The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker (34 page)

He grinned and led them back the way they had come to Carfoix, the meeting of the four main roads, then right along the street of cooks. The smells were enough to tempt the most jaded palates. Roasted honeyed larks and pigeons, pies of good beef and lamb, hot pies, cold pies, pies filled with vegetables, pies with strong spices, pies with sweetened custards filling them. Jeanne picked a roasted pigeon and a pie filled with sweetened almond custard while Edgar, who didn’t have a sweet tooth, selected a strong-smelling beef and onion pasty which had much garlic added, from the odour.

The smell made Jeanne wince. She had taken a dislike to garlic recently. Usually, like most people, she loved the flavour for, after all, it was one of the most common herbs used to strengthen a pottage or soup, but since becoming pregnant, she had found the stink of it turned her stomach. Accordingly she stood upwind of Edgar while he ate his pie with every appearance of relish.

While standing there, they were jostled by two clerks who erupted from St Petrock’s and ran past laughing. Shortly afterwards a red-faced porter came out of the church and glared up and down the streets before throwing up his hands as if in despair and returning.

‘I think the revels are beginning early this year,’ Edgar noted laconically.

Jeanne agreed and they made their way to a tavern. Jeanne was feeling a little chilled so she had a mulled cider, sweetened with honey and scented with cinnamon, ginger and galingale. It sent its heat shooting straight to her toes and fingertips, scalding as it passed down her throat, but filling her with glowing delight when it reached her belly.

Outside they strolled idly along the Northgate Street, and soon saw the two youths who had run from St Petrock’s. They were walking up behind two men, obviously important fellows, for they swaggered as they walked, their feet in step but at a pace too slow to be dignified as a ‘march’. Giggling, the two boys darted up to the two older men, there was a burst of angry shouting, and the youths pelted back past Edgar and Jeanne, laughing like idiots, one gripping a bowl, the other a handful of what looked like rags.

The two men looked at each other, shrugged, and continued on their way. And Jeanne saw that both had a large patch of coloured material stuck to their back. The boys were glueing patches of cloth on unsuspecting citizens as a joke.

Jeanne giggled to herself and glanced at Edgar. He too was smiling, but he wasn’t looking at the men. His attention was on a large copper pot hanging above a nearby trestle. Edgar had recently married, much to Baldwin’s oft-stated astonishment, for Edgar had been a noted philanderer ever since he and Baldwin had left the Knights Templar, but there it was: Edgar the bachelor was now Edgar the married man. He had given his vows before everyone. Jeanne saw his peering study of the pot and was touched that he should be thinking of his new wife even now, miles from home. Not that he or she had need of a pot that size. If he ever wanted something to cook in, there were plenty of large coppers in Baldwin’s kitchen.

Jeanne was about to suggest that he should borrow one of theirs, when Edgar whirled. Jeanne squealed with alarm as a boy in clerical garb fell in front of her, and when she turned to look, the second was wearing his bowl of glue, sitting unhappily in a large puddle.

‘Should we return now, do you think, my Lady?’ Edgar said imperturbably.

Once Gervase saw how professionally the apothecary was treating his charge, his mind flew to the question of how the lad could have been poisoned. He was no trained inquisitioner, but he was no fool either, and with his University training he felt sure he could learn something. In the kitchen he asked a fearful and defensive cook about the food.

‘There was nothing in that to hurt anyone. It was fine. All he had was a dish of thin pottage. I made it last week, and there wasn’t nothing wrong with it. Good lettuce, dried peas, some cabbage and onion, garlic, barley and a marrowbone to give it some body. I swear that pottage would do any man good.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Here,’ the cook said. He scooped up a ladleful and held it out. ‘Want to taste it?’

Gingerly, Gervase sipped a tiny amount. It certainly tasted all right. A little insipid, perhaps, but there was no bitterness or sourness such as he recalled the Arabic tracts warning of.

The cook was offended by his caution. He drank the whole ladleful and then a second. ‘See? It’s fine. If there was something wrong with my soup, it was done outside of my kitchen. The idea!’

He was still muttering as Gervase hurried back across the yard to Stephen’s door. Inside, the apothecary was kneeling by Adam. He had removed his clyster from the unfortunate clerk’s mouth, and was in the process of inserting it in Adam’s . . . Gervase delicately termed it Adam’s posterior orifice. The sight made Gervase wince.

Stephen had left the room, and now only the apothecary and Gervase remained to administer to the unfortunate invalid. Adam shuddered and winced as the tube was pushed deeper and deeper, and then Gilbert filled the bladder with salted water and began the process of pumping it into Adam.

To distract him, Gervase spoke, trying to ignore what was going on at the youth’s nether regions.

‘Do you have any idea what happened here?’

‘It was Luke, Succentor. He poisoned me.’

‘Why should a lad like him wish to poison you?’

Adam looked away. He felt considerably better after his belly had been purged and he didn’t want to admit to his behaviour in front of the apothecary. ‘I don’t know, Succentor. Maybe he just doesn’t like me.’

Gervase patted his shoulder meditatively. He didn’t believe Adam, but he shrewdly guessed that Adam had been guilty of bullying Luke, just as he had other boys.

Gilbert finished his operation and withdrew rapidly as Adam’s bowels voided themselves.

Adam burst into tears of frustration and shame. ‘Why should he try to murder me, Succentor? Why?’

Baldwin and Simon responded instantly to the Dean’s urgent summons. They were almost back at their inn when the pale-faced and anxious Arthur, Stephen’s Vicar, ran towards them, calling for Sir Baldwin, and as soon as he had caught his breath and blurted his news, the two men turned and ran at full tilt to the Cathedral.

It was in a state of near uproar. The whole precinct was filled with the murmur of confused and worried voices. Arthur led the way past the milling throng and up to the Dean’s hall, where they found him standing and biting his lower lip in consternation, talking to the Succentor.

‘You have ahm heard the facts?’ the Dean asked anxiously as soon as they had entered.

‘Yes, although I find it extremely difficult to believe,’ Baldwin answered.

‘Sir Baldwin, you must question whomever you wish, whenever you wish, but hmm you have to find the killer. The thought that a man with murderous intentions is here within the precinct is ah unbearable.’

‘Or murderous
boy
,’ Gervase commented quietly. In his scrip was the small flask, which felt as if it was burning a hole in the leather. ‘It is true, Sir Baldwin. The victim has accused one of the Choristers of being responsible.’

‘Before anything else, Dean, could you answer a few more questions? First, I am not so convinced that the killer of Peter is from within the cloister. Are any of your Canons or Secondary clerics allowed out at night?’

‘Good God, no! They all must sleep in their rooms.’

‘Are any permitted to avoid services?’

‘No ahm they should all attend every service. Even the Annuellars. Only the Choristers are um occasionally exempt. We only require four or five to each service and the rest of the time they spend with the Succentor here learning their singing and writing.’

‘Of the Secondaries, would Peter have had a chance of a future as a Deacon? He seemed old to still be wandering about the Cathedral.’

The Dean licked his lips considering. ‘You are correct,’ he said at last. ‘Peter and Jolinde are both old. They failed to show the necessary skills to ahm progress to Holy Orders. Peter could have remained as an acolyte, and perhaps, if he had applied himself, he could have anticipated rising to become a Deacon in years to come. Not Jolinde, I fear. He will have to um find more suitable employment. He should go to er University.’

‘There are other lads here who are also old for their posts.’

The Dean peered at him unhappily. ‘Yes?’

‘Adam himself, for example. What does he do here?’

Gervase answered. ‘Adam is like Jolinde, a Secondary looking for something better, although he’s hardly the sort to advance himself.’

‘There is time!’ the Dean said. ‘He is young, still.’

Gervase shrugged.

‘What does he do here?’ Simon asked.

‘Odd tasks,’ Gervase said. ‘He makes candles and keeps the sconces filled so that the Cathedral is always full of light. And he delivers bread in the mornings.’

‘Interesting,’ Baldwin murmured.

The Dean washed his hands with apparent anguish. ‘You cannot suspect him of anything, surely? He is a victim, not the perpetrator.’

‘True enough,’ Baldwin said. Then something in the Dean’s tone communicated itself to him. ‘Is there something else you would like to tell us, Dean?’

‘God forgive me, but I cannot live without telling you. Ahm. It is Jolinde . . . Only rumours, I have to say – no one dared to allege anything serious, but even so . . .’

‘Something he has done?’

‘Done. Ha! You see, Ralph’s wife and child were both killed when a wagon overturned.’

‘Yes, we heard about this. But it was an accident, I believe?’

‘That is what we all wanted to believe. Yet, rumours ah abound in a city like this one,’ the Dean said wretchedly. ‘You see, Jolinde was driving the wagon and some have commented that the dead woman looked much like Vincent’s first wife. Many umm thought that Jolinde tried to kill her, to destroy the baby which would steal his inheritance.’

‘Oh, surely not!’ Simon exclaimed.

Baldwin was thoughtful. ‘As I understand it, Vincent’s wife died while pregnant.’

‘Yes. And although I never wanted to believe it, it ah remained at the back of my mind, the suspicion that he might have removed ah a competitor, as it were. Could he have umm done the same to Peter? I fear that when a competitor is removed, a man can feel more at ease. If Jolinde thought that Peter was in his way, could he not fear that poor Adam too was a threat?’

‘I understand,’ Baldwin sighed, shaking his head. ‘But how could Jolinde consider Peter a threat? Or Adam? It makes no sense.’ He nodded to Gervase. ‘Could we be taken to the room where this boy was poisoned? I wish to see where it happened, and then I should like to talk to the boy accused – and the victim.’

Gervase stood and held the door for them. As they descended the stone steps to the ground floor, they could hear the Dean still talking to himself. ‘Such a thing to happen. Terrible, terrible.’

Over at Stephen’s house, Baldwin stood in the doorway while his dark eyes took in the scene. Before him was a table, now knocked askew. At the nearer end was a mess of food, vomit and excrement. ‘My God,’ he muttered disdainfully. He would have hoped that the servants might have cleaned up the worst of the muck. ‘How, er, how is the victim?’

A voice behind him answered, ‘As well as can be expected. Sore, exhausted, dreadfully weak. The poor fellow hardly knew what had hit him.’ It was Stephen. He sat by the doorway staring at the ruins of his room. There was nothing he could do now. All was unravelling. The Cathedral would be blamed; pilgrims would avoid a place of so much disaster.

Baldwin asked him about the meal and Stephen answered dully. It was all rather irrelevant now. ‘Who could have wanted to kill him?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Do you know anything about the other two deaths?’ Simon asked.

‘Ralph and Peter? I know nothing about Ralph, but I know enough about Peter. He deserved his death. He caused another man to die,’ Stephen blurted, and then a hand flew to his mouth as if to snatch back the words or prevent more escaping.

‘Who?’ Baldwin asked, and when there was no answer, he squatted before Stephen, making the Canon look into his eyes. ‘It wasn’t Adam, and you say it wasn’t Ralph. Does that mean you reckon it was the outlaw? The hanged man?’

‘My brother wanted to avenge him. Hamond and my brother were nowhere near Karvinel when he was robbed, so I knew Peter lied when he identified Hamond. He deliberately saw a man turned off a ladder and hanged because he was paid. He must have been
evil
!’

Baldwin stood. ‘Or a dupe.’ Then Stephen’s words hit him. ‘You mean you are Sir Thomas’s brother?’

‘I have said enough,’ Stephen said weakly. He rose. ‘Peter deserved his death, but these others . . . There must be a curse on us all.’

Gervase fetched the household’s steward, who stood before the three men with a wary expression on his features. All the servants knew their lives would be worth little if they were accused of trying to poison a clerk.

‘You served the food today?’ Baldwin began. The steward nodded. ‘Good. Tell me exactly what happened.’

‘Nothing was wrong, sir, until the middle of the second course. The Treasurer had a dish of mussels, as did Vicar Arthur and the Chorister. But Master Adam, he never liked mussels, so he had a pottage instead.’

‘And halfway through it he vomited,’ Gervase added.

‘What was the first course?’

The steward blinked. ‘Pies and fish dishes.’

‘Was there anything that only Adam ate from that course?’

‘No, sir. All partook of the dishes together. It was only the pottage that he alone tried.’

Gervase interrupted to tell Baldwin how the cook had proven the pottage to be safe.

‘I see,’ said Baldwin. ‘And how was Adam today?’

The steward gave an offhand shrug. ‘The same as usual. Perhaps . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I thought he was teasing Luke. He often does. And then he began hiccuping and burping, and went a bit green. But at this time of year, it’s normal for a youth to overindulge himself. If he can’t at Christmas, when would he be able to?’