Michael JECKS: The Leper's Return

“It hardly demonstrates the correct desire to punish a wrongdoer.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Bishop. Surely it is better to punish one man leniently than potentially the whole town unfairly,” Baldwin said teasingly. “Especially since it might demean a genuine miracle: that of Orey.”

Stapledon snorted. “So what has he been up to since? I assume you must be well acquainted with him for you to be able to call him to mind so easily, especially since, as you point out, you didn’t even live here when all this took place.”

The knight sipped at his juice. “It is true that I have seen something of him.” He decided that the most recent rumors he had heard should be withheld. Peter Clifford might know something of them, but there was no need to inform the Bishop when it could only serve to irritate the prelate. “He has been brought before me in my capacity as Keeper of the King’s Peace, but never over anything serious: selling underweight loaves of bread, that kind of thing.”

“That’s bad enough!” exclaimed Ralph. Many poor people depended on their bread for their daily sustenance, and those who short-changed their customers were guilty of trying to starve them, in his view.

“True, but it’s not something a man should be hanged for,” Baldwin stated easily. He knew how hard some found it to make any kind of a living, and didn’t believe in excessive severity against those who only committed offenses to prevent their own starvation.

“So he’s hardly a model citizen,” the Bishop commented.

“No – but he adds a certain color to the town’s life,” Baldwin suggested. “He has a bold nerve. I believe he could sell sulfur to the devil – and profit from the exchange!”

“Hardly the sort of comment to endear him to me,” Stapledon snapped coldly, but even as Ralph gave a sharp intake of breath at his irreverence, Baldwin could see that Stapledon was concealing his own amusement.

“But it’s true enough,” Clifford said, with a kind of weary resignation. “Irelaunde has some kind of natural gift with language. Only last week he persuaded me to take some of his cloth. I know what he’s like, and although I’m quite certain there’s no malice in him, I should’ve known better than to buy from him.”

“If there’s no malice…” Ralph interrupted, confused.

“There doesn’t have to be evil intent,” Baldwin explained. “John only thinks of the next minute or two, and what he can make. If there’s an opportunity for profit, he’ll take it. He will trade in anything. It usually won’t be something that could hurt – but it wouldn’t necessarily match the high expectation the customer had.”

“And then,” Clifford added gloomily, “he always has a ready explanation, which on the face of it is reasonable, and which inevitably shows that you are somehow at fault. Take my cloth: he let me have it for half the going price – purely, he said, because he had picked up a sizeable quantity cheaply from a retiring weaver, and he’d prefer to see the Church get a bargain than make more money himself or give the benefit to an already fat merchant.”

“That should have warned you, Peter,” said Baldwin, mock-reprovingly. “He actually implied that he would sooner see you gain the advantage of the deal than he himself? What more warning could he have given?”

“He was most convincing.”

“He always is! Go on, what was the matter with the cloth? Did it dissolve in the rain? Or perhaps it evaporated in the sun?”

Peter Clifford pursed his lips. “The cloth was for tunics for some of the lay brothers and servants,” he admitted after a moment. “Some of them had such threadbare stuff that they were hardly better off than going about naked. But as soon as John’s material was washed, it shrank. It had already been made up into clothes by then, and it was all useless.”

“And he said it was your fault?”

“He was most apologetic, but he said we should have washed it before cutting and stitching it. I suppose he’s right, but you don’t expect it to contract to that extent! The shirts were only good for children once they were washed.”

“It goes to prove that I was right,” the Bishop stated. “He should have been thrown out of the town after his attempted deception.”

Baldwin could see that this topic was embarrassing his friend, and changed the subject. “So, Ralph, you are to become the new master of St. Lawrence’s? Let me see. That means you come from the Trinity Convent, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. From Houndeslow, some few miles from Westminster.”

“A good thriving monastery, I hear,” Peter Clifford observed approvingly.

Baldwin watched the young monk as he answered the Dean’s questions about his House. The knight had known that the little chapel of St. Lawrence’s was served by monks from Houndeslow, but he had not realized that old Nicholas, who had died during the previous summer, was to be replaced by someone so young. Baldwin was sure that the lad was no more than twenty, and although that was surely old enough for any man to take up his life’s duties, it was disturbing to think that the fellow was taking up such a hazardous role. Ralph had the self-assurance of a much older man, Baldwin noted; perhaps he would be capable of managing the affairs of his little chapel. Observing him, Baldwin was impressed by his stillness; the monk held himself with an almost detached serenity. Unlike so many young men Baldwin saw, Ralph didn’t fidget, but sat composedly, his hands resting in his lap.

Baldwin picked up his goblet and took a sip. It was good to see a young man who was determined to serve his God by protecting his charges, but Baldwin was fascinated by what could motivate someone to take on such a job. The inmates of St. Lawrence’s Hospital were not ill of broken limbs or cuts. They were not run-of-the-mill patients such as monks commonly looked after. Those who lived in St. Lawrence’s were a far more gruesome group.

St. Lawrence’s was the leper hospital.

Only 200 yards away from where they sat, John of Irelaunde was rattling his way over the unmade road toward his home.

It was rare for him not to smile or wave to those he saw by the side of the road, though it was less common for his greetings to be returned. A young maid at one house glanced at him coolly when he called to her; a little farther along the road a woman hurrying by with her two children reddened and looked away when he whistled and winked. Still, he felt he was adequately compensated for these responses when he came near a group of maids chatting at the corner to an alley. He stood on his board, doffing his scruffy hat and bowing from the waist, and the girls giggled. One met his eye boldly, and he grinned and waved his hat to her.

As he retook his seat, thoughts of the women were rudely cast from his mind. He had caught a glimpse of a man riding toward him. The rider was in his early to middle thirties, with a face overly fleshy from too much rich food and drink, and a thick belly that seemed to rest on his horse’s withers. John set his lips and gave a tuneless whistle, letting his head drop so that his face was hidden beneath the brim of his hat. Peering from under this barrier, he saw the legs of the horse approach, then pass by. The carter chortled quietly to himself. “And a good day to you, Master Matthew Coffyn. Glad to see you’re on your way. I hope you’ve left all your valuables safe!”

Soon he was passing Coffyn’s house. It was a good-sized place, as befitted the man’s status in the town, with fresh paint on the wood, and limewash that was unstained by the weathering that marred a property’s appearance. John kept his head down and watched from below his brim as he passed the gates, but he couldn’t see Martha Coffyn. The place was quiet, and he nodded to himself. While the master was away, his servants would relax. No doubt most were in the buttery enjoying their master’s absence while they simultaneously enjoyed his strongest ale.