Candace Robb: The Riddle Of St Leonard's

York, July 1369

The elderly man took tentative steps out of the door of the infirmary. He favoured his right leg for a few steps, then, when the shooting pains of the day before did not attack his efforts, he tried a bolder gait, letting his right leg swing out. He felt a twinge in the knee, but at his age a twinge was to be expected in any joint. Walter de Hotter crossed the yard from the infirmary to the East Gate once, back, twice, back, then continued out on to Blake Street. It was a happy journey. He was to sleep in his own bed that night. Not that the infirmary bed at St Leonard’s Hospital had been uncomfortable. Or unclean. Truth be told, it was cleaner than his own. But a man’s bed is a special thing, and Walter looked forward to a night in his.

Each time Walter entered the hospital because of an injury he wondered whether he would return to his own bed. His days were numbered, he knew. Three-score and nine he was: a goodly age, a venerable age. And for a clumsy man prone to accidents, a quite remarkable age. It was fortunate that he had married well and improved the business left to him by his father, accumulated several valuable messuages in the city, more property than his children could claim a need for, and had promised the one in which he dwelt to St Leonard’s in return for a corrody. He had made this arrangement after his wife had died; while she had lived she had seen to his injuries, and a commendable job she had done. But without her, Walter had been uneasy. Who would soak his sprained ankles, smooth soothing unguents on his burns, wrap them? His fellows in the merchants’ guild had assured him they would see to him. And so they would have, for the guild took care of its own. But he did not want to be a burden. He was not feeble, merely clumsy. It was Tom Merchet, proprietor of the York Tavern, who had suggested the corrody. Walter would always be grateful to Tom for that. As a corrodian of St Leonard’s Hospital he was given his food, clothing and a bed should he need it — which was the best part for him, for he needed a bed quite often. Not for long. Never for long. But he would break bones and twist ankles, wrists — an elbow recently. The swollen knee had been the latest injury. And he had received all the care from St Leonard’s because, once he was dead, the hospital would have his property to lease and would make a nice sum. To Walter it seemed more than fair.

And he was still alive and ambulatory, praise God, and happy to be headed home. He was going to an empty house, which was not as he would have liked it, but it would not be so for long, God willing. His eldest son and heir to the business had taken his family to their small house in Easingwold, saying he was opening a shop there. Peter was fearful of pestilence, truth be told. And who could blame him? One Sunday, Walter had heard at Mass that a child had died of pestilence the night before, and by the following Sunday five had died within the city walls, one of them a fellow corrodian of St Leonard’s, poor old John Rudby. Walter did not begrudge his son such precautions. Nor, for his part, had Peter protested his father’s trading the townhouse on Blake Street for a corrody.

Evening had settled on the city and the streets were dark, although the sky, visible if one craned one’s neck to peer at it between the buildings, was still blue. Walter picked his way with care, even though he travelled such a familiar route. Filthy streets offered tumbles at every step, and the sisters had warned him that the bandage on his knee would not protect him from a severe twist. But his belly was full and his heart light on this return home. Once more he had lived through a frightening fall. God was merciful.

At the door to his house, Walter fumbled with his key. At last the door swung wide. He stepped into the darkness, pleased to find it not too stuffy. But on second thought it concerned him. Perhaps he had left some windows unshuttered at the back of the house. He had been in much pain when he had gone to the hospital.

As he felt his way across the room, Walter could see the evening light through the chinks in the shutters. He had closed them then. But his relief was short-lived. The door to the garden was ajar, letting silvery evening light spill through. He did not think he could have been quite so careless as to leave that open. Which meant someone might have broken in. Perhaps thinking he had abandoned the house. It was happening all over the city; Peter was not the only one hoping to run faster than the pestilence. Empty houses became repositories for the dying. That frightened Walter. If a plague corpse had poisoned the air in the house, he would soon succumb. He fumbled for the pouch of sweet-smelling herbs that he had purchased at the Wilton apothecary the week before and held it to his nose as he moved forward. But he stumbled over something and dropped the pouch. He groped on the floor, found instead a stool that should not have been there. Thank God he had been moving slowly, though he should have been looking down, not towards the open door. But he thought he had just perceived a movement out there.

An intruder would know of his presence by now — the rattling key, the stool. He would be ready. Walter picked up the stool, crept towards the open door. He had indeed seen movement. There was a man in Walter’s kitchen garden.

‘Here now. What are you about?’

The man spun round, took a few menacing steps towards the door. ‘Who goes there?’

‘I am the one should ask that. I am Walter de Hotter and this is my house, that is my garden, and-’ As Walter raised the stool above his head, he exposed his chest, which was just where the intruder had aimed the knife. ‘Sweet Jesu !’ Walter dropped the stool, clutched his heart, felt the sticky blood pumping out. And then strong hands were round his neck, pressing, pressing …

On the night after Walter de Hotter’s body was found, the York Tavern overflowed with folk hungry for gossip to distract them from their fears. Bess Merchet considered it a mixed blessing.

Old Bede mumbled the oft-repeated numbers. ‘Two corrodians of St Leonard’s dead in three weeks. Both with town messuages going to spital on their deaths. Spital’s in trouble, needs corn and suddenly the canons have rents, don’t they?’

Bess found Bede’s inaccuracy irritating. ‘John Rudby died of pestilence, old man. And poor Walter was ever stumbling over his own feet.’

‘Oh, aye? Poor Walter stumbled on a knife and strangled hisself, eh?’ Old Bede laughed until he collapsed in a coughing fit.

Bess flicked a cloth at him. But in faith he was not the only one talking of it tonight. She did not like such rumours. Her own uncle was a corrodian of St Leonard’s, and his best friend also. Perhaps it would not hurt to say a prayer for them this evening.

With pestilence in the south, most government officials had fled to the country a fortnight before. Nothing of substance would be accomplished in Westminster until the death count returned to a less terrifying level. The poor, the merchants who could not afford to close up shop for a season, and those who served them were left to live in sweltering fear behind shuttered doors or masked against the pestilential air.

There were also some whose duties delayed their flight. As Keeper of the Hanaper and the Queen’s Receiver, Richard de Ravenser was one such, and even he hoped to depart for the north by the week’s end in order to deal with disquieting matters concerning St Leonard’s in York, which had been relayed to him in a letter from one of his canons. Ravenser was master of the great hospital.