The Witch Hunter

CHAPTER ELEVEN

John de Wolfe could hardly have left Bearded Lucy in the lane, with an increasingly angry mob at her heels, but allowing her into the house brought down almost as much trouble on his head as if he had laid about the rabble with his sword. As soon as the stout wooden latch on the front door had clacked down into place, the smaller one on the door to the hall jerked up and Matilda stood framed in the gap. For a brief moment, she stared at the little tableau in the vestibule, with Mary hovering uneasily in the background. Then a roar burst from her thin-lipped mouth as she pointed a quavering finger at the old woman.

‘What is she doing in my house? Get her out of here at once!’

Sadly, Lucy turned to the door and reached for the latch, but John laid a restraining hand on her arm as he scowled ferociously at his wife.

‘Wait. Matilda, there is a mob outside pursuing this poor old woman. Do you want another Theophania Lawrence on your conscience?’

‘That’s none of my concern — nor is it yours!’ she spat in reply. ‘I’ll not have that foul witch in my house. Canon Gilbert was right when he quoted the Old Testament. They are evil unbelievers and should be dealt with accordingly — besides which, she stinks!’ she added inconsequentially.

John’s relationship with his wife habitually swung wildly from one extreme to the other and sometimes he even had a grudging respect for her. But at that moment his feelings for her reached an all-time low as her religious prejudices seemed to have overcome any trace of compassion. He stepped forward and confronted her, almost nose to nose as she stood above him on the step into the hall.

‘You are a hard-hearted, intolerant bitch!’ he yelled at her. ‘It may have escaped your notice, but “your house”, as you call it, was paid for by me out of my booty from the second Irish war. And I fully intend to invite anyone I wish into it. Is that understood?’

Matilda shook both her clenched fists in his face, her square face red with anger, though she knew that John in this mood was not to be provoked too far.

‘Then drive the dirty old cow around to the yard, where she belongs! She’ll set foot in the hall only over my dead body!’

‘That can be arranged, too!’ yelled her husband, sliding his sword up and down in its scabbard with an ominous metallic rasp — though they both knew full well that his threat of violence was an empty gesture, as, unlike many other men, he had never so much as laid a finger on his wife.

‘Go on then, kill me, you great coward,’ she screamed, playing along with the charade that was being fuelled by their mutual anger. ‘Go on, skewer me on that sword that has murdered so many others!’

With a gesture of disgust, he slammed the hilt fully back into its sheath and turned away. ‘Don’t be so bloody foolish, woman! All I’m doing is trying to keep the King’s peace in the streets of the city — a task your brother is supposed to fulfil, but he’s always too busy filling his own purse at the expense of the county!’

Before she could start a new tirade in answer to this insult to the sheriff, he grabbed Lucy’s arm and steered her to the opening of the covered passage that ran down the side of the house to the yard behind. Mary, who had listened open mouthed to this shouting match, scuttled ahead and was in her kitchen-shed by the time the old woman had shuffled through. Brutus took one look at the visitor, then slunk away to lie behind the privy. Even the maid Lucille stuck her projecting nose and teeth out of her box under the stairs to the solar to see what was going on, but withdrew them rapidly when she saw the apparition that the master was guiding into the yard.

Mary, who knew Lucy by sight and reputation, soon took pity on the old woman when John explained what had happened in the lane. She sat her down on a stool outside the cook-shed and found her a pot of ale and a piece of bread smeared with beef dripping.

‘What are we to do with you, Lucy?’ asked the coroner. ‘I doubt that you can go home to your hut. They’ll look for you there, now that they’ve been cheated of you here.’

The cunning woman stopped munching with her toothless gums. ‘Even my talents cannot help me now,’ she mumbled. ‘I care little what happens to me, but I wanted to do something to help those two poor souls who will surely hang — as will others not yet persecuted, unless this madness stops.’ She looked up at de Wolfe with her bleary yet riveting eyes. ‘And as I have told you, sir, one of those might be very close to your own heart.’

She made him feel very uneasy with these cryptic warnings, but he still tried to reassure her. ‘It will pass, Lucy. People enjoy novelty, but they soon tire of it,’ he said, though he was not sure that he believed his own words. ‘We need to hide you in a place of safety until this storm blows over.’ He scratched his black stubble ruefully. ‘But I’m afraid it can’t be here. You saw what my good wife is like!’

Mary had been listening to this exchange and now spoke up. ‘What about the Bush? There’s plenty of room up in that loft — or better still, in one of the sheds at the back.’

This seemed the only practical solution, thought John, especially as Nesta had had dealings with Lucy before, as well as seeming to possess some of the healing talents in common with her. After the old woman had finished her food and recovered a little from her ordeal, Mary went to the front of the house and returned to report that the mistress was shut in the hall with a jug of wine and that the lane was now empty of vindictive townsfolk.

John took Lucy out into the cathedral Close and headed for Idle Lane, keeping a sharp lookout and a hand on his sword. He wished that Gwyn was here to help protect them, but his two assistants were unlikely to get back to Exeter until the evening, or perhaps the next day — when another problem concerning the sheriff’s threat to arrest Gwyn would have to be faced.

They reached the Bush without incident, other than suffering curious and sometimes hostile looks from passers-by when they saw the old hag shambling past — but the presence of the menacing figure of the coroner loping alongside her prevented anything more serious than muttered imprecations.

At the Bush, de Wolfe left Lucy in the yard while he went in to explain the emergency to Nesta, whose sympathetic nature made her instantly agree to shelter the old woman until, hopefully, the danger had died down. When the Welsh woman had had her own acute personal problems a few months before, the bearded crone had done her best to help her, and now here was a chance to pay her back.

‘She can stay in the brewing-house for now. I’ll get a palliasse from the loft and hide it behind a row of casks. I’ll tell the maids and old Edwin to be sure to keep their mouths shut about her.’

John walked back to the Close in a better state of mind, feeling that yet another crisis had been overcome — and hoping that there would be a respite before the next one. Somewhat to his surprise, as he was a solitary man, he found that he greatly missed the company of Thomas and Gwyn, who though they often irritated him with their bickering, had become such a part of his daily routine that he felt almost lonely without them.

The thought of some companionship, as opposed to the frosty atmosphere that would undoubtedly reign in his house for the rest of the day, persuaded him to visit his friend the archdeacon. Late afternoon was the quietest period for the cathedral clergy, after all the many services had ended, until the cycle started again at midnight.

He spent a calming hour drinking wine and talking over the problems, though no new solutions presented themselves.

‘Those two women will surely hang later this week, John,’ said de Alençon sadly. ‘I tried to talk some sense into Gilbert de Bosco yesterday — and I had an audience with the bishop this morning — but both showed no interest whatsoever in softening their attitude.’

‘Even the bishop is against them, then?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘He professes a neutral attitude, saying that it is entirely a matter for the consistory court — not mentioning the fact that it was he who set it up, with Gilbert as chancellor! He also mouthed the expected platitudes that the Church must be ever vigilant against heresy and sacrilege and would listen to no argument of mine that those sins were not remotely involved in the matter of these poor good-wives.’ He sipped his wine abstractedly. ‘This has become a political affair, my friend. The bishop sees himself attracting merit from Canterbury and even Rome by putting himself forward as a guardian of Christian doctrine — and the proud canon sees advancement for himself as a champion against the works of the Devil. Both have little concern for the actual substance of the matter, but they have a cynical self-interest in promoting their own careers. I suspect that the same goes for the sheriff, though his eyes are turned more to the Count of Mortain than towards archbishops.’

Reluctantly accepting that there was nothing more that either he or John de Alençon could do for the unfortunate Jolenta of Ide and Alice Ailward, the coroner took himself off to his chamber in the castle, rather than endure Matilda’s wrath and sulks until supper-time.

He strode up to Rougemont in the early evening sunshine, for the weather had improved and manor-reeves and freemen were crossing their fingers and touching wood that there might be a reasonable harvest after all, if the rain held off for a few weeks. As he walked across the drawbridge and under the gatehouse arch, a worried-looking sentry banged his pike on the ground and stepped forward to mutter under his breath. ‘Crowner, if I was you, I’d go straight across to the keep. There’s a bit of trouble going on over there!’

John’s head jerked up and when he looked across the inner ward, he saw a few saddled horses near the steps up to the high entrance of the keep. One he instantly recognised as the big brown mare belonging to Gwyn of Polruan and knew that his officer and clerk had now returned from Winchester. With a groan, he realised too that his hour of respite from the recent crises was over and that his bloody brother-in-law was undoubtedly intent on making more trouble for him.

He hurried across and soon heard raised voices, indicating that the problem was not up in the keep but in the undercroft, its semi-subterranean basement. Part of this was used as the gaol serving the county court and for remanding prisoners for the Commissioners of Gaol Delivery and the Eyre of Assize, when they paid their infrequent visits to Exeter. For offenders taken to the burgesses’ court, there was another foul prison in one of the towers of the South Gate — and of course, the cathedral proctors had their own cells, where the two helpless women were presently awaiting their fate.

De Wolfe clattered down the few steps and ducked under a low lintel into the gloomy cavern that was the undercroft, roofed by arched vaults of damp, slimy stone that supported the keep above. A barricade of rusty bars on the left marked off the half of the chamber that contained the prison cells. The rest was partly a store and partly a torture chamber where the repulsively fat gaoler, Stigand, extracted confessions and applied the painful and mutilating tests of the ordeal.

Today, however, the main function of the place seemed to be as a forum for a heated argument between a group of men standing in the centre of the soggy earthen floor. As John marched up to them, he saw Gwyn confronting the gaoler, with Ralph Morin, Sergeant Gabriel and two men-at-arms clustered around them. Thomas de Peyne, looking like an agitated sparrow, pattered around the group, flapping his arms and crossing himself repeatedly. When he saw de Wolfe approaching, he ran to him, his peaky face distraught with concern.

‘Master, do something! They want to put Gwyn behind bars!’

Ralph Morin swung round when he heard de Wolfe coming. ‘No, we don’t want to, John. It’s the last damned thing we want. But that bloody man upstairs has ordered it and I am in a difficult position, to say the least!’

‘I’m not going to force my best friend into the lock-up,’ wailed Gabriel. ‘I’ll leave the garrison and go back to being a shepherd first!’

‘But that’s the rub, dammit,’ snapped the castle constable. ‘You’re still one of his men-at-arms and if you refuse you can be hanged for disobeying orders. So what the hell are we going to do, John?’

Before de Wolfe could assemble his thoughts to reply, Gwyn suddenly gave a roar and shook off Stigand, who was trying to pull him towards the gate in the iron fence that led to the cells. ‘You touch me again, you slimy bastard and I’ll knock your bloody head off!’ He raised his massive fist to the man, who cowered back, his slug-like features twisted in fear.

Thomas began squeaking in terror, Gabriel was yelling at the gaoler and the two soldiers were looking uncertainly at Gwyn, mutttering to each other about what they ought to do. John found his voice, a deep bellow that brought momentary silence. ‘All right, all right! Let’s deal with this calmly, shall we? First of all, what exactly has happened?’

Gwyn, his normally amiable face creased in concern, lowered his threatening arm. ‘Thomas and I got back not more than a few minutes ago and as soon as I dismounted in the bailey, these two soldiers grabbed me and said that I was wanted down here. The god-damned sheriff came and said I was under arrest for stealing part of the Cadbury treasure, but walked out before I had a chance to get my wits back. Then the constable and the sergeant here appeared and we have been arguing until you came. I’m damned if I’m going to be locked up, it’s the bastard sheriff who should be jailed!’

John turned to Ralph Morin, who looked more unhappy than he had ever seen him before. ‘De Revelle threatened me with this, as I told you. I didn’t think he’d go through with it, though.’

The castellan turned up his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘He’s desperate, John. I think he wants to use Gwyn as a hostage, something to bargain with for you withdrawing your claim that he dipped his hand into that box of gold and silver. I’ve the feeling that he’s got something else nasty up his sleeve too, but I don’t know what it is.’ He paused and tugged at one of the points of his forked beard in an angry gesture of concern. ‘Anyway, he gave me orders — point-blank orders — to clap Gwyn in a cell. As the sheriff represents the King in this county and I’m a royal appointee in a royal castle, I don’t see any way of disobeying such a direct order, if I want to keep my own neck from being stretched!’

‘The King, God bless him, would never sanction this,’ cut in the sergeant, outraged at the whole affair.

‘Nor would Hubert Walter, if he knew about it,’ grunted Ralph. ‘But it would take a couple of weeks to get a message to him and a reply, for he’s in London.’

The mention of the Chief Justiciar, virtually the regent of England now that King Richard had gone back permanently to France, decided de Wolfe that this was probably the only course. ‘De Revelle has gone too far this time. I must get word to Hubert Walter as soon as I can, but that’s not going to solve our present problem.’ He sighed and looked across at Gwyn, whose whiskered face showed both anger and apprehension. ‘I’ll have to go up and talk to that mad brother-in-law of mine and try to do some kind of a deal with him.’

Ralph Morin nodded his big head — he was as tall as de Wolfe and almost as burly as the Cornishman. ‘But what about Gwyn? We can’t stand here undecided all night.’

The coroner’s officer solved the problem himself. ‘Duty is duty, I know that very well,’ he said with a sad air of resignation. ‘I don’t want to get my friends into trouble that could end on the gallows-tree. I’ll go and sit in a cell to satisfy that swine upstairs, until the crowner sorts out this mess.’ He swung around to Stigand, who was still standing a little way off, his slack mouth half open and his piggy eyes darting from one to the other. ‘But only if this slobbering idiot goes and cleans out a cell of its filth and puts some clean straw in there!’ He made a sudden mock leap towards the gaoler, who squeaked in fear and waddled off towards the iron gate.

‘I’ll bring some food down for you, Gwyn,’ promised Thomas, worried out of his mind at the predicament of his big friend.

‘And I’ll fetch some ale,’ added Gabriel. ‘We can sit and play some dice until this nonsense is settled, eh?’

John felt that the others were putting a brave face on the situation for his officer’s sake and although he gave Gwyn a reassuring slap on the back and bade him a confident farewell, he followed the constable out of the undercroft with heavy foreboding in his heart.

As that particular drama was being played out in the undercroft of Rougemont, Cecilia de Pridias was meeting Canon Gilbert in his house in the Close. Although he was her cousin, she was chaperoned by her daughter Avise and her dull husband Roger Hamund. They sat in Gilbert’s study, furnished far more comfortably than the spartan room of John de Alençon, three doors away. Gilbert had several prebends, all serviced by under-paid vicars, so together with his perquisites from the cathedral and the rents from several properties he owned in Exeter and Crediton, he was relatively affluent and saw no reason to stint himself when it came to creature comforts. The room had an oak table and several chairs, two of which had padded seats and backs, a luxury indeed. There was a side locker with wine and Flemish glasses on top and several wall cupboards, between which hung tapestries to relieve the coldness of the stone walls. A small fireplace with a chimney rising to the ceiling was another modern innovation and the only token of an ecclesiastical establishment was a small gilt crucifix on one wall.

Gilbert’s guests sat around the table and his steward entered to serve wine, then discreetly left, closing the door behind him — though he listened with his ear to the crack for some minutes.

Cecilia had no particular reason for meeting with her cousin, other than to keep in touch over their campaign, making sure that the canon’s enthusiasm was not waning. She need not have worried, for once launched on this mission, Gilbert’s obsessive nature fed upon itself. Even though he kept his eye upon the long-term advantages to his progress in the hierarchy of the Church, the crusade itself had gripped him, and he felt that this was a mission that had been waiting for him for years. Although not particularly devout in terms of a desperate affection for the Holy Trinity, he had begun to believe that God had marked him out for this campaign and that ridding the area of heresy and apostasy in the shape of witches was now his life’s work.

His widowed cousin was equally enthusiastic and again the excitement of the hunt was for her a self-fulfilling emotion bordering on hysteria. Although her original motive had been to find and punish the sorcerer who had brought about her husband’s death by putting a lethal spell upon him, this had broadened out into a pogrom against all cunning men and women. However, the death of her Robert was still to the fore of her mind and soon surfaced in their discussion.

‘Do you think any of these wicked dames was responsible, Gilbert?’ she asked.

The canon heaved his well-covered shoulders. ‘There is no way of telling, cousin. The hanged one is now beyond any questioning and I doubt if the other pair will confess. Unfortunately, the proctors have no means of extracting the truth from them, and though the sheriff’s court will undoubtedly hang them for us, they will not administer the peine forte et dure to get a true account of their misdeeds.’

‘What about that strange episode some days ago, when that man in Fore Street was murdered?’ asked Avise. Although not nearly so keen on hunting witches as her obsessive mother, she was a great gossip and liked to keep abreast of all the news in the city.

‘They say that he was one of those cunning people, even though Elias was a man,’ added Roger, speaking for the first and only time.

Gilbert poured some more wine. ‘I heard the same rumour and I am quite prepared to believe it. All I can think of is that our exhortations, especially those I delivered through the parish priests, moved someone who had suffered from his devilish acts to take the law into his own hands, as did that crowd in Bretayne.’ He took a sip of wine and added sententiously, ‘I cannot bring myself to condemn either them or him, if that is what some aggrieved souls did to avenge themselves and to prevent him doing further harm to other folk.’

The quick mind of Cecilia saw a flaw in this explanation. ‘But what about the killing of our supporter, Walter the apothecary? I hear that the means by which he was killed was identical — and Walter was no magician.’

‘Neither was he much of a physician,’ added Avise cynically, which earned her an icy look from her mother.

Gilbert’s big, ruddy face creased in doubt. ‘That is strange, I admit,’ he confessed. ‘But I doubt it is anything to do with our interests — though it is a pity that he was taken from us, as he was as keen as we to see these shameful people brought to justice.’

Cecilia de Pridias was eager to look ahead. ‘Though four of these sorcerers have been dealt with, one way or another, there must surely be many more, both in the city and in the villages near by. How can these be flushed out, to rid decent Christian folk of their evil influence?’

The burly priest was glad see how keen his kinswoman was to help, and his ego persuaded him to part with a little knowledge that he had intended to keep to himself. ‘Since they saw what happens to their loathsome kind, the rest are lying low, to save their own skins — and for that we must be thankful, for it helps us achieve our object of protecting the God-fearing from their satanic activities.’ He smirked and rubbed his hands together in anticipation of good news. ‘But I am about to come by some more information that should lead to the unmasking of another cunning woman. Our good friend and supporter Sir Richard de Revelle says that he knows of an unfortunate person who wishes to denounce someone who has wronged her. He is sending this informer down to see me this very evening.’

Robert de Pridias’s widow looked at her cousin with admiration. ‘May I remain while you talk to this woman?’ she pleaded.

Her daughter tugged at her arm, her face showing her disapproval. ‘Mother, these are not matters for a lady of your position to be mixed up with! Let the good canon deal with her.’

Cecilia shook Avise off indignantly. ‘How can you say that, daughter? Your own dear father was done to death by one of these creatures. Does not the Bible say, as well as not allowing a witch to live, that revenge is sweet?’

Privately, the quite clever Avise thought that the Lord had proclaimed that ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay’, but she prudently kept her lips together.

Her mother turned back to her cousin. ‘Who is this person that the sheriff is sending to you?’

Gilbert de Bosco shifted uneasily on his chair. De Revelle had impressed on him that his name must be kept out of this matter and Cecilia was known as an inveterate gossip, a family failing. ‘I won’t learn that until I speak to her. This is a delicate and confidential issue, I’m afraid. I must conduct it alone, dear cousin.’

And with that, the disappointed Cecilia had to be content.

Anger and frustration were overlaid with a nagging apprehension in John’s mind as he climbed out of the undercroft, leaving Gwyn incarcerated with the rats and lice in a dirty prison cell. Unlike the time a few months ago, when little Thomas de Peyne had been locked in the same dungeon under imminent sentence of death, John could not believe that his officer was in similar danger, but he couldn’t trust any of the machinations of the wily sheriff, who was as ruthless as he was dishonest. ‘So let’s have it out with the bastard!’ he muttered under his breath, as he ran up the steps to the door of the keep, oblivious to several startled servants and clerks whom he barged aside. He marched straight to the small door to Richard’s chambers, but to his intense annoyance found it locked, an unusual occurrence.

‘He went out just now, Crowner,’ said the nearby sentry. ‘In a devil of a hurry he was too.’

Frustrated, John was at a loss as to what to do next, as Gwyn’s predicament overshadowed all other issues. He brusquely questioned a few people as to where the sheriff had gone, but got no satisfaction. Just then, Ralph Morin appeared through the entrance and for want of anything better to do until de Revelle showed up, they sat at a bench and called for jugs of cider from one of the castle servants. The hall, another bare chamber of reddish-grey sandstone, took up most of that floor of the keep, the quarters of the sheriff and constable occupying the remaining third, apart from a small buttery at the far end, where the drink was kept.

After they had once more gone through a futile catalogue of de Revelle’s misdeeds and how he had managed to get the upper hand over them in this latest episode, they fell silent, wondering how Gwyn was coping with imprisonment below their very feet.

‘At least he’s got Thomas to tease and Gabriel to win money from at dice,’ said Ralph, trying to lighten the mood.

John nodded abstractedly, looking around at the crowd that milled around this busy place, without really seeing them. Idle men-at-arms, anxious stewards clutching lists of stores, merchants hoping to bribe favours from officials, clerks scribbling on parchments and servants carrying pots of ale or trenchers of food from the kitchens in the inner bailey — all the familiar sights of a busy castle failed to displace Gwyn’s anxious face from his mind’s eye. ‘There must be something we can do to defeat this crafty swine!’ he grated angrily, banging his mug on the table.

‘He’s looking for a quid pro quo, a deal that will get him off the hook at Winchester,’ said the constable. ‘How was the situation left there, as far as his guilt was concerned?’

‘I’ve had chance only for a brief word with Thomas. He says that the Treasurer will want me swear to the truth of that inventory from Cadbury before they will indict anyone for the shortfall in the treasure, which it seems amounts to twenty bezants.’

Ralph whistled through his remaining teeth. ‘Twenty of those big gold coins! That’s a lot of money to go missing.’

‘And I’ve got no means of proving that de Revelle took it,’ snarled John bitterly. ‘And if I can’t prove it, then I either drop the accusation or let a sheriff’s word stand against that of a mere servant.’

The constable took a swig from his jar, then fixed John with his steady blue eyes. ‘I suppose there’s no possibility that …’

‘Don’t even think it, Ralph! I’ve known Gwyn for almost twenty years, there’s no way in which he would have taken that money. And anyway, what in hell would he do with twenty bezants — buy a new leather jerkin in place of that one he must have been born in?’

They both grinned in spite of the seriousness of the situation, then buried their faces in their ale-pots.

‘Where in God’s teeth can the bloody sheriff have got to?’ demanded John, when he came up for air.

‘Here’s my steward passing, perhaps he will know,’ said Ralph. He called out to a prematurely bent grey-bearded man, who was mumbling to himself as he short-sightedly scanned a tattered roll of parchment held in his hands. ‘Deaf as a bloody mill-stone!’ growled the constable, jumping up and tugging at the man’s faded brown tunic as he passed the end of the table. ‘Samuel, do you know where the sheriff has gone?’ he shouted at him.

The steward was not as deaf as Ralph made out, but his attention was always buried in his documents about soldier’s pay, garrison stores and duty rosters. He stopped and stared at his master as if he had never seen him before, until he managed to drag his mind away from the crabbed writing on his rolls. ‘The sheriff? Haven’t seen him these past few hours, sir. But I’ve been busy with these accounts. I’ll have to go through them with you tomorrow, just to check everything.’

Ralph Morin groaned. As illiterate as de Wolfe, he found the thought of sitting for an hour while Samuel droned through every item mortifying. ‘When I die and go to hell, it will be this man who Satan will send as my torturer, by reading his accounts to me for eternity!’ he said mockingly. ‘But he’s the world’s best steward, nothing gets past him.’

Samuel’s wrinkled, intelligent face creased into a smile at the compliment. ‘I do my best, Constable, I do my best.’ He cocked his head towards the main door. ‘What was all that commotion down below, may I ask?’ He was not only a meticulous record-keeper but another incorrigible nosy parker and a fount of information on everything that went on in Rougemont.

Ralph was as relaxed with his steward as John was with his officer and he told him about the impasse that had landed Gwyn in Stigand’s cells.

Samuel looked from one to the other with an expression of astonishment. ‘But why didn’t you ask me, master?’

De Wolfe and Ralph Morin suddenly tensed at his words.

‘Ask you what, man?’ snapped the constable.

‘About what was in that box that you kept in your chamber until the sheriff took it away.’

The coroner stared at Samuel, almost afraid to ask him the next question. ‘You mean you know what was in there?’

‘Of course I did — I’m the constable’s steward, it’s my duty to check everything,’ he answered impatiently. ‘I have access to all the keys and I naturally made a full inventory of the contents. What else would you expect?’

De Wolfe leapt to his feet and threw a long arm around the startled clerk’s shoulders, much to the mystification of others in the hall. ‘Samuel, if you weren’t such an ugly old devil, I’d kiss you!’ he boomed. ‘Now tell me, please God, that you’ve still got that list.’

The steward looked affronted. ‘Of course I have, Crowner! I never get rid of anything until I know it’s not needed. It’s in the constable’s chamber.’

Morin was on his feet now, his granite face beaming with delight and pride at the quality of the man he relied on every day of his life. ‘Take us to it, Samuel! This might be your finest hour!’

De Wolfe checked his impatience with a final word. ‘Wait, we need the original tally from Cadbury to check it against. Thomas should have a copy in that big bag of his. He’s down below now, with Gwyn.’

Morin sent a servant running to fetch the coroner’s clerk and a few moments later, they were all hunched around Samuel’s writing desk in the cluttered room that the constable used for his official duties. An excited Thomas de Peyne fished out a piece of vellum from his hessian shoulder pouch and spread it on the table, alongside another palimpsest that the steward had produced. Although the written words meant nothing to Morin or de Wolfe, they stared down at the documents with mounting anticipation, waiting for the two clerks to pronounce on the result.

Samuel ran his finger down the short column of writing on his parchment, murmuring under his breath, while Thomas did the same with the list from Cadbury. Then they looked at each other and nodded.

‘God’s blood, are you both struck dumb,’ exploded de Wolfe, unable to contain himself any longer.

‘They are the same, Crowner,’ said Thomas exultantly. ‘That which we certified in Cadbury is identical to what Samuel here recorded when the chest was in this chamber!’

The meticulous steward insisted on itemising the contents. ‘Four hundred and eighty-six silver pennies, fifty-two gold bezants and one golden brooch. I remember them well.’

John turned triumphantly to Ralph Morin. ‘We’ve got the whoreson thief! Let him try to wriggle his way out of this! I’ve put up with a great deal from that bastard, for his sister’s sake, but stealing from his own king is beyond any forgiveness.’

He swung around to Samuel and gripped his arm. ‘My own clerk is a treasure himself, but you must be his equal!’

Both scribes flushed with pleasure, the more so because the coroner was known to be a hard man who rarely paid any compliments.

‘What’s to be done now, Crowner?’ gabbled the excited Thomas. ‘Can we go down and get Gwyn out of that verminous place?’

Ralph gave de Wolfe a questioning look. ‘Can we do that or should you confront de Revelle first?’

‘Set him free now,’ answered the coroner impatiently. ‘With this new evidence, there’s no reason whatever that he should be under any suspicion. Richard won’t get away with it this time. But where the hell has he got to?’

The sheriff was in fact, just pulling on his fine wool leggings as he sat inelegantly on the edge of a whore’s mattress. The red-headed strumpet sat with her back propped against the wall of her mean room in Rack Lane, down towards the Watergate, which was convenient for the seafaring customers who came to her from the quay-side. However, still being young enough not yet to have suffered the ravages of her profession, Esther’s good looks had attracted several of the leading citizens to purchase her services, including de Revelle.

Tonight he was here with a double purpose, as although he wanted to slake his lust, which had not been satisfied since he had visited a stew in Winchester, he also wanted to make sure that Esther’s sister had embarked on the mission that he had commanded. Heloise, who lived in this mean room as well and who kept out of the way when her sister was conducting her trade, had been sent to complete the task that she had begun when she visited Nesta at the Bush tavern some time before. She had been carefully coached by Esther, who in turn had been instructed by the sheriff, who wanted to stay anonymous as far as Heloise was concerned. The girls were well paid for their collusion and their avaricious minds were too concerned with the money to ask any questions.

‘She has gone with that tale to the canon, then?’ he asked once again, as he threw down a few pennies on the rumpled and grubby blanket covering the hay palliasse on which they had coupled.

‘I told you three times now, yes!’ snapped the young harlot. ‘I did exactly what you told me and she is there in the Close now, telling that priest that pack of weird lies you wanted.’

She climbed naked out of bed to get dressed and go to the Saracen to seek her next client, as de Revelle pulled on his boots and furtively left the house to return to Rougemont. His lust satisfied for the time being, he felt able to face going to Revelstoke on Thursday to endure a few days with his frigid wife Eleanor, whom he had not seen since before he went to Winchester. As he strode along the high street, loftily deigning to acknowledge the bobbed heads and pulled forelocks of the citizens, his agile mind turned to the close shave he had had with his damned brother-in-law. He cursed the day the previous autumn when Matilda had persuaded him to support de Wolfe’s election to the new coronership in the county court — although realistically, there was no way that John could fail to be nominated, given the virtual order that had come from Hubert Walter, with the personal recommendation from the King himself. Since his brother-in-law had taken office, he had been a constant thorn in his side and twice before, he had uncovered schemes of the sheriff’s which came perilously near to treason. Now he had done it again and the fact that the Chief Justiciar had revived the old Saxon post of coroner partly as a check on the rapacity of all sheriffs, was no comfort to a man who had his sister’s husband breathing down his neck all the time. If the damned fellow had been corruptible, like most public officials, it would not be so bad, thought Richard — but de Wolfe had this abnormal streak of honesty that made him impossible to deal with. Vindictively, he was determined to strike him where it hurt most, and tonight’s scheme was the first blow in this campaign. If he could turn this treasure fiasco into another strike, that would also be satisfying — he knew that John would not risk letting his old retainer Gwyn be hanged, and if he could then somehow expose the coroner’s inevitable retraction of that list of treasure trove as a falsification for personal reasons, maybe he could bring about his disgrace and even his downfall. However, doing so might risk exposing Richard’s own theft and he was pondering some devious way of getting round this problem when his feet delivered him to the castle gatehouse.

Ignoring the salute from the sentry he hurried to the keep, stamped up the stairs and turned into the hall. The first thing that confronted him was a group of men clustered around the nearest table, some standing, others sitting down, but all looking expectantly at him as he entered, for one of the servants had signalled his arrival in the inner bailey. Their attitude was unnerving, and among them he saw John de Wolfe, Ralph Morin, the chaplain Brother Rufus, Sergeant Gabriel, the poisonous little coroner’s clerk and Morin’s steward Samuel. His eye was caught by someone sitting with his back to him, unmistakable from the shock of unruly red hair that sprouted from his massive head.

‘What’s that man doing here?’ he yelled, his anger flaring at the same time as an awareness of imminent disaster. There was something about the way these men were waiting for him which frightened him, but he put on a bold face, relying on his pre-eminence in the county to carry him through. ‘Morin, I ordered that he be locked up! Are you disobeying my direct order?’

It was his brother-in-law who answered him, his dark face glowering across at the sheriff. ‘Do you want to continue this in private or are you content to let all these hear our discussion?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the score of people in the hall, who were straining their ears to pick up any juicy bits of scandal from the row that was so obviously brewing.

Not deigning to answer, de Revelle wheeled around and walked stiffly to his door, which he unlocked with a key taken from his pouch. Although he made no invitation for them to follow, he left the door wide open and they all trooped in and stood in a half-circle around his table, reminding Gabriel of a pack of hounds holding a deer at bay.

Richard jabbed a finger towards Gwyn, who was back in his usual amiable mood. ‘I asked, why is this thief still at large? You’ll answer for this, Constable — and you, Sergeant, if you’ve flouted my orders!’

‘Stop this nonsense, de Revelle!’ said the coroner, in a tired voice now that the crunch had come. ‘You’ve been caught red handed and you may as well drop this pretence of innocence and prepare yourself for what must inevitably come, when the King and his council get to hear of it.’

Richard continued to splutter indignantly and try to shout down his brother-in-law’s measured words, but John turned to the clerk Samuel, took two parchments from his hands and laid them on the table before the sheriff. ‘These are quite short — and you always boast of your prowess in reading, Richard. So compare the two and tell me how a written, witnessed inventory of the contents of the Cadbury treasure chest made in this very keep happens to be identical with the list made in Cadbury?’

As de Revelle rapidly scanned the brief documents, his face became ashen, but he still didn’t give up. ‘This must be some forgery — you are determined to ruin me, by whatever foul means you can devise.’ He seized the list made by Morin’s clerk and tried to tear it half. ‘This is what I think of this imposture,’ he snarled, but the tough sheepskin refused to rip and only crinkled in his hands. Furious and desperate, he held it to the flame of a small lamp that burned on his table for melting the wax for his seals, but again the leathery membrane only curled up and shrivelled in one corner.

De Wolfe leaned over and pulled it from his fingers. ‘Stop wasting our time, Richard. That’s but an attested copy, made in the last hour. The original is in safe-keeping, ready to be taken to the King’s treasurer and the justiciar.’ He regarded the sheriff with something akin to pity, until he recalled how much mischief he had caused. ‘This is the end, Richard. There is no way in which I can overlook your stealing from our king. You must give up your shrievalty immediately and I will get the Shire Court to appoint a caretaker sheriff in your place until the will of the King is known.’

The unspeakable prospect of being ejected from the most powerful post in the county, with all the power and perquisites that it carried, galvanised de Revelle into action. His dandified figure almost danced with rage behind his desk as he screamed vilification and denial at the sombre group around him. ‘Give up my position? Are you raving mad, man!’ he screamed. ‘I am the sheriff, I am paramount in this shire! No one can displace me here, no one but the King himself or the greatest men in his Council!’ He waved a shaking fist at the coroner and swung it to include the other disciples of doom clustered around him. ‘So get out of here! I am the sheriff and will stay the sheriff until Winchester or London decide otherwise. You have no authority over me, de Wolfe, you’re a mere coroner. You are as nothing, your useless job is to prod corpses and examine ravished women. And you, Ralph Morin, are just another soldier, my servant, a spear-waver, who has no say whatsoever in the running of this county. Get out, the lot of you, and keep out of my sight!’

There was a silence. All looked at John de Wolfe to see what he would do or say.

‘Bluster will only delay the evil hour, Richard. I suppose I could have you dragged to the gaol where you were so keen to put Gwyn here. But I will content myself with attaching you to appear before the royal justices, when they next come to Exeter, charged with theft and treason, which is inevitably a hanging matter. However, no doubt before then Hubert Walter or perhaps the King himself will decide what should be done, as I will send word to London as soon as possible.’ He stood back and waved the singed parchment at de Revelle. ‘Until then, I suppose you may as well stay here and play at being sheriff, though I will at once make soundings as to who might take over as locum tenens.’

As he walked to the door, de Revelle’s voice followed him, hissing like a snake, full of evil and spite. ‘You’re going to suffer for this, John! If I fall, then I’m taking you down with me!’