The Butcher of St Peter's

Prologue

Exeter, August 1317

In the grey light, the winding sheet looked thin, as though it had been stretched by the heavy deluge that fell all about. The shroud was so sodden that it lay tight across the flesh beneath, and Estmund could see every curve and projecting bone of the body it covered. Water pooled where it might: in the eye-sockets, between the breasts, in the soft hollow of her empty belly, her groin … This was his woman — and yet it wasn’t. Emma was dead, her soul was gone. Truly, this was a husk, nothing more.

The shame! He was discarding her carcass with as much ceremony as a man throwing away some worthless trash. If she had died even a year ago, he could have afforded a coffin. It was wrong for her to be out here like this, on view to all passers-by, the thin cloth showing off her body as plainly as though she were naked. He wanted to cover her up, hide her from the people who wandered about the place, their dull, uninterested eyes glancing at him before surveying Emma’s corpse. Two urchins appeared and stood silent, staring fixedly. In the end he grabbed his cloak and threw it over her. It was wrong that she should be the subject of such attention here on the boundary of the cemetery.

He felt a sob start deep down in his belly, and closed his eyes. Yes, he should have provided a proper coffin for her, just as he should have given her a real funeral, but he could do neither. Coffins were all but unknown now. Already, just in the last three months, one twentieth part of the population of the city had died, so they said. There weren’t enough coffins for the bodies. And his job was unprofitable now. In the past it had been worthwhile to be a butcher. It meant sufficient money, good food … Good Christ, they had been happy on what he could earn, and her pregnancy had set the seal on their delight.

All Estmund had ever wanted was children of his own. Growing up with three younger sisters, he had been used to having babes and toddlers about him, and even when he went to be apprenticed he had gone to a master butcher who had a large family. Est had grown up with youngsters all around him, and the idea of fathering his own with his wife was wonderful.

He had wedded his beautiful Emma just four years ago, and it had seemed that soon all his hopes would be fulfilled. Shortly after their wedding, she fell pregnant and Cissy was born in August of 1314.

But even as she was brought struggling into the world by that incompetent bitch of a midwife, their lives were changing.

The winter after Cissy’s birth was cold, but not so much worse than many others — Est had filled their plates with whatever he could buy — but worse was to come. Throughout the summer the rain fell in torrents. At first all were stoical about it, laughing about the normal English summer; some made jokes about a new Noah. But as the summer progressed, their humour left them. Men could see the harvest was going to fail. The crops drowned in the fields. And soon the people began to die.

Theirs was not the only family to lose a child, but to lose Cissy so young, only one month over a year old, seemed to Estmund to be awful. He did not hear her call his name, nor see her stagger for her first steps. All was snatched from him when she died.

At the same time, when the cathedral refused to bury Cissy, Est saw his wife begin to slip away. It took her two years, but at last she had joined their baby.

He returned to the pit. As he dug, Estmund could hear the rattling thump of another cart moving along the way. Pausing, he straightened, a short, thickset figure with a stooped back, his face drawn and pale under a thinning cap of mousy hair. He peered with eyes that were raw with grief at the small party led by a gaunt pony straining at its harness.

‘Come on, Est,’ his friend said, shovelling aside dirt from the pit at his feet. Much of what he brought out was mud now. The hole filled with running rainwater as swiftly as they could clear it, an unwholesome red water like blood.

Estmund Webber remained standing staring at the cart. Its iron-shod wheels creaked as it lurched from side to side, crashing into a hole where a slab had been moved, then righting itself and continuing as the pony lumbered onwards. At the side were two carters holding the boards steady, so that the corpse resting on them mightn’t topple off and fall into the mud that lay all about. Behind them, through the greyness of the blanket of rain, came the grieving family. A woman first, only five-and-twenty or so, a pretty thing, with a man at her side. Est knew her and her husband: Jordan le Bolle and his woman, Mazeline. Behind them came their servants and a cousin of Mazeline’s.

It was too small for an entourage, not enough to remember the dead. Who was it? Est had been told, but things like that seemed unimportant now. The grief of others could not penetrate the scars of his misery. Vaguely he recalled hearing that Mazeline’s mother had died. Starved, of course. Just like all the others. So many …

Even before the wagon had gone, he could hear another making its way up from the Ercenesk Gate. There were so many deaths now. So much suffering.

That was the way people should go, he thought. Along that paved way that led up to the great west door of the cathedral, the last door on the road to God. The cart should stop before the door so that the men could carry the wrapped body inside, up to the altar where they could pray for the soul, make sure that she’d be accepted at the gates of Heaven.

‘Est?’

He was sobbing uncontrollably again. Pathetically, hunched over his spade, he tried to wipe the tears from his face, but only succeeded in smearing a thick plaster of reddish mud over his features. The rain was so heavy it didn’t really matter. It would soon be washed away. He closed his eyes and bent his head as the racking grief engulfed him again, remembering … remembering so much joy …

Young, gay, sweet, she had been all those things. His delight, his love, his darling, his sweeting … his beautiful wife. He took a deep, shuddering breath and thrust his shovel into the rough ground, leaning on it, face covered with a muddy hand.

‘Get a move on, Est. We need to finish up here.’

Now the memories flooded back, and the tide washed away the grief, if only for a moment.

His wedding had been the happiest day of his life. He had gone to the parish church with Emma, and they’d repeated their oaths in front of the priest there, a kindly old soul who had known them both all their lives — he’d baptized Emma when she was born, and would have buried her too, except of course none of the parish churches were allowed to bury anyone. All the city’s secular funerals must be conducted at the cathedral church, and the burials must take place in the massive cemetery that almost encircled it. Not that Emma could have been buried there anyway.

‘Est, come on, hurry up!’

The urgency of the words reached Estmund through the all-enveloping anguish that was now his life. He stared down at his friend, Henry, who reached out to him, his face torn with sympathy, and as his fingers touched the rough material of Estmund’s tunic Estmund began to sob again. His eyes rose once more to the cathedral, to the great edifice that stood to protect people like him, like his wife. It was there to save their souls.

But not his beloved. The Bishop had declared her excommunicate. Her soul was lost, just like Cissy’s.

A cathedral in such times must accommodate many funerals, of course, and far be it from Agnes to complain about that, but it was nevertheless upsetting to have to share it today of all days.

The rain was a constant blanket over the world. It wasn’t just that it lanced down, thick gobbets pounding into the already sodden ground, it was the way the light had changed.

This late in the summer, all should have been clear and bright, warm and serene, with children playing in the cathedral’s yard, wet- and dry-nurses idling with their charges, men haggling over deals, horses cropping the rough cemetery grass, hucksters offering pies or trinkets, others calling out with wine or ale. The colours should have been distinct and glorious, gay flags fluttering, men and women flaunting their finery for others to admire … and instead all was grim. This greyness was more than the absence of light: it was the dullness of obscurity. The falling drops made all details murky, and the rain gathering on her eyelids didn’t help, either.

The sun could not penetrate the thick layer of clouds. She was hidden from all, but here in the cathedral’s close, away from the chilly gusts, Agnes could still feel her warmth. Up there somewhere the sun shone, and her efforts served to make the dampness worse by increasing the humidity.

Agnes looked up at the cathedral as they approached. The old church was being rebuilt, the eastern portion first, and later this, the western entrance. Precarious-looking scaffolding was lashed together against the building, great cranes reached skywards, rubble lay all over the area near the cathedral where old stones had been dashed from the walls to make way for the new ones, and it looked a mess. It hardly seemed a fit setting for the solemn rite that was about to be conducted for Agnes’s father.

At the great door stood a cart from which a body had only recently been carried inside, and she felt a frisson of distaste. Poorer folk could not afford the necessary sustenance, of course, but it was more than a little unsatisfactory to have them leave a pony and cart before the doors where others were intending to enter for their own business. Churls ought to have a separate entrance; it wasn’t right for them to get in the way of people like her family.

Stepping past the cart with its underfed pony, which watched the second funeral with a lacklustre eye, Agnes stood at the doors to watch.

Her mother was weeping uncontrollably. She had her mouth open, and Agnes felt a fleeting discomfort. Mother and Juliana, Agnes’s younger sister, were both showing their grief to the world, but she herself could not. She felt sure that Daniel, Juliana’s husband of four years, felt the same as she. Although peasants might wail and moan, it would be unseemly for people in Agnes’s station to behave in like manner.

The cart stopped and the pallbearers lifted her father’s body on its bier. With bowed heads, the men carried it inside.

Agnes waited until her mother and sister were at the door, and then she joined her mother. As she glanced at her, Agnes realized how old her mother had grown. She and Agnes’s father had always been so close; Agnes suddenly wondered whether she would have any reason to continue living. The idea was shocking — yet unavoidable.

She took her mother’s arm and walked with her inside, aware all the time of her sister and brother-in-law just behind her. She was always aware of him: Daniel, sergeant of the city. She cast an eye about her as they entered the gloomy interior. Yes, Juliana had done very well for herself. Marrying a sergeant of the city might not seem like much of an achievement — after all, almost any of the members of the Freedom would earn much more than a mere sergeant — but Daniel was slightly different from the run of the mill officers. He was brave to the point of rashness, convinced of his own strength; handsome, with a jutting, pointed jaw and square face. His eyes held the confidence of a man who knew that his friends would soon see him promoted. Perhaps he would be given one of the gates. It was an important job, having the control of a gate; but then he could be given some duties in one of the courts instead. Men there could always make themselves wealthy, and Daniel was bound to be successful.

Agnes dipped her fingers into the stoup of holy water and crossed herself. It was an awesome thought, that Juliana — ‘little sister’ — was already a mother herself, but at least Juliana had achieved her life’s ambition. Agnes knew full well that her little sister had early on been determined to marry before her. Well, that was well and good, because Agnes had not wanted to marry. She was content with the life she enjoyed, she told herself, and the idea of having to pander to a man was unattractive. She had no need of a husband yet. The oft-repeated injunction was soothing, faintly, but not enough. She was growing lonely, and the thought that her life could be ended as swiftly and as quickly forgotten as that of her father was alarming.

In front of her she saw the funeral party which had arrived before her father, and she could not help a small sneer. It was Jordan le Bolle and his wife. That, Agnes knew, would be enough to drive her brother-in-law the sergeant into a cold rage.

Thinking that, Agnes could not stop herself from casting a glance at Daniel. No matter what she told herself, that she wasn’t jealous, that she hadn’t wanted to marry yet, that she had never really felt that much attraction to Daniel, there was always that niggling annoyance at the back of her mind.

After all, Daniel had been her man until Juliana snatched him from her.

He could feel her eyes on him, but Daniel was no fool. He knew damned well that she would be near him every day from now onwards. No matter what his success or failure, little Agnes would always be there to smile with that small, sarcastic twist of her lips, just as she always had been. With her father gone, Daniel had a responsibility towards her.

At first he’d wanted her so much more than Juliana. Agnes was the older, more sensible woman of the two, but of course at her age she could afford to be more sensible. It wasn’t as though she had to worry about anything much, except winning herself a suitable husband. That was a tough demand, though, for a maid such as her.

Agnes was not unattractive, of course. Christ’s pain, when Daniel first met her, he’d thought her perfection itself. A pleasing face with that mass of reddish-golden hair, faint freckles dotted over her nose and upper cheeks giving her a faintly childlike appearance, and the way she had of peering at him with lifted chin, as though challenging him in some way. At first he’d thought that she was simply a slut with fire in her groin, a wench who wanted to grab the first man she found and pull him into her bedchamber, but when he’d tested her he’d found there was more depth to her than that.

She was intelligent, that was certain. That lovely head of hers held a brain that was capable of embarrassing the brightest. Daniel himself had often been bested by her in argument, and when he had played her at nine men’s morris she had thrashed him. Some fellows could have accused her of witchcraft for the skill she showed in calculating five or even six moves in advance. There was a masculine ruthlessness in the way that she utterly destroyed him during that game which rankled even now. He was so glad he’d chosen her, Juliana, in the end. She had given him his lovely daughter, Cecily, and no man could ask for more.

Juliana was a calmer, more kindly soul. She only ever had a smile and a welcoming word of encouragement. A sweeter woman in every way.

Looking at her now, he told himself he was right to be so entirely besotted. Agnes would be an adornment for any man’s bed, but — Christ Jesus! — how she would scold and taunt when the mood took her. She had the tongue of a viper when she wanted, and she could poison a man’s heart with her words; by contrast Juliana was supportive and thoughtful of his needs. A complete difference. Whoever was to win Agnes would find himself with a right challenging bitch, and little peace in his marriage.

He could not help himself. His gaze was drawn to Agnes, and he caught a glimpse of her curled lip just as she looked away. Hard-hearted bitch! Even today she had to watch and sneer. She had a heart frozen to ice.

Looking away, he found himself meeting the cynical stare of Jordan le Bolle, and he gritted his teeth. If he could, he would run up to the son of a hog and beat him. But today of all days he could do nothing. He must endure, while the priests mumbled their words over Jordan’s mother-in-law’s body in the hurried service that was so commonplace now, with so many dying of starvation. It was a disgrace that the priests should let le Bolle in before Juliana’s and Agnes’s father. He at least had been honourable.

Later, walking out through the doors, he felt contempt for all priests. Supercilious and smug, they never had to work. There was nothing that could worry them. Whatever happened, they took their money from rich and poor alike, and were never touched by the disasters which struck down others. Even now, when the folk here in Exeter were starving and the famine was starting to bite into even the wealthier families, the vicars and the canons in their cathedral close were safe enough. They had their massive grain stores outside the city, all of them with food enough to keep them alive for many long months. Not that there would be much point. Daniel gazed about him sombrely. What would be the purpose of St Peter’s Cathedral Church and all these canons, vicars, annuellars and servants if all the city’s souls were dead? There was little sense in having a massive new cathedral church erected if all the people for whom it had been designed, to entice them inside, were already buried outside.

The death rate was now massively greater than it had been at the start. God’s bones, but if more people started to die, Daniel would have to consider hiring another clerk to help him in his work. A part of his duties was to see to the wills of the dead and already he had run up a profit of eleven shillings in the last six weeks, a massive sum of money.

As he pulled his hat over his head, he noticed the cart before the entrance and scowled at it. Mazeline’s mother had given up a while ago. A little good broth and some pasties would have saved her, but of course Jordan le Bolle couldn’t provide them, could he? Daniel sneered to himself. No, the wealthiest thief in the city couldn’t provide the food which his mother-in-law desperately needed, because that would expose his life for the sham it was. He lived frugally as a lowly tavern-keeper, and now he had no guests people would soon start to comment if they found him with apparently more money than he should have. Since even bread had risen in price to six times its value at the start of the famine, all men were looking to their cash ever more carefully. This was the second year of hardship. Last year had seen the beginnings of the disaster, when the crops failed in the torrential downpours, but matters had grown much worse.

Everything was affected. Food cost so much that many were incapable of affording it. Although the King and others had tried to enforce a strict control on pricing, it was pointless and had to be dropped. It was contrary to all reason to enforce low prices. Every man knew food could only be grown when God willed it. He alone decided the fruitfulness of the earth and the quality of the returns, and if He decided to make men suffer because of the sterility of the harvest, that was His choice. And price depended upon that capricious will, not the will of an English king.

So many had died of starvation, it was a miracle that there were not more outbreaks of violence. The Trailbaston gangs were not so numerous as once they had been, and it appeared that the countryside was reverting to calmness. The peasants would sometimes plead for food at the wayside when there was nothing to fill their bellies, and the sight of the children at their sides was pitiable, but it was God’s way to remind men every so often of their feebleness compared with His power.

There had been cases of sporadic violence, mostly outside the city. Often it had been between the gangs of felons who brought food into the city slyly to avoid duties. They met on the highway and set about each other with enthusiasm, beating their rivals about the heads and causing several deaths. Others were killed, too; notably travellers wandering about the place with purses that bulged intriguingly. They were ripe for the plucking, and all too many of them were fleeced when they reached the city if they hadn’t been already. Several were murdered, especially if they had some spare food about them. Today food was more valuable than mere money.

Daniel hated such men with a vengeance. He had strong ideas who they were, too. It was obscene that a man like Jordan le Bolle should be treated as an equal. He should have been excluded from the cathedral church. A man like him, responsible for fleecing so many, robbing some, perhaps even killing them, and yet he could join a church ceremony like any decent man. It was revolting.

The funeral party was walking past to leave. He stood aside, one hand on his wife’s elbow, as they strode to the door. First to go was Mazeline with her husband and her cousin, all of them pulling their hoods over their heads in preparation. Then came the men with the body on its bier. As they did so, Daniel curled his lip.

‘They’ll never starve, those two.’

‘Still hunting that stag?’ Agnes said sweetly. ‘Brother, perhaps you should seek more certain quarry than one which may always outrun you.’

Daniel glanced at her briefly, and took delight in reflecting that he had married the other sister, but still, as he walked away with Juliana on his arm, he knew no ease or comfort.

The sight of that felon, le Bolle, had soured an already doleful day. The weather was the perfect match for his temper: grim, grey, and relentless. The rain fell in an unending downpour which, while not being so earnest as to justify the use of a word like ‘torrent’, was so unremitting that it seemed to scour the soul. One week — no, even a single day — of rain now was enough to turn a man’s mood to rage, but this, this was torment on a vast scale. It tortured everyone. When had he last witnessed a day without rain? Christ’s blood, he didn’t know. St Peter himself could hardly be expected to know. Had there been a dry day this year?

Later, after the old man had been buried and he was walking round the conduit, he saw the two shadowy figures. They were crouched low, and as he took in the scene he could see what was happening. Two men, a well-wrapped corpse at their side, the cheap fabric of the winding-sheet soaking up the red moisture from the soil on which it lay, were digging a fresh pit for the body.

‘Sweet Mother of God,’ he swore, and left his wife with the mourners as he made his way across the rough ground.

Every step seemed to dash water in every direction, much of it leaping up and splashing his shins. The red liquid, stained by the soil around here, dripped like diluted blood, and for an instant he was revolted by the fancy and stopped.

All this space about the cathedral was the cemetery for the people of this city, and he suddenly had a foul thought that this redness had not leached from the earth, but was in fact blood, the blood of all the dead bodies which lay beneath his feet. The grass was flattened, rough, chewed by a hundred horses; trampled by the traders who haggled here, the children who played hereabout, and the boots of the men and women who came to see their beloved relatives interred. He took another step, and the rich soil threw up another gout of the scarlet liquid.

He was an officer of the law, not some superstitious fool of a peasant from Exmouth, he told himself sternly, and continued.

‘What in God’s sweet name do you think you’re doing here?’ he demanded.

Henry was in the pit, and he glanced over at the sergeant. ‘Only burying Emma, Daniel. You’ve just buried one man; let us see to Est’s wife in peace, eh?’

‘Get her away from here and fill in that hole, you sacrilegious son of a Plymouth whore! This is the cathedral’s land.’

‘It’s all right here,’ Estmund said dully. ‘A vicar told us.’

‘Daniel, please,’ Henry pleaded. ‘Just leave us. It’s for Emma, and she deserves better than this anyway.’

‘You heard me: get that pack away from here and go yourselves!’ Daniel demanded. He could feel his frustration and anger rising.

Henry climbed out of the hole and reached for a spade. ‘Daniel, sometimes you’re a damned cretin. If you are so stupid as to want to make Est suffer, I’m not. And Emma was a good woman. I’ll not take her anywhere else.’ He started to tidy the edge of the pit.

It was enough. Daniel had been delayed by le Bolle at his mother-in-law’s funeral, he felt nervy after that odd reflection about the red water, and now this pair of morons were disputing his authority. The rage and frustration enfolded him in its warm embrace, and he grabbed the sack of tools that lay at the graveside. Heaving it back, he hurled it through the air to the opposite side of the roadway, where it burst and scattered its contents about the cobbles.

‘You poxed son of a goat!’ Henry spat. ‘Look at all that lot!’ He started towards the sergeant, his face darkening with anger.

Daniel’s blood was up already, and seeing the brawny figure moving towards him he was sure that the spade would soon be swung at his head. He had no hesitation. There was one weapon handy, a pickaxe. As Henry approached, Daniel grabbed it and swung it. The pick missed Henry’s face, but ripped into his right shoulder, tearing through skin and muscle, crunching through bone and exploding out again. A spray of blood rose from the wound, jetting up and over, drenching Estmund and his dead wife, and as Henry was wrenched from his feet by the power of that appalling blow Estmund squealed like a child and fell to his knees at her side, his arms outstretched, as though disbelieving that such a sacrilege could have struck her.