Still not asleep, Simon rolled on to his back once more and lay staring at the ceiling. A lamp outside in the yard threw a pale, flickering yellow light that caught the dusty cobwebs, making them look like small wraiths against the whitewashed ceiling; he tried to lose consciousness by watching their dance, but knew it wouldn’t work. Instead he turned to face the small altar, placed there for the convenience of guests, and muttered a prayer, but that failed to bring on sleep as well.
The room felt close, hot and humid, and his bladder was full. Swearing to himself, he got up and walked to the window, which gave on to the court. He quietly slid down the shutter and was about to relieve himself when he saw a dark figure passing over the yard. It was a monk, but even at this distance he could see that it was a different one from the man he had seen earlier. This monk was tall, if slightly stooped, just like Brother Peter the almoner.
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
