Cecilia, gratified that her relative was taking this seriously, told him that Julian Fulk, the priest of St Olave’s, was holding a service the next morning and after that, the burial would take place in the afternoon, following a Mass in the cathedral. As the family was relatively rich, they had bought the right to bury Robert under the flagstones at the back of the nave, rather than out in the chaos of the Close outside, where most of Exeter’s dead had to be deposited. In spite of the multitude of churches in the city, none had the right to bury their parishioners; this was jealously guarded by the cathedral, which collected all the fees for the funeral formalities.
Gilbert de Bosco noded sagely. ‘As this is a family matter, I will deliver an oration at the requiem — and I will make sure that your concerns are voiced in the strongest terms.’
As well as his own genuine crusade against necromancy, he saw an opportunity to bring himself to prominence over this issue. It was a timely move, as one of the archdeacons was in poor health and there were rumours of his post soon falling vacant. Becoming a champion for the Church against what he considered the powers of darkness, should help to persuade the bishop and chapter to consider him more energetic and enthusiastic than the other twenty-three canons. The fact that he had not the slightest evidence that Robert de Pridias had died from anything other than a seizure or stroke hardly occurred to him, for he had the single-mindedness of an obsessive personality.
‘I must go now, I have important business,’ he said solemnly, thinking of his breakfast cooling on the table. ‘I will take action this very day and see you at the sad occasion here tomorrow.’
He ushered them back into the nave and then hurried away importantly, leaving Cecilia well pleased with her morning’s work.
For very different reasons, the apothecary Walter Winstone was even more opposed to the activities of cunning folk than was Canon Gilbert de Bosco. Still smarting from the pain of giving back the money to Henry de Hocforde, he marched around his shop that morning in a foul temper. The apprentice had already felt the rough edge of his tongue and the palm of his hand across his head. Sitting low over his pill-board, the lad was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as Walter finally tore off his apron and went to the door.
‘I’m off to Northgate Street to speak with Richard Lustcote,’ he snarled. ‘Behave yourself whilst I’m away or it’ll be the worse for you.’
With this happy valediction he hurried away down Waterbeer Street, muttering curses under his breath at the idlers who got in his way. His oaths worsened as he dodged the contents of a chamber pot thrown from the window of a brothel, while he headed for the shop of his nearest colleague. It was a man he disliked, but at the moment he had need of him. There were four other apothecaries in Exeter, too few to have a proper guild, though they paid a small fee once each year to a visitor from London, who kept their names on the register of the Company of Apothecaries and brought any news concerning their craft. Walter was not an enthusiastic member and grudgingly attended their ‘feast’ each Easter, which, owing to their small number, was held in one room of the New Inn.
As the small man pattered testily towards the North Gate, he reflected on the reasons for his dislike of Richard Lustcote. They were mainly based on jealousy of the older man — his seniority in the craft, his long-established and more successful business and his popularity with the townsfolk, mainly because of his pleasant nature. Although their rudimentary guild had no warden, Lustcote was looked on by the other apothecaries — and by the populace — as the father figure of the healing art in Exeter. There was no secular physician nearer than Winchester, and as monks and nuns provided all that was available in the way of hospital care, the apothecaries dispensed medicines and visited the paying sick in their homes. This function they jealously guarded, as it was their livelihood. Now Walter felt threatened — cunning women not only competed with his healing herbals, but were usurping his illegal trade in surreptitious poisonings and abortions.
His hurrying feet had taken him around the corner and on towards the North Gate in the city walls, where the road went out towards Crediton. The buildings lining the narrow street were the usual mixture of styles in this thriving city. New houses were being squeezed between the old, taking over garden plots and progressively replacing the ancient timbered structures with stone. There was a whole range of roofing, from mouldering thatch through wooden shingles to thick tiles. The height and width of every dwelling were different and some projected over the road as new-fangled solars became the fashion. One thing that did not change was the smell — the packed-earth street had a central gutter of crude stones, down which a stream of filth oozed towards a conduit alongside the gate, which was downhill from Carfoix, the central crossroads of the city. As Walter walked along, he unthinkingly avoided the stinking trench, keeping away from both the middle of the road and the edges, where the perils of waste water — and worse — thrown from doorways and windows were another hazard. However, he reached Lustcote’s shop without undue soiling and pushed aside the thick leather flap that hung over the doorway. The establishment was twice the size of his own, with display shutters lowered from windows on either side of the central door. The interior was roomy and no fewer than three apprentices sat working behind counters, one of them dealing with a pair of matrons who were seeking relief for their aching joints. Apart from its size and tidier appearance, the place was very similar to Walter’s — and almost every other apothecary’s shop in England — but he still felt envy creeping over him as he asked one of the young men for his master.
‘In the store behind, sir,’ was the reply. The lad knew Walter by sight and reputation, though he was an infrequent visitor.
The room behind the shop was again similar to his own, but much larger. Here he found Richard Lustcote hunched over a small charcoal stove, boiling a copper pan containing a quart of some liquid that smelled strongly of vinegar. He was a round, chubby man with white hair that hung down to the collar of his green tunic, over which was a tabard of thin leather, stained with several years’ worth of splashed medicines. His amiable face smiled a greeting, which was not something that the miserable Walter Winstone often received. After a guarded conversation, mainly about the novel brew that Richard was preparing as a treatment for dropsy of the legs, Walter came to the substance of his visit.
‘This is a guild matter, Richard and you are the acknowledged leader of our small band here in Devon. We need to be united on this, as it affects our trade and our purses.’
The old apothecary moved his pan from the trivet over the glowing embers and looked quizzically at his visitor. ‘Do you wish us all to raise our prices?’
Walter shook his head irritably. ‘Nothing like that. I am talking about competition — and unqualified competition at that. It’s not only against the interests of our guild, but dangerous to the public.’
Richard looked uncomprehendingly at Winstone. Not for the first time, he considered him to be a strange man — resentful, ungrateful and envious. He had never heard anything against his ability as an apothecary, but he was certainly not a personable character. No wonder he was unmarried and lived in rather squalid loneliness over his shop, even though he could obviously afford better. He had arrived in Exeter about seven years ago, from Southampton, so it was said, but no one knew anything about him before that. The guild-man from London said that he had not previously been registered with the Company of Apothecaries in Southampton and had told him some vague story about having served his apprenticeship in Brittany. The older apothecary waited for some fuller explanation, which tumbled from Walter’s lips as bitter as the vinegar that simmered on the stove.