Michael JECKS - The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

Hawisia was the daughter of a happily married couple whose lives had been filled with joy. She herself was the fourth daughter, and her father, a furrier, would have liked to have had a son, but he never showed disappointment in his children. Each was to him a wonder and perpetual source of entertainment. And his love for his wife, Hawisia’s mother, was no less obvious. He and she hugged each other and could often be caught kissing in the street like young children but they never displayed any shame, only laughed, and her mother smoothed her skirts and tried to look solemn while he coughed and then grappled with her when he thought she least expected it.

That was how a marriage should be, to Hawisia’s mind, but she knew that her man was so worried about his work that he had lost interest in the marital bed and in her. That was the simple explanation.

She only wished she could help him more.

Brother Gervase was in his room working on a heavy, leather-bound tome of music when the banging came at his door. The interruption was welcome: the piece he was working on should in theory have worked well during an interval while a priest was holding up the offerings for the miracle of transubstantiation, but somehow he couldn’t get the music to work in the way he had hoped. Perhaps if he came back to it later… he thought, and set the book down as he went to his door.

It was cold, but that wasn’t the reason for the greyness on the messenger’s face. ‘Brother Adam has been poisoned.’

Gervase gaped, then grabbed a heavy cloak which he threw over his shoulders as they hurried together down the row of Canons’ houses.

Entering Stephen’s house, Gervase was immediately greeted by the retching figure of Adam on the floor. ‘My God!’

The boy was past caring about what he looked like. As his body attempted to eject the poison from his system, he writhed, his tongue protruding with each spasm, his arms wrapped about his torso, his legs drawn up to his chest in the foetal position.

Nearby was Stephen, who shook his head in rejection of this hideous sight, counting his rosary and muttering a low prayer. Feeling a shudder of revulsion pass down his back as another shaking-fit caught the frail-looking youth’s body, Gervase came to a decision. He pointed to Stephen’s Vicar. ‘You! Fetch Gilbert from the apothecary in Waterbeer. Tell him a man has been poisoned, and he should bring all that is needful. Don’t delay, man, run! ’

The startled Vicar’s mouth fell open, and then he was off, haring up the road towards the middle of town like a deer which has seen the hounds behind him.

Gervase slapped the beads from Stephen’s hands. ‘Have you helped him, Stephen? Canon! Have you heard his confession?’

The only response he was given was a blank, horrified stare. Then Stephen looked down at his beads and picked them up again, his lips moving once more as the wooden spheres passed through his hands.

‘God’s blood!’ Gervase swore, and crouched at the side of the injured man. ‘Adam? Adam, listen. You may be about to die. If you are, you must confess to me. Understand? You have to confess to me in case you die. And you must give me the seven responses to the seven interrogations. Can you hear me?’

Adam opened his eyes and gazed up, but another jabbing pain in his bowels made him clench his jaw and snap his eyes shut, the lids compressing as he tried to hide from the pain. And from his mouth broke a high, keening sound, like a rabbit caught in a trap.

The apothecary arrived at a cracking pace, rushing into the room with a small cloth sack which he dropped to the floor as he entered the hall. ‘Christ Jesus!’

‘Do not blaspheme,’ Stephen said severely. He had begun to come to his senses in the time since Gervase had knocked away his rosary. Now he could watch as Gervase held Adam’s hand, the Succentor weeping as he tried to comfort the groaning lad.

Stephen was transfixed; petrified. Never had he expected to act as host to a man who expired at his table. It was revolting – incomprehensible. Adam was no scholar, was not, if truth be told, of great use to the Cathedral, but to see him suddenly collapse like this was an atrocious shock.

He walked shakily to his chair and waved to his servant. ‘Wine,’ he commanded. Watching while the apothecary shook his head, studying the youth, he was suddenly convinced that Adam would die and the only thing that he, Stephen, would be remembered for from now on was that he had served a meal that poisoned a Secondary. It would overshadow all his achievements, smothering reports of his financial probity, hiding his successes behind a veil of rumour and vicious slanders.

‘How could this have happened?’ he moaned.

Gervase moved to allow the apothecary to approach with his knife and a bowl. When he stepped out of the way, his foot touched something. Bending, he picked up a small flask of orpiment. He studied it with a frown, but then the apothecary was asking for help. On a whim, Gervase put the flask in his scrip. Both men gripped Adam’s arm firmly enough to let a little blood flow. The apothecary dipped a finger in it, holding his reddened forefinger up to the light, smelling at the bowl, then tasting a little on his tongue thoughtfully, stirring the blood as it thickened in the bowl and shaking his head.

‘I think that should be enough,’ he said and bound the arm, tightening a tourniquet and applying a styptic. He placed the bloody bowl on the table and reached into his bag again. ‘Fetch me salt and water, please.’

Gervase watched while the apothecary withdrew a long clyster tube and a pig’s bladder from his bag. ‘Right, first we have to force the salted water into his throat, to make sure he’s brought up all the poison, and then we need to empty his bowels as well,’ he said, in the bright tone of one who had never yet performed such an operation.

Jeanne and Edgar were in the High Street, passing down the long line of trestles upon which were laid all manner of choice goods.

They had not yet lunched, and as they walked along the road Jeanne became aware of a faint light-headedness. Looking up at the sun she realised how long it had been since she heard the Cathedral bells toll for the midday service. Her hand went to her belly and the growing child. She must try to remember to eat more regularly. That was one thing that Simon’s wife had told her, because the dizziness of hunger could attack at any time. ‘I need some food, Edgar,’ she said.

He grinned and led them back the way they had come to Carfoix, the meeting of the four main roads, then right along the street of cooks. The smells were enough to tempt the most jaded palates. Roasted honeyed larks and pigeons, pies of good beef and lamb, hot pies, cold pies, pies filled with vegetables, pies with strong spices, pies with sweetened custards filling them. Jeanne picked a roasted pigeon and a pie filled with sweetened almond custard while Edgar, who didn’t have a sweet tooth, selected a strong-smelling beef and onion pasty which had much garlic added, from the odour.

The smell made Jeanne wince. She had taken a dislike to garlic recently. Usually, like most people, she loved the flavour for, after all, it was one of the most common herbs used to strengthen a pottage or soup, but since becoming pregnant, she had found the stink of it turned her stomach. Accordingly she stood upwind of Edgar while he ate his pie with every appearance of relish.

While standing there, they were jostled by two clerks who erupted from St Petrock’s and ran past laughing. Shortly afterwards a red-faced porter came out of the church and glared up and down the streets before throwing up his hands as if in despair and returning.

‘I think the revels are beginning early this year,’ Edgar noted laconically.