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shouldn’t be hard. Luke had an excellent memory.
    The foul brats – Gervase was responsible for the discipline and teaching of the Choristers so he felt entirely justified in his choice of language – would recognise that. They must vote for Luke because he was the better of the two: the better singer, the better writer, the better scholar, the better behaved generally, and easily the better born. He came from the Soth family, which was connected to John Soth, who had been Mayor of Exeter some years ago. In every way, Luke was the right choice.
    Henry was only the son of a widow woman who was little more than a peasant. He had shown some promise, certainly, when he was younger, but Gervase knew how boys who showed promise at an early stage could change later on. Boys in their early teens were like different people – or, rather, animals. The sods became argumentative – worse still, the cleverer ones learned to dispute. That was when they caught the sharp end of Gervase’s tongue or felt the lash of his rope’s end. If they wished to remain in the choir, they must learn obedience, not answer back their master.
    Henry was of the latter type. Wilful for his ten years, he had an insolent manner and invariably questioned the validity of any command. More often than any other he had felt the full force of Gervase’s rope, but still he remained unruly, disputatious and a disruptive influence on his peers.
    Gervase sighed as he leaned back against the small shelf of the
misericorde
. It was many years since he himself had been ten years old, but through living with so many youngsters he could recall his own feelings with alarming clarity: the rebellious determination to behave as he wished, the desire to kick out at an unheeding remote and aloof Authority. In his heart of hearts, Gervase had a fear that Henry might be behaving as badly as Gervase himself would have liked to, had he dared, when he was younger.
    Yes; when Gervase considered the other children at the Cathedral he had to reflect that it was fortunate that Luke would become the Bishop.
    John Coppe would not have disagreed with his choice. Coppe sat at the side of Fissand Gate, plaintively calling out to passers-by, his bowl in his hand. He had been a sailor for most of his life, working for merchants in the city, convinced in his nautical optimism that he would one day return home rich. Instead his sanguine nature had led to him spending all his money in taverns and whore-houses before his final disaster when he was crippled. During a vicious attack at the hands of French pirates, he had had a leg cut from under him and received an axe-stroke full in his face. Now he was a beggar.
    Coppe was not like the other beggars. Many – indeed most – were bitter, tortured men and women who wheedled and pleaded, then resorted to hurling abuse at the backs of passers-by who ignored them. They thought that God had marked them out for special punishment because of the sins of their parents or some appalling offence of their own, and the knowledge gnawed at them, turning them either into whining, fawning wretches who craved the society of ordinary people or, more commonly, into crabbed, twisted souls who despised all other people.
    Their avowed loathing for mankind while at the same time desiring above all things to be able to join in with ordinary life, Coppe found sad. And silly. As far as he was concerned, he had been marked out by God, it was true, but he retained the conviction that God would reward him in Heaven. When Coppe died, he knew he would be taken up before all the richest in the city, and would be fed and watered with as much ale as he could drink. That was what the friars told him, and he saw no reason to disbelieve them. As far as he was concerned, he was almost privileged.
    He was given money regularly by folk who passed along the road, often by the women who averted their eyes from his dreadful, twisted visage with revulsion, but because Coppe was always