The Butcher of St Peter's

Chapter Three

‘Why do you hate him so?’ Jeanne asked again. ‘You loathed him at Tiverton, because he was so keen on politicking and took no account of the impact of his actions on other people, but he seems a better man now he is no longer at the castle.’

‘You think so?’ Baldwin asked. He was sitting in front of a polished copper plate while Edgar ran a razor over his cheeks. It was not the best time to be discussing the finer points of his feelings for Sir Peregrine.

‘I know it seems irrational, my love, and that isn’t natural for you.’

Baldwin was silent awhile as he considered this. Jeanne’s question had annoyed him, although not for the petty reason that many believed a woman should accept her man’s decisions without question. Baldwin respected his wife as well as loving her, and he had married her for her independence and intelligence. He had no use for a slave. But her question had reminded him that he had chosen to detest Sir Peregrine a long time ago when they first met and Sir Peregrine tried to enlist his support for rebellion against the Despensers and the King; this was no mere irrational dislike. He waited until Edgar was finished, and then, with his face freshly rinsed and towelled, he stood, wincing slightly at the pain in his breast where the bolt had struck, and took her hand.

‘My sweet, I don’t think it is in him to change, any more than a dappled pony can become a chestnut. No, he is a dangerous person to know, and dangerous to talk to. At any time there could be another war, and I will not tie myself to a band which seeks to overthrow the King.’

‘You can’t believe he’d dare to seek that!’ she exclaimed with a smile, but there was no reciprocal amusement on his face. ‘Do you?’

He nodded. ‘It may seem far-fetched, but that is exactly what I fear.’

‘Could any man dare such action when the King has just proved his mastery?’ she wondered. ‘It would be rash indeed to attempt anything against the King or the Despensers.’

‘The Despensers are rich beyond the dreams of any men in the country — any men other than the Despensers,’ Baldwin said quietly. He disliked speaking of such matters in such a public place, but he needs must persuade Jeanne to be cautious. ‘But their avarice seems to know no bounds. They take much, but demand still more. Where their greed will end, I cannot tell. However, I do know that now Mortimer has escaped the Tower, he will become a focus for the disaffected. I would think that a host could soon be launching itself towards our shores.’

‘War again?’ Jeanne asked.

‘Without a doubt,’ Baldwin said. ‘But this war could be more vicious and damaging even than the last. This time, if Mortimer gathers an army to him, it will be infinitely worse. The men will have little to lose on either side. All those in Mortimer’s band will be aware that the King’s revenge will know no limits. If they attack him, he will try to crush them with the utmost force available to him. And that means that Mortimer will collect the most battle-experienced mercenaries he can find. If he succeeds and brings men here, and the forces clash … I do not wish to see it.’

In his mind’s eye he could once again see that most appalling battlefield, the fight which had so directed the course of his life, the culmination of the Siege of Acre in the Holy Land. He had been only seventeen or so, and the sight of the bodies rotting and desiccating in the streets, while the heads of their comrades were flung over the walls by the ruthless Moors outside, and the population starved, would never leave him. Even now, the harsh thundering of drums could be enough to make him break into a sweat if the noise caught him unawares.

‘That man would bring war back to the country. And if the King hears of it, he will take Sir Peregrine and flay him alive to learn to whom he has spoken. If I appear to support him at all in public or in private, our lives would be at risk,’ Baldwin said, and thought of their daughter, at home in Furnshill. ‘I will not risk those whom I love for another’s vainglory.’

Reginald was hoping to see her again today. He had been to the market that morning, and while there he’d seen the basket of oysters. Well, she’d always loved them, hadn’t she? And he was partial to a mess of oysters on a plate himself. It was a lovely evening, too, and since he would be alone, because his wife had gone off to see her mother in Exmouth, it was the perfect opportunity to see his lover.

God, but it seemed a long time since he’d last been with her. Over a week, certainly, nearer two. And he was so desperate to have her. A God-damned miracle she had agreed to meet him again after the last time, the last fiasco. That was awful: realizing, just as he was getting to the short strokes, that there was someone in his boy’s chamber.

Christ Jesus, seeing that tall figure in the room had near-emasculated him. He’d stood there, staring at the man at the window, and if he’d had a moment longer to think about it, he’d have shitted himself. The idea that a stranger could be in there with his son was so terrifying, it near stopped his heart. He’d heard once of a man who was so petrified with terror on finding felons attempting to rob his house that although he had hidden safely, he had discovered the next morning that his hair had all turned white! White! As though he had aged forty years in an instant. Well, if that could happen to anyone, it was a miracle it hadn’t happened to Reg that night, because he would have sworn on his mother’s grave that the presence of the man in there meant his son was already dead.

Sweet Jesus, the sight of Michael breathing so easily had overwhelmed him. It felt as though God had forgiven him all his sins in one burst, seeing his lad there safe and sound. He would rather have cut off his own arm than see his son harmed in any way.

He assumed she would keep their assignation, but perhaps … He’d not been thinking, shouting — well, screaming, really — for his servants to come and help, then roaring at them to go to the garden. It wasn’t the way to win her over, not when he’d left her in a steam to go and check on his lad — bellowing for all his men to run through, when any one of them could have seen her there, tits swinging, trying to pull a blanket over her gorgeous body. It didn’t please her, not at all.

She had her own children. She should have understood what it would feel like to find a man in the room with her son, if she was in the same boat.

It was her husband he was most scared of, after all.

The weather was about to change. Est could smell it in the air. The unseasonable sunshine which had dried the earth and made the city smell more of dust than of faeces and blood was going to give way soon to the sort of wind and rain that was more to be expected. A chill was coming. He could feel it.

He was sitting in the parlour of his little house near the fleshfold, which he had kept more or less as a memorial to his family. By the door was a hook on which Emma’s favourite apron still hung, as though she had set it there before putting on her second best for sweeping the floor, and near the fire was the little rough stool he had bought for her from the market. It had been old widow Marta’s, and he’d snapped it up from Marta’s son when she died. Emma had been pleased with it. Much more comfortable than her old one.

Her face on the evening when he brought home his little gift was a pleasure to recall. She had always been so happy with so little. That was fortunate, too, because the year after they were wedded there was not enough money to buy anything much. It was the hard year when the King’s host was destroyed by the barbarians up north. All killed off in some place called Ballock-something, or Bannock-whatever. It was no matter to the folk down here, many leagues away. It only meant that there were more taxes for a while, and some vills were unlucky and had their grain confiscated by the damned Procurers of the King. They’d come round with their lists of what they wanted, and grab wholesale all the stores which had been intended to keep the folk through the winter.

Before the fight, he’d even considered leaving Exeter and joining the King’s host, because no one really believed that the savages up there could do anything against their lawful sovereign. They didn’t call his father the Hammer of the Scots for nothing, and everyone knew that the new King, Edward II, would bring them to their knees in no time. Except it hadn’t happened, had it? The Scots had slaughtered the King’s men and sent the few survivors scurrying back. If he’d gone, Est would have died up there. No one who’d only had a limited experience of fighting with bare fists would have lived to tell the tale.

But he’d stayed, because their lives had already changed. The joy in her face … Emma had sat there, so happy, so content, as she missed her monthly time in 1313, around the feast of St Andrew, and then started to feel the new life growing in her womb. So happy. There was so much for them to be pleased about in those days. Except even as she realized that she was carrying their child, the weather closed in. Rain. Rain for days. Everyone went about complaining, of course, but people always complained about the weather. Englishmen liked to moan about it all year round. But no one appreciated what this weather meant. Sweet Mother of God, how could they? It was rain. In Devonshire they were used to that!

It was not only Devonshire which bore the rain. It was the whole country. Men and women and children watched their crops through the downpours, and soon after Cissy’s birth in mid-August it was obvious to all that the harvest had failed. And then, when the grain was gathered, it was useless. No goodness in the little they could collect, and what there was didn’t last long because it was soon foul. It went black and disgusting. Inedible.

And a short time later prices started to rise. Food which had cost a penny rose to six, seven, even eight pennies. Just at the time when Emma needed it most, they found that food was growing too expensive for them to buy. Emma left the city each day to see what she could collect from the hedges, but that soon grew dangerous. Serfs from the vills disputed the rights of folk from the city to take from the countryside, and fights started. A man was stabbed in the early August of that year, and Emma was punched and hit across the head by a woman from a farm near Bishop’s Clyst. Estmund knew her; he’d dealt with her when she had a bullock to sell for market. She’d always been a pleasant, kindly woman, he’d thought.

There was little money coming in from his butchery, either. No money, no food, and Emma needed all she could get. The Church had helped at first. Alms were available for the needy, and Emma was plainly that, but soon even the Church had realized that it couldn’t stave off the hunger of a city on its own. And people started to die.

Emma tried to keep herself cheerful, but how can any young mother be hopeful after finding a corpse in the street? And there were so many. The elderly simply gave up, sat down and seemed to expire, like heifers struck with the poleaxe. One moment alive, the next dead. And others fell the same way. Children next, their parents last. No one was safe.

She had tried to keep her sanity. Christ’s bones, everyone had. But when all that is to be seen is the dead, anyone’s mind is affected. Bodies were everywhere. They said that half the city was dead by the end of it, and how can anybody cope with that? The cemetery couldn’t, so men, women and children were piled higgledy-piggledy in obscene heaps while the cathedral paid men to act as assistant fossors, digging pits and shoving in all the dead. Only the rats and the worms lived well.

When their child died, a little over thirteen months after the birth, it killed Emma. She died right then, in front of him. Her body still moved, her mouth opened and shut, but the light that had gleamed from her eyes … Christ Jesus, she had been so beautiful, it hurt, it hurt so much to think that she was gone! Emma just existed for the next two years. Nothing he did would bring her back. She was his own sweeting. The only woman he had ever loved, and she was snatched from him so cruelly. Just when he needed her, she was gone. Perhaps if they’d had more children, it would have given her something to live for, but they only had each other. And then, two years later, at the time which should have been Cissy’s third birthday, Est came home to find her hanging from the rafter because she couldn’t bear to live any longer, not without her child.

Why should she live when her baby was dead? She had asked him that often enough, and he never had an answer, except that God demanded lives when He was ready. Est had to believe that. Otherwise the whole city would have committed suicide just as she did.

At least Est had found a way to manage his own grief. Even after his darling Emma left him, he still had something he could do. And he would do it.

Cecily was playing with her rag doll in the yard behind the house when her father came home that day. She cocked her head to listen as he crashed angrily into the house, and she heard the plates and mugs rattling as he thumped his staff on the small sideboard and bellowed for wine.

She hunched her shoulders a little. He was cross again. He often was just now. It might mean he’d smack her if she misbehaved, and she didn’t want that again.

‘Wine! In God’s name what does a man have to do to get a little drink in this place?’

There was a hurried slap of sandalled feet through the hall, and Cecily heard the calmer tones of her mother. ‘What is it, husband?’

‘Don’t stare at me like that, woman. I’ve been working hard today, and don’t need your high-and-mighty manner. Fetch me a jug of wine.’

There was a muttered command and Cecily heard more feet. A moment later the maid appeared in the doorway, nodded to Cecily with a smile, and darted out to the little lean-to shed at the back. She reappeared carrying a leather jug filled with strong red wine and murmured, ‘Stay out here for a while; just play quietly,’ as she passed.

‘Well? What has happened today?’

‘More thefts from the cathedral, but when I try to pin it on that slippery bastard, there’s nothing I can do about it. He wasn’t there, he was playing knuckles at his house, he had witnesses to prove he was never near the cathedral … he makes me puke! Always the first with the quick answer, always so sure of himself …’

‘Can you not accept you could be wrong? Agnes knows him and says he is a very pleasant man, and she-’

‘Tell her I’ll not have him in this house!’

‘Husband? I don’t-’

‘Never. I don’t care if Agnes is a friend of his. If she wants to entertain him, she can do so in her own house, not here.’

‘You would throw her from our home? Where would she live?’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘I would rent her a place somewhere. A decent little house.’

‘Why?’ Juliana’s voice was sharp now. Cecily was sure that she had turned her head to peer at her husband from the corner of her eye, as though her right ear was more reliable than the other. ‘Husband, why should you seek to exclude my sister from our home?’

‘It’s not her, woman! It’s him! He’s a murderer and a thief! I’m sure of it.’

‘You have been for many years — what of it? You have never shown what he has done or how.’

‘Because-’ Daniel roared, and then his voice dropped as though he was too weary to continue this argument. ‘Because, wife, he threatened me today. He said if I didn’t leave him to continue his business, he would murder all of us: you, me, the children, all of us. I won’t have him in the house, because he could set a trap for us if he knew the place too well. Now do you understand why I don’t want him here? Do you think I’d put you and the others at risk?’

The knock at his door stirred Reginald, and he felt his face wreathe itself in a smile of delight. God’s ballocks, he’d thought she’d changed her mind! The vixen was here after all. Well, it was a relief. She had said her husband was going to be out for the night, so when she didn’t turn up Reg had assumed she was still angry with him because of the other evening. Well, he should have realized that the woman had too much of a tickle in her tail not to want him to scratch it!

His bottler had been sent away, and the other servants were in the main hall. Only a very few people knew of this other door at the back of the house, and he hurried to it before the quiet knock should disturb his son. The last thing he needed was for the lad to overhear them together, and then ask his mother what Father was doing … If Sabina ever got to hear of his nocturnal activities when she was away, all hell would break loose, and if it did, Reg didn’t want to be in the same city, let alone the same house.

It was with a feeling of satisfaction that he reached for the latch and opened the door, only to find that it was not his lover outside.

Instead her husband stood there smiling at him.