The Poisoned Chalice

Chapter Eight In which Crowner John again meets Dame Madge

Unlike the previous evening, the hall of the keep at Rougemont was thronged with people when John arrived there at about the ninth hour of the morning. He had not gone there directly from the priory as, acting on a sensible suggestion from Nesta, he had called at his house in Martin’s Lane on the way to the castle. His mistress, ever concerned for his welfare even when it meant improving his relations with his wife, felt that he could use this latest drama to divert Matilda from her current vendetta against him. They were both aware of her obsession with the local aristocracy and the other grand folk of the county. Nesta suspected that news of a sudden, mysterious death of a de Courcy, especially one betrothed to the eldest son of Lord Ferrars, might entice her out of her current evil mood.

She was right. Although John had to summon up the courage to climb the outer stairs to the solar and push his way in, once he had baldly announced the news to his wife, her excitement rapidly banished her sulks. She threw down her needlework and immediately besought him for details. Although John had little real information, he embellished what he had to hold her interest.

Matilda was almost enraptured by the tragedy. ‘Adele de Courcy! We met her at the Guildhall two months ago, when the Portreeves were reappointed. You surely must remember her.’

Her husband agreed that he did, but in fact his only memory was of her father, who had become a little too drunk that night, perhaps at the joy of having one of his daughters linked to the rich and powerful Ferrars dynasty. He let Matilda prattle on for a few moments, to consolidate his restoration to favour. She went through the genealogies of the two well-known families and emphasised that the ladies of Exeter had been looking forward to the wedding of the year in the cathedral.

‘They’ll be greatly disappointed, then,’ he said, somewhat unwisely, ‘for the poor bride is lying stiff in a store room at St Nicholas’s!’

His wife’s lips tightened at his earthy dispassion, but the excitement of being the first Exeter lady to know of the matter allowed his stumble to pass. ‘A store room! She needs to be moved quickly to some place of honour. They have a town house in Currestreet,[4] surely she should be lying there. Unless they take her to Shillingford.’

This was their manor a few miles to the west, towards Dartmoor. ‘Does the family know of her death yet?’ gabbled Matilda. ‘I am slightly acquainted with her mother – she prays at St Olave’s occasionally. Poor woman. She’s a dull person who dresses like a haystack but a pleasant soul.’

John backed towards the solar door, Nesta’s stratagem successfully accomplished. ‘No one knows of her death yet – not even the family. I’m just off to tell Richard. He’ll want to know quickly, with all these notables involved.’

He fled while he was still winning and made his way to the castle. The usual crowd of supplicants was milling about, waiting to see the sheriff on one matter or another. Knights hopeful of advancement, merchants with grievances about market competition, applications for fairs and worried-looking clerks clutching sheaves of parchment vied with each other for admission to the sheriffs chamber. In addition, today saw an unusual number of messengers and servants concerned with the imminent arrival of the Chief Justiciar two days hence. However, John pulled rank as the second royal law officer in the county, and thrust his way through to the harassed guard at Richard’s door. The sight of the six-foot black and grey figure bearing down on him, like some great bird of prey, strangled the challenge in the man’s throat and the coroner stormed past him without a glance.

Inside, the two window openings were unshuttered to let in both the light and the icy wind. The sheriff sat behind his cluttered table with his cloak wrapped around him, a woollen cap on his head. He was dictating rapidly to a clerk, who feverishly scribbled down a list of guests for next week’s feast at Rougemont, in honour of the Archbishop of Canterbury – alias Justiciar Hubert Walter.

Richard’s face set into its familiar pose of pained surprise when he saw the coroner, but his voice did not break its pace as he continued his monologue to the scribe. John strode impatiently to the window and gazed down into the inner bailey to pass the time. He saw the usual confusion of a castle ward – oxen trudging through the mire, pulling carts full of vegetables and animal fodder, and a sergeant drilling a squad of soldiers. Women came in and out of the huts built around the wall embankment, carrying firewood and pots of steaming food or throwing slops on the ground. Some were screaming at their urchins and scooping up naked infants wandering in front of plodding horses, all familiar sights to a man who had spent more than half his life in soldiers’ encampments.

De Revelle’s voice jerked him out of his reverie. ‘Well, John, not another contrary notion about Mistress Rifford, I hope?’

The sarcastic tone brought him round to face the sheriff. This time, he looked forward perversely to shocking Richard out of his sneering condescension. ‘Something even more disturbing, Richard. We have a dead woman on our hands.’

‘Surely that’s no great novelty for a coroner. And why “we” all of a sudden? I thought you tried to deny my right to dabble in your interests?’

‘I think your interests will include this particular lady. It’s Reginald de Courcy’s daughter – the same Adele who was to wed Guy Ferrars’s son.’

De Revelle’s mouth opened and then shut with a snap. ‘Are you sure?’

The coroner went to the table and leaned his fists on the edge, bringing down his face close to Richard’s. ‘Never more so. How she died, I don’t yet know, but there’s blood about her nether parts.’

The sheriff stood up abruptly, half a head shorter than his brother-in-law. ‘Oh, good Jesus, not another ravishment! Those knaves of silversmiths, it could still be one of them. When did she die?’

John shrugged. ‘She was stiff and cold this morning. Some time during the night or last evening, I suspect. Could be longer, but the body wasn’t there last night when the priest’s servant tipped rubbish on the spot and saw nothing.’

The sheriffs eyes widened in horror. ‘Rubbish? What rubbish?’

Patiently John explained the whole story as far as he knew it.

Richard sat down again with a thud and held his head in his hands. ‘Mother of Christ, what’s happening in this town? Hubert Walter is almost upon us, we have a portreeve’s daughter ravished and a lady of high birth dead in a dung-heap!’

John sat on the stool that the clerk had vacated when he hurried away with his parchments. ‘Did you not arrest those smiths this morning, as you threatened?’

Richard raised his head and looked rather sheepish. ‘No, I changed my mind. At least, I was going to throw them into the gaol here but Godfrey Fitzosbern came with them to plead for their liberty.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought that he had much interest in the welfare of his servants.’

‘He hasn’t – but he said his business would be ruined if I locked up his two best craftsmen before he could find replacements.’

Not for the first time, John realised that the burgesses and merchants of the town had a great deal of power, especially where making or losing money was concerned. Even a sheriff thought twice before antagonising the master of one of the major guilds.

‘So what’s to be done about this dead lady?’ demanded Richard.

‘I have sent again for that nun from St Katherine’s Priory in Polsloe. She is skilled in examining live women, so I suppose she can apply the same art to a dead one. We must know how she died.’

‘Can we be absolutely sure that this is Adele de Courcy? Who identified the body?’

John prevaricated a little as he wanted to avoid any jibes from his brother-in-law, especially if Richard relayed Nesta’s involvement back to Matilda. ‘Several of the bystanders knew her,’ he lied. Then, with a little inspiration gained from a remark by his wife, added, ‘It seems that she sometimes worshipped at St Olave’s nearby.’

‘But she was found at St Bartholomew’s in Bretayne, you say. What the devil was a lady doing alone in that cesspit of a place?’

‘I suspect the body was dumped there for concealment so it could have been brought from almost anywhere in the city, given a horse, a handcart or even a barrow.’

De Revelle jumped up and yelled at the man-at-arms on his door to send for his horse. ‘I must go at once to Reginald de Courcy, whether he be in Currestreet or at his manor. And word will have to be sent to the Ferrars. Hugh, the son, has a lodging in Goldsmith Street, though I know he spends much time in Tiverton or at one of the other many honours his father holds.’ As he grabbed a cloak from a curtained recess in the wall, the sheriff groaned in frustration. ‘Of all the times for these crimes to happen! The Justiciar is coming – and now my attention is mortgaged by these affairs.’ Muttering under his breath, he hurried out, forgetting for once to argue with John about who had primacy of jurisdiction.

The coroner was content to leave de Revelle to tour the families – a task the sheriff welcomed, in spite of his protestations, as it raised his profile among influential people in the county. Richard was tarred with the same brush as his sister when it came to currying favour with rich Normans, especially as he needed to restore his credibility after being associated with Prince John’s abortive rebellion.

After Richard had gone John left the keep and went up to his cramped chamber above the gate-house, where Thomas de Peyne was penning some duplicate copies of inquest records.

He rose from his stool deferentially and jerkily crossed himself. ‘I wondered where you might have been Crowner – and that hairy ape who makes my life a misery.’

‘Sit down again, clerk, and take a fresh roll from your bag. We have a new case to inscribe.’ He dictated a short account of the finding of Adele’s body, but omitted Nesta’s identification – he could insert some other name as official deposer later when many others had confirmed that it was Adele. ‘Now come back with me to St Nicholas’s. You may have some more scribing to do, if Dame Madge comes up to our expectations.’

When they reached the priory, the snow had increased and a thin powdering of white lay on the roofs and walls. A dappled pony was tied up outside the gate, with a side-saddle girthed to it.

‘That was quick, the holy sister must be here already,’ said John, marching into the small courtyard and pushing open the store room door.

In the dim light, he saw a woman from a nearby house, who had insisted on chaperoning the female corpse, hovering at the head of the bier. The coroner’s officer was deep in conversation with the formidable nun from Polsloe. Both looked up as they entered. At the sight of the still corpse and the tall Benedictine, Thomas’s hand automatically strayed to his forehead, shoulders and breast.

After greeting Dame Madge courteously and thanking her for coming again to their aid, John asked her, ‘Have you had any chance to examine the lady?’

The long, almost masculine face regarded him steadily. ‘I arrived not five minutes ago, Sir John, but already I suspect I know what has happened.’ She turned to Gwyn, who again held out his hand to display the two slimy cylinders in his palm. ‘Your man found these in her issue of blood. They are pieces of the inner bark of a certain elm tree. When dried, they become shrunken and hard, but swell up greatly when wetted.’

John looked at her without understanding. What did a lecture on the properties of wood have to do with a suspicious death?

‘They are used for procuring a miscarriage, crowner. A length or two of dried elm bark is pushed into the neck of the womb. When moistened by the humours of the body, it swells greatly and forces open the entrance, often leading to dropping of the child.’

John digested this novel piece of information. ‘And this is what has happened here?’

A faint smile crossed the gaunt face. ‘I am not a soothsayer. I have not yet had time to look. But I see no way in which elm slips would be found in a pool of blood under a dead woman unless that was the most likely explanation.’

Gwyn, deferential to this nun in spite of his usual antipathy to anything religious, asked a very pertinent question. ‘You said these things were inserted into the womb. Must that mean by someone else other than the woman?’

Dame Madge considered this for a moment. ‘It would be just possible, especially if the woman had some knowledge of midwifery, for her to do it herself – but it would be very unlikely to succeed.’

The coroner took up the questioning. ‘Given that the body has been hidden and obviously transported here from somewhere else, we must accept that another person is involved. But why should she die?’

‘The flux of blood strongly suggests she bled to death. Though elm slips are moderately safe, I have seen deaths from purulent suppuration of the womb, some days or even weeks after the attempt at miscarriage. But bleeding suggests that the insertion was badly performed and that the hard wood has perforated some internal part. I shall try to discover if this has happened here.’

Gradually John began to assemble in his mind the importance of these facts. It meant that Adele de Courcy, promised to be Devonshire’s Bride of the Year, had been already pregnant. Was it by Hugh Ferrars – or, worse, by someone else? ‘Will you be able to tell how far gone in pregnancy she was?’ he asked the nun.

‘Possibly. This method of procuring a miscarriage is unreliable, like all attempts at abortion. But to have any chance of success, it is useless to try before about the fourth month. Later it has more chance of bringing about the desired result, but also more chance of fatal complications.’

She had had enough of talking and now shooed the men out of the room, beckoning the middle-aged neighbour to her as she firmly closed the door on the coroner and his men.

They stood aimlessly outside in the priory yard, imagining what was going on beyond the door.

‘Quite a woman, that!’ said Gwyn admiringly. ‘She should join our crowner’s team.’

Thomas saw his chance to goad his ginger colleague. ‘Sounds as if you fancy your chances with the lady – she’s about your size.’

‘I could do worse, if I were not already happily wedded.’

Thomas grinned evilly, his lazy eye swivelling. ‘You’re twenty years too late – the lady had the sense to take the veil long before she met you!’

Gwyn grabbed the little clerk by the collar of his threadbare surcoat. He lifted him off the ground and shook him. ‘Holy Orders didn’t stop you feeling the bottoms of the novitiates in Winchester, did it?’ he retorted.

John told them impatiently to stop their horseplay – he was too anxious to know what Dame Madge had discovered for he must hold an inquest before the body was taken out of the city to Shillingford, otherwise the jury would have no chance to view it.

After what seemed an age, but was probably only ten minutes, the door opened and the black-gowned figure appeared. She walked to a horse trough standing inside the courtyard gate and washed her hands, both of which were soiled with blood. Wiping them on a linen kerchief she produced from within the folds of her habit, she came over to the coroner. ‘It was just as I thought. She was about five months gone with child, I could just feel the enlarged womb in her lower belly. She has bled to death, not suffered suppuration. The neck of the womb is torn and penetrated. Either the elm sticks were inserted with force in the wrong place, or some other instrument was used, maybe after they had proved unsuccessful.’

John and Gwyn heard her in silence, Thomas murmured some unintelligible Latin and, as usual, made the Sign of the Cross.

‘Would she have died quickly after the damage to the womb?’ asked John.

The nun raised her bony shoulders in a gesture of doubt. ‘If you mean quickly in terms of hours rather than days, then yes. It might have been a rapid issue, exsanguinating her within minutes, but there is no way of telling without seeing the amount of blood lost.’

‘What we saw at St Bartholomew’s must have been merely the last of the flow,’ mused the coroner. ‘There may have been far more blood at the place she came from originally.’

Dame Madge nodded. ‘I can do no more. It is for you to discover who did this thing. I have seen similar cases, but not in a lady such as this, I must admit.’

The prior came up and offered the nun refreshments before she rode her pony back to Polsloe. He invited John to join them, but the coroner decided that he had better get on with his duties. ‘I must discover what is to be done with the body – and then arrange the inquest. May we hold it in the courtyard, Prior?’

With some reluctance, the monk agreed, and John sent Gwyn and his clerk to round up as many local witnesses as he could to act as the jury.

Reginald de Courcy was devastated when the sheriff called upon him at his house in Currestreet, just below the embankment of the outer ward of Rougemont, to bring him the bad news, but an iron will kept him from showing any obvious emotion. He was a thin man, with a grey rim of beard and a matching moustache. Most of his hair was on his face, as he was almost completely bald. He had been a good soldier in his younger days, a faithful supporter of the second King Henry and had fought in France alongside the old monarch. Adele had been a late child of his second marriage; his other family was much older and she had been the apple of his eye.

De Courcy lived most of the time at one of his two manors: his favourite was at Shillingford, and the other at Clyst St George. His wife and three elder daughters rarely came into Exeter, except to visit the markets, for social occasions or sometimes to worship. He kept this modest house for his frequent business visits, as he owned two woollen mills on Exe Island, the reclaimed marshland along the river outside the West Gate. As a burgess, he knew the sheriff well, but this did nothing to lessen the shock of the news.

‘I am afraid that you must come down to see your dear daughter’s body as soon as possible,’ said Richard, with tolerably sincere sympathy for the stricken father.

‘Then I must tell Hugh Ferrars and bring him with me. I cannot imagine how he will take the news of the death of his betrothed. It is almost as bad as losing a daughter.’ De Courcy’s jaw was clenched rigidly between sentences, as if to prevent any sign of emotion escaping him. They strode together the short distance to Goldsmith’s Street, which came off the high street near the new Guildhall.

Hugh Ferrars kept two rooms and a squire in a house belonging to a merchant friend of de Courcy’s. This was mainly to be within riding distance of Adele at Shillingford, as his family home at Tiverton was too far away for convenience, although he went there for part of each week.

He was a soldier, but one who, so far, had missed all the wars. He had gone to the Crusades but arrived just as King Richard was leaving, after the failure to take Jerusalem, so had come home too. Before that, a campaign in France had ended in a truce within a week of his joining the royal forces, so at the moment he was a knight without a cause. He had decided to get married, to fill in the time before another war came along and to get himself an heir in case he was killed on the field of battle. His father had soon found a suitable match and Hugh was well pleased with Adele, though perhaps he was too self-centred to consider himself in love with her. Still, she was elegant and good-looking, if not a radiant beauty like Christina Rifford.

The news of her death, brought by de Courcy and the sheriff, provoked towering anger. He and his squire were in the yard at the back of the house, practising with sword and shield for a coming tournament. Hugh was a stocky, solid young man, with bulging muscles and generally more brawn than brain. He had flaxen hair and a matching moustache, but no beard. When his prospective father-in-law broke the news, Hugh went berserk, slashing at the fencing with his great blade and yelling a mixture of grief-laden cries and bloodcurdling threats against whoever may had killed her.

After they had calmed him down a little, into a mood of simmering recrimination, the sheriff suggested that his squire ride straight back to Tiverton to fetch his father, Lord Guy Ferrars.

‘No need to ride that far, he’s in Exeter, thank God. He came today to stay as a guest of the Bishop at his palace as he is to meet with Hubert Walter this week.’

De Revelle knew that the senior Ferrars would be an important figure at any political meeting with the Chief Justiciar, but had not been told that he would be staying with Bishop Marshall. This was another place at which to call, and the two men strode off with Richard to the cathedral, one grim-faced and tense, the younger muttering imprecations against whomever had brought this trouble upon him. In many ways, he was acting just like Edgar of Topsham, who was still marching around in a high temper, obsessed with the idea that Godfrey Fitzosbern was the villain.

The Bishop’s Palace, the grandest dwelling in Exeter, was built behind the cathedral, between it and the town wall. With a garden around it, free from ordure and rubbish, it was a pleasant spot that was wasted for most of the time, for Bishop Henry, brother of William, Marshall of England, was rarely in residence. The role of prelate was a part-time job for a politician, the most extreme example Hubert Walter’s holding of the See of Canterbury. Today, the Bishop was absent, with Hubert on his way back from Plymouth.

The Archdeacon was in the palace, busy organising the coming week’s events with the Precentor and the Treasurer. John de Alecon received the sheriff and his bereaved companions with sympathy, then took them to a guest room to see Hugh’s father.

Guy Ferrars was a Norman’s Norman, really born a century and a half too late. Large, muscular and arrogant, he still had the mind-set of one of the original conquerors who had come over with William of Normandy. To him, the English were still the defeated enemy after the battle of Hastings, even though he had not been born until eighty years later. He ruled his many manors and a castle with a rod of iron, when he was not abroad fighting either the Irish or Philip of France. John de Wolfe had met him a few times and heartily disliked the man, whose only saving grace in the coroner’s eyes was his unswerving loyalty to King Richard.

When he heard of Adele’s death, hardly a muscle moved in his florid face, what could be seen of it beneath the large brown moustache and beard. His son, who resembled him in many ways, spat out the news more in anger than sorrow, constantly jerking his sword part-way out of its scabbard and noisily slamming it back.

Lord Ferrars turned stony-faced to Richard de Revelle. ‘How did she die, sheriff? She was a healthy young woman.’

‘We know little about the tragedy yet. It is less than an hour since the coroner brought me the news. I hurried to see de Courcy and your son, then came here. We are on our way to the place where she lies now, trusting to learn more.’

Guy Ferrars jerked his head in a single nod of understanding and shouted for his own squire to bring his outdoor clothes. ‘We will go – and God help him who has brought this about!’ he snarled.