The Butcher of St Peter's

Chapter Two

Exeter, November 1323

Blithely unaware of the impact of his presence on Agnes, Sir Peregrine was soon conversant with the new responsibilities he had taken on — or, as he put it, which he must endure. It was an advantage to have the advice of the Keeper of the King’s Peace, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, who was in the city recuperating after being struck in the chest by a bolt.

Sir Baldwin was already greatly recovered, and when the weather was clement could often be found outside the inn where he was staying, his wife ministering to his needs. Always at his side was his servant Edgar, closely observing all those who approached his master. Edgar took his duties seriously, and his key role here was the guardian and protector of Sir Baldwin.

It was on the vigil of St Martin’s Day that Sir Peregrine would later feel that the case started. Although it had no resonance of especial significance for him when he first approached Sir Baldwin, in due course he would come to realize that this was the day on which God decided to play His cruellest trick on him. At the time, however, he had no inkling of the fate God held in store for him.

The convalescent knight was sitting on a bench indoors while his physician, Ralph of Malmesbury, studied his urine in a tall glass flask, holding it up in the sunlight shafting through a high window. ‘I don’t want my patient upset or excited today,’ Ralph said, sucking his teeth as he sniffed the urine thoughtfully. ‘The stars aren’t good for that. Not this week.’

Sir Peregrine had a healthy respect for battle-trained surgeons, because he had seen their skills demonstrated on the field of war, but for others, such as this piss-tinkering prick, he had none. He ignored the man. ‘Godspeed, Sir Baldwin. My Lady Jeanne, my sincerest compliments. You grow ever more beautiful!’

Sir Baldwin’s wife smiled in a rather embarrassed manner at being so praised, but she was also pleased. She knew Sir Peregrine was not prone to idle flattery.

He could not help but admire her. Lady Jeanne de Furnshill was a tall woman in her early thirties, entirely unspoiled by motherhood. Sir Peregrine had seen many women lose their attractiveness and charm when they had become mothers, but not Jeanne. She still had bright blue eyes that brought to mind cornflowers in a meadow on a summer’s day, and red-gold hair that reminded him of warmth at the fireside. Neither had faded with the years. She was slender, but not weakly; her face was a little too round, perhaps, her nose maybe a bit short and slightly tip-tilted, and her upper lip was very wide and rather too full, giving her the appearance of stubbornness. Yet all gathered together, her features made her an intensely beautiful woman, and one of whom Sir Peregrine would be eternally covetous.

‘When you’ve finished staring at my wife, would you like some wine?’ Sir Baldwin asked sharply.

Sir Peregrine laughed and sat at his side. Sir Baldwin was a tall man, running slightly to a paunch now, especially after some weeks recuperating, but he was striking in his manner and his looks. Used to power, he displayed a firmness and confidence in all he did, and his dark brown eyes had an intensity about them that many found intimidating. His face was framed by the flat, straight, military haircut over his furrowed brow, and below by the line of hair that clung to the angle of his jaw. Once, when Sir Peregrine had first known him, that hair had been black, but now it was liberally sprinkled with white, as was the hair on his head. A scar reached from one temple almost to his jaw, the legacy of a battle of long ago.

Now Sir Peregrine received the full force of those eyes.

‘Have you come to enquire after my health,’ growled Baldwin, ‘or to dally with my wife while I sit here as an invalid?’

‘Neither, friend.’ Sir Peregrine chuckled. He leaned forward as Lady Jeanne poured wine from a heavy jug into a pottery drinking horn. It was cheap, fashioned in the likeness of a bull’s horn with a man’s face embossed on the front, all glazed green, and he studied it a moment. ‘No, this is a little business which may be more to your taste than mine.’

‘You are the Coroner,’ Baldwin remarked.

‘This is not a matter of a body … not yet, at least. It is a matter of the King’s Peace. I have been told that there are some friars causing trouble again.’

Baldwin winced. ‘Rather you than me if it comes to a fight over rights and liberties between a friary and the city. Which friary is it?’

‘Worse than that.’ Sir Peregrine smiled. ‘It’s a straight fight between the friars and the canons. The friars are preaching in the streets against the canons. Apparently one of their older confraters is on his deathbed and wants to be buried in the friary, but the canons are determined to enforce their claim to the funeral.’

Baldwin did not smile. ‘I see.’

It was odd. Sir Peregrine had always respected Sir Baldwin, who was clearly a fighter of prowess and some courage, and yet Sir Baldwin could not bring himself to like Sir Peregrine. It was all because of his personal loathing for politics, as Sir Peregrine knew full well.

They had a different view of the world, so he thought. While he sought to improve the lot of the people by his own active involvement, Sir Baldwin tried to avoid any participation in the disputes and political struggles that so often absorbed the entire kingdom. In the last few years, since the accession to the throne of the weakly King Edward II, the realm had suffered from the greed of the King’s friends and advisers, first the grasping Piers Gaveston, and now the still more appalling Despenser family. The King appeared incapable of reining in their ambition, and it would soon be necessary, Sir Peregrine felt sure, to remove them by force. That was his firm conviction, and the attitude of rural knights like Sir Baldwin, who wanted to enjoy their quiet existence without running risks, seemed to him to be both selfish and short-sighted. Avoiding conflict only guaranteed that the strong would become bolder.

‘Has the Dean raised the matter yet?’ Sir Baldwin asked.

‘No. I have heard all this only from the city. The receiver wants no more disputes. The city can remember too clearly all the nonsense twenty years ago.’

Jeanne looked interested. ‘What happened then?’

‘I don’t know, nor do I care.’ Baldwin held up a hand. ‘It’s a matter for the Church, not for a king’s officer. If they wish to bicker amongst themselves, that is for them to decide. I know this: I have no jurisdiction over any of the men involved.’

‘Quite so,’ said Sir Peregrine.

He could have grown angry with this fellow. It was pathetic. There were many men rather like Baldwin, he supposed, men who were not driven to treat the protection of everyone in the realm very seriously, but for his part he had seen the dangers. The Despensers had caused too much disturbance and bloodshed already. They had to be stopped.

Perhaps Sir Baldwin’s attitude was an indication of the lethargy which affected the rest of the country. Or was it something else?

Out at the southern gate of the city, there were spikes from which hung some blackened, wizened shapes. Not many, but enough. If a man took a close look at them, he could see the rough, sharp edges of the yellowed bones where they protruded through the leathery old flesh. That was what had happened to the last of the rebels after the recent civil wars. The King and his henchmen had captured all those whom the Despensers saw as a threat to their power, and had them slaughtered, from Earl Thomas of Lancaster down to the lowliest knight, simply because they had dared to stand up and declare that the King must control his advisers. Many a man might have been scared by the prospect of ending his life in front of a jeering crowd, only to have his remains dangle from a spike for the populace to contemplate as they went about their daily lives.

Perhaps that was it, Sir Peregrine reflected, gazing at Baldwin again. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill was scared by the possibility of defeat. He was scared by the prospect of his own death.

In the Black Hog, there was no question of defeat when the friars entered late that same afternoon.

John was the older man, and as he gazed in upon the drinkers he smiled faintly. ‘These are the very fellows, Robert. Do you listen to me, and I will show you how to work them up to such a fair froth of emotion they do not even notice giving me their money!’

He strolled among the men drinking there, his bowl held unostentatiously in his hand, as though it was of no great significance. It was there so that folks could put money in it if they so wished, but he was not here to make demands — not yet. He would seek his payment later, when they had all heard his talk.

‘Friends! Friends one and all!’ he cried as he reached the middle of the chamber. This being a small tavern, there was little enough space, and Robert could see that already he had managed to take a firm grip on their attention. He stood with a hand raised as though in declamation, his eyes covering the whole room, a sad smile on his narrow face, which wore an expression of mingled acceptance and affection. ‘Friends, do you know me? I am a shod friar, an ordinary man, much like you. Except I have taken vows, extraordinary vows. You know why? Because I was once like you. Yes? I grew up in a city much like this one, with the same people in charge, the same fellows who — ah — weren’t! I was apprenticed to a cutler. Can’t you just see me as a rich cutler?’

There was a low rumble of laughter at that. The scrawny figure looked nothing like a rich burgess, especially when he puffed out his chest and tried to look solemn.

‘Yes, you can see me as a rich businessman, can’t you? But how much easier life would be if we always got what we wanted. Haven’t you thought that? Instead, there I was at mass one morning, listening to the priest up there in front, mumbling away, and it suddenly struck me, “This man hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s saying!” Haven’t you thought that sometimes? Yes! A parish priest will do the best he can, but really he’s no better than anyone else, is he? And you know as well as I do that he sometimes doesn’t understand the words he says. Often you reckon you understand them better than he does himself. Well, I thought that, and I thought, If the old fool’s supposed to be talking to God on my behalf, I think I’d prefer to talk to Him direct! So I waited and thought, and then went to the friary. And I’m here now, preaching the words of God to those who’ll listen.’

He spoke for a lot longer in the same vein, and Robert caught a sense of how a preacher could stir men’s blood with a few words and ideas. That skinny, scruffy friar was reaching through the warm fug of ale, sweat and bad breath to convince them all that they should start to speak to God again. And if they didn’t want to go to their parish church, he could help them do it. He was a friar, and friars were allowed to hear a man’s confession, just the same as the parish priest. All they needed to do was pay a little money to him, put a few coins into his bowl, and he could help them. He was a shod friar, after all, a man with no worldly wealth. The friars had given away all their property so that they wouldn’t be distracted from their task of protecting souls.

‘It’s not like we’re canons, friends. We aren’t like those rich men in their great halls, with their nice new church they’re a-building. No, we’re honest, hardworking men like you. So long as we have enough for a crust of bread … and a sup of ale, too! That’s enough for honest men, isn’t it? Why should a priest crave more?’

Robert suddenly realized what he was saying: that the canons and vicars in the cathedral were no better than parasites living off the backs of the local men here.

A voice in the crowd called out, ‘He’s right. The vicar at my church is honest enough, but he’s less sense than my chickens. He preaches as well as he can, but he’s no good. Not as good as a friar, anyway. Vicar before him used to ask friars in to preach, but this one doesn’t care for friars. He’d prefer them to stay away, and he won’t offer them hospitality or food. Why is that?’

‘He is discourteous, friend,’ John said, holding up his hand to silence the rumble that passed about the room, ‘because he knows well that we would perhaps be more able to sway you than he. I do not say that he has a crime to conceal, but such things have been known.’

‘What crime?’ was the obvious response to that, and it came from four different voices. There was a cynical lack of trust in the clergy, who lived so well, who ate so lavishly, who wore the finest clothes … while at least friars tended to live among the people to whom they preached.

‘There are so many. Stealing money they do not deserve; why, did you know that even now, the canons of the cathedral are concealing the fact that one of their own vicars has stolen the money from the purse of a guest? A poor traveller whose only crime was to beg hospitality at the door of the Dean and chapter has had his savings taken.’

‘The culprit will be found and punished.’

‘Found, yes, and punished, true,’ John said, but there was an edge of harshness to his voice, and he nodded sagely as he peered around at the men grouped about him. ‘Punished to the full extent of the Dean’s rage, I have no doubt.’

There was a sudden thoughtful silence. Men who had been grinning to hear him talk now lowered their gaze. Everyone knew that the courts were kind to vicars. They had the benefit of clergy, which meant that they couldn’t be subjected to the same punishments as men who lived in the secular world. There were no whips or brands or hangman’s nooses for the clerics in the cathedral close.

‘He stole six marks, so I’ve heard,’ John continued, peering at his audience from under beetling brows. ‘That would be death to any of you here, wouldn’t it? Aye, but this felon, he’s safe. Yes? He has friends in high places, I dare say. Do you know, the canons have tried violence and had to be chastised before? Last time it was when they attacked my own friary. You know our little house, the place behind the canons’ great palaces, in the angle of the wall towards the East Gate? The canons came in with their servants, and ransacked our church, striking down my friends in there, and broke the cross at our altar. And do you know why?’

Robert shook his head slowly in admiration as John’s voice dropped and he lowered his gaze to stare at them all. A man shifted his feet on the rushes of the floor, and in the silence all could hear it. They were hanging on John’s words.

‘Because they wanted to steal a body; that’s why!’

Arthur was mumbling and snuffling in his sleep, and Cecily was irritated enough to want to smother him with a pillow. God! Wouldn’t he ever stop that silly noise? Why should a fellow do that so much in the middle of the night, when all about him people were trying to get some sleep? Perhaps he didn’t realize, but it was the middle of the night.

She should be more patient. Well, yes. That was easily said, but when Arthur was snorting and moaning like that, there was little a girl could do about it. And for goodness’ sake, surely she deserved a bit of peace herself? There was no reason why she should be expected to suffer this sort of torment every night.

She kicked him, gently, to make him stir a little. Usually that worked well enough, but for some reason tonight it didn’t. So she pinched his arse, good and hard. That did the trick all right!

‘Ow! Ow …’ He sniffled to himself and blearily opened his eyes. ‘I was having a horrible dream,’ he said, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He always had a runny nose.

‘You,’ Cecily declared, ‘are revolting.’

‘ ’M not,’ her brother said with all the dignity his four and a half years could muster. ‘Mummy says I’m not.’

‘Oh, shut up and go back to sleep. And this time, don’t snore,’ Cecily hissed and threw herself over to face the wall.

Arthur groaned to himself, just like Daddy, and rolled over too, tugging at their shared blankets.

That groaning of his, it was nearly as bad as the snoring and sniffling. He always had a cold, Arthur did, and when he didn’t he was still grunting and groaning to himself. In Daddy it was endearing, because he was grown up, but a little boy like him, she thought contemptuously, a little boy like him shouldn’t make a noise like that. It was silly.

That he was silly was less a subjective judgement than a conviction borne out by the facts. He was clumsy, noisy, rough and altogether too boisterous. And he was dim. He would believe anything she told him, which made for some amusement for her and her friends, but it also meant that he was amazingly annoying much of the time. And he had no idea that it was rude to stare. He would turn his big blue eyes on people and just stare and stare, and it made them uneasy. She’d told him once that if he kept doing it, someone would come along in the middle of the night and cut out his eyes so he couldn’t be so rude any more, but it didn’t work. He was more fascinated by the sight of other people than he was terrified by the thought of ghouls and monsters coming into his chamber at night.

She wasn’t scared, of course. With the perspective that her additional five years gave her, she knew that although ghosts were all over the place, as her daddy said, they were probably too scared to come into a house like this with Arthur’s dry nurse about the place. And right, too. Iseult was enough to petrify even the most scary of ghosts into finding another house.

There was a creak, and Cecily heard a board moving in the chamber overhead. She glanced up, and through the cracks in the floorboards she caught a flash of blue-white, then another. There was a third, and then a glimmering of yellowish light. Her father had lit a candle. She kept her eyes open, listening to the soft padding of feet. There was no door to her parents’ room, only an archway which gave onto the staircase. The steps were terribly steep and dangerous, and anyone on them must clamber cautiously down to the ground. She was aware of whispering and a glow of light, and then her father’s bare legs appeared as he slowly descended. Once on the ground, she saw him holding a little candle high over his head while he peered about. He had a sword in his right hand, and his face was black with suspicion. It was an expression that would stay with her for the rest of her life in her mares: his square, rugged, honest face with an anxious scowl graven upon it.

She made no sound. When Father came down the stairs because of the children’s arguing or playing, he was invariably very cross and beat them. Tonight he walked near the bed but, to her surprise, although he glanced towards them it was a cursory look, and then he was crossing the room to the shutters. One was open, and as Cecily watched he pulled it wide and stared out into the night.

‘Well?’ It was her mother, Juliana, on the stairs.

‘It’s nothing,’ Daniel said. ‘The shutter wasn’t fastened properly. I’ll make it firm now. You go back to bed.’

‘All right, darling. Be quick.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

Cecily kept still and waited while he carefully slammed the shutters and slipped a peg over the bar to lock them. Then he stood surveying the room awhile, before turning and walking out into the hall.

Quietly rolling over, Cecily listened. As usual the clearest sound in the room was her brother’s snuffling and snoring, but over it she was sure that she could hear her father’s steps in the hall, crossing over the rushes and stopping at the windows and doors, checking all were shuttered and barred, before returning to the solar. There he locked the door to the hall and appeared to hesitate.

In the darkness, Cecily heard him muttering, and it was some little while before she made out what he was saying. Then she realized that he was praying for her and her brother; a quiet, contemplative prayer, as though he was really scared of something … or someone. ‘Please God, don’t let him hurt them. Not my little darlings.’

It was tempting to call out to him and ask him what he was doing, but Cecily had been thrashed often enough for interrupting him at night. She knew he disapproved of her waking, even when it was he who had woken her. So instead she remained silent in the bed, watching and listening as he grunted to himself and made his way back up the stairs to his chamber.

‘Nothing. I told you it was nothing. Go to sleep,’ she heard him say in response to a mumbled, sleepy enquiry from her mother, and then Cecily heard him tumble into their bed again. There was a squeaking of ropes as the mattress took his weight, and then the boards moved again, and in the thin light of the candle upstairs she saw a fine dust falling gently.

‘Why were you so long, then?’

‘I feared there might be a man there, that’s all.’

‘Est?’ Cecily could hear that her mother was wide awake now. ‘He’s no threat, is he?’

‘No.’

‘So why the sword?’

He made no answer for a while. Then, ‘Go to sleep. We can discuss this tomorrow.’

Cecily waited for the candle to be blown out, but for once her father did not heed his own stern injunction that all candles should be extinguished when the family was in bed. She was asleep before long, and her last memory was of the thin beam of light projecting between the floorboards.