Free The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker by Michael Jecks Page A

the baby’s death. Such things happened, she knew, but there was no need for Hawisia to remind her that the city was unhealthy. Jeanne glanced down uncomfortably at her belly.
    After that, Jeanne found conversation difficult. These days, she found herself suffering foolishness with less patience than before. She wanted to talk to someone with more fire to them. The only times Hawisia showed any vivacity was when she discussed her dead child or her successful husband. Her pride in his achievements was at least unfeigned.
    Jeanne told herself that the young woman must be very deeply in love and tried to like her, but she found herself speaking snappishly, as if to a child who would not be silent but insisted upon interrupting. To her relief, the two men had a short break in their conversation and she took the opportunity to turn to Vincent and ask, ‘Tell me, we saw a hanged man in the roadway. Was he guilty of a very terrible crime?’
    ‘Hamond?’ Vincent chuckled genially. He was feeling affable now, after two large pots of wine. He belched surreptitiously and made a sweeping gesture with his mazer, a silver-chased bowl of maple that gleamed as it caught the light. ‘They strung him up yesterday. It’s good to see a felon swing, isn’t it? Yes, the murderous sodomite was one of a small band of outlaws who robbed a merchant only a short distance from the city walls on the feast of the Conception of the Virgin, eighth December. When the man escaped and fled back to the city to raise the Hue and Cry, whom should he see but that very fellow, young Hamond, sitting in a tavern and lifting his ale in salute. Poor Nicholas . . .’
    ‘Nicholas?’ Jeanne enquired.
    ‘Nicholas Karvinel, the merchant.’ Vincent gulped at his wine. He had spoken rather hastily . . . but there was no need for embarrassment. The Keeper of the King’s Peace was bright enough, but there was nothing to connect Vincent to Nicholas so far as he knew. Nothing except the fact that both were merchants and both had aspired to the same position in the City: Receiver. The thought made him smile still more broadly.
    ‘Well, Nick was angry to see the man flaunting himself like that, so he shouted out and raised the Hue and Cry, catching the fellow himself. It wasn’t only his money that was stolen, but a substantial sum from the Cathedral as well. In fact, that’s why Nick launched himself upon the felon, he told me. He was never the bravest man in the city, but seeing that scum sitting and drinking his own and the Cathedral’s money made him see red. The crook himself seemed so astonished to be caught that he didn’t even run. Brazen fool tried to convince everyone he hadn’t been near Nick all afternoon, not that it got him anywhere. All felons deny their crimes, of course, but he was persuasive. It wasn’t until Nick’s clerk Peter identified him that the jury was happy to indict him. He was hanged, although what happened to Nick’s money, God only knows. This Hamond only had a few coins on him. Probably it was left with the rest of his gang.’
    ‘Strange that he should have gone straight to the city after committing a robbery,’ Baldwin mused.
    Vincent eyed him genially. Perhaps this Keeper wasn’t such a hot investigator after all. ‘In my experience, Sir Baldwin, it’s all too often the way such fools behave. They perform their evil acts, then think that they are immune to danger. If they can escape with their booty, they don’t consider the consequences, they simply head for the fleshpots.’
    ‘And the tavern in which he was discovered was such a place?’
    ‘Well, no, the Noble’s Inn is a pleasant tavern. I have used it myself,’ Vincent grudgingly agreed. ‘But that fellow probably didn’t realise.’
    ‘He was new to the area?’
    ‘No, his family are from around here,’ Vincent admitted.
    ‘Ah.’
    A trace of asperity entered Vincent’s voice. The Keeper’s noncommittal grunt needled him. ‘So what? He went