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

somewhere for ale, just as they all do; he had money in his pocket and bought a drink. Hereabouts he was quite well-known. His family has long had an ill reputation: it was this very soul who was found one night carrying weapons within the city walls after dark.’
    ‘So the jury would have known he was guilty,’ Baldwin said. ‘If a man commits one crime he is likely to commit another.’
    ‘Absolutely!’ Vincent agreed heartily, but as soon as he spoke he saw the knight’s expression. There was a cynical glint in Baldwin’s eye. Vincent chose to ignore his sarcasm and continued, ‘It’s not Nick’s only piece of bad luck this year.’
    ‘What else has happened to him?’ asked Jeanne.
    ‘What
hasn’t
happened to him?’ Vincent chuckled unkindly. ‘He’s an interest in several local and overseas trades but this year I doubt whether he’s made any profit at all. He had a share in a ship that was caught by French pirates five-odd years ago, then a man who owed him money died and his widow is refusing to pay back the debt, and in the summer his house was burgled and all his plate taken. Only a few weeks later someone else broke in and not only took all his new plate and spare money, but also set fire to the place. Luckily a neighbour saw the flames and called for help, but much of his hall was damaged and he can scarcely afford to have it repaired. And recently, to add to the injury, a glover to whom he’d loaned money was murdered and left nothing. His apprentice stabbed him to death, then took all his money, so Nicholas won’t see that sum returned either.’
    ‘The poor fellow,’ said Baldwin, shaking his head. ‘As you say, it’s astonishing bad luck.’
    ‘I personally feel that a man makes his own good fortune,’ Vincent said with a trace of smugness as he contemplated his mazer. ‘Nicholas, poor bastard, has the smell of failure about him, God Bless! What can you do with someone who invariably fails, eh? Nothing. That’s why he didn’t win the position of Steward as he was expecting.’
    ‘He was up for a Stewardship?’ Baldwin said.
    Vincent gulped down the remains of his mazer. ‘He was in the race against me but when his fortune seemed to slide his friends wouldn’t give up. They asked for him to be granted the Wardenship of the Bridge, which would have put him in charge of the rents on the houses and shops on the bridge apart from everything else – but the Freemen wouldn’t allow it. The city can’t afford to have someone that unlucky as Warden. No, they all voted for another man in the end. Someone more reliable.’
    Jeanne had moved to their side. She wasn’t sure that she liked Vincent; he seemed too bullish and proud, almost amused at the disasters which had struck this man Nicholas Karvinel. Now she interrupted, saying, ‘Who would that be?’
    He smiled, but then allowed a frown to pass over his brow as if realising that his levity was out of place. ‘It was Ralph – the glover who died.’
    Peter Golloc, Secondary cleric and sometime clerk to Nicholas Karvinel, returned to his room with leaden steps. He felt like an old man, as if he had aged years in the last week. His face was puffy from weeping at night and exhaustion threatened to force him to doze even during the services. He felt awful. His bowels were loose, and when he went to the privy, he had severe diarrhoea. His belly was on fire after every meal or drink, to the extent that he hadn’t been able to eat yet today. Every time he swallowed water he nearly retched – and wine was unthinkable. He had drunk some with Jolinde at the tavern earlier, but it had turned his stomach even before he saw Karvinel.
    It wasn’t unknown for a malaise to strike a man like this, of course. People put it down to meat which had been off, or inhaling foul air, a miasma, on his way to the Cathedral but from all he had heard, such evil vapours only struck during hot, humid summers, and in any case, if the air had been that