The Poisoned Chalice

Chapter Eleven In which Crowner John meets an Archbishop

The following day was Sunday, almost a day of rest for the King’s coroner for the county of Devon.

In the forenoon, Matilda dragged him off to church, which she did every few weeks. An enthusiastic worshipper herself, she was ever nagging John to be more devout. Although she went often to the great cathedral a few yards from their house, her favourite haunt was the tiny church of St Olave’s in Fore Street, strangely dedicated to the first Christian king of Norway.

Reluctantly, John accompanied her to Mass, thinking it a prudent move in the reconciliation plan with his wife. He had no firm religious instincts. He supposed that he believed in God – it was almost impossible not to in the conditioned atmosphere of the times – but for John, religious belief was just a part of life, like breathing, eating and making love. His life-threatening excursions to the Crusades had had no significant motive for wishing to rid the Holy Land of the infidels – in fact, he rather admired the Saracens. He went because his king wished to fight there, and loyalty to Richard was more than sufficient reason for him to risk his life – as well as giving him an excuse to be away from Matilda. So he went through the motions at St Olave’s, using the time when the priest was mouthing the liturgies and acting out the rituals to think of the various problems thrown up by his current cases.

The Torbay wreck plunder and murders were virtually settled now, with the reeve and two villagers locked up in the gaol of Rougemont Castle. In spite of John’s threat to levy the cost on Torre, the sheriff was fretting over the expense of feeding them until the next visit of the judges, which might take months. For this reason, prisoners were often allowed to escape, by the gaolers, who either turned a blind eye or were bribed. This happened even more often in the town gaol in South Gate, where those awaiting trial or already condemned by the burgess’s court were incarcerated. The townsfolk had to pay for their lodging there, and it was a standing joke that a steady stream of prisoners got out and vanished into the forests to become outlaws, so relieving some of the tax burden on the citizens of Exeter.

As the priest droned on at the altar, de Wolfe slouched among the congregation, who stood on the bare flagstones for no benches were provided for their ease. His thoughts drifted again to the complexities of the rape, the miscarriage death, and he wondered if Fitzosbern had been to petition the sheriff as he had threatened. If John read Richard de Revelle correctly, he would tread very carefully with the Ferrars, de Courcy, the portreeve and, indeed, Fitzosbern himself, as each had different and varying degrees of power among the hierarchy of the Devon community. The sheriff always tried to come down on the winning side, especially since he had burned his fingers so badly when he had supported Prince John against the King.

The coroner wondered whether there was anything in these almost hysterical accusations against Fitzosbern. Though he disliked the man, he recognised that his feelings were irrelevant in the matter of his guilt: so far there was not a shred of evidence against him, although there had been so much gossip and rumour.

His mind drifted on to another less complicated case. A child had been killed on Friday when a wheel came off the axle of a cart carrying building stone and crushed him. The jury had declared the offending wheel to be the instrument of death and so was a ‘deodand’, to be confiscated and sold for the benefit of the child’s family. The carter now faced starvation, as he had no usable vehicle to earn his living, but John now decided to let him have his wheel back and pay its value to the family in instalments. Deodand money was supposed to go to the royal treasury, but sympathetic and over-taxed jurymen often voted to have the money paid to the family of the victim.

Having mentally settled that case, John was jogged back to the present by Matilda’s elbow and found that the clergyman had stopped droning and the service was over. He walked his wife back to their house, Matilda preening herself before her acquaintances on the arm of her coroner husband. She stopped several times to pass the time of day and indulge in a little gossip. This morning the fracas in Martin’s Lane and the break up of the Fitzosbern menage was easily the favourite topic.

As far as John could make out from the snippets he heard, Fitzosbern was already as good as condemned for multiple rape, procuring miscarriages, and murder. Uncomfortable with this exaggerated nonsense, he urged Matilda on. When they got to their door, he said that he must go up to the castle to see her brother about the events of the previous evening. He promised her that he would be back for the midday meal – and promised himself a visit to the Bush that afternoon – then hurried through the town to Rougemont and climbed the stairs inside the gate-house.

Gwyn and Thomas, Sunday notwithstanding, were up in the cramped coroner’s chamber, taking their usual morning bread and cheese. John told them of the fight in his lane the previous evening and the whispering campaign in the town against the silversmith. The clerk nodded his bird-like head. ‘The same story is all about the Close. The canons and their servants are full of the gossip’, he confirmed.

Gwyn swallowed a full pint of ale. ‘Do you think there’s any truth in it?’ he asked.

The coroner shrugged, his favourite form of expression.

Thomas, hunched over his eternal writing, looked up again. ‘I saw Fitzosbern and then Henry Rifford hurrying over to the keep not ten minutes ago. Both are chasing the sheriff. No doubt.’

John rose from his stool. ‘The portreeve as well? I’d better get across there and see what mischief they’re up to.’

Under no circumstances could John de Wolfe ever feel sorry for his brother-in-law, but that morning he came near to it, as he saw the harassment that the sheriff was suffering.

Messengers from the Bishop’s palace vied with stewards to bring messages and require replies about the arrangements for the Archbishop’s visit the next day. Ralph Morin, the castle constable, waited impatiently to discuss matters of protocol with him in regard to the procession of Hubert Walter into the city – and in the midst of this administrative confusion, two angry men were shouting both at each other and at de Revelle. When John walked into the sheriffs chamber, Fitzosbern and Rifford were almost nose to nose in front of Richard’s table. Both were big men and both were red in the face with anger.

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, Rifford! I had enough of such insults last evening, some of them on your family’s behalf.’

‘Where there’s smoke, Fitzosbern, there’s fire! Why should there be all this talk of you in the town of a sudden? I want the truth from you, at the end of a sword if needs be.’

Godfrey’s swarthy face sneered back at the Portreeve, his dark hair falling across his forehead. ‘Is that supposed to be a challenge, sir? You’d regret it! Your days of combat are long past, with years of fat pickings on the council of burgesses putting weight on your belly and flab in your muscles.’

The sheriff, trim in his green tunic and fawn linen surcoat, slammed his hands on his parchment-cluttered table and jumped to his feet. ‘Quiet, both of you! Look, I’ll give you five minutes to explain what you want with me, then you leave me in peace, understand? Today, of all days, with the Justiciar almost on my doorstep, I can do without this aggravation. Now then, Master Fitzosbern, say your piece.’

The silversmith, in a heavy blue mantle with a fox-fur collar thrown back over his shoulders, leaned on the other side of the trestle, his face jutting towards the sheriff. ‘I’ve told you already, I want justice! I was assaulted and defamed last night by no less than three men, outside my own street door!’

‘And you half killed young Edgar, son of Joseph, as well as grievously assaulting your own wife, by all accounts,’ retorted Henry Rifford, swelling visibly with indignation within his dark red surcoat.

Richard de Revelle held up a warning hand. ‘Wait, Henry, you’ll have your say in a moment. Now, Fitzosbern, who are you trying to lay charges against?’

‘This whipper-snapper Edgar for one, of course! He bangs on my door and attacks me verbally at first, accusing me of ravishing the daughter of Rifford here. Of course, I was devastated on hearing of the foul act, and have every sympathy with the portreeve and his family, but that’s no excuse for such baseless accusations against a leading member of the community like me.’

Richard looked increasingly uncomfortable. ‘You have to make allowances for the state of mind of the young man, in such circumstances,’ he observed mildly.

‘Circumstances be damned! What right has anyone to utter such slander? And then for that arrogant swine Hugh Ferrars to make even worse threats and then assault me – attempted murder, see my throat!’ He drew back his head and showed the thin, crusted line of blood across his neck, with an angry red margin along it. ‘John de Wolfe was there – he probably stopped the drunken oaf from killing me. Your own coroner is witness that Ferrars and his equally drink-sodden squire may well have had my life.’

The sheriff rubbed a hand desperately across his brow. He needed this problem today like he needed an arrow in his back.

‘Crowner, can you confirm this story?’ he asked wearily.

‘There are two sides to every story, Richard,’ replied John evenly. ‘I was not there at the start and Edgar of Topsham may well have provoked Fitzosbern. But it was Edgar who was in jeopardy when I arrived, for Fitzosbern was in danger of kicking him to death.’

‘I was defending myself, the stupid youth assaulted me on my own doorstep when I denied his ridiculous accusations about his betrothed. What would you expect me to do?’

‘Not kick him half to death. He is a feeble youth compared to you,’ retorted John.

The silversmith glared at him and launched into the second half of his tirade. ‘Then these two louts appeared and, without provocation, tried to kill me. Hugh Ferrars tried to hack off my head with his sword.’

John gave a derisive laugh. ‘Come, Fitzosbern! They pulled you off the boy to stop you killing him. You punched them manfully and Ferrars held you against the wall by resting his blade against your skin. Don’t try to make an assassination out of it.’

Godfrey began to shout denials and de Revelle again had to yell for quiet.

‘I’ve got very little time for this! Lord Ferrars and his son are in a similar position to Henry Rifford here – even worse, as there is a death involved. Now, all our tempers are frayed. I suggest we let them cool off. We have no evidence as yet, though in spite of what you pleaded, Fitzosbern, I am still inclined to take in your two workmen and put them to some stern test to get at the truth.’

The florid Portreeve was far from satisfied at this. ‘Why waste time on those two scapegoats, de Revelle? Put this man to the Ordeal – he is far more likely to know the truth of it.’

At that moment, as if to turn the screw on the sheriff’s torment, another figure burst into the chamber, pushing aside those others waiting to see de Revelle, and marched up to the central trio at the table. It was Reginald de Courcy, equally as angry as the main characters in the tableau.

‘What’s all this I hear about you, Fitzosbern?’ he shouted, ignoring the sheriff completely. ‘The town is buzzing with accusations that you were my daughter’s lover and the father of the child that killed her. What have you to say to that? For if it’s true, I’m going to kill you, even if I have to hang for it!’

Godfrey Fitzosbern looked as if he was going to explode. ‘Mary, Mother of God, has the world gone mad?’ he screamed, making a lunge at de Courcy with two clawed hands.

John grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back, while two men-at-arms at the end of the table made a rapid move to stand close alongside him, as the silversmith stood quivering with rage.

He swung his head towards the sheriff and, with a supreme effort at self control, said, ‘Everyone seems to want to accuse me and to kill me! For God’s sake, how often do I have to say that I know nothing of these things?’ His voice rose to a crescendo. ‘If anyone has any proof, let him provide it – or else keep their mouths closed! Do you hear me Sheriff? Leave me be!’ He twisted out of the coroner’s grasp and stormed to the door, where he turned to make his last threat. ‘Those who defame and assault me, I will appeal in the burgess court, for I see the sheriff’s shire court would be disinclined to do anything to give me justice!’

And with that he marched out and slammed the heavy door behind him in a final gesture of angry defiance.

That afternoon, John dallied pleasantly with his mistress in the tavern in Idle Lane. After a few mugs of Edwin’s ale downstairs, they adjourned to bed in her room which was partitioned off from the general dormitory on the upper floor, where pallets and straw mattresses were rented to guests.

At the same time, another bed in Exeter carried a far less comfortable burden, as Edgar lay aching on his palliasse in the store room of Nicholas’s shop in Fore Street. He had stumbled home after his encounter with Fitzosbern the night before and collapsed into the apothecary’s arms.

Nicholas, greatly concerned about his apprentice, had cleaned him up, washing away the blood and mud. When stripped, Edgar presented a patchwork of bruises on his face, legs, back and belly, where the muscular silversmith had belaboured and kicked him. Nicholas applied his skills as best he could, with salves and poultices, but he well knew that the only effective healer was time. ‘You’ve got no broken bones or open wounds, thank God,’ he announced, after a detailed examination of his battered assistant, ‘but you’ll ache for a week and be stiff for a fortnight.’

Now, this Sunday afternoon, Edgar, sipping more of a hot concoction designed to dull the pain, told the leech of the suspicions that were going around the town like wildfire about Fitzosbern’s involvement in both the ravishing and the fathering of the fatal pregnancy.

‘There’s no proof of it, though,’ said Nicholas, repeating what half the population of Exeter was saying to the other half.

Edgar shook his head over his mug, then winced with the pain of the sudden movement. ‘No, but why this sudden surge of suspicion against one man and no other?’

Nicholas looked worried, but had no answer for Edgar. ‘You keep clear of him in future, my lad,’ he said sternly. ‘You’re no match for his bullying strength. Fitzosbern’s a vindictive person, and he’ll appeal you before the courts if you accuse him without proof.’

He patted Edgar gently on the shoulder and pressed him back on to his mattress. ‘Get some rest now – let that potion send you to sleep. Tomorrow you may feel well enough to get back to some work in the shop.’

Nicholas left the young man to slumber in the cluttered room, smelling of every spice and herb known to science, and went back into his front shop to clarify some goose-grease for a skin salve.

A few miles outside Exeter, Edgar’s father was leaning on a wall outside his house in Topsham, looking past two of his ships moored at the quayside to the muddy banks of the river beyond. The tide was coming in rapidly and down-river, he could see the sails of one of his smaller vessels coming up from the direction of Exmouth, past the treacherous sandbar that projected under water from the tip of Dawlish Warren.

It was the Berengaria, named after King Richard’s beautiful but childless and now discarded wife, and was bringing more wine and fruit from western Normandy. Alongside him was Eric Picot, for whom some of the cargo was destined. Picot had ridden down from his house in Wonford, just outside the city, to reassure himself of its safe arrival, as the wrecking of the Mary of the Sea had been a serious financial loss.

But as they waited, they had other serious matters on their minds. Joseph had heard nothing of his son’s escapade with Fitzosbern until Picot had arrived, as he had not been in the city the previous day. Although reassured that Edgar was not badly damaged, he was incensed by the news of Fitzosbern’s assault. First he called the boy a fool for his impetuosity, then cursed Fitzosbern for being a cruel and callous bastard. ‘What is the truth of all this, Eric?’ he asked worriedly. ‘Is this bloody silversmith guilty of anything or not?’

Picot scowled across the muddy water. ‘He not only assaulted your boy, Joseph, he also attacked his wife in public, when she tried to pull him off Edgar. ‘His face lightened a little. ‘At least the way seems clear for us now. She has broken with him altogether and left his house.’

Joseph turned to stare at his friend. ‘She is with you?’

Eric sighed. ‘We must tread carefully, annulment is a very difficult business. At present she is staying with her sister, but she says she will never go back to Godfrey. She was already at breaking point with his philandering and ill-treatment of her, though he had never struck her so hard nor so openly as last night.’

Joseph stroked his beard and looked down-river again at his approaching vessel. ‘What’s to be done, Eric? Am I to let his evil attack on my son go unchallenged?’

The wine merchant pulled up the hood of his mantle against the keen sea breeze. ‘I should make your great displeasure known to him as soon as you return to Exeter. Keep the pressure on the swine. Perhaps then he will have a seizure, damn him!’

Joseph nodded absently. ‘My son is a fool, though a well-meaning one. This defiling of Christina has been a bitter blow for all of us, but naturally mostly for Edgar.’

The tall, bearded man looked down-river again at his ship and his eyes moistened, not from the wind alone. ‘He has set his heart on becoming a leech and his apprenticeship ends next month. He was going to marry and take his bride to London, so that he could study at the hospital of St Bartholomew and become a proper physician. Now all is in confusion, he may not marry at all or Christina may not wish to go to London. His world is down about his ears and I can’t forecast what his actions will be. God forbid that he does something even more foolish. It would be better if I were to slit Fitzosbern’s gizzard myself than that my impetuous son should get hanged for it!’

After a frantic Monday morning in both cathedral and castle, the preparations were finally finished for Hubert Walter’s progress into Exeter. Ralph Morin, the constable of Rougemont, rode out along the old Roman road to the west with almost the whole of the castle garrison in full battle order, chain mail hauberks with aventails covering their necks, round helmets, shields, swords and lances.

The Chief Justiciar’s procession had left the great abbey of Buckfast early that morning, and they met up with it about five miles out of the city. Shortly after noon the sound of trumpets could be heard approaching the river crossing.

The wooden footbridge was of no use to such a mounted multitude, and as Walter Gervase’s stone bridge was still only half built, the only way across the Exe was by the ford. Thankfully the river was not in spate and it was not high tide, so an old soldier like Hubert thought nothing of riding his huge warhorse belly deep in the cold water.

With four knights as a vanguard, he came to the city wearing secular garb, rather than his archbishop’s mitre. Though he wore no armour, he had a conical helmet with a nasal guard and a yellow surcoat emblazoned with a couchant lion, the same arms on the oval shield that hung at his saddlebow. He carried no lance, but a great sword hung from his baldric, symbolic rather than necessary as he felt sure that no fighting would occur that morning between Buckfast and Exeter.

On each side of him and extending well behind, were lines of Ralph Morin’s men-at-arms under the proud captainship of Gabriel. A phalanx of Hubert’s own troops followed close behind him, then a mixed collection of nobles, priests, clerks, administrators, judges and other court officials, for Walter was effectively the regent and ruler of England now that the King had left the country, apparently for good.

Behind the riders came curtained wagons carrying the fine ladies and their families, then ox-carts piled with supplies. There were other wagons full of documents, the treasure cart and then a motley collection of nags, mules, donkeys and more carts carrying servants, cooks, falconers, houndsmen and all the ragbag needed to keep a court on the move. The convoy stretched for a quarter of a mile, ending with a troop of soldiers to protect the rear.

As the Justiciar came up out of the river, a large crowd waited to welcome him at the West Gate, which was hung with banners and flags. Just outside it, the sheriff and coroner waited on their horses with the two Portreeves, Henry Rifford and Hugh de Relaga. Almost all the town’s burgesses were there, the only notable absentee being Godfrey Fitzosbern. The Bishop, the canons and numerous other ecclesiastics were waiting for Hubert in the cathedral precinct, partly to emphasise its independence from the secular part of the town.

The advance guard wheeled smartly to the side as they came up to the welcoming party and Hubert Walter rode sedately up to Richard de Revelle and John de Wolfe. There were salutes and greetings all round and the sheriff introduced the Portreeves, who had not met the Justiciar before. Naturally, Richard de Revelle knew him well, as every six months he had to report personally on the state of the county’s taxes to Winchester or London. John, of course, was an old crusading comrade, albeit of greatly different rank, but they clasped arms and greeted each other warmly, to the sheriff’s ill-concealed displeasure.

The cavalcade set off up the steep slope from the West Gate towards Carfoix, where the four main roads from the gates met in the centre of the town. The streets were lined with most of the population of Exeter, who gave some ragged cheers as the cavalcade passed – though the crushing taxes that the Justiciar had imposed at the King’s insistence had markedly blunted Hubert’s popularity. The establishment of John’s office had been a tax-raising device, and Hubert had plenty more ideas up his sleeve.

The escort delivered him to the Bishop and his clerical entourage, all waiting outside the great West Front of the cathedral, attired in their full ceremonial robes. After being fed and watered in the Bishop’s Palace, Hubert would change into his archbishop’s regalia, for he was to celebrate a High Mass in the cathedral in the late afternoon, then attend a banquet in the palace that evening.

The sheriff stayed with the Bishop and Justiciar, but when the procession broke up to be housed in various parts of the Close, the castle and elsewhere in the town, John took his horse back to the farrier’s stable in Martin’s Lane and crossed to his house. Matilda, who had been in the crowd at the West Gate, had also hurried home and intended spending the rest of the day there, for Lucille to primp her hair and her new clothes for the banquet that evening, which would be the high spot of her social calendar.

With a sigh, John ate a meal in solitary state in his hall, then sat by the fire with a quart of ale, before reluctantly deciding to have an unscheduled wash in the back yard and even consider attacking the dark stubble on his chin, in honour of the Chief Justiciar.