Michael Jecks: The Butcher of St Peter's

This late in the summer, all should have been clear and bright, warm and serene, with children playing in the cathedral’s yard, wet- and dry-nurses idling with their charges, men haggling over deals, horses cropping the rough cemetery grass, hucksters offering pies or trinkets, others calling out with wine or ale. The colours should have been distinct and glorious, gay flags fluttering, men and women flaunting their finery for others to admire … and instead all was grim. This greyness was more than the absence of light: it was the dullness of obscurity. The falling drops made all details murky, and the rain gathering on her eyelids didn’t help, either.

The sun could not penetrate the thick layer of clouds. She was hidden from all, but here in the cathedral’s close, away from the chilly gusts, Agnes could still feel her warmth. Up there somewhere the sun shone, and her efforts served to make the dampness worse by increasing the humidity.

Agnes looked up at the cathedral as they approached. The old church was being rebuilt, the eastern portion first, and later this, the western entrance. Precarious-looking scaffolding was lashed together against the building, great cranes reached skywards, rubble lay all over the area near the cathedral where old stones had been dashed from the walls to make way for the new ones, and it looked a mess. It hardly seemed a fit setting for the solemn rite that was about to be conducted for Agnes’s father.

At the great door stood a cart from which a body had only recently been carried inside, and she felt a frisson of distaste. Poorer folk could not afford the necessary sustenance, of course, but it was more than a little unsatisfactory to have them leave a pony and cart before the doors where others were intending to enter for their own business. Churls ought to have a separate entrance; it wasn’t right for them to get in the way of people like her family.

Stepping past the cart with its underfed pony, which watched the second funeral with a lacklustre eye, Agnes stood at the doors to watch.

Her mother was weeping uncontrollably. She had her mouth open, and Agnes felt a fleeting discomfort. Mother and Juliana, Agnes’s younger sister, were both showing their grief to the world, but she herself could not. She felt sure that Daniel, Juliana’s husband of four years, felt the same as she. Although peasants might wail and moan, it would be unseemly for people in Agnes’s station to behave in like manner.

The cart stopped and the pallbearers lifted her father’s body on its bier. With bowed heads, the men carried it inside.

Agnes waited until her mother and sister were at the door, and then she joined her mother. As she glanced at her, Agnes realized how old her mother had grown. She and Agnes’s father had always been so close; Agnes suddenly wondered whether she would have any reason to continue living. The idea was shocking — yet unavoidable.

She took her mother’s arm and walked with her inside, aware all the time of her sister and brother-in-law just behind her. She was always aware of him : Daniel, sergeant of the city. She cast an eye about her as they entered the gloomy interior. Yes, Juliana had done very well for herself. Marrying a sergeant of the city might not seem like much of an achievement — after all, almost any of the members of the Freedom would earn much more than a mere sergeant — but Daniel was slightly different from the run of the mill officers. He was brave to the point of rashness, convinced of his own strength; handsome, with a jutting, pointed jaw and square face. His eyes held the confidence of a man who knew that his friends would soon see him promoted. Perhaps he would be given one of the gates. It was an important job, having the control of a gate; but then he could be given some duties in one of the courts instead. Men there could always make themselves wealthy, and Daniel was bound to be successful.

Agnes dipped her fingers into the stoup of holy water and crossed herself. It was an awesome thought, that Juliana — ‘little sister’ — was already a mother herself, but at least Juliana had achieved her life’s ambition. Agnes knew full well that her little sister had early on been determined to marry before her. Well, that was well and good, because Agnes had not wanted to marry. She was content with the life she enjoyed, she told herself, and the idea of having to pander to a man was unattractive. She had no need of a husband yet. The oft-repeated injunction was soothing, faintly, but not enough. She was growing lonely, and the thought that her life could be ended as swiftly and as quickly forgotten as that of her father was alarming.

In front of her she saw the funeral party which had arrived before her father, and she could not help a small sneer. It was Jordan le Bolle and his wife. That, Agnes knew, would be enough to drive her brother-in-law the sergeant into a cold rage.

Thinking that, Agnes could not stop herself from casting a glance at Daniel. No matter what she told herself, that she wasn’t jealous, that she hadn’t wanted to marry yet, that she had never really felt that much attraction to Daniel, there was always that niggling annoyance at the back of her mind.

After all, Daniel had been her man until Juliana snatched him from her.

He could feel her eyes on him, but Daniel was no fool. He knew damned well that she would be near him every day from now onwards. No matter what his success or failure, little Agnes would always be there to smile with that small, sarcastic twist of her lips, just as she always had been. With her father gone, Daniel had a responsibility towards her.

At first he’d wanted her so much more than Juliana. Agnes was the older, more sensible woman of the two, but of course at her age she could afford to be more sensible. It wasn’t as though she had to worry about anything much, except winning herself a suitable husband. That was a tough demand, though, for a maid such as her.

Agnes was not unattractive, of course. Christ’s pain, when Daniel first met her, he’d thought her perfection itself. A pleasing face with that mass of reddish-golden hair, faint freckles dotted over her nose and upper cheeks giving her a faintly childlike appearance, and the way she had of peering at him with lifted chin, as though challenging him in some way. At first he’d thought that she was simply a slut with fire in her groin, a wench who wanted to grab the first man she found and pull him into her bedchamber, but when he’d tested her he’d found there was more depth to her than that.

She was intelligent, that was certain. That lovely head of hers held a brain that was capable of embarrassing the brightest. Daniel himself had often been bested by her in argument, and when he had played her at nine men’s morris she had thrashed him. Some fellows could have accused her of witchcraft for the skill she showed in calculating five or even six moves in advance. There was a masculine ruthlessness in the way that she utterly destroyed him during that game which rankled even now. He was so glad he’d chosen her , Juliana, in the end. She had given him his lovely daughter, Cecily, and no man could ask for more.

Juliana was a calmer, more kindly soul. She only ever had a smile and a welcoming word of encouragement. A sweeter woman in every way.

Looking at her now, he told himself he was right to be so entirely besotted. Agnes would be an adornment for any man’s bed, but — Christ Jesus! — how she would scold and taunt when the mood took her. She had the tongue of a viper when she wanted, and she could poison a man’s heart with her words; by contrast Juliana was supportive and thoughtful of his needs. A complete difference. Whoever was to win Agnes would find himself with a right challenging bitch, and little peace in his marriage.