Michael JECKS - The Leper's Return

“You see all this?”

Coffyn’s voice brought him back to the present with a snap. Fortunately, the merchant had his back to him, and hadn’t noticed his expression. Carefully, William ventured the word, “Yes?”

“Used to have more. Had to hawk it like a peasant to pay a debt. It’s usually Jews who fleece us, isn’t it? But now it’s Florentines, Genoese or other Englishmen as well! There’s always someone prepared to make a profit from somebody else’s misfortune.”

He spun round on his heel, scowling. William maintained his disinterested stance, but he was intrigued despite himself. He wanted to know what was behind this interview.

“I was talking to one of your men today, William. He told me you’re only a short while back from France. Is that right?”

The guard walked to a chest and sat upon it before giving the question his attention. Reviewing in his mind the fights he had been involved in, he couldn’t see how any of his past offenses or victims could have come to haunt him here in England. He hadn’t done anything wrong here, he was convinced of that. “Yes?” he said again, questioningly.

“Is it true about the peasants? Have they revolted?”

“Oh, yes!” William shrugged. He couldn’t believe that Coffyn had asked him into this room simply to ask about affairs in far-off France.

“Tell me about it.”

“I know little about it, sir. It’s been going on for a couple of years. This time it was a group of peasants marching from the north, heading southward. They claimed that the nobles were thieves and worse, taxing the peasants too highly, that sort of thing. Said what a peasant produced in a year would be consumed in an hour by a knight. Normal rubbish you hear from the poor.” William had a simplistic attitude to the pastoral folk of France. They had useful food and wine, but rarely any means of defense, and could be looked upon as a handy source of free meals.

“And what when they reached the south?”

There was a note to Coffyn’s voice that made William pick his words carefully. “They stormed castles, released prisoners from jails, killed bailiffs and soldiers, burned town halls and record offices – all the things you expect of a rabble.”

“And the Jews?”

“Oh, them! Well, they set upon them, of course. Massacred them whenever they could. That wasn’t a surprise. Jews hold all the money, don’t they?” It wasn’t something to trouble William. After all, even the English King had eventually thrown all the Jews out of his country. The French had expelled them in 1306, and many people had applauded the action, thinking that all their debts would be wiped out, but then the French King’s son, Louis X, had let them back, with terms that meant he was a two-thirds partner in all their efforts to recover their debts.

So the peasants were repaying theirs the only way they knew how: at the points of pitchforks and lances.

Coffyn nodded at the sentiment, but for him there was a different reason to applaud the actions.

He was a keenly religious man. That was something that had been carefully instilled in him by his master when he was still apprenticed, and the thought that lepers might be endangering the town by their existence had taken hold. His face was flushed with excitement as he sat opposite William.

“Others were attacked as well?”

William shrugged. There was a greediness in Coffyn’s stance, almost as if he was discussing food. It was a look the soldier had seen before in the faces of zealots. “Almost anyone with a position of power, or those with money.”

His master made an irritable click of his tongue and snapped his fingers in a gesture of contempt. “What of them? They hardly matter. When they are gone, God will recognize His own. Those whom He ignores won’t be missed. The good will go to Heaven and should be grateful for their death for releasing them from this life of toil! No, it’s the others: there was a group stoned and hanged along with the Jews, wasn’t there? The lepers. Why were they also killed?”

“They were accused of being in league with the Jews,” William agreed. “It was said that the lepers had agreed to a pact with the Jews in which they would be given any women they wanted from the towns, and in return they were poisoning the wells.”

“It is as I thought!”

“Master, these were the ravings of peasants,” William pointed out reasonably.

“You are a soldier, William; you can’t understand how these things happen,” said Coffyn confidently. “But you must have heard the priests talking about lepers. Their every mark and sign of disease is a divine punishment for their sins.”

“What sins?” asked William, casting his mind back to a friend from an army in Spain who had developed the disease.

“Concupiscence and pride.”

“Oh.” Yes, he thought. That would describe his Spanish comrade well enough – randy and arrogant. Then William shifted uneasily on his seat, wondering whether he should make a visit to the church himself.

“And it is the duty of good Christians to throw these loathsome dregs from our town,” Coffyn stated.

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Their monstrous sins are made visible by God in the shape of their hideous deformities.”

“But they’re under the protection of the Church.”

“That needn’t prevent citizens from helping us rid the town of them.”

“How would you persuade people to help chuck them out?”

Coffyn lowered his head and grinned. “You heard what I said? These people are foul and driven by uncontrollable lust. Look at that poor Mary Cordwainer, going there every day. Can there be any doubt that the inmates of the lazar house have forced her to their will?”

“You mean they’re…?” William’s lip curled in revulsion.

“Yes. They have polluted her, and bound her to them by their depraved behavior. I have heard it from your friend the smith.”

William pursed his lips. “What’ll you do?”

“It’s more what I want you to do.”

Baldwin and Simon waited while Edgar fetched his horse from the yard behind the inn, then all three rode to the Dean’s house.

When they arrived, the place was in a flutter of activity, with servants rushing around and getting into each other’s way as they cleared up after a meal. The smells from the kitchen made Simon’s mouth water, and it was only then that he realized how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten all morning.

Peter Clifford was seated in his hall. Bishop Stapledon was visiting once more, and sat at his side. Baldwin and Simon took their places on a bench nearby while the Dean finished washing and drying his hands. The bailiff couldn’t help giving a platter of bread a longing glance. Clifford saw the direction of his gaze and smilingly ordered the panter to bring fresh loaves and wine and set them before the bailiff. As the others spoke, Simon listened as best he could, chewing hungrily.

“The Bishop and I were just discussing the choir,” Clifford said. “He was concerned that it wasn’t being performed with the right degree of solemnity.”

“It’s important to ensure that the services are conducted with the uttermost dignity,” Stapledon nodded. “They exist to praise Our Lord, and if they fail to impress someone as poor and ignorant as myself, how can we hope to please Him?”

“So what has been decided?” asked Baldwin.

“I have agreed to appoint four young clerks to assist – one to see to the sacristy, books and the ornaments under the tutelage of the Treasurer; one to be responsible for the bells; a third to attend to offerings at the high altar; and a last who will instruct the others, and inspect their morals.”

Baldwin glanced at Clifford, who studiously avoided his eyes. It struck the knight that the Bishop had agreed to invest in a not-inconsiderable number of new clerks for the church, while the Dean was to be the main beneficiary. Baldwin told himself not to be cynical, but he could see that the Bishop appeared tired, and wondered whether his friend Clifford might have taken advantage.