Grinning, Simon tiptoed away. There was no point in disturbing them. He returned to the house.
Baldwin was in the doorway. ‘You took your time. I was wondering whether you had blundered into a hole.’
‘No,’ said Simon. ‘I thought there was an intruder, but then I realised it was a welcome intrusion I heard.’
Baldwin eyed him. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
Simon said nothing, but nodded back towards the garden. There, walking towards them was the dancing girl and one of the musicians, both strolling with all the arrogance of youth and satisfied lust.
‘Ah, I see,’ Baldwin grinned once the two had pushed their way back indoors. Then Simon wiped the smile off his face with his next remark.
‘I should think she has anticipated her marriage. In fact, even though the nuptial bed was green and damp, I’d say young Mary Skinner had just performed the most important of the marital duties.’
‘My God! She scarcely seems overly concerned by Elias’s incarceration, does she?’
While Simon fetched them fresh drinks, despite Baldwin’s protestations, Baldwin noticed that Vincent was talking to Karvinel again, quietly in a corner. The Receiver appeared calm, but Karvinel seemed to be restraining his anger with great difficulty. Baldwin only wished he could get a little nearer, but before he could approach, Lady Hawisia was bearing down on him. Baldwin steeled himself.
‘Ah, there you are, Sir Baldwin. There are so many men here who wish to meet you. Couldn’t you come with me for a moment?’
Despite Jeanne’s opinion, voiced to Baldwin, that Hawisia was ‘vacuous – really empty-headed’, she exhibited little foolishness in her dealings with the men in the room. She courteously introduced Baldwin, explained a little about the man whom he was meeting, allowed a short conversation and then apologetically withdrew, taking Baldwin with her, to show him off to another person of influence.
It was only after she had circled the room that he could persuade her to allow him to rest. ‘It is tiring to meet so many people,’ he protested.
She smiled up at him. ‘I am sorry, Sir Baldwin. It is so vital that I don’t insult anyone by not introducing you that I forget my duty to you as our honoured guest.’
‘I am not that honourable, so I should not worry unduly,’ he said kindly.
She grinned nervously. ‘It is difficult for me. I am not used to dealing with knights and nobles, Sir Baldwin.’
‘There is nothing to fear about people. They are all much the same.’
‘It is very important that I make a good impression for Vincent’s sake,’ she said. Looking over to her husband, she added, ‘And I can be so foolish on occasion. I must be a terrible burden on him.’
‘Nonsense! You are too loyal and thoughtful to be anything other than a source of pride.’
She gave him a dazzling smile. ‘That is most kind of you, Sir Knight, but it isn’t true. I can be very impetuous and silly sometimes, and I know that when my poor husband is desperately trying to keep his business alive in these difficult times, my silliness can be very frustrating. Still, I try to improve myself and make myself useful to him as a good hostess. Is there anything else you need?’
‘Just out of interest, Hawisia, yes. The glover who died, did you know him?’
‘Ralph?’ She looked surprised. ‘A little, but not much. I didn’t buy my gloves from him.’
‘You use Karvinel?’
‘Him?’ Unexpectedly she giggled. ‘Oh, no. I get mine made in London. I couldn’t use Nick. His work is… well, a little shoddy. I suppose it’s his troubles. His wife was telling me that she’s concerned that his business may collapse. He owes a lot of money.’
‘And he has been robbed so often.’
‘Yes.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘Tell me: when that poor glover died, where was your husband?’
‘You suspect Vincent of killing that man?’ she shot back seriously. All trace of humour had fallen from her face and she stared up at him with disquieting intensity.
‘No, but I would like to know where he was.’
‘Let me see… It was early in the morning on the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle when he died; I was in the Cathedral for Mass but later I went to see Vincent in his counting house. He is normally there during the early morning. He attends a later Mass.’
‘Where is his counting house? Is it near the dead glover’s house?’
‘So, you do ask whether my husband killed him,’ she said quietly. ‘Well, no. His counting house is down near the Guildhall. When I got there he had been within for a while, so he couldn’t have been to the glover’s house.’
‘Who can confirm that?’
‘I could grow quite alarmed, Sir Baldwin,’ she protested. ‘You are our guest and yet you ask where my husband was as if you think he could be a murderer. But if you must check, his clerk was there and will happily confirm the time my husband arrived. Or you may ask the Coroner. He was there with us. He can confirm my statement.’
‘Thank you. I didn’t mean to trouble you,’ Baldwin said, smiling down at her anxious expression. ‘But it is always best to make sure of these details.’
‘Why? The apprentice has been arrested already.’
He said nothing, but bowed, preparing to leave her. She remained staring up at him with a severe frown. ‘Sir Baldwin, I can assure you that my husband is no murderer. He would not be able to commit such an act.’
‘Many wives have thought that of their husbands, Lady,’ Baldwin said as he left her to go to his own wife once more.
Chapter Nineteen
Henry finished his meal, thanked his Canon with the signs of respect he knew would be expected, and made his way across the precinct to the dormitory where the Choristers all slept. On the way he twirled his sling around his finger meditatively, looking for a cat or dog to fire at, but no target came into view and disappointedly he shoved the sling back in his belt as he entered the cold hall. There was no fire at this time of day and he shivered, walking to his desk and bench.
The work he had been engaged on was boring. The colours were daubed in the same way as the older clerics who spent all their time with their noses almost on the sheets of vellum they painted, watching so closely to see that not one droplet of ink or colouring went where it was not wanted. Not that Henry took quite so much care about his own work. There seemed little point. He got the right effect without having to struggle, so why bother spending the extra time to make something ‘perfect’ as the Canons would say? There were better things to be doing.
Henry wasn’t related to an important family like Luke. Henry’s father was dead. He’d been a soldier in an army that went up to the north, his mother said, to a place where rebels had tried to wrest the King’s lands from him. Scotland or somewhere, something like that. It was right up at the farthest extent of the King’s lands. Way up beyond Bristol, she said.
It was a long time ago, and it happened a long way away, so Henry couldn’t get upset about it, but he did miss having a father. It made him stand out a little from the other Choristers. Especially since his competitor, Luke, was so different, even if his father was dead, too.
That was why they were enemies, really. Henry was happy that Luke was there, because it gave him someone to fight against. Someone to pick on when he had a chance. Life without Luke would be odd. Empty.
But he was glad he’d got one over on Luke this time. It would be Henry who stood up on the twenty-seventh and began the celebration of the boy-Bishop; it would be Henry who presided over the festivities for the whole of the next day when the Cathedral was turned upside down.
He was so looking forward to his episcopacy! The boy-Bishop was an old institution; Henry was the latest in a long line, and he intended enjoying his day to the full, inviting all his friends at breakfast, then going down to St Nicholas’s Priory, nearer the river, where they would be entertained and given gifts which he could keep.
Later he would return to the city, and it was then tha
t the gloves would be presented to the honoured guests, while more gifts would be collected for Henry. At noon the main feast would take place, followed by celebrations in the city’s streets. Actors would set up their stages on wagons and play out their pieces in the High Street and even in the Cathedral grounds, for although Stephen and some other Canons disliked seeing the public desporting themselves on the cemetery and other sanctified areas, Bishop Walter II had stated that he preferred to know that the people were receiving some form of religious education, and if they only took in what the actors showed them, that was better than nothing. But this was where the real fun started, as Henry knew all too well.
All the Choristers and Secondaries, even a few of the Vicars and Annuellars, could for one day in the year throw off their sombre, clerical demeanour with their regular garb, for this was a celebration of life. The twenty-eighth was the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a feast in remembrance of the appalling day when Herod exterminated tens of thousands of young boys in his attempt to kill Jesus after His birth.
As a result, for that one day, all usual rules were forgotten: the elected Chorister became Bishop, and the whole hierarchy was reversed. For one glorious day the men and boys who slaved in religious and holy seriousness for the rest of the year were allowed to relax. They could enjoy the excessive pleasures of their topsy-turvy world without fearing reproach.
Henry stood and walked idly around the other desks. It was because the other Choristers knew he would ensure that all had a good time that he had won the election, back at the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, on twenty-first December. It wasn’t because the other lads disliked Luke, nor because they thought Henry was the better Chorister. He wasn’t, and they all knew it. He was much worse than Luke at singing, at his addition and at drawing and writing. Of course he was worse; Henry knew it was all silly. He wasn’t going to be a priest – he didn’t want to be. But he did want to be boy-Bishop, because with the money he was given he could help his mother.
She was still up at the manor in Thorverton, working herself to a shadow while trying to grow enough food to keep herself going. The Feast Day gifts would ensure that she could eat well for a few days, if nothing else. Henry saw it as his responsibility to feed his mother and brother. The family had lost his father, but Henry had been given this position in the Cathedral and it offered potential for providing food. That was what he intended to do. Feed them.
It was good to beat Luke, though. They were enemies, and that was all there was to it. Luke and he had early on decided that they were rivals, and their enmity had been cemented when Luke had superciliously laughed at one of Henry’s pages of writing. Henry’s early attempts at writing had been more than a little inept, but that was no reason for the snotty bastard to laugh, although now he looked back on that moment with pleasure. Because he hadn’t been raised in the same strict manner as Luke, the moment he realised the other boy was making fun of his efforts, Henry had taken prompt action and swung his fists.
Luke had responded with gusto, seeing this as nothing more than a direct challenge to his position as undisputed leader of the Choristers. Both soon had bloody faces, Luke with a nastily bitten shoulder, bruised shins, and a nosebleed, while Henry had bruises all over his chest and upper legs. Their shirts and robes were badly ripped and an enraged Gervase called them in to explain their sudden ferocious battle. However, neither would account for it. It was too demeaning to confess. Luke had no intention of admitting that he had caused the fight by his sneering, and Henry refused to lose the moral high ground by sneaking on his peer, so both were held down and slapped across the backside by the Succentor with a stiffened leather strap.
In some cases Henry had known beatings to create a sense of mutual trust, but with Luke this didn’t happen. Luke knew himself to be superior, with the same fixed, ineffable certainty that told him that his father was in every way the moral, mental and social superior to Henry’s father, and that his mother was better in comparison to Henry’s. No discussion was needed. Luke knew himself to be the more worthy person in every way.
Such confidence niggled constantly at Henry. He felt it was his duty to break through the exterior of Luke’s pride and show him that he was wrong, that Henry was as important a boy. At first his sole means of doing so, in order to avoid a second thorough flogging, was to excel at all the tasks given to him.
He had enjoyed a measure of success. Somewhat to his own surprise, he found that he had a certain ability at reading, and the Latin he was given to learn soon held little mystery for him; in a little under a year he was better at reading and speaking Latin than Luke. Yet no matter how hard he worked, he could not make much headway with his writing or painting. His fingers failed him when he picked up a reed and tried to form perfect, precise circles and straight lines. The effort involved seemed too great. It was pointless: it wasn’t as if Henry really needed to know how to write. When he was no longer a Chorister, he would go back to Thorverton to help his mother look after their property. Writing wouldn’t be much use then.
At Luke’s desk he gazed down critically. His rival had drawn some pictures of peasants working in a field. It wasn’t bad, either, Henry thought privately. Women threshed grain from their long stems, a shepherd with his dog drove a flock towards a pen, young boys pulled on a string to trip a fine net trap, catching a pair of songbirds. All as it should be.
Henry leaned closer. The colours were very good, the reds and blues of the tunics looking just like real cloth. Luke had coloured the lettering all in gold, and it fairly glowed on the page. It was entrancing. Henry wished he could draw and paint like that. But he couldn’t.
Walking back to his own desk, he looked down without interest. There was something missing, he could tell, but he couldn’t be bothered to see what it was. He’d already got what he wanted, the boy-Bishopric: both for his mother, and to slight Luke.
As the thought struck him, the door opened and Luke himself walked in. He cast a contemptuous look at Henry, then crossed to his desk, pulling a bundle concealed beneath it. Henry tried not to look interested, but he couldn’t help squinting sideways to see what it could be. Luke obviously knew he was intrigued, but shoved the thing under his coat and gazed at Henry as if daring him to make a comment; it was unnecessary because Henry refused to look up. He sat doodling idly until he heard the door slam behind Luke.
He couldn’t go and look at the other boy’s desk, since Luke might return at any moment. So instead, Henry reached for his little pot of yellow colouring to touch up some of his lettering, only to see that it was gone.
‘Oi, who’s swiped that?’
Jen hurried along the streets with her coat gripped tightly about her to protect her from the cold. At the Fissand Gate she entered the Cathedral precinct and stared about her. There were still some people milling around, but what with the freezing weather and temptations available in taverns and alehouses all over the city, most had gone. Even the clerics were mostly indoors.
She chewed at her lip. The only consolation was that if he had been found here, there would be bound to be more men, all chattering and laughing at the capture of the famed outlaw. Even if they hadn’t caught him, people would be standing around discussing how they had just missed him.
Turning, she fled through the gates and sought out his favourite taverns. There was a hot, stinging sensation at her eyes as she ran. The fear that Sir Thomas might be in danger was enough to set a panicky urgency thrilling through her veins. Since Hamond’s death he seemed to have lost his fear of capture.
She had got to know him so long ago, soon after her mother had died so horribly, fainting over her fire and burning to death. Father was wasting away to nothing, as were all the other people in the vill. Afterwards Jen promised herself she would never again suffer from a lack of food. To be without money was one thing, but to die the lingering death of starvation was hideous. Jen could feel herself fading away, sinking into a lassitude like her mother, with bleeding gums and loose teeth as scurvy att
acked her undernourished body.
It was Sir Thomas who had fed her. He had come across her one day before her father died, when she was desperately looking for bird’s eggs in the soggy hedge just as another downpour drenched her. Past caring, she scarcely noticed that a rider was approaching, but when she heard the hooves, she glanced over her shoulder at him.
It was enough. Within a day she was sleeping in his bed, a fifteen-year-old girl with a knight who had been entranced by her. When her father died, she had begged room for herself and her brother, and Sir Thomas had agreed. He didn’t need to. She owed him a large debt for that reason. When he lost his manor he offered her freedom, but she refused it. Where else could she go? She had remained his lover and he had repaid her by feeding and protecting her and Hob.
She had to protect him now, in her turn.
It would not be easy. He had a great sense of debt to the men who had remained with him after he lost his manor, and Hamond was one of his longest-serving men. The dead clerk and Karvinel had confirmed that Hamond had been in the gang that attacked them south of Exeter on their way back from Topsham. The knowledge that Hamond had been killed on the man’s word had sent Sir Thomas into a cold rage at first, swearing that he would avenge his man, but then, later, he had taken Jen to his bed filled with a languishing sadness.
‘He’s gone; my lad is dead, hanging from a gibbet, for all the citizens of Exeter to point and laugh while he swings. It’s terrible. And he was nowhere near the robbery.’
She had soothed him, rocking him as he lay upon her breast, gentling him as she might their child one day if she ever conceived, and at last he succumbed to sleep, but he wouldn’t be able to forget that his man had died in that demeaning manner. He could never forgive the city, and especially not the merchant who had condemned Hamond. He wanted his vengeance, and he would have it.
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