Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Jolinde had his little secrets. If they were ever exposed, he would probably be evicted from the Cathedral. And Peter had known all his faults. So who else would have wanted Peter silenced?

Knowing that, it was strange to see how Jolinde stood there for hour after hour, his hands clenched. Adam paused in his continual passage up and down the church, watching him for a while.

‘Pathetic!’ he sneered under his breath.

Karvinel had heard of the death of the boy while he was still in John Renebaud’s tavern, a short while after Vincent left him there.

Left him there? If he’d stayed any bloody longer, his guts would be on the floor! The bastard, the God’s-body whoreson shit ! If Vincent had been in similar trouble, he, Nick Karvinel, would have helped him, but oh no! Not our new high-and-mighty Receiver, not the Seneschal of the Common Goods of the City, not Master le Berwe.

There had been many times in the last few years when Karvinel could have paid Vincent a bad turn, but he’d never tried to. Karvinel had always believed that a Christian Freeman of the City would consider any other Freeman to be honourable. It was only now that he realised his error. Le Berwe was not a decent gentle man. He was a thieving, grasping usurer.

Snapping his fingers, he attracted the attention of a serving-girl and ordered another flagon of wine, gazing sombrely into the distance while he waited. When it arrived, he sank a quarter in one long draught. He was a long way from being maudlin drunk, but anger was overcoming him again and he needed the strong wine to counteract it.

One thing was clear. He’d get little help from Vincent, unless he paid the bastard up front in hard cash. Vincent thought he had him over a barrel – and that was no position to be in with a man as powerful as the Receiver. Greedy shit !

Karvinel took another long pull at his wine. It was starting to warm him, easing his blood and making him feel stronger, more vital. Earlier he’d wanted to punch Vincent. Now he was ready to kill him. If le Berwe were here now, he’d stab the bastard: shove his dagger up to the hilt in the fat man’s gut, twisting it slowly to let the bastard feel the pain. Yes, that’d be good: watching le Berwe’s features screw up in agony, his eyes pop out in horror as he realised he was about to die.

For Vincent le Berwe wanted all his money back. The lot. And although Nick had enough to repay all the debts he owed him, if Nick paid the lot he’d have nothing to live on. He wouldn’t be able to buy stock, food or booze. A man couldn’t live like that. This year had cleaned him out completely, until his gamble made him a little money. It was still dangerous, though. He daren’t show off his new wealth by paying Vincent. Better that everyone still thought he was finished, washed up.

His eyes narrowed as he suddenly made a connection. His poor clerk Peter was dead, and it was Peter who had told him about the day that Ralph had died. He had been in Correstrete and had seen Vincent outside Ralph’s shop, collecting leathers and hurrying away with them.

Maybe he could use that, Karvinel thought. After all, a Receiver could hardly afford to be accused of robbing the dead. And then he had another thought, one which made him stop and stare into the distance. One witness, and he was now dead.

What had Vincent been doing in Ralph’s road the day the glover was murdered?

Simon and Baldwin entered the Cathedral with Roger de Gidleigh, the Coroner, all three bowing and genuflecting at the cross. They asked the candle-bearing Secondary where they would find Peter’s body, and were directed forward to the small Lady chapel near the choir in which Peter lay. Jolinde still stood at the dead man’s feet.

‘He was brought here because one of the clerics said he heard Peter speak the name of the Blessed Virgin,’ Jolinde told them in a hushed, reverent voice. ‘Poor Peter.’

‘Did you know him well?’ Simon enquired.

‘I shared a house with him, sir.’

‘This is Jolinde Bolle,’ Coroner Roger said shortly, glowering disapprovingly at the clerk.

‘Ah. Then we shall wish to speak to you soon,’ Baldwin said. ‘Leave us, but don’t wander far.’

Jolinde nodded tearfully and left them.

As soon as he had gone Baldwin motioned to Roger. ‘As Coroner, you should inspect the body.’

‘As Coroner, yes I should,’ the man agreed. ‘But I should do so before witnesses, before the whole jury.’

‘Why don’t I call the cleric back in?’ Simon suggested, eyeing the corpse unhappily. He had never come to terms with this manhandling of dead men. He loathed the indignities of death, the smells and sights of violence and suffering. Any escape was to be seized upon. ‘I could go and ask him to return to witness your enquiry…’

His hopes were dashed. ‘Leave him out of it!’ Roger snapped. ‘There’s nothing he can do to help. Especially if he is implicated in this crime.’

Simon nodded and subsided and the Coroner resolutely began to undress Peter. The Brothers had cleaned the poor emaciated body and rolled him in a plain winding sheet. When the corpse was naked, he inspected it, first studying the lad’s hands and feet. ‘No sign of his struggling with an attacker,’ he noted. The hands were soft and unmarked by slashes or cuts.

Simon glanced at Baldwin. ‘Attacker? I thought he keeled over in the choir here.’

‘Even if he died here, if, as the good Dean tells us, this lad was poisoned,’ Roger said heavily, ‘I would want to confirm that he wasn’t forced to swallow it against his will. No, there’s no sign that he had his hands bound, nor his ankles.’ Nor were there any scratches on his body. The lad’s body was remarkably flawless. That, Roger thought to himself, was what happened when you were fortunate enough to spend your whole time living in a pleasant, secluded environment like the Cathedral grounds. This lazy devil probably never even had to mount a horse or journey outside the walls of Exeter. The Coroner felt an uncharacteristic wave of jealousy wash over him. There were attractions to the religious life. Even chastity could appeal, he thought, although he’d never dare say that to his wife, the shrewish bitch.

‘What of his mouth?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Any loosened teeth? Scraped gums? A bruised or enlarged tongue?’

The Coroner’s voice was muffled as he bent and peered in and around the dead man’s mouth. ‘Ugh! Still stinks of vomit.’

‘Let me see,’ Baldwin said, and peered in his turn, holding the man’s jaw and cheeks. He sniffed. ‘He was certainly sick. I should not be surprised if he inhaled his own vomit and drowned – but let us continue to assume the poison ended his life. His tongue has been bitten, look, but I should imagine that would be from his death throes. A man dying from a poisoning will sometimes go into spasmodic convulsions. At such times, he might well bite his tongue. There is no indication that he was forced to eat poison, though.’

‘Which means he either took it willingly or by accident… Or wasn’t poisoned at all and we’re chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.’

‘Yes. Let us speak again to that admirable cleric who was here just now.’

‘Good idea,’ said Simon fervently. Anything, he thought, to get away from that hideous stench of death.

Jolinde paced anxiously up and down outside the Cathedral, wondering who the visitors were. The Coroner he recognised, of course, but the other two were strangers to him.

He was sad Peter was dead, for they had been good companions. It was never easy to share rooms with another male adolescent, but Peter and he had tolerated each other’s company since they had met seven years ago, when both were Choristers. Almost at once they had recognised a similar set of interests: the same abilities with numbers; the same fascination with the writings of Bacon and other clerical dabblers in nature; the same urge to advance.