Simon watched him pass from the Water Gate around the pig sties and across the court, moving silently like a great cat, slow and precise. Only when the monk had disappeared from view did he at last urinate, grunting as he shook himself dry. It was a peculiar time for a monk to be up, he thought, but then perhaps the Almoner had some special duty that he didn’t know of.
Satisfied with his conclusion, he yawned, slid the shutter closed and plodded back to his bed.
Chapter Six
The rain woke Joce Blakemoor. The thatch on his roof was silent, and even in the heaviest downpour he could sleep through it, but his neighbour, a cobbler, had put a set of boxes filled with broken pots beneath his window on the day of the coining, and now the rain falling on them set up such a din that Joce could get no rest. Some people might have thought it a musical sound, but to Joce it was a cacophony; no more attractive than a chorus of tom cats.
He rolled over and over in his bed, hauling the blankets up to his chin, pulling his pillow over his head, but nothing could drown out that incessant row. Eventually he lay with his bleared eyes open, staring at the shuttered window, waiting for the dawn.
It was no good. He rose angrily, pulling his shirt and hose on, and selecting his third-best tunic and an old coat, for now the coining was all done and he had other work to be getting on with. First, though, he would deal with the neighbour.
Climbing down the stairs, he saw Art, his servant, asleep on his bench by the fire, and kicked him awake. When the lad didn’t rise immediately, but lay back rubbing at his eyes, Joce tipped the bench over and the boy with it. Art’s belt lay by his clothes on the floor and Joce picked it up, lashing at the child’s back and flanks while he howled, hurrying on all fours to the wall, where he crouched, hands over his head, crying for Joce to stop.
That at least made the Receiver feel a little better. He threw the belt at the boy and stalked from the room. There was no excuse for a servant to remain sleeping when his master was awake.
In the hall, he selected a blackthorn club, then opened his door. Outside, he stood under the deep eaves and glared at the boxes standing against his wall. Geoffrey Cobbler shouldn’t have had them left there. He’d dumped them on the day of the coining. Anger welled. His neighbour was a selfish, thoughtless bastard! But what more could you expect from a fool like Geoffrey, a newcomer from Exeter or somewhere, a blasted foreigner.
That was why he could only afford a moiety. When Tavistock had been made into a Burgh by the then Abbot, hundreds of years ago, the land here had been split into 106 equal divisions called messuages. Half had their own gardens, and it was one of these which Joce owned; others had no garden and were divided into two moieties, one of which held the civil rights of exemption from tolls and other benefits, while the other half was ‘without liberty’. Although both paid the same rents to the Abbey, the one without liberty was naturally cheaper to buy, which was why the cobbler could afford his mean little property. He couldn’t have afforded a place like Joce’s.
The man’s door was still barred. Joce hammered on it, waiting for an answer, and when there was nothing stirring, he beat upon the timbers with his club.
‘Who is it? What do you want?’ came Geoffrey’s sleepy voice.
‘Open this door, you shit!’ Joce roared.
‘I’m not opening it to someone who shouts like that at this time of the morning.’
‘Ye’ll open this door, or I’ll break it in!’ Joce’s temper, always short, was fanned by the recalcitrance of his neighbour. Weak, feeble-minded tarse! ‘You want to leave your garbage out here where it’ll wake your neighbours, do you? I’ll teach you to put it under my eaves, you great swollen tub of lard, you pig’s turd, you bladder of fart!’
There was a crowd of people near him now, all trying to watch while avoiding the worst of the rain, and he gestured with his club at the door. ‘This bastard son of a half-witted Winchester sow has no consideration. Listen to that! How could anyone sleep with a racket like that? This cretin should clear up his junk. Let him take it down to the midden, rather than leaving it here to irritate his neighbours.’
‘It’s not my fault.’ Geoffrey’s voice came as though disembodied. ‘I never put it there. Someone else did.’
‘You say it’s not your rubbish, you lying son of a fox?’ Joce roared.
‘It’s my stuff, but I never put it there. I left it by my door, but I’ll get it cleared up as soon as I have time.’
‘Come out here and do it now, you…’
Others in the crowd had heard enough. Two men exchanged a glance, and then went to Joce’s side. Under the terms of the Frankpledge, every man had a responsibility to keep the peace, both by their own behaviour, but also in preventing others from breaking the peace. If they didn’t, the whole community could be fined.
‘Come on, Master Blakemoor. Put up your club and return to your house.’
‘Keep your hands off me! I want that bastard out here, and I’ll beat his head in.’
‘I’m not coming out. I’m not!’
Joce gave a harsh snarl of rage. Exhausted, his eyes felt raw, his head light and dizzy, his belly queasy, and it was all because of this bastard. Leaping forward, brandishing his blackthorn, he swung it with all his strength at the door, and the wood cracked with an ominous splintering. Before he could swing a second time, the club was grabbed and wrenched from his fist, and he turned to find himself confronted by five men, all of whom watched him with stern expressions.
‘Leave him alone, Blakemoor. You may not like him, but he’s not doing any harm. What’s got into you?’
‘Hark at that racket! Could you sleep through that?’ Joce snarled.
‘It didn’t wake me,’ said Andrew, who lived opposite Joce. ‘You did, by all this shouting.’
‘Oh, well, I am sorry!’ the Receiver sneered.
‘If Geoffrey moves all this stuff today, will you be content?’ asked Andrew.
‘I want him out here now!’
‘You’ll only fight him and break the peace. We won’t have that, Joce.’
‘Get him out here!’
Andrew studied him. He was a big man, the sort who looked as though he would move only slowly, but although his mind tended not to race too speedily, his body was capable of surprising bursts of energy. His dark eyes were calm, rather than stupid, and now he nodded towards a man at Joce’s side. ‘We can ask him out, and you and he can make it up. I won’t have you fighting.’
‘I’ll do as I want,’ Joce said.
‘You’ll do as you’re told, unless you want to appear in the Abbot’s court, you fool,’ Andrew said firmly.
After promises of his safety, Geoffrey’s nervous features appeared around the side of the door. He was profusely apologetic, insisting that he’d had no idea that the mess outside the building would upset his neighbour, swearing that he would have it all moved later than day, and with all the folks about him, Joce allowed his hand to be taken while both agreed, Joce grudgingly, to keep the peace.
That done, Joce spat at the ground and jerked his arms free of the neighbours who had held him back, biting his thumb at Geoffrey’s door, and stomping back to his own house. His servant, Art, stood in the doorway, watching nervously. When Joce walked through to his hall and sat in his chair, Art scurried in and shed tinder and twigs on the fire, then began to blow, teasing a spark into flame.