Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Baldwin closed his eyes resolutely and waited for sleep to overwhelm him once again.

Peter awoke with a shivering ague that started in his belly and griped, threatening him both with vomiting and soiling himself. He swallowed with an effort, shuddered at the acid bile, closed his eyes and prayed.

The bell tolled relentlessly but he couldn’t rise. His belly was a source of heat and pain. He could only roll over and grip at it, sobbing out a plea to God to ease this terrible agony, and as if in answer to his fervent prayers, the sensation of rending and stabbing within his guts retreated a little. Gasping with relief, he gradually eased himself upwards and stood, swaying. He almost called out to Jolinde for help – but then he saw that his mattress lay empty. Jolly had gone to his woman again.

He must wipe his face. That might help soothe him. There was a pot on a chest near his window, and he stumbled to it, dashing cold water over his face and standing still while the dampness dripped down his cheeks and onto his chest. There was a kind of relief, as if the purity of the water helped to drive away his suffering – but not for long.

A wave of relentless pain rocked him. He had to grasp the chest’s top to steady himself, head hanging, while his belly clenched. There was a burning in his throat and he choked, spitting out a little bile onto the floor. The bell rang once more and he whimpered quietly. This was his terror, the pitiable horror that he had not dared confess to Jolinde: that he was possessed by a devil.

It was the only explanation. A foul spirit had him in its grasp; his sins had allowed the creature to win him over, his weakness had let the evil into his soul. Now the demon was forcing him away from the path of righteous praise of God, so that he could be more easily bent to the will of the Devil. ‘Oh Holy Mother Mary, please save me,’ he pleaded as he felt the liquid movement in his bowels again, and he wept as he lurched to his chamber pot.

Afterwards he felt much improved. He rinsed himself and his hands, pulled his cloak on, slipped his feet into his shoes and prayed quietly. The action of calming his breath and thinking of God soothed him, and while the effect lasted, he dipped his spoon in the broth he had made the night before out of the joint Jolinde had brought him. It appeared to sit easily on his belly, but made him feel hungry again. Well, he reflected, after throwing up half my food and having the rest pass through me like water, it’s no surprise. He broke off a portion of bread from Jolinde’s loaf and popped it into his mouth, chewing it dry as he prepared to leave the hall for the Cathedral. After vomiting earlier he was aware of a curious taste to it, but shrugged it aside.

Jolinde wasn’t downstairs in the hall, but there was nothing new in that. These days, he was rarely at home. He went out drinking until far too late, or stayed with Claricia Cornisshe at Sutton’s Inn, but as Jolly’s father was rich and a friend of the Dean, he felt he could get away with it. It seemed disgraceful to Peter, but he was in no position to condemn any man while he was racked with his devil-inspired malady.

He shut the door and crossed the grass to the western door. Jolinde would be inside, no doubt. Probably darted there as soon as he returned to the Cathedral precinct – although how he managed to scale the walls was beyond Peter. Having sated himself with his drinking and lusting, Jolly would beg personal forgiveness while his companion clerics prayed for other men’s souls. Jolinde! Peter gave a dry smile.

Jolinde’s girlfriend allowed him to stay with her overnight. That was why he was so often late back, usually rushing straight to the first service. ‘First service?’ he had laughed bawdily when Peter had asked him. ‘This isn’t my first service tonight!’

His behaviour had shocked Peter at first, but Jolinde was no hypocrite. ‘I’m not going to be a priest, I don’t want to be, but my father insists that I should learn to read and write. That way I can be more use to him in his work.’

To Peter, whoring about the city was a disgrace to the cloth, but there was no sin if a man confessed and Jolinde had sworn that he would. And since Peter had no rich parents to help support him, Jolinde’s occasional gifts of extra bread, meat or poultry were welcome. There was a twinge of near guilt each time Peter accepted the presents, as if he was taking a bribe again, as he had from Karvinel when the merchant begged him to confirm the identity of the felon, but Peter had persuaded himself that there was little point in starving himself. He might as well take advantage of Jolinde’s patronage as another’s. If not, he’d be no better off than a cripple or leper begging at the Fissand Gate.

Not that it was easy to imagine someone being worse off than him. He was the unwilling participant in the killing of the innocent Hamond and the unwilling accomplice in a theft. A wave of self-pity washed over him. Perhaps if it weren’t for them, he wouldn’t be prey to this horrible punishment: possession. He had reached the great western door now, and took a deep breath before entering. The Punctators spotted him as soon as he slipped inside, one of them shaking his head at the sight of the Secondary arriving late once more. Jolinde was already in his place. The singing had begun and Peter stood in dumb confusion for a moment before coming to himself and tottering forwards to his stall, trying to disturb as few other clerics as possible on his way.

The church felt hot, but a moment later it was freezing. A fine sweat broke out upon his back, then chilled him to the core as all warmth fled. The candlelight flickered while the choir’s voices rose in song, praising God. Peter settled upon the misericorde and attempted to focus his attention on God.

He survived the first half hour, but then the changes in temperature began to accelerate, and he suddenly felt much worse. The choir appeared to move about him. Perspiration dewed his forehead and then he felt the surging rush in his belly and bowels. There was a final, terrible, clutching agony in his belly, squeezing again and again, while he closed his eyes trying to hold back his screams. The room began to spin faster; the fumes of the censer filled his lungs and made him retch.

No! He mustn’t be sick, not here in church. It would be obscene, an insult to God. Swallowing, he tried to keep the urge to vomit at bay, but then a spasm made him spew up a thin dribble. He felt it drip down his chin and he desperately tried again to swallow, but then the sharp pain ripped at his stomach. He bent over, vomit projecting from his mouth. While his fellow-clerics stared in shock, he fell to his knees, sobbing, coughing up bile which was bright with his blood.

He managed to croak out a single cry, a heartfelt plea to Holy Mother Mary for Her forgiveness, before collapsing in his stall, his body convulsing for a minute or two after the poison had stopped his heart.

The urgent summons reached Simon and Baldwin before they had risen from their beds. Baldwin’s eyes snapped open at the first sharp rap, and he listened as the landlord of Talbot’s Inn shuffled along the screens passage to the door. It sounded, from his grumbling, as if mine host didn’t like to be pulled so early from his bed.

A second loud knock echoed through the almost empty building to be answered with the host’s testy, ‘I’m on my way, you bastard, cool your bollocks! What’s the hurry?’ Confident it could be nothing to do with him, Baldwin swung around gently, so as not to wake his wife, and sat on the edge of his bed stretching. He was here as a guest of the Cathedral, not in any official capacity. It was probably an early customer wanting his morning whet.