Simon meditatively watched Coppe as he ate voraciously. ‘It’s some time since your last meal, I’d guess.’
‘Other than Cathedral bread, aye,’ came the response, with a few crumbs. ‘But they bake a good loaf. Adam delivers some at the gate on his rounds.’
Baldwin sipped at his wine. ‘What else do you know about Karvinel?’
‘He’s not far from being in the same position as me. He owns little now that isn’t pawned. All his high hopes to recover his losses with the last shipment have been dashed, and I don’t know if he’ll be able to afford any of the city posts. His friend the Steward might try to help him, but I don’t know if he’ll succeed. I hope not!’
The last words came out with a cruel hopefulness, but the fire of hatred which had flared so briefly in his eyes, quickly subsided and Coppe finished his pie, picking at the crumbs on the table top before him.
‘What of le Berwe?’ Baldwin prodded. ‘How is he looked upon in the city?’
‘He is respected, I suppose. He’s one of the stewards… more than that, he’s the Receiver: in charge of all records, seeing that justice is upheld, visiting all the markets and fairs within the city to make sure the victuals are wholesome as well as collecting all the city’s rents and money due.’
Joan sniffed. ‘He would be well looked upon. He has the money to buy influence and friends.’
‘You think he doesn’t deserve such treatment, Mother?’ Simon said with a grin.
‘No, he doesn’t. He’s a sharp, calculating devil that one, and some day the Devil will come and take his own.’
‘Why do you say so?’ Baldwin in some surprise. He didn’t much like the Receiver himself, but the old woman’s loathing went further than mere dislike.
‘Because he uses people and breaks them when he has no more use for them, that’s why. Like his first wife. There’s enough people in the city reckon he killed her, poor little chit. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could spit!’
Hawisia rose from her needlework when she heard her husband return.
Their marriage was undergoing some strain, it was true. She had expected that the expressions of love which Vincent le Berwe had used to woo her were proof of undying devotion, and yet now she rarely saw him except to entertain others. He spent so much time with his business, especially now he was the Receiver.
Hawisia wondered sometimes whether he had been the same with his first wife. She had died very young, just before giving birth to her first baby, and Hawisia asked herself whether Vincent had been always so busy while she was alive. Certainly his business had suffered after her death. Vincent had been forced to try to rebuild it, or so he had told Hawisia.
The muttering against him was caused because his dead bride was so young. At only fourteen, many people thought his interests in wedding her were suspicious. In some areas that sort of age was considered all right for a wife, but here in Exeter people were more conservative. And when she died, rumours began to circulate about him. It had taken some little while for him to rebuild his business interests afterwards, for many customers faded away and sought new suppliers.
It had taken all of Hawisia’s diplomatic skills to help him build up his business interests again.
‘My love?’ she called.
Vincent appeared in the doorway. ‘I have to go out for a while. Amuse yourself, dear. I shouldn’t be very long,’ he said, and was gone.
‘But you’ve been away all…’
She stopped herself. He was already out of the door and in any case there was no point in making a fuss. He had business to attend to, didn’t he? Of course he would have to go out every so often. She only wished she could be of more use to him. Rather than sitting back in this insipid manner she should try to help him more… except she had no idea how.
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.