The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker Read Free Page A

diet – one is reassured to read that the gaoler was attached and an inquest held.
    It is less reassuring to see the conclusion that all the deaths were from ‘natural causes’ and that the gaoler himself was exonerated!
    Exeter suffered badly during the Second World War. Many of the fine old buildings were destroyed, but I am glad to say that some remain. The Cathedral is still there, as are many of the tunnels, and there are guided tours of both. If you visit, go and see the Guildhall too; it is a wonderful ancient building.
    For me it was an enormous pleasure to sit in the sun on the Green and imagine the people who used to walk along there: the Canons in their unrelenting black, their Vicars following them, Choristers and Secondaries at their heels, all hurrying to the summons of the bells that ordered their lives, while the city people milled about the nave, meeting and greeting, making deals and haggling, or stamping documents with their seals in the Guildhall.
    I hope this novel will give you some idea of how the city was. Rough and ready, stinking, crowded, smog-filled – but also exuberant, lively and rich with teeming humanity. As always, I have researched all aspects of the period as carefully as I can and any inaccuracies are my own fault. That aside, I hope you enjoy this story.
     
    Michael Jecks
    Dartmoor
    January 2000

Chapter One
     
     
    The first of the murders which so shook the Cathedral passed with little comment. Those who knew most about it thought it was a mere robbery. The murdered man’s body was found stabbed, in his shop with all of his jewels and cash missing. There was nothing at first to connect his murder to the later deaths since he was not discovered in the Cathedral and the obvious suspect was captured so swiftly.
    It took Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, the knight investigating the crime, to show that this victim was only one in the dreadful series of killings that spread such alarm and fear throughout the whole of Exeter.
    The victim’s name was Ralph Glover, and he felt as though his heart would burst with contentment when he threw open his shutters in the grey half-light before dawn on the Feast Day of St Thomas the Apostle, twenty-first December in the year of our Lord 1321. He adored the winter-time, especially when there was a fire and hot food indoors, and this fine, crisp morning struck him as perfect. A pair of clouds floated overhead; apart from them the sky was clear in the east. All was clean and pure and when he inhaled it felt as though he was drinking in air as fresh as the water from a Dartmoor spring, with none of the sting of wood- and coal-smoke which would later pollute it.
    Leaving the house in response to the summons of the Cathedral bell, he saw that there was a light frost riming the timbers of the house opposite. The water puddled in the mud of the roadway had turned to ice and he had to mind his step if he didn’t want to fall; he must also take care to avoid the piles of excrement that lay frozen like small cobbles in the gutter running down the middle of the road. This road was fortunate enough to be fed from its own spring and the stream usually washed the gutter clean, but today it too had frozen.
    People were already up and about. Hawkers were making their way along the streets, maids and servants were busily sweeping dirt from the houses, innkeepers standing in the doorways watching for their first customers. All were swaddled in thick coats or cloaks against the chill breeze. At one corner Ralph passed a few poorer folk huddled round a brazier of charcoal. In the glover’s opinion they looked little better than heathens, standing with their hands outstretched to the flames like priests worshipping fire, but when he saw a beggar nearby, Ralph gave him a coin.
    Ralph was a cheery soul with a prominent belly and, in this cold weather, his cheeks were so red they might have been painted. Small blue eyes glittered in a fat jowly face, and his mouth was