘Ralph and Peter? I know nothing about Ralph, but I know enough about Peter. He deserved his death. He caused another man to die,’ Stephen blurted, and then a hand flew to his mouth as if to snatch back the words or prevent more escaping.

‘Who?’ Baldwin asked, and when there was no answer, he squatted before Stephen, making the Canon look into his eyes. ‘It wasn’t Adam, and you say it wasn’t Ralph. Does that mean you reckon it was the outlaw? The hanged man?’

‘My brother wanted to avenge him. Hamond and my brother were nowhere near Karvinel when he was robbed, so I knew Peter lied when he identified Hamond. He deliberately saw a man turned off a ladder and hanged because he was paid. He must have been evil!’

Baldwin stood. ‘Or a dupe.’ Then Stephen’s words hit him. ‘You mean you are Sir Thomas’s brother?’

‘I have said enough,’ Stephen said weakly. He rose. ‘Peter deserved his death, but these others… There must be a curse on us all.’

Gervase fetched the household’s steward, who stood before the three men with a wary expression on his features. All the servants knew their lives would be worth little if they were accused of trying to poison a clerk.

‘You served the food today?’ Baldwin began. The steward nodded. ‘Good. Tell me exactly what happened.’

‘Nothing was wrong, sir, until the middle of the second course. The Treasurer had a dish of mussels, as did Vicar Arthur and the Chorister. But Master Adam, he never liked mussels, so he had a pottage instead.’

‘And halfway through it he vomited,’ Gervase added.

‘What was the first course?’

The steward blinked. ‘Pies and fish dishes.’

‘Was there anything that only Adam ate from that course?’

‘No, sir. All partook of the dishes together. It was only the pottage that he alone tried.’

Gervase interrupted to tell Baldwin how the cook had proven the pottage to be safe.

‘I see,’ said Baldwin. ‘And how was Adam today?’

The steward gave an offhand shrug. ‘The same as usual. Perhaps…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I thought he was teasing Luke. He often does. And then he began hiccuping and burping, and went a bit green. But at this time of year, it’s normal for a youth to overindulge himself. If he can’t at Christmas, when would he be able to?’

‘A good point. Now, Gervase,’ Baldwin said, turning to the Succentor. ‘You say you saw the cook eat a whole ladle of this pottage?’

‘Two ladles. He insisted that his food was wholesome, and from the way he swallowed it with no ill-effects, I have to believe him.’

‘Yes, except this fellow Adam vomited almost immediately.’

‘As I heard Stephen say, he had almost finished his bowl of food,’ Gervase said hesitantly.

His doubting tone made Baldwin give him an expectant look. ‘Yes?’

‘That is remarkably fast for a poison, not that my experience is particularly extensive, but I have a little knowledge about the subject.’ Gervase explained about his time in Oxford.

‘And that means?’

‘I think it means he ate a very large dose of poison – so large that little was absorbed. It sometimes happens that too much poison will make a man sick, while less would kill.’

Simon had been silent, but now he interrupted their thoughts. ‘The victim accused the boy Luke, you say. Did he say that he actually saw the boy putting poison in his food?’

‘No.’

‘The kitchen is out at the back of the house, but could someone have added some poison to his food between kitchen and hall? Someone other than this Chorister? A Chorister is hardly my idea of an ideal suspect for a poisoning.’

‘It is good of you to try to find another possibility, but I fear the worst. After all, is a cleric of another sort any more likely as a killer?’

Simon nodded to the steward. ‘Was anyone out in the garden when you were bringing the food in from the kitchen?’

‘One of the Secondaries, sir, yes.’

‘Who?’

‘It was the youth who lived near Peter. The one called Jolinde.’

At the door to their inn, Jeanne paused a moment and pointed up the road. ‘Isn’t that Mistress le Berwe?’

Edgar squinted. ‘I believe so, Lady, with a servant. I think she has seen us.’

‘Ah, good,’ said Jeanne, smothering the curse that rose to her lips. She forced a pleasant and welcoming smile to her face. ‘Hawisia, how pleasant to see you. How are you?’

‘Fine, my Lady, very well. I only… Have you seen my husband?’

‘Vincent? No, why? Has he disappeared?’

‘He left the house to go and see to a little business and returned for his breakfast, but a short while ago he said he must leave once more. I did wonder whether he might have come here to share a pot of wine with you and your husband.’

She looked so worried that Jeanne waved her inside with only a pang of regret. ‘I have only just returned myself as you can see, but let us go in and see if they are all inside.’

The hall was filled with men and women talking loudly, their faces red and merry from work and drink, but there was no sign of either Vincent or Baldwin, and when they called the host over and asked him, he said: ‘Master Baldwin left first thing this morning with Bailiff Puttock and I’ve seen nothing of either of them since.’

Jeanne smiled gratefully, but when she turned she could see that Hawisia was close to tears. Jeanne waved to Edgar, who correctly interpreted this as a demand for wine and disappeared. Seeing that Jeanne and Hawisia might wish for privacy, he took Hawisia’s servant with him.

‘Come, dear, tell me what’s the matter,’ Jeanne said soothingly.

Hawisia put a hand on Jeanne’s forearm as the two sat on a bench. ‘I am pregnant again.’

‘Then I will pray for a healthy child,’ Jeanne suggested with a smile.

‘My husband already has a child.’

‘Men are not so abstinent as their wives,’ Jeanne said warily. She wasn’t sure where this was leading.

‘But I fear his son Jolinde will be the cause of sore distress to him,’ Hawisia said, and she began to sniff as the tears started to run.

Jeanne had listened to enough of Baldwin’s and Simon’s conversations to know of whom Hawisia spoke. Now she sat silently while Hawisia wept, letting the silence draw the younger woman out.

At last Hawisia blinked to clear her eyes and wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘I am sorry. I must seem the veriest fool to behave like this, but I have been worrying for an age now.’

Jeanne nodded sympathetically, but she could not like Hawisia and she inwardly cringed at the thought that this young woman should have sought her out as a confidante. ‘What do you fear?’ she asked.

‘That my husband’s son should be found to be the murderer. You must know that Nick Karvinel and Vincent have no affection for each other. They are not friends, they are competitors. And Peter was his clerk. If Jolinde thought that Peter had done anything for Karvinel that could have hurt my husband, I fear… I truly fear–’

‘That your stepson could have killed Peter?’

Hawisia sniffed and nodded wretchedly.