The Poisoned Chalice

Chapter Sixteen In which Crowner John unsheaths his sword

The break in the clouds that John and Nesta had seen from the town wall had rapidly widened and, by mid-evening, there was a clear sky and a biting frost, unusually severe for the eleventh day of December. The wind had dropped and the sky was a brilliant mass of stars, with a half-moon just rising in the east.

Like most of the folk of Exeter, John was indoors, glad of hot food, mulled wine and a good fire. Both he and Matilda wore woollen tabards over their surcoats and thick stockings with their soft house shoes. With no glass in any window in the city, they depended on linen screens and shutters to keep out the wind and rain, but the all-pervading cold required heavy clothing and a good stock of fire wood.

The boiled beef, with turnips and cabbage had been good: Mary was as efficient in the kitchen hut as she was in other things. Over the meal, John had told Matilda all the details of the afternoon with some relish, enjoying the chance to demolish the reputation of their next-door neighbour whom his wife had always championed. Even now she fought a rearguard action on his behalf, but without much conviction.

‘At least, this nonsense about Fitzosbern being the attacker of Christina Rifford is banished – the girl recollected nothing to his discredit. As to the fathering of Adele’s child, these are only the allegations of that murderous apothecary,’ she objected.

She was silent for a moment, a sobering thought having struck her. ‘To think that I visited him last month when I had that pustule on my eyelid – he could have poisoned me, for all I knew.’

John pushed aside his empty platter and laid his dagger on the scrubbed table. ‘Nicholas would have no reason to lie – his confession means the end of him, so what could he gain by distorting the truth?’

She grumbled under her breath, but had no answer for this.

They moved to the fire and sat eating a couple of hard apples each, which served as dessert. John had some of Picot’s wine warming by the fire and he poured Matilda a liberal draught, using a thick wineglass, one of a pair he had looted in France some years before. Usually they used pewter or pottery cups, but tonight he felt like celebrating with the luxury of glass. It was true that the breakthrough over the death of Adele de Courcy had been made by the sheriff, against John’s better judgement, but he consoled himself with the thought that the result had been quite unexpected by de Revelle, in spite of his claims that he had tricked Nicholas into confessing.

‘What will happen next, John?’ asked Matilda, her curiosity overcoming her pique at having her flirtatious neighbour discredited.

He looked at the leaping flames through the cloudy glass above the wine. ‘I strongly suspect that the Ferrars and Reginald de Courcy will dictate that. When they hear of Nicholas’s revelations, our silversmith will be in great trouble. I think Nicholas is safer in the castle gaol than Fitzosbern is in his own house.’

‘They wouldn’t harm him there, surely. That attack by Hugh Ferrars was on the spur of the moment, when he was deep in drink.’

‘He’s often deep in drink, so I’ve heard. But you’re probably right. They may appeal him together with Nicholas for conspiring to procure a miscarriage, leading to manslaughter.’

‘Could you be involved in this, as crowner?’

‘Yes, I’m supposed to be present at all appeals – but if my inquest jury made a presentment of homicide, then it should go before the King’s Justices when they come.’

Matilda groaned. ‘Oh, we’re back to that old business. I thought Hubert Walter had settled this dispute between you.’

‘He couldn’t, not if his damned Assizes don’t appear often enough.’

Suddenly, their fireside chat came to an abrupt end. With an awful feeling of familiarity, John heard a commotion in the lane outside. Simultaneously, Brutus, who had been eating supper scraps in the back yard, dashed through the passage, barking furiously.

John leaped up and hurried to the vestibule, where Mary had run through to grab the big hound by the collar. ‘There’s a riot in the lane!’ she announced. ‘Men with torches.’

John grabbed his round helmet from a bench and slammed it on his head. He hauled his sword out of its scabbard, which was hanging on the wall, and pulled open the front door. As he expected, the rumpus was coming from his left, where the silversmith’s shop lay. Bobbing flares added to the light from the farrier’s torches, carried by half a dozen men who were crowding around Fitzosbern’s door, shouting for him to come out, with oaths and some of the foulest language even John had ever heard.

As he ran along to the shop, he saw one man kicking lustily at the front door, though it was far too sturdy to be shifted, having been built to protect a valuable stock of silver. ‘Stop that, damn you!’ he yelled. ‘I command you to stop, in the name of the King. This is a riotous assembly!’

It was the first thing he could think of. On reflection later, he was not sure if a coroner could prohibit a breach of the King’s peace but, as he was the most senior law officer in the county after the sheriff, it seemed a reasonable thing to do in an emergency.

He reached Fitzosbern’s door and pushed aside the fellow who was battering upon it, whom he recognised as Hugh Ferrars’s squire, the one he had clouted on this same spot a few nights earlier.

As his eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light, after staring into his own fire, he saw that Hugh was in the forefront of the group, with his father behind him. He was more surprised to see Reginald de Courcy, too, alongside Hugh, with two others who were presumably squires or friends of the older men.

‘Get out of the way, de Wolfe,’ snapped de Courcy. ‘This is none of your business.’

Hugh’s squire attempted to push John aside, but the coroner gave him a punch in the belly that doubled him up in pain. ‘For the love of Mary, what do you all think you’re doing?’ he roared. ‘This is a civilised country, and there is a shire court tomorrow morning. If you have accusations or appeals, take them there.’

Hugh Ferrars moved forward to stand right against the coroner. He had been drinking, but did not appear out of control. ‘We have heard what the leech said, Sir John,’ he shouted thickly. ‘This bastard in here was the one who seduced my woman. He’s cuckolded me to make me the laughing stock of the county.’ Even in the turmoil of the moment, John noticed that his only concern seemed to be the loss of his own pride, not the death of his fiancée.

Now de Courcy elbowed his way to the coroner. ‘I want to hear this Fitzosbern admit or deny his guilt, Crowner. If he admits it, I will kill him. If he denies it, he can fight me any way he wishes – and if he wins, he was innocent.’

John glowered at the angry group, whose mood was getting nastier by the minute. ‘You cannot settle matters like this. Go to the sheriff. It is his responsibility to mete out justice in Devon, not yours.’

‘He favours Fitzosbern too much – he has shown that all week.’

This new voice, deep and authoritative, came from Guy Ferrars, standing behind the others.

John, standing higher than the others from his position on the doorstep, as well as from his own stature, lifted his long sword in the air. ‘Lord Ferrars, you, above all others here, must know this is sheer foolishness. Tell your son and your friends to go home – or at least go up to Rougemont to petition Richard de Revelle.’

Ferrars shook his head. ‘We want to see this villain and hear what he has to say from his own lips. It’s a wonder that Henry Rifford is not here with us. He must have similar scores to settle with the evil bastard.’

Exasperated beyond measure, John yelled at the top of his voice, ‘I tell you again, you cannot profit by this. For God’s sake come to your senses and go away! If he is in there, he will not come out. And this door is too stout for you to break down.’

‘Then we’ll fire his house!’ yelled another young man, who seemed to be a more drunken companion of Hugh Ferrars’s. He waved his flaming rush torch, as if to throw it at the closed shutters of the shop.

‘I’ll smash the bloody door for you,’ yelled the squire John had punched. He rushed at the coroner, his sword pointing at John’s heart. The coroner parried it with a clash of metal on metal, the man’s blade sliding harmlessly down to strike the hilt-guard. Simultaneously, John lifted a foot and kicked him as hard as he could in the groin. Though he had only a house shoe on his foot, the squire screamed as the blow crushed his testicle and he fell back doubled up in pain.

‘Stop this, I command you!’ John bellowed. ‘You’ll hang for attacking the King’s officer.’

He swung around just in time. The man who had been standing with de Courcy, a hulking fellow wearing a shoulder cape with a hood, lunged forward with a long dagger and struck at him. John twisted to avoid the thrust, but heard the blade rip through the cloth of his tabard and felt the prick as it nicked his side just above the waist.

With a roar, all the fighting reflexes learned in twenty years of battle sprang into action. This was no time for parleying or mediation, his life was now in danger.

As the man stumbled past him with the momentum of the dagger blow, John whirled round and, using the massive broadsword with two hands, whistled it in an arc through the air to land squarely on the back of his assailant’s neck.

Gwyn’s honing of his blade on the window-ledge of the gate-house must have been very effective, as the spine was cut clean through and only the windpipe and skin on the front prevented the head from parting company from his body. The man fell to the floor jerking spasmodically, a torrent of blood from the big neck arteries jetting on to the mud below the doorstep.

There was a sudden silence in the lane. Nothing could have been more effective in quelling the small mob than the sight of a man spilling his life blood into the mire.

De Courcy, presumably the victim’s master, bent down and rolled the body on to its back. ‘You are bleeding, Crowner,’ said Guy Ferrars, in a subdued tone.

John, who had stood immobile since striking the mortal blow, looked down at his left side and saw a growing stain of blood spread across his tabard. He pulled it aside and put a finger into a small hole in his tunic, ripping the linen widely apart. ‘It’s nothing but a scratch,’ he grated, looking at a one-inch slash in his skin, just above belt level. A few inches nearer the mid-line, and the dagger would have killed him. He stepped down from the doorstep, walked a few paces towards his house, then turned to face the silent throng. ‘There’ll be no inquest on this one, I assure you, for there’s no other coroner but me. But I doubt anyone will contest that it was a justifiable homicide.’ He held his side to reduce the bleeding until Mary could tie some rags around it. ‘I advise you all to disperse quietly. Go home – or if you still feel strongly about Fitzosbern, then go to the castle and have it out with de Revelle. There’s nothing here for you.’

He turned and walked away, leaving the group of protesters to pick up their dead and decide what to do next.

Unusually for her, the sheriff’s wife was in residence at Rougemont that night.

Eleanor de Revelle detested the bare, draughty quarters used by Richard in the keep, merely a pair of rooms joined to the chamber where he carried on all his business. They had manors elsewhere in Devon and the aloof lady far preferred country comfort there to the Spartan facilities of the castle at Exeter. But this weekend the visit of Hubert Walter had demanded that she be at her husband’s side, so she had grudgingly suffered several nights of discomfort in a bed that, she strongly suspected, was often occupied in her absence by other women.

This night, she was huddled under three woollen blankets and a bearskin, only her thin nose poking out into the cold, damp air of the lofty circular bedchamber. Richard was lying on his back beside her, snoring gently, after having lain on her and performed his husbandly duty some time before. To her, it was a sexual assault more than making love, but she had the impression that he did it more from a sense of duty than to satisfy his lust. He lived in Exeter most of the time, coming back to Tiverton never more than once a week, an arrangement which suited her well. It seemed to suit Richard also, as being the best way to manage a marriage that had certainly been one of political and financial convenience.

They had gone to bed early, as after a good meal, there had been little left to occupy them. Conversation was even scarcer in this household than in the coroner’s. It was still a couple of hours before midnight and a shaft of light struck through a crack between the shutters from a moon now high in the icy heavens.

Almost asleep at last, Lady Eleanor heard, with annoyance, a tentative tapping on the door. She tried to ignore it, but it came again, this time more insistent. Her husband’s snores never broke their rhythms, so with some satisfaction – and far more force than was needed – she nudged him in the ribs with a bony elbow. It took a couple more jabs to wake him, but eventually she got him sufficiently out of his stupor to call a testy ‘What is it?’ to whoever was knocking.

His manservant, a dried-up old Fleming who had been with him for years, put his head tentatively around the door, a flickering candle in his hand. He had more than once interrupted de Revelle in amorous acrobatics in that bed, and was always cautious of entering, even though he knew it was m’lady who was there tonight.

‘There are men who say they must see you on a matter of greatest urgency,’ he announced.

‘Is there a rebellion in the county? Has the King returned?’

The old man looked confused. ‘No, sir. Not that I know of.’

‘Then tell them to go to hell or come back in the morning.’

‘One is Lord Guy Ferrars, sir. And the other Sir Reginald de Courcy.’

At these words Richard shot out of bed. ‘Sit them in my chamber, give them wine. I’ll be there in a moment.’

The Fleming shuffled out, leaving the candle-holder on a shelf. When his wife turned her head, she saw Richard struggling to get a tunic over his nightshirt, then sitting on the low mattress to pull on tight breeches and shoes.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

‘God knows – but if it’s Ferrars and de Courcy together, it’ll concern that dead woman of theirs.’

The sheriff reached his office in record time to find the two Ferrars, de Courcy and Hugh’s squire standing stiffly around the fireplace, where the old servant was trying to stir some life into the smouldering logs.

‘De Revelle, you have to do something about this situation,’ snapped Lord Ferrars, with no greeting or preamble.

The sheriff needed no guesses as to what situation he meant. ‘But what more can I do? We have the man who caused the death of your daughter, Reginald.’

The group moved toward the sheriff almost threateningly. ‘He was but a tool, some wretched leech!’ snarled de Courcy. ‘We know now that he was forced into it by that swine Fitzosbern. He is the one we want for retribution.’

Hugh Ferrars threw up his arms dramatically. ‘She’s dead – my Adele is dead! That bastard took her flesh and then her soul!’ His voice was thick and he swayed a little, obviously from more mead and cider taken since he had left Martin’s Lane.

His father pushed him aside impatiently, the squire steadying the younger man while Guy Ferrars returned to the attack. ‘We’ll not rest until he is brought to justice one way or the other. De Courcy is bringing an appeal against him for conspiracy at your court in the morning. And Hugh and I are demanding that he be brought before a jury to present him before the King’s Justices at the next Assize.’

‘But you can’t do both!’ protested Richard.

Ferrars jabbed his fists on to his sword belt and stared pugnaciously at the sheriff. ‘Where does it say that two different persons cannot bring different charges, eh?’

De Revelle was silent. He didn’t know the answer to that.

‘Your coroner suggested that we come to you. He said I should bring an appeal of homicide against Fitzosbern, though I don’t want money compensation, I want his life.’

Richard silently cursed his brother-in-law for sending this bunch of troublemakers to him, whom he could not send packing, but to whom he must pay every deference if he wanted to keep his job.

‘You’ve seen John de Wolfe tonight?’ he asked

‘More than seen him, we’ve fought him,’ muttered Hugh Ferrars. ‘And he beheaded de Courcy’s bailiff for our trouble.’

Richard sat down heavily behind his desk. This was getting too much for a man dragged from his sleep not five minutes ago.

The story was told and they came round again to their ultimatum. ‘I want Fitzosbern arrested and put in your gaol to be brought to the shire court on my appeal,’ demanded de Courcy.

‘And I want him arrested on a Plea of the Crown to stand trial before the judges. He can choose combat or be hanged, I don’t care which,’ said Guy Ferrars, almost in a shout.

‘That would need presentment from a coroner’s jury,’ objected Richard.

‘What’s the problem? The inquest de Wolfe held was only provisional. He didn’t know then how she died, nor who did it. So he can open his inquest again and the jury can commit that swine to the justices.’

Hugh staggered away from the support of his squire. ‘Cut the bastard’s throat, I say! Quicker and surer than all this lawyers’ talk.’

His father ignored him. ‘I want him arrested, de Revelle. I don’t want any argument, if you want to stay sheriff of this county.’

De Courcy nodded vigorously. ‘At the very least, he must be brought before the court and made to account for his involvement. Tomorrow will be as good a time as any.’

Guy Ferrars agreed. ‘So we want him arrested tonight.’

De Revelle stared. ‘Tonight? Impossible!’

‘Why not? It’s long before midnight. Does the administration of this county not function in the dark?’ asked de Courcy sarcastically.

The sheriff pleaded for good sense. ‘What earthly good will it do to turn out guards, get them down there and drag him back at this hour? There’s nowhere he can go in a closed city. And why should he? He knows nothing of your desires to get him locked up. The morning will do just as well.’

They argued for a while, suspecting that the sheriff still desired to protect the master silversmith. Eventually they conceded that a few hours would make no difference to the outcome, once Richard had promised to send down men-at-arms at first light to bring Fitzosbern up to the shire court, which began its session at the ninth hour.

With a sigh of relief, de Reville watched the two noblemen leave his chamber, the squire half dragging the drunken son behind them. He stumbled back into the bedroom and hauled off his outer clothes again, cursing Fitzosbern, his brother-in-law and everyone else involved in the affair.

He rolled shivering into bed and grabbed his wife for a little warmth. ‘God, woman,’ he muttered, ‘your feet are as cold as your heart.’