The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker Read Online Free Page B

stopped to watch two Choristers running up from the Street of the Canons. One appeared to be chasing the other; they leaped the low fence to the cemetery, one straining ahead while the other panted curses and stretched out a hand to grab his victim.
    The two hared off around the charnel chapel, then over the roadway and out of sight behind the Church of St Mary Major, and Ralph followed them with his eyes, grinning and shaking his head. There had once been a time when he too could have chased a friend around a churchyard – but that time was long gone, he told himself ruefully as he stomped heavily through the cemetery and out via the gate to the High Street, a genial fellow in faded and shabby clothing.
    Afterwards John Coppe, a cripple begging at the gate, and Janekyn Beyvyn, the porter for the Cathedral Close, both recalled seeing Ralph shamble up towards the gatehouse.
    Coppe was squatting in his usual place at the Fissand Gate, sheltered a little from the wind that gusted up the High Street, holding his hands to the brazier lighted by Janekyn to warm them both. As Coppe would later tell the Coroner, he saw the glover walking away just after Henry the Chorister had rushed past the gate’s entrance, laughing fit to burst, fleeing his brother-Chorister Luke. Later Coppe heard that Henry had been forced to flee after dropping a beetle down the other’s neck as they set off for the Cathedral.
    When the Coroner questioned him, Janekyn admitted he had been supping a warmed, liquid breakfast of spiced ale standing near the charcoal brazier, peering towards the Bishop’s Palace, from whose kitchen rose heavy grey smoke, proving, if proof were needed, that the Bishop’s men were preparing their bread and food. He was looking forward to the arrival of his loaf of bread so that he too could break his fast, but Adam was late as usual.
    Janekyn noticed Ralph as the glover passed the small charnel chapel. Ralph had been walking slowly at his usual speed, up towards St Martin’s. For all Janekyn knew, Ralph might have gone out by that gate, but he didn’t see him do so. Janekyn was a thin, slightly deaf cleric of some fifty years, with a grey complexion and feeble constitution. He hadn’t stood rooted to the spot, gawping at other folk while his hands went blue; no, he had concentrated on his brazier, gripping his pot of hot ale and trying to persuade some warmth into his emaciated frame. In any case, he had been distracted by the two boys.
    The sight had made Janekyn give a wheezing chuckle. Henry had reappeared, apparently fresh and ready for a longer chase, but Luke pounded along with a determined glower. Darting to one side, Henry bent and picked up a lump of horse-dung, flinging it at his pursuer. It hit Luke’s shoulder, and Henry sped away again, giggling, while the other stood horrified, gazing down at the brown mess smearing the white perfection of his clothes. Then, with a renewed fury, he chased off after his tormentor.
    Luke set his mouth in a line of determination as he chased Henry, his most loathed and despised enemy. Henry was a . . . ‘a whoreson buggering Godless sinner’. Luke had heard a hawker shout that after an urchin in the street and he thought it described Henry perfectly.
    The open grassed space led around the walls of the cloister, and here there was a wider area. Before him was the plain leading off, in the distance, to the city wall, while on his left was a clearing bounded by the Chapter House, the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace, each with lean-to sheds accommodating tools and workmen involved in the rebuilding works. There was nowhere for Henry to have escaped to. On the right, Luke would have seen him running over the clearing down towards the Palace Gate, and left were the shacks, each of which should have been locked, and yet Henry was nowhere to be seen.
    Half-heartedly Luke went along the line of sheds, tugging at a door here or there. This part was all off-limits to the Choristers,