The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker (20 page)

But he would enjoy the other dishes. For once, the food was not overspiced and unrecognisable. Many of the dishes could be discerned – or, at least, their main constituents could be.

Vincent had placed Baldwin and Jeanne at his own right hand, a position which gave Baldwin some amusement. He scarcely knew Vincent and was sure he didn’t merit so privileged a position, but clearly Vincent wanted to ally himself with the knight in the eyes of his other guests. That thought made him glance along the tables.

When he and Jeanne had come to the hall the day before, only one table had been set up; now Vincent had a further four long trestle tables installed. Trestles were so much easier to rent and put up; they only needed long sections of cloth spread carefully over them to make them decent. The guests had benches.

Vincent had spent a small fortune on this feast, Baldwin thought. There were four large silver salts, one in the shape of an eagle, rather well executed, which remained before Vincent himself, while the others were simple lidded bowls for the guests. As soon as Vincent had washed his hands the bottler signalled to a waiting valet. The valet disappeared and while the bottler was pouring wine for his lord, the valet returned leading a train of servants, all with white napkins draped over their shoulders and with which they held the dishes.

Those on the main table were first to receive their trenchers. Vincent’s carver arrived before the main table with a small retinue of assistants. He took a round, heavy brown loaf of maybe eight inches diameter, and faster than Baldwin would have thought possible, he removed the crusts and converted the bread into four perfect square trenchers. On top of each he placed three hunks of good, white pieces of bread for eating, handling all only with his knife or napkin, before moving away to begin serving the other guests.

The initial courses were arriving now, and Baldwin was pleased to see that the dishes were simple and relatively plain.

From his own seat a little further along the table – since he wasn’t a knight, he could hardly expect the place of honour at Vincent’s side – Simon munched happily. He was fortunate in that his palate tolerated any and every mixture of dishes. He was some distance from Baldwin and Jeanne, but had struck up a conversation with the woman at his side, a pleasant lady called Juliana, whose husband, Simon discovered, had been raised not very far from his own birthplace near Crediton.

‘But you aren’t from Crediton yourself, surely?’ he said, trying not to spit crumbs from his tasty fish pasty.

She was chubby and happy, clearly enjoying her food and drink. Roguish dark eyes glinted with amusement, as if she was better born than anyone in the room and found a certain satisfaction and pleasure in observing the quaint, old-fashioned ways of people so far from civilisation. ‘No, I came from east of here. My husband and I met when he was visiting Winchester Market.’

He glanced at her man, who was talking loudly to his other neighbour. He was a large fellow, with broad hands and stumpy fingers, a thick, heavy body, jowled, with small eyes but a cavernous mouth when he roared with laughter. Simon felt sure that Juliana could not be happy in her marriage. ‘So you have travelled a long way?’ he said pleasantly.

She should have annoyed him, with her up-country attitudes, but he felt a degree of sympathy for her, and she seemed happier with his company than she would have been with any other man in the room. He found the fixed concentration of her green eyes very flattering.

‘Yes, a very long way. I miss my home.’ A shadow passed over her brow, but it was only there a moment and she said brightly, ‘But it is good to see new areas. You know, my mother never saw more than the lands maybe two leagues from her home.’

‘Really?’ Simon considered, slurping a mouthful of wine to wash down the fish. ‘Exeter’s a good city to live in, too, isn’t it?’

‘Well, it is pleasant. But Winchester is rather better.’

Deciding to change the subject, he emptied his mazer and held it aloft for the bottler to refill. Then he selected a piece of salted fish. ‘Here – try some of this,’ he said politely. ‘It’s excellent.’

She took a morsel, touching his finger for longer than was really necessary, and to his faint disquiet, she held his gaze while she slowly placed it in her mouth.

‘I think I should be careful,’ Simon told himself. ‘This woman could eat me up and spit out the remains.’

Hawisia rested her hand lightly on her husband’s. She could see that he was still worried, no matter how he attempted to conceal it, his eyes blinking quickly in that nervous manner she recognised so well, the little nerve twitching in his left cheek where the candlelight caught it. Patting his forearm reassuringly, she gave him a smile and was warmed to see him return it – slowly, to be sure, but with genuine affection.

She returned to observing her guests. All were important people in their own way; she had been careful about whom she should invite. It was quite a coup to have succeeded in getting Sir Baldwin to attend. The way people spoke of him, he was respected highly in the city. His was just the sort of friendship her husband must foster. Friends of influence and power were necessary to a man.

The Bailiff, Puttock, she was less sure of. He was important over on Dartmoor, but Vincent had no interests so far to the west. It was such wild, dangerous land out there, not the sort of place that Hawisia had any desire to visit. But it was said that Simon Puttock was a rising star, well looked upon by the Abbot of Tavistock. She would have to be careful to listen out for any comments which passed down to her about the Bailiff. If he was soon to be in the ascendant, she wanted her husband to make his further acquaintance.

He was talking to that foolish wench Juliana. Hawisia maintained her smile but couldn’t help it becoming more than a little brittle. Juliana Karvinel was still an important woman in the city, someone with whom she, Hawisia, must deal, but that didn’t mean Hawisia had to like her. Vincent’s henchman had overheard women in the city whispering about Juliana, saying that she was tempting all the men hereabouts. Perhaps the stupid woman thought she could tempt Puttock with her doltish wit, or more likely with her heaving breast, Hawisia sniffed. The way the woman was thrusting her tits at the Bailiff was outrageous.

Not that Nick Karvinel, right at her side, seemed to care much, she thought. Nicholas was roaring loudly with laughter, his nasty little piggy eyes narrowed with amusement, his mouth wide to bellow his pleasure, pounding the table with his fist. Yet it was not genuine. His face never quite lost its haunted aspect. While he laughed, his eyes flitted over the other people in the room. Assessing who would and who wouldn’t be a threat to him. He knew that his future was uncertain. If his luck didn’t change, he would be ruined before long. It was bad enough that he had been robbed, his house burgled, his status within the city reduced, but Hawisia knew that Karvinel had more concerns. Men to whom he owed money were asking for it back, including her own Vincent. If he couldn’t find enough to cover his debts, he would be utterly destroyed.

It was an important consideration, Hawisia acknowledged. If everyone went to Karvinel and simultaneously demanded that their loans be repaid, the money he owed to her husband might never be recovered.

She suddenly caught a glimpse of Juliana’s hand patting Simon Puttock’s thigh before lifting his cup and pressing it into his hand. It was no accident, Hawisia was convinced of that. And of course she knew full well that Juliana was as aware as any other of the serious nature of her husband’s finances. How could she not be, with such a series of terrible disasters? Juliana almost looked as if she was practising her flirting, reminding herself how to win a man, preparing to find a lover to run away with.

The concept was an idle one, not a rational thought at all, but it snagged on a barb in Hawisia’s mind and made her catch her breath with delight. It would be the final embarrassment for Karvinel. If his wife were to run away with a different man – especially a younger man like the Bailiff here – he would be distraught. He might even decide to throw himself upon the adulterer.

What would be in it for Juliana? Hawisia recalled the shame heaped upon Earl Thomas of Lancaster when his wife Alice left him. He had been the butt of jokes up and down the kingdom. Surely if he had been a mere gentleman like Karvinel, he would have been shattered by the discovery of his wife’s unfaithfulness.

Karvinel was almost wrecked as a threat to Vincent now, but Hawisia could not forget that he had until recently been Vincent’s leading competitor for all positions of importance in the city, and he could return to take up that rôle once more. But if his wife should leave him, he would be finished. It could be desirable, even if it meant Vincent didn’t recover the money he was owed. Perhaps Hawisia should warn him, advise him to collect Nick Karvinel’s debt sooner rather than later?

There was a speculative look in Hawisia’s eye when she next glanced in the direction of Simon and Juliana and it was with an almost absent-minded gentleness that she rested her hand once more upon her husband’s and softly stroked it.

Gervase the Succentor closed the door behind him and crossed the grassed pathway to the cobbled street that led up to the western door. He had need of peace and an opportunity for thought, now that poor Peter was dead. The lad’s horrific demise in the Cathedral had appalled all the Canons and Chapter. It was as if a demon had intruded upon their devotions and mocked them all – and God. It was deeply unsettling. Some had murmured that the place should be reconsecrated, although others pointed out that it would be, since the Cathedral was being rebuilt. It was good to find some peace and quiet where he could think without the pall of gloom sinking into his bones.

Peter had been a good fellow, a companionable sort, but that wasn’t the reason why Gervase had valued him. Peter was no great scholar, and his memory was poor – the two main reasons why he had not progressed beyond his position as a Secondary. He had a great skill with numbers, which was always useful, but for Gervase Peter had an infinitely more important rôle. Peter was one of his Rulers, or Rectors, a special clerk who knew the music and orders of service for all special events. While his memory regularly failed him when he tried to recall Biblical events or the correct services to hold on specific Feast Days, he could be entirely relied upon to carry a full sequence of songs and prayers, leading the choir in all the more fiddly ones. Gervase wasn’t sure how he could fill the place left by Peter. He had wondered about using young Jolinde, but it wouldn’t do. He had no interest in the music or services.

Peter had been a capable singer, if no better than that, but in terms of arranging the services, he was more talented than Gervase himself. He would have been an ideal replacement for Gervase – in fact the Succentor had been going to suggest that he should be allowed to go to University. It might have helped him develop. Everyone needed education.

Gervase himself had been to Oxford. Some years ago Bishop Walter had generously sent him away to study, and he had not only enjoyed his theological and astronomical studies, he had also been fortunate enough to meet and later be tutored by a man who had known the great ‘Doctor Mirabilis’, Roger Bacon. From this teacher Gervase had acquired some Arabic, and he had looked over many of the same Saracen documents which Bacon himself had read.

There he had learned about poisons which could be used to kill a man. Some were rare, curious mixtures of strange roots and leaves, which could gradually make a man fade without his knowing why. Others were more simple and crude. Putrefying flesh from a long-dead animal smeared upon a knife or arrow could be effective, but as Gervase knew, the more common a powder or liquid, the better for a poisoner.

Gervase shook his head and frowned. Peter’s death had affected the whole Cathedral. It was a dreadful thing to happen at Christmas. But there was no need for people to assume that Peter had been poisoned. So many died from food poisoning of one form or another – surely the young man’s death was the same, a tragic accident.

In years to come, Gervase might have a suitable replacement in Luke, he thought, not that he honestly believed he would be able to claim Luke for the next Succentor.

Luke and Henry were very different from Jolinde and Peter. Neither was so capable with music yet, and both were competent enough at their studies, a great deal more so than Peter had been. Gervase occasionally risked a small wager, and he would gamble a tenth of his annual £2 stipend in support of his view that both Luke
and
Henry would be Deacons before they were twenty years old. Both spoke and wrote Latin clearly and intelligibly, both sang well, and both had a good feel for the ritual of their jobs, although Luke was undoubtedly the better at each accomplishment.

Their rivalry was an irritation, certainly, but boys would be boys. As far as Gervase could recall, Jolinde and Peter had fought in much the same way when they were young Choristers. Fortunately they had patched up their differences.

Entering the Cathedral, he bowed to the altar. Rising, he saw Adam lighting candles near the Bishop’s throne. Poor Adam, he thought. The boy would never be allowed to rise through the ranks, no matter what his friends wished. It was odd that the Dean should have so taken to Adam, giving him his post as a Secondary and supporting him at every turn. Most others couldn’t stand the boy. Too uncouth and bullying. Still, Gervase reflected, walking to Adam’s side, there was hope even for the roughest boy.

‘Adam, could I have a word, please?’

‘I am very busy, Brother.’

‘Not too busy to hear that if I see you tipping wax down the necks of the Choristers again, I shall personally report you to the Bishop myself. You understand me?’

Abashed, Adam ducked his head sulkily. ‘Yes, Brother.’

‘Good. Now, may I help with these candles?’

The lad stood aside and allowed the Succentor to take a handful of candles. With them he set off to the nearest sconce and removed the old ones, replacing all with new. It was the way on Christmas Eve.