The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sir Thomas was disgusted by her. When she felt the blade at her neck she had thought he was playing some kind of game, that it was a sign he enjoyed inflicting or receiving pain with sex and she had moaned with desire for him.

He shoved her from him and asked her his questions. She had not been much help. He felt no nearer a solution, an answer as to why his comrade had died. He was forced to the conclusion that it was the whim of a wealthy man, someone who had picked a scapegoat simply because he could. A suspected outlaw would fit the bill – why not make use of him?

Juliana had tried to tempt him into her bed, with a kind of desperate passionless longing. She wanted a man, she said, a strong man who would rescue her from her husband. No price was too high for her freedom. All the man need do was kill Nicholas, the useless fool and she would give herself to him completely.

He had slapped her, hard, three or four times, until her lips swelled and the blood ran, but still she asked him to help her – offering her body, her few jewels, all her money. She repelled him; with her disloyalty and shabby, sordid advances. In the end he left her lying semi-naked on her bed, watching him leave with large empty eyes, as though he was her last hope and prayer and he was leaving her desolated.

It was in the hall that he heard the knock. Instantly he ran to the ladder and slipped down to the ground. Crossing the floor, he peered round the door into the hall. The room was clear, and he hurried to the screens door, looking into the passageway.

The tapping at the door came again and he glanced about him. He had limited options. There were the two doors opposite, leading to the buttery and storerooms, or he could run to the back door. Making a quick decision, he crossed to the buttery and squeezed behind the door. There he waited.

He heard the door open, soft footsteps entering. They passed through into the hall, then out at the far end, going into the solar.

Sir Thomas slipped from his hiding place and was at the front door in a moment, but then he hesitated, seeing a large chest. With a cruel smile, he untied his cloak and gathered it up, setting it upon the chest in full view of Karvinel when he entered. Only then did Sir Thomas open the door and walk into the street.

In the road he saw Hob waiting anxiously, hopping from one foot to the other in agitation, wondering what would happen when the visitor saw Sir Thomas. The knight’s smiling face reassured him and he looked relieved as Sir Thomas strode towards him.

‘That woman hasn’t the brain she was born with,’ Sir Thomas said contemptuously. ‘But Hamond’s revenge has begun. I look forward to hearing how Karvinel responds to finding a man’s cloak in his hall.’

‘God’s teeth!’ he continued a short while later. ‘What would a man want a gross woman like her for? Give me a lissom wench like your sister. She’s much more life in her, more pleasure and amusement. And she has a brain! That fat bitch in there only thinks of herself. She ever looks to the next comfort, not caring what may happen to others.’

It was Karvinel himself, however, whom Sir Thomas wanted to pay for the crime, not Juliana. Before him rose the vision of Hamond swinging from a rope. Hamond had died in order that there should be proof of a robbery. It mattered not a whit that Hamond had been nowhere near the robbery and could not have been involved; Hamond was accused by a merchant and his clerk and that was enough.

But if Hamond had not been there, so the rest of the story was false.

‘Why should Karvinel fake a robbery of his own money,’ pondered Sir Thomas aloud. ‘How would he gain by pretending that his own money was gone?’

Hob skipped at his side as the knight strode to the Cathedral. As they reached the Fissand Gate he suggested self-consciously: ‘Because there was more than his own money.’

‘Eh?’ Sir Thomas looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The m-merchant,’ Hob said, stuttering nervously. ‘He was carrying money for the Cathedral too. It wasn’t just his own.’

‘What? Who told you this?’

‘The… the cripple at the gate,’ Hob said, terrified of the expression on his master’s face.

Sir Thomas stood a moment staring at Hob and then, slowly, he began to chuckle.

Later, much later, in the Cock, in the poor, shabby district of the city, Sir Thomas settled his remaining cloak over the top of the thick blankets to protect himself and Jen against the cold.

‘This place is an embarrassment,’ he grumbled, pulling her to him. ‘I would never come to such a hovel when I owned my own manor. A flea has bitten me!’

‘But the manor is gone,’ she reminded him. ‘And this is better than the mud and cold. Your tent is fine when the weather is still, but when the wind blows…’

Sir Thomas cast a sombre eye at Hob, who had begun to snore over at the door. ‘Shut up!’ he hissed before planting a kiss on Jen’s lips. ‘You’re right, I suppose. I think maybe I’m too old for the life.’

She stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you think I mean? I can’t keep on striving as an outlaw. It’s no life for an old sod like me. No, I have to try to win a pardon. God knows how.’

Jen rolled over onto his chest, staring down at him, her hair falling about their faces. ‘You mean that? You’ll seek a pardon and settle?’

‘That bastard Karvinel must die first. I must repay Hamond’s debt, Jen. It’s a matter of honour.’

Jen pulled away. ‘Don’t do that, my lover. If you kill him, they will find you. He’s a well-known citizen. They would have to seek you out.’

‘I must,’ he stated flatly. ‘Hamond was my man.’

‘There must be another way. Please, there must be.’

He kissed her gently, and she rolled over to lie on her back. They made love quietly, but with a restrained desperation, as if both knew it could be their last night together.

It was dark when Karvinel returned home. He opened the door and tiptoed inside, hoping not to wake his wife. A jug lay on the table in the hall and he poured himself a large cup of wine, standing before the fire, drinking sullenly.

Soon he could start making small payments and investments, he decided. It should be safe enough by then. People would hardly be likely to connect a few small payments to the robbery. Of course he’d have to be careful about the Cathedral. Perhaps he should offer them money for the rebuilding. He would certainly have enough cash when his investments came in.

All that money. He brooded as he sipped, thinking of the two heavy purses he had concealed: one his own, the second belonging to the Cathedral. He had hidden them carefully before pulling at his cloak and tearing at his shirt. Drawing his dagger, he had scratched himself on the chin, the neck and the forearm. Then he had thrown away his knife and walked to the city.

It was a sheer fluke that he had seen the man at the Nobles Inn. Hamond was known about the city. He had a reputation – was the perfect scapegoat. Hurrying to the Cathedral, Karvinel had sought out his clerk and told him his story. He had been robbed on his way back. All his money, and the Cathedral’s, had been taken from him, but who would believe him? And now one of his attackers was sitting, bold as brass, drinking in an alehouse.

Peter had been appalled. He had sat white-lipped while Karvinel spilled out his story, and agreed immediately, bless him, that he should support Karvinel’s version of events.

With a clerk to back him up, Nick was safe. He went to the Constable and told him about his robbery, and in a short space Hamond was arrested. Cocky at first, he hadn’t believed that he would be kept long. He claimed he had been nowhere near the place where the robbery was said to have happened.

But others disbelieved him, especially when a farmer came forward to say that he had seen Hamond in the company of the well-known rogue Sir Thomas. That sealed Hamond’s fate. The jury was satisfied that he deserved his end. He was hanged on the twenty-second; one day after Ralph’s death.

Karvinel met Peter later that same day, the day the executioner made Hamond dance his death jig. Peter stood underneath the swaying body, gazing up at the dark, blood-engorged face. Peter said that Hamond almost seemed to be watching him accusingly. He had said it with a nervous chuckle, like a man who was too worldly-wise to believe in such nonsense, while Nick Karvinel knew he was scared that the outlaw’s ghost might come for revenge. It was partly to soothe him that Karvinel took him to the tavern. Later that afternoon, in the tavern, Karvinel had told him.

He didn’t know what had made him admit it. Perhaps he had an urge to share his guilt; or maybe it was the desire to cap another man’s story. Because it was there that Peter had told him about seeing Vincent’s cart outside Ralph’s house, someone filling it with leather. Shortly afterwards Karvinel agreed that sometimes people would act out of character, and had sworn Peter to the secrecy of the confessional before telling him the truth about Hamond’s innocence.

Peter had stared at him disbelievingly, in a state of shock. At first he had stammered questions loudly, while Karvinel tried to ‘shush’ him, to no avail. And then Peter had gone quiet, gazing into his own personal hell, shuddering with abhorrence when Karvinel accidentally touched his arm.

Karvinel had quickly reminded Peter that he had told him under the protection of the confessional, but Peter had curled his lip and withdrawn, not even offering Karvinel a ‘Godspeed’.

It was strange how clerical types would behave. Look at Peter that night. Petulant, sulking, turning his back ostentatiously…

That fellow Hamond was a thoroughly bad sort – everyone knew that. But perhaps Peter was angry that Karvinel had stolen money from the Cathedral. That would explain a lot. In Peter’s memory, Karvinel would repay the lot. It was the least he could do. At least he hadn’t robbed Ralph as well.

Yes, he would soon be able to afford to repay the Cathedral once a few of his investments came in, he thought, and then he could patch up his problems with Juliana. He wondered where his wife could have got to. The place was silent. She must have gone to her bed, bored with waiting for him to return. He went over to the backyard’s door and pissed out. Then he locked up and was about to make his way to the solar when he saw it.

There was a man’s cloak on the chest in the screens passage. At first he thought it was his own, but he didn’t recognise it; he’d never wear something so shabby and faded.

A horrible thought began to form in his mind. He hated to think that his bitch of a wife could have betrayed him, but her contempt for him over the last few weeks had been visible to all. He grimaced, his expression one of rage and fear; rage at his wife’s treachery, that she should dare to behave so, and fear that he might lose her and become the subject of every wit in the city.

He raised the jug but it was empty; he set his jaw and went to the door. No sound. He had intended going up to their room silently so as not to waken her, but now he took his shoes off and went up with particular caution, hoping to catch his wife’s lover in his own bed. When he saw her lying there, still fully clothed, and alone, there was a feeling of relief that she was not still entertaining a man, but he was still annoyed with her. He opened his mouth to rail at her, but then a sharp rumbling in his belly made him close his mouth and belch.

A cramp, he thought, nothing more, but there was a presentiment of something evil. He was aware of a coldness, a thickness in the air, and sweat broke out freezing upon his forehead. He was still a moment, confused and forgetting his wife as the pain began, but then he doubled up as the sword-thrust of agony lanced through his gut.

Mouth wide, but unable even to scream, the pain was so intense, he gasped for help from his wife.

But her corpse could do nothing.

Simon awoke with a dull pain at the back of his head. He snapped his eyes shut again at speed and waited for the strong wave of nausea to subside.

This was the trouble with cheaper taverns, he thought queasily. Cheap taverns sold cheap ales and wines. Although both last night had tasted fine, clearly there had been a problem with one or the other of them. Perhaps it was the third jug of wine he had shared with the grizzle-haired host when most of the other folk had left. That must have been the one – the others were fine. And the ale had tasted all right beforehand, as had the cider: a good, strong, tasty brew. In fact Simon realised he could taste it still even now, and the potent flavour was unpleasantly present on the tip of his tongue.

He sat up, puffing and blowing as he tried to settle his gut.

‘So you’re awake, Bailiff?’

‘Ha! I always wake at the same time, Baldwin,’ he croaked. ‘It takes more than a few drinks to make me oversleep.’

‘Really? Well, if you can sleep through your snoring, I suppose you can wake refreshed whenever you want,’ Baldwin observed caustically.

‘Was I snoring?’

‘Like a hog. You were so loud that Jeanne couldn’t sleep either, but I expect she will tell you all about her sleepless night shortly.’

Simon scratched at his head, one eye shut against the confusing split vision. ‘Could I tempt you to a walk before she wakes? I am sure she would appreciate the peace.’

‘Hypocrite!’ Baldwin laughed and threw a cushion at Simon’s head.

‘That,’ Simon said slowly and with great dignity, ‘was not kind, Baldwin.’

‘No,’ said Baldwin and threw another.