Michael Jecks - The Butcher of St Peter's

‘Within her own district she should be safe,’ Baldwin said, but now he was frowning as he considered the points which Jeanne had learned. ‘Edgar, what would you say of her?’

‘Lady Jeanne was quite right. The woman was nervous, but so angry that she was determined to tell the truth and hang the devil who tried to stop her.’

Jeanne nodded. ‘And she was not alone in her anger. The men in the room also seemed bitter about the way in which the woman has taken a lover and then used him to kill her husband.’

‘That is what they believe?’ Baldwin said.

‘Some of them, yes. They seem convinced that the woman was determined to enjoy her new lover and had him murder her husband so that no one would stop her doing so.’

‘Interesting,’ Baldwin mused. He walked to a chair and sat down, staring intently into the distance as though trying to piece together the story by an effort of will.

Jeanne shivered. There was something unnatural and foul about this. Ever since hearing Juliana had been unfaithful, she had been aware of a leaden, almost sickly tension in her belly. It was as though there was some evil news about to be imparted, except it was not a premonition, rather a sudden realization.

It was the row she had had with Baldwin just before he came here to Exeter, a while after he had returned from his pilgrimage. At the time the argument had seemed so petty and pathetic that Jeanne had been certain it had been some failing of hers that had led to it. She had made a joke about his interest in a young, dark-haired maid on their estates, and he had irritably denied any such interest. From that spark had risen the flames of distrust which now flickered at her heart.

Until today, Jeanne had only considered her comments foolish, thinking that her words had upset him, as though she thought him faithless. That accusation had upset him so much that he had actually lost some of his love for her, she thought.

But now, having heard the story of Juliana and her lover, she had another possibility in the forefront of her mind: that she had pierced the target with her first shot. He had been unfaithful to her, and was no longer in love with her. He could act his affection well enough, but there was something different about him. She was sure of it.

And that reasoning had left her feeling crushed.

The Dean was happier the next day. Two messages had been sent, and both should assist matters significantly. One would inform my Lord Bishop Walter of the problems, with a subtly conveyed warning that the Despensers could be involved somehow in the dispute, while the other was a letter which hopefully would bring some more assistance.

When Thomas had told him of Gervase’s visit to the stews, he had been tempted to demand that Gervase came to see him immediately, and then accuse him of going to a brothel and either losing his money there or paying it to the whores, but a moment’s reflection made him reconsider.

Gervase de Brent was here on business, selling wine from a cargo at Topsham, and had dropped into the close one evening saying that he had nowhere to sleep the night, and could he beg a room rather than trying to find a perch in one of the tattier inns about the city? The Dean’s hospitaller had given him a quick look over, and deemed him safe enough to have inside the cathedral, but that very night he claimed to have been robbed.

Now that the Dean considered the sequence of events, it seemed curious that the death of Sir William of Hatherleigh should have occurred at just the time that the robbery was discovered. Not that there was any possibility of the friars’ murdering the old knight, no. But the fact that his death had happened just then was serendipitous from the friars’ point of view. Having a robbery from the cathedral, and then a member of the chapter assaulting a friar within their own chapel, implied a rather unpleasing lack of Christian spirit. If a man were to suggest that the Dean couldn’t keep control of his chapter, these two instances might seem to corroborate the allegation.

Which made the Dean think again. The man had been dying for some weeks, apparently. Would it have been beyond the wit of the priory to find a man who could ask to stay in the cathedral lodgings overnight, who could then accuse the cathedral of theft? It wouldn’t have to be at the same time as the death of Sir William. Yet there was something that troubled him still.

Friar John had implied that the King himself might come to hear the case. If that were so, what matter? The Bishop was a good comrade of the King’s — only the Despensers themselves were closer to him. Only the Despensers.

Hugh Despenser the Elder and Hugh Despenser the Younger, father and son, two men steeped in greed, unequalled in rapacity or dishonour, yet they were the closest advisers allowed access to the King. The Dean knew that the King was thought to be the catamite of Hugh Despenser the Younger. The Bishop had intimated as much, and apparently the Queen was distraught and miserable to have lost the love of her husband — especially to a sodomite. It was the final indignity for the poor Frenchwoman.

Alfred was aware of the lusts of the flesh, but he would have nothing to do with such behaviour. From all his learning, he believed that God detested those guilty of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Be he never so high, God would wreak ruin upon him.

But that was by the by. If the friar believed that the priory could persuade the King to come here to Exeter, that implied that they had a lever which would work in their favour — access to an adviser still more senior than the good Bishop Walter. And there were only two men who could possibly provide greater access or more influence than him.

Dean Alfred sighed and rubbed his temples.

There were only the two possibilities. Either Gervase was a genuine merchant who had been robbed here in the close, or a spy sent here to bring shame to the cathedral. He was to announce the theft, then raise a loud outcry against the cathedral’s chapter, embarrassing them just when they were on the defensive because of one hothead who had rushed into the friars’ chapel and stolen a body. The fact that he did so because the friars were seeking to evade their duties by keeping him and holding his funeral in there — admittedly in accordance with the dead man’s wishes — would help no one. The fact that in so doing the friars were knowingly stealing money which was rightly the cathedral’s was no help either.

No, there could be nothing better suited to cause embarrassment to the cathedral. And then the friars could demand compensation — perhaps the right to bury in their chapel, with retention of all estates? There were so many possibilities that Alfred could only sit and speculate, his head whirling.

Yes. Gervase must be in the pay of the Despensers. A spy set to harm the cathedral because of that dispute many years ago. It was ridiculous, but it had come back to haunt them.

Jeanne slept very poorly that night. She had convinced herself that her husband was no longer in love with her. His affection must be feigned; he had fallen for that peasant.

Her first thought was, she must evict the wench. If the raven-haired slut thought she could bed the lord of the manor with impunity, right under the Lady Jeanne’s nose, she was mistaken. Jeanne would see her suffer for such a betrayal.

And then, late into the night, as she lay beside her gently snoring husband, listening to the softer breath of Edgar down by the door, she began to wonder whether she wasn’t being entirely unreasonable anyway. The one to blame, surely, was her husband, not the poor peasant girl. It was her man who had selected her out of all the women on the estate … why had he taken any of them? Had Jeanne lost all her charms with the passing of the years? She had only been known to her husband for four years — they were only married two years ago. Could she have shrivelled so swiftly? Her flesh was as soft, surely, as when they first met. Or was it her shrewish ways? She hadn’t thought that she had been too nagging. He would have said, wouldn’t he, if he had grown weary of her chatter? Kinder to tell her, rather than go to seek a substitute for his bed.