That was why they were enemies, really. Henry was happy that Luke was there, because it gave him someone to fight against. Someone to pick on when he had a chance. Life without Luke would be odd. Empty.
But he was glad he’d got one over on Luke this time. It would be Henry who stood up on the twenty-seventh and began the celebration of the boy-Bishop; it would be Henry who presided over the festivities for the whole of the next day when the Cathedral was turned upside down.
He was so looking forward to his episcopacy! The boy-Bishop was an old institution; Henry was the latest in a long line, and he intended enjoying his day to the full, inviting all his friends at breakfast, then going down to St Nicholas’s Priory, nearer the river, where they would be entertained and given gifts which he could keep.
Later he would return to the city, and it was then that the gloves would be presented to the honoured guests, while more gifts would be collected for Henry. At noon the main feast would take place, followed by celebrations in the city’s streets. Actors would set up their stages on wagons and play out their pieces in the High Street and even in the Cathedral grounds, for although Stephen and some other Canons disliked seeing the public desporting themselves on the cemetery and other sanctified areas, Bishop Walter II had stated that he preferred to know that the people were receiving some form of religious education, and if they only took in what the actors showed them, that was better than nothing. But this was where the real fun started, as Henry knew all too well.
All the Choristers and Secondaries, even a few of the Vicars and Annuellars, could for one day in the year throw off their sombre, clerical demeanour with their regular garb, for this was a celebration of life. The twenty-eighth was the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a feast in remembrance of the appalling day when Herod exterminated tens of thousands of young boys in his attempt to kill Jesus after His birth.
As a result, for that one day, all usual rules were forgotten: the elected Chorister became Bishop, and the whole hierarchy was reversed. For one glorious day the men and boys who slaved in religious and holy seriousness for the rest of the year were allowed to relax. They could enjoy the excessive pleasures of their topsy-turvy world without fearing reproach.
Henry stood and walked idly around the other desks. It was because the other Choristers knew he would ensure that all had a good time that he had won the election, back at the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, on twenty-first December. It wasn’t because the other lads disliked Luke, nor because they thought Henry was the better Chorister. He wasn’t, and they all knew it. He was much worse than Luke at singing, at his addition and at drawing and writing. Of course he was worse; Henry knew it was all silly. He wasn’t going to be a priest – he didn’t want to be. But he did want to be boy-Bishop, because with the money he was given he could help his mother.
She was still up at the manor in Thorverton, working herself to a shadow while trying to grow enough food to keep herself going. The Feast Day gifts would ensure that she could eat well for a few days, if nothing else. Henry saw it as his responsibility to feed his mother and brother. The family had lost his father, but Henry had been given this position in the Cathedral and it offered potential for providing food. That was what he intended to do. Feed them.
It was good to beat Luke, though. They were enemies, and that was all there was to it. Luke and he had early on decided that they were rivals, and their enmity had been cemented when Luke had superciliously laughed at one of Henry’s pages of writing. Henry’s early attempts at writing had been more than a little inept, but that was no reason for the snotty bastard to laugh, although now he looked back on that moment with pleasure. Because he hadn’t been raised in the same strict manner as Luke, the moment he realised the other boy was making fun of his efforts, Henry had taken prompt action and swung his fists.
Luke had responded with gusto, seeing this as nothing more than a direct challenge to his position as undisputed leader of the Choristers. Both soon had bloody faces, Luke with a nastily bitten shoulder, bruised shins, and a nosebleed, while Henry had bruises all over his chest and upper legs. Their shirts and robes were badly ripped and an enraged Gervase called them in to explain their sudden ferocious battle. However, neither would account for it. It was too demeaning to confess. Luke had no intention of admitting that he had caused the fight by his sneering, and Henry refused to lose the moral high ground by sneaking on his peer, so both were held down and slapped across the backside by the Succentor with a stiffened leather strap.
In some cases Henry had known beatings to create a sense of mutual trust, but with Luke this didn’t happen. Luke knew himself to be superior, with the same fixed, ineffable certainty that told him that his father was in every way the moral, mental and social superior to Henry’s father, and that his mother was better in comparison to Henry’s. No discussion was needed. Luke knew himself to be the more worthy person in every way.
Such confidence niggled constantly at Henry. He felt it was his duty to break through the exterior of Luke’s pride and show him that he was wrong, that Henry was as important a boy. At first his sole means of doing so, in order to avoid a second thorough flogging, was to excel at all the tasks given to him.
He had enjoyed a measure of success. Somewhat to his own surprise, he found that he had a certain ability at reading, and the Latin he was given to learn soon held little mystery for him; in a little under a year he was better at reading and speaking Latin than Luke. Yet no matter how hard he worked, he could not make much headway with his writing or painting. His fingers failed him when he picked up a reed and tried to form perfect, precise circles and straight lines. The effort involved seemed too great. It was pointless: it wasn’t as if Henry really needed to know how to write. When he was no longer a Chorister, he would go back to Thorverton to help his mother look after their property. Writing wouldn’t be much use then.
At Luke’s desk he gazed down critically. His rival had drawn some pictures of peasants working in a field. It wasn’t bad, either, Henry thought privately. Women threshed grain from their long stems, a shepherd with his dog drove a flock towards a pen, young boys pulled on a string to trip a fine net trap, catching a pair of songbirds. All as it should be.
Henry leaned closer. The colours were very good, the reds and blues of the tunics looking just like real cloth. Luke had coloured the lettering all in gold, and it fairly glowed on the page. It was entrancing. Henry wished he could draw and paint like that. But he couldn’t.
Walking back to his own desk, he looked down without interest. There was something missing, he could tell, but he couldn’t be bothered to see what it was. He’d already got what he wanted, the boy-Bishopric: both for his mother, and to slight Luke.
As the thought struck him, the door opened and Luke himself walked in. He cast a contemptuous look at Henry, then crossed to his desk, pulling a bundle concealed beneath it. Henry tried not to look interested, but he couldn’t help squinting sideways to see what it could be. Luke obviously knew he was intrigued, but shoved the thing under his coat and gazed at Henry as if daring him to make a comment; it was unnecessary because Henry refused to look up. He sat doodling idly until he heard the door slam behind Luke.
He couldn’t go and look at the other boy’s desk, since Luke might return at any moment. So instead, Henry reached for his little pot of yellow colouring to touch up some of his lettering, only to see that it was gone.