Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

‘Strange,’ William said. He was a large man, as a Bailiff must be if he is expected to fetch rents from rougher areas of town, solid, with a deceptively slow manner of moving. Dark Celtic features gave him a harsh appearance, but his bright blue eyes were often crinkled at the edges. There was no humour in them now. ‘He asked me to come and see him today. He was worried about something – said he thought he’d discovered a theft.’

Elias gaped. ‘A theft? But it’s only just happened!’ William nodded slowly, eyeing him with a sharp expression and Elias suddenly felt a cold sweat break out upon his brow. ‘What is it?’

‘Who else would a man suspect of theft but his own servant?’ William asked.

‘I wouldn’t steal from my master!’ Elias squeaked. ‘He’s been good to me, better than I should have expected, and…’

The Bailiff ignored him. He had walked out to the back room while Elias spoke and was slowly climbing the ladder to the upper chambers. Elias trailed after him, plaintively declaring his innocence and his complete bafflement as to where Ralph could have gone. The Bailiff stood a long while staring down at Ralph’s open chest.

‘I opened it in case someone could have robbed him,’ Elias explained, his voice breaking.

The Bailiff had a blank expression, as if all his thoughts and suspicions were secured inside until he should choose to release them. ‘The lock wasn’t forced,’ he said. He studied Elias silently for a moment, then turned away and went to the ladder, slipping down to the ground with an agility that looked out-of-place in a man with such a large body.

‘I told you he wasn’t here,’ Elias said sulkily.

‘What about the shop?’

‘It’s locked. Wait a moment, I’ll get my key,’ Elias said and scampered back upstairs. He went straight to the truckle bed in his chamber and put his hand to where his bunch of keys should have been, but there was nothing there. His heart lurched in his chest like a wild animal trying to fly, and he scrabbled about urgently for it: gone! And with it, his knife. His knife should have been here! While he searched, he heard the door open and shut as William left to stand in the street. Elias stopped and listened with every nerve in his body.

He heard the Bailiff’s steps, the shuffle as the man tried to peer between the shutters into the room, the tentative rattle of the latch. With a lurch in his gut he heard the door to the shop open. Panicking, he went to the ladder and slid downstairs, bolting for the front door even as the Bailiff appeared, blocking it. His face was white and in his hand he held Elias’s knife.

Elias could not help but stare at it. The blade was smeared with a thin oil-like layer of blood.

‘Get out here, you shit,’ William snarled.

John Coppe, squatting on his haunches outside the Cathedral grounds, was the first to announce the news of the death to the porter and, through him, the rest of the Cathedral precinct.

Janekyn Beyvyn was in his small room by the gate when he heard the excited murmur outside. A youngster, scarcely twelve years old, came scampering down the street cheerily declaring the news, but his voice was too high and his enthusiasm too great for Janekyn to understand him clearly. By the time Janekyn had left his porter’s lodge and got out to the roadway, the lad had disappeared, pelting along at speed to tell his friends the news.

‘It’s a terrible world,’ John Coppe declared grimly, ‘when you think how those who are evil can yet prosper, and a poor soul like Ralph is destroyed. It’s a cruel, terrible world.’ And so it was, he told himself. There were not many who could be relied upon every morning to give a penny to a beggar at Fissand Gate. Enough for food and drink for a day if you were careful and went to Joan’s alehouse. He shook his head with regret at his personal loss, tinged with compassion for the man whom he had personally considered kindly and generous.

‘Eh?’ Janekyn demanded, squinting. ‘What’s happened?’

John Coppe peered up at the older man. ‘It’s the glover,’ he began.

‘Which bugger?’

‘Not bugger, glover ! You know, Ralph – the fat man, always threw me a coin or two.’

There was a spark of understanding. ‘Ah, him. What of him?’

‘Dead, Porter. Murdered! His own apprentice slew him.’

Old Janekyn shrugged. It was none of his concern that some foolish trader had chosen an apprentice with murderous tendencies. If anything, he was most aware of that special satisfaction which the old feel upon hearing of the death of others younger than themselves. Then reality hit him like a cudgel and he gaped. ‘Gracious God! The poor man. And what will happen to his goods now?’

‘The Good Lord only knows – but at least the city will have a good hanging. A servant killing his own master – that is treason of the worst sort! He’ll have to be hanged. I hope he thought it was worth it.’ Coppe felt he could afford to be jocular about it. True, he had lost a friend, but Ralph was not his only friend.

Janekyn wasn’t listening. He turned sharply and went to the small lodge by the gate, where he spoke shortly to the cleric warming himself at the brazier. Soon the young man was running full tilt to the Treasurer’s offices.

The Dean, a quiet and contemplative man in his early sixties, with a sparse fringe of white hair above an almost perfectly circular face, was today forced to wear a most unhabitual frown of concern. His wonted expression was one of mildly confused happiness, his smile that of a man to whom the world was a neverending source of wonder, as if he was convinced that there was a greater, logical plan to all the mayhem and lunacy if only he could understand it. But not today. Today his grimace owed more to his discontent at the failings of men than contentment with God’s works.

Brother Stephen usually found his gentle, muddled demeanour intensely irritating, and the change from mildly befuddled Dean to bemused and annoyed Dean was no improvement. ‘The apprentice murdered him, Dean.’

‘But why?’ the Dean demanded earnestly. ‘Were all the apprentices to kill their masters, where should we be, hmm? In a world of madness, that is where.’

‘This is more important than you appreciate, Dean,’ Brother Stephen said, watching narrowly as Dean Alfred stood and walked to the window.

The other man waved a hand petulantly. ‘But what can be more important than this? That a youth, almost a boy, should murder his master? It is an outrage against the natural order. Why, one could expect to see a Canon’s own Vicar killing him if this kind of hideous incident were tolerated. It would be horrible. No one would be safe. My Heavens, what could be worse, hmm?’

His mannerisms, many and varied as they were, all grated on Brother Stephen, but this, the mild, enquiring clearing of the throat, was by far and away the worst. Brother Stephen gritted his teeth. ‘Dean, you will recall that we are shortly to celebrate Christmas,’ he murmured silkily.

‘Well naturally, Brother. It is December. In only… my Heavens! Can it really be only four days to Christmas? It seems only an instant ago that we were celebrating the Feast of Holy Innocents last year.’

‘Nonetheless, it will soon be Christmas, and a short while thereafter we shall be celebrating Holy Innocents again. And for that we need the gloves.’

‘I am sure you have them in hand,’ the Dean muttered, smiling gently at the pun. He was peering from the window out over the cloisters, his hands clasped behind his back. Why wouldn’t Brother Stephen leave him alone, he thought. Always had his nose in other people’s affairs as if he was trying to conceal his own failings. And he did have much to hide from other Brothers. That was why Stephen kept himself aloof. But it was also his value and importance. His shame had ensured that he was among the most committed of all the Chapter, which was why the Dean had entrusted Adam, to his care.