The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker (25 page)

The band was waiting near a large oak, one of only a very few which had survived the demands of construction in Exeter. About it tents had been erected, enough for the fourteen men who followed Sir Thomas. A charcoal fire was smoking in the middle, over which were spitted two ducks, a goose and a small pig.

‘So, Hob, you came back when the hunger got to you, did you?’ Jen called lightly. ‘Where’s Sir Thomas?’

‘I thought h-he’d be back already. Isn’t he here?’

Jen had been stirring at a pot but now she stopped and stood upright. ‘You lost him?’

‘He was in the crowd, but he went off to see the . . .’

‘He saw the merchant?’ Jen asked.

Hob was worried by her expression. Jen looked angry with him, very angry. ‘He asked me to take him there, to the big Church.’

‘That was so he could see his other son.’

‘That was last night. Today he said he wanted me to point out the merchant.’

‘You idiot! Are you mad?’

‘He told me, he told me!’ Hob asserted, his head retreating into his shoulder, gazing down at his feet. He hated upsetting his sister; she was all he had in the world, but he couldn’t help it. Sir Thomas scared him, and Sir Thomas had told him to point out the merchant if he saw the man. He couldn’t disobey Sir Thomas. He scuffed his boot in the dirt, doodling with a toe.

‘Stop that! Don’t you realise anything? Jesus! You’re so thick on occasion,’ Jen said scathingly. She threw the wooden spoon into the pot and went into the tent she shared with Sir Thomas, returning with a bonnet and thick coat. ‘You’ll have to stay here, Hob. Look after that food and don’t let it burn!’

One of the lookouts had witnessed Hob’s discomfiture from his vantage point. Now he called down, ‘Where are you going, Jen?’

‘You heard. Your leader has gone to seek the man who says he was robbed.’

‘The one that got Hamond killed?’

She looked up as she shrugged into her coat. ‘Yes. The one who had Hamond hanged.’

Luke the Chorister sat sedately as he should, waiting until the cup of wine arrived before him. He sipped slowly, holding it carefully with both hands, and even when Adam, at his side, nudged him viciously in the ribs with an elbow, Luke didn’t spill a drop.

The food was good, but not too rich. Stephen didn’t enjoy overly spiced foodstuffs, and refused to spend large sums to obtain them. Thriftiness was his watchword, as it should be for a Treasurer. He looked upon all the money spent within the Cathedral as his own, and when he spent his own, he measured his expenditure against what it could acquire for the Cathedral itself.

It was an irritation, but Luke ate politely and with silent determination. Stephen did not like disruption at his table, and Choristers who chattered were as obtrusive and annoying as a guest who rudely denounced the quality of his wine. Neither were to be borne.

Not that Luke wanted to talk. Since the shock of the night before, he had wandered about feeling quite dazed, as if someone had struck the back of his head with a club.

For years he had been told that his father was dead. His father, a knight from the Soth family, the last to live in the small manor at Exmouth, had been killed when a neighbour had attacked him, or so Stephen had told him. Why should the Canon have deceived him? His father had become an outlaw, a felon, and Luke had not even been told.

Luke moved in time to prevent another nudge from Adam forcing him to knock over the salt. He had to bite back the angry words which rose to his lips. It wasn’t fair that Adam should keep pushing him, for ever trying to make him look a fool, when Luke had never done anything to upset him. It wasn’t his fault Adam was a failure.

That was the problem, though. Luke knew it well enough. He’d even been warned about such things when he first showed promise. It was Stephen himself who drew him aside and told him that other Choristers might pick on him because of his abilities. In fact, at the time Luke was quite sure the Treasurer was letting him know that Henry would probably make his life difficult, but now Luke knew the Treasurer had meant people like Adam.

Adam wasn’t the only one. There were quite a few like him in the Cathedral precinct: fellows who had expected to move up the church’s hierarchy until they themselves ran their own See as Bishop, or perhaps became a Precentor or a Dean. So few ever seemed to appreciate that for every Precentor there were some hundred or more who were of a lower level even within his own church. No, few realised that there was every likelihood that, if there were fourteen Choristers, none of them would become a dignitary within that church. Luke himself had already seen how many boys fell by the wayside.

He broke off another piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. It wasn’t only because of bad behaviour or manners that the boys were thrown out of the choir. There had been two in Luke’s first year who simply couldn’t make head nor tail of Latin, spoken or written. Another fellow had taken to weeping each night before sleep. Lonely and miserable, he had come from a lord’s household, and suddenly being dropped into Exeter had been too much for the eight-year-old. He had been sent home before six months had passed.

But when the Choristers’ voices broke, their troubles multiplied. Then they had little genuine reason for remaining within the cloister, apart from trying to better themselves, learning as much about writing and reading as they could so that they might prove their value as clerics. If they were successful, they would be able to continue in this manner, as Secondaries, before they gradually received enough attention to be promoted. Some would then remain at the lowest levels, perhaps after many years of striving achieving the status of a Chaplain, while those who were lucky might progress from Deacon to the exalted heights of Vicar or Annuellar.

Being a Vicar was probably best, Luke judged reflectively. A Vicar had all his food and lodging provided by the Canon he served, and when there was a gap in the number of Canons, there was the possibility of promotion. There was also much to be said for being an Annuellar, a chantry priest. These men were appointed by the Dean and Chapter and lived in rented chambers in the Close, but were free for much of their lives. They did not have to go to their Canon to obtain food or lodging, they were given an annual stipend, and from that they could buy what they needed. Nor were they forced to turn up at all services in the way that Secondaries and Vicars were. The only people free of compulsion to attend were the Canons, who could ignore the bells’ summons if they wished, and the Annuellars. The latter had the one duty, performing a Mass every day at a specific time and at a specific altar.

Luke rather liked the idea of becoming an Annuellar. It might not offer so much potential for advancement, but with his ability to read and write, it would be an easy life.

Many Secondaries failed; usually because of laziness on their part, Luke reminded himself. He had heard that sage comment passed by another Secondary talking about Jolinde, and was privately convinced that the same applied to Adam. He was not suited to the Canonical life, anyway. He was a bully and a cheat.

With a wash of cold anguish, Luke recalled his father’s face from the night before. Now he had his own notoriety: he was the son of a felon, related to an outlaw. Perhaps Stephen’s deliberate concealment of his father’s survival had been intended as a kindness, Luke realised. The Canon might have considered it preferable that other Choristers couldn’t discover what had truly happened to Sir Thomas. If so, perhaps he was right. Luke shuddered as he thought how Henry would torment him, should he learn that Luke’s father had become an outlaw. It would reverse all the insults Luke had hurled at him for being lower-born. Henry could at least assert that
his
parents had never broken the King’s Peace.

It was a relief when Adam kicked his shin beneath the table. The cruel pain took Luke’s mind off his father.

If the stories were true, Adam had been a good Chorister, with a fine voice, but when his voice shattered during a long Psalm one Easter Day, it had destroyed his confidence. His whole existence up until that point had been built upon the solid foundation of his ability to sing, and as soon as that was taken from him, he appeared to lose all motivation. He failed in his studies and proved himself incompetent at figures. Now the strong rumour in the Close asserted that he would be lucky if he was permitted to remain in the Cathedral as an acolyte.

Some did. They stayed, hanging about the place like sad and mournful hounds who had lost their master, getting in the way of the choir as they hurried from cloister to choir to Chapter to dormitory. Many simply left while in their early twenties. There was no point haunting a place where you weren’t wanted, Luke thought, but Adam seemed to have no idea where else he could go. Pathetic.

Luke reached down to pick up his bread, but there was nothing there. Staring at the table where it had been, he was astonished to see it had disappeared. Then he saw Adam smiling derisively as he crammed the last piece into his mouth and chewed slowly, with evident relish.

The meal was finished. Arthur, Stephen’s Vicar, stood and said the Grace, and the small group left the table to go and watch the plays in the Cathedral. Luke couldn’t help but cast a regretful eye back at the table as he rose. There had not been enough food. His stomach was calling for more. Perhaps if Peter’s half-loaf hadn’t hardened to a rock-like consistency, he could eat a little of that later. He could toast it beside a fire – make it more edible.

With that decided, he was about to head for the door when he felt a foot lash out around his leg, making him stumble. He tripped, felt himself falling and grabbed at the first thing he could. It was the tablecloth. Pulling it with him, he fell to the ground, ducking as trenchers and the salt showered down on top of him.

‘Luke!’ he heard Stephen gasp.

‘I’m sorry, but I—’

‘You clumsy
cretin
! What in God’s name . . . Go! And do not return for food today. You will get nothing more from here!’

Luke turned away and averted his head as tears threatened to flood his face. He ignored the grinning face of his tormentor and left.

Simon smiled broadly as the boar’s head was carried in. This was more to his taste than a whole mix of fish dishes. Vincent le Berwe had done his best yesterday, but no matter how you arranged the dishes, fish didn’t appeal to a man with a strong carnivorous appetite like Simon. He preferred red meat every time.

And this was the way to feast, he thought. Plenty of good venison: a haunch or two of doe, one fresh, one salted, two hares and a boar that Vincent said a grateful friend had provided as the result of a little favour he had been able to perform. Simon felt his mouth water as he stared at the dishes piling up in front of them. He only wished he could do someone a similar ‘little favour’.

He grabbed at his drinking horn and drank deeply. It was a pleasant cup, with a small face moulded into the end, the whole thing glazed in green. Far better than being down on one of the other tables, where the drinkers had to share a pitcher and wipe it before passing it to their neighbour.

By the time the servants had arrived to clear the tables of their debris, Simon was feeling very relaxed. He belched quietly behind a hand, smiling apologetically to Juliana at his side.

Soon the tables were away, secreted out into the buttery or in the small yard behind, and all the guests had been moved so that their benches ringed the room; now they could rest their backs comfortably against the walls. It was at this point that the musicians entered and started singing.

Not bad, Simon thought, although by this stage he would have thought a dog’s howling contained a certain merit. There were three men playing, one with a fiddle, one with a citole and the last with a drum, which he tried to beat in time. From the glazed look in his eyes, his failure was down to Vincent’s over-lavish hospitality. The trio sang several carols, and then were joined by a dark-haired young woman who gave a demonstration of her tumbling and dancing skills.

Simon waved his drinking horn in time to the music as she sprang onto her hands and walked the length of the room, then somersaulted, landing with her legs outspread before and behind, waiting for the applause to finish.

‘By God’s Cods,’ Simon cried. ‘She’s damn good!’

She rose and continued, this time with a slower, more contemplative dance. The drummer had been persuaded to return to the buttery, and now the music was more sedate; soon the girl stopped her dancing and stood before Vincent to sing a carol. It was a popular one, and several of the other guests joined in. Simon himself did with gusto, singing the chorus enthusiastically, if not entirely accurately.

Looking about the group ranged on benches at the walls, Simon saw only delight on all faces, except when he looked to his left and caught Nicholas Karvinel watching him. As soon as Simon met his gaze, Karvinel turned away, but Simon had seen his face and recognised the self-loathing of the cuckold.

Baldwin too had enjoyed the meal, although he was careful to eat and drink less than he could. His system had been used to a sparse diet for so long now that if he consumed too much it caused a reaction and his whole body was upset for days afterwards. So instead of having his mazer of wine topped up continually, he insisted upon waiting until he had emptied it before allowing the bottler to refill it.

He saw that Simon was fascinated by the dancer. She was light on her feet when whirling to the music, elegant and deceptively subtle, just like a Saracen woman would have been, although she walked with the heavy precision of a professional dancer.

Baldwin could remember Eastern women from his time in Acre and Cyprus, before he joined the Templars. This one had the same smoothly flowing movements, the same confidence in her body and ability, and he wondered for an instant whether she was perhaps the daughter of one of the soldiers who had gone out to the Holy Land to defend it – but then he realised how ridiculous such a thought was. Although she was darkly beautiful, her complexion was of soft English peach and she was in her early twenties, no more. The daughter of a soldier in Acre would be at least thirty by now.