Michael Jecks - The Butcher of St Peter's

‘Good. Then get lost, you old shit.’

Henry took his leave with a grunt and a sneer, and left the alley as quickly as he could. The only place he could think of going was the Black Hog. It called to him like a beacon of hope in the midst of this horror, and he was sure that he would be able to forget, if only for a short while, all the foul details of Mick’s face and the wriggling mass of maggots at the wound in his throat, if he could only get a pint of good wine inside him.

The Hog was not too far from here. He scurried up the hill as fast as his legs would carry him until he reached South Gate Street, and turned left up it to the tavern. Once there he almost fell through the door, and into the main chamber.

‘Hold hard!’ a voice called, but Henry ignored it, hurrying to the front where a makeshift bar stood.

‘I need a strong wine.’

‘Let’s see your money first, old man,’ the landlord said with a rough chuckle. ‘We don’t want any mistakes, like you ordering wine and then learning you’ve forgotten that there’s no cash in your purse.’

‘I need a drink!’

‘And I need customers who can pay,’ the landlord said unsympathetically. ‘So pay, or go.’

‘I’ll pay for him,’ a voice said.

‘Thank you, master,’ Henry said, peering up at the man. He recognized Reg Gylla.

‘Dreadful about the sergeant, eh?’ Reg said.

‘I wonder who killed him,’ Henry muttered.

‘Do you?’ Reg asked. Then he leaned towards Henry, his face drawn and pale. ‘I wouldn’t if I was you. It could be unhealthy.’

In his lodging at the cathedral, the Dean had still come to no conclusion, but he was concerned. He shouted for his servant. ‘Ah, um, yes. Could you fetch me …’ The name was bitter to his lips. It seemed certain to make his bile rise and choke him, but he swallowed his loathing and finished, ‘Canon Peter de la Fosse?’

The arrogance of some of these younger canons had to be witnessed to be believed. When he was younger, no canon would have dared to go out of his own volition and attempt something like this. It would have been unthinkable. Quite impossible. The young fellow must have been-

At the knock, he bit back his rising anger and called his visitor inside with a calm voice. ‘Peter. I thank you for attending to me so — ah — promptly. It is this matter of, er, the body of Sir William de Hatherleigh. Apparently the friars are quite annoyed that we have — um — taken it from them.’

‘Let them be. It was not theirs by right. In fact it was ours, whether they like it or not, and they should be glad that we won’t seek to have their actions investigated.’

He was like a young Viking, this canon. His hair was short and tonsured, but what was left was bright burnished gold, and his eyes were as blue as a summer’s sky. Set widely in his broad, warrior’s face, they stared out at the world with a calmness that came entirely from an impossible self-confidence.

Except, unlike most warriors, this perfect man had no scars. No pain had ever been inflicted on this fellow, no knock to show him what was right and what was wrong. Nothing. And to the Dean’s embittered eye he was as convinced of the correctness of his actions as only a man with no imagination could be.

‘What if they were to accuse us of — er — breaking the peace of their cloister? A gang of, er, truculent canons and servants intruding on their private chapel?’

‘They would fare no better than they did before, Dean. When they took the body of Sir Henry Ralegh. The chapter won that battle, and we’d win any other.’

‘Do you think so? Ah. And what would your Bishop have to say on the matter, do you think, when he gets to hear of it?’ the Dean asked sharply.

‘I am sure that he would applaud a man who took a resolute line with the friars again, Dean,’ Peter explained gently as though to a foolish old man.

The Dean had many years ago affected to intersperse his speech with regular ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ in order to slow himself and ensure that he was not talking nonsense. It was a foible which he enjoyed using, because not only did it achieve the primary purpose, it also gave him a useful trick which could be used to irritate others when he so wished. But when, as today, he lost his temper entirely, he was prone to forget the hesitations and leap into a verbal torrent that would erode the self-satisfaction of even the most pompous young canon.

‘In that case I am most glad, my friend, because I am about to write to him to explain how it is that an affair which took so much of our treasure to fight, which was caused by one foolish decision many years ago, and which has so far cost us almost a quarter-century of good will, has been renewed by one fool with a brain that is too full of self-conceit and pride to be of any use to the chapter. I was wondering how best to describe the monumental, overweening stupidity of a man who could have thought of antagonizing the very group of men who went to the extent of excommunicating him, our own Bishop, and I was failing — until you walked through my door and showed me your startlingly moronic self-satisfaction. Until then I was at a loss for words with which to tell him — but now I feel sure I need only use five: Canon Peter de la Fosse. And you may believe, Canon, that I exaggerate when I say that the Bishop will be most displeased. You may think that I am wrong. I can see from that faint, slightly embarrassed smile on your face that you believe me to be some doddering old fool who has no understanding of the real world, or of the true feelings of our Bishop. Let me say this, then, you cretin! I was with the Bishop when he was a canon, and I saw the pain and grief that stupid affair caused him. Bishop Walter is a kind man, a generous man, a man of vision and intellect, and it took him twenty long years to finally put that matter behind him, and now you have stirred up all the viciousness and the rancour again with one action! You unbelievable idiot! You have less between your ears than a chicken, and what you do have you cannot use.’

The smile on Canon Peter’s face was now less embarrassed, more fretful. ‘But I was trying to uphold the privileges of the cathedral.’

‘They are not your concern alone. If you have such concerns, you should raise them in chapter, so that wiser heads — and there are many wiser heads in the world than yours — can consider them. You should not in any circumstances go ahead on your own authority. You have none. You have violated a friary, and that could well cost you a painful penance. I suggest you go and consider it now. Be gone!’

When the dumbstruck canon had left him, the Dean sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, sighing. Then he put his arms on his table and rested his head on them. ‘Dear God, why are we persecuted with such idiots?’ he wondered. ‘Would that You had made all men wise, for then at least reason might prevail in this imperfect world.’

But he had business to attend to before he could succumb to the tiredness that threatened to overwhelm him. And as he lifted himself upright once more, there came another tap at his door. Groaning, he called to the visitor to enter. It was a short, round-shouldered vicar. He had shrewd grey eyes in a face that was ruddy and well-lined, and he entered now as an equal. The Dean and he had come to the cathedral close together many years ago, and they knew each other too well to be precious about their positions. The Dean was wealthier, more senior — indeed, under the Bishop, he was the most senior churchman in the chapter — but that changed nothing. Thomas of Chard knew his own place and he was more than content with it. He was a good vicar, and he was safe in his position. No one sought to oust him, whereas the Dean and the Bishop both had many men who coveted their posts. Safer and more peaceful to be in Thomas’s place.