A Plague of Heretics

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Heavy cloud banks and a cold drizzle combined with the advancing days of November to bring an early dusk, and when John came down from the castle into the town it was already twilight. After the particularly virulent quarrel with Matilda at dinner-time, he decided to miss his supper at home and instead went down to the Bush, where Martha would be happy to feed him. On the way to Idle Lane he called on Thomas and found his clerk in good spirits. The yellow tinge had virtually vanished from his eyes, and he declared himself eager to resume his duties.

‘I have already spent a few hours today in the scriptorium,’ he said proudly, referring to his work cataloguing the manuscripts in the cathedral archives on the upper floor of the chapter house. ‘So I see no reason why I cannot return to scribing for you, Crowner.’

He seemed so keen that John agreed to let him come each morning that week, provided he sat quietly at his table. When Thomas asked after the coroner’s brother, John had to tell him how concerned he was that William seemed to make no progress — at least, he had not improved the last time John had seen him.

‘I must visit him again very soon,’ he said. ‘I hope to go down to Stoke tomorrow, depending on what duties await us in the morning.’

As always, the little priest was very solicitous about his master’s problems and promised to continue praying earnestly for William’s recovery. He also passed on some encouraging information.

‘When I was in St John’s, Brother Saulf explained to me that sometimes even when the poison of the plague has left the body, it can have already damaged some of the entrails, so that they cannot function properly. Maybe that is what has happened to your brother — and hopefully those functions will slowly return.’

John hoped he was right and told Gwyn and Martha about it when he got to the tavern.

‘Both that Saulf and our dear Thomas are clever, learned people,’ said Martha. ‘Perhaps when you get to Stoke tomorrow, you will find William much improved.’

John sat at his usual table, glad of the warmth of the firepit as a cold, wet wind had arisen outside. While he waited for Martha to chivvy her cook-maid into making him a meal, he sat over a quart of Gwyn’s latest brew, talking to the Cornishman and several other acquaintances. Old Edwin hovered nearby, clutching empty pots and eavesdropping on the conversation. His religious fervour seemed to have diminished markedly since the quayside riot and especially since the outrage in Milk Lane. When John mentioned finding Alan de Bere down on Exe Island, the ancient potboy’s indignation overflowed.

‘An evil lunatic, that man!’ he croaked. ‘I’d not put it past him to have set that fire. I hear that he’s found another three so-called heretics in the city since last week and reported them to the proctors.’

Another man, a florid baker and pie-maker from the High Street, chipped in with similar news. ‘One of my customers told me today that Herbert Gale, that miserable proctors’ bailiff, had heard from his spies of two more from Alphington, just outside the town.’

There was a rumble of discontent from those sitting nearby.

‘I reckon that folk in the city have lost their appetite for hounding heretics, since that awful business on Sunday night,’ said a brawny smith from Smythen Street. ‘Time we let the bishop sort out his problems in his own way, not by taking affairs into our own hands.’

John was glad to hear that common sense was reestablishing itself in Exeter, but then he was diverted by the arrival of Martha with a wooden bowl of steaming potage, smelling deliciously of thyme and mint. She was closely followed by a young maid with a platter bearing a shank of mutton with beans and boiled leeks.

‘Get that down you, Crowner!’ she said cheerily. ‘It will raise your spirits in these dark days.’

He found that he was ravenously hungry, having left part of his dinner behind in his fight with Matilda and now gone well beyond his usual supper-time. He attacked the food heartily and soon finished it all. When he ended with a bare mutton bone, he realised that he had no Brutus beneath the table, as he had left him with Mary, where the dog spent most of his time when John was away from the house. He recalled that she was going to visit her cousin in Curre Street that evening and would probably have taken the dog with her, as Matilda had no time for the old hound and was probably at St Olave’s anyway.

The evening passed pleasantly in drinking and gossiping, but after a couple of hours John decided that he had better go home to bed, as tomorrow would be another hard day, if he was to ride to Stoke-in-Teignhead and back. He bade goodnight to his friends and trudged back along the familiar route to Martin’s Lane, a path he had taken a thousand times before, so the darkness was no hindrance.

In the cathedral Close he passed the guttering pitch-flare at Bear Gate and aimed for the next one stuck in a ring on the wall of St Martin’s Church, fifty paces from his house. As he reached the front door, he frowned because it was ajar. Though they rarely locked it, it was normally closed against the draughts that blew through the lane. He pushed it open and went into the small vestibule that connected the inner door to the hall with the passage to the backyard. A tallow dip in a wall niche gave him light enough to hang up his cloak, before he went into the hall.

The fire was burning low, but two more tallow lamps on each side wall dimly illuminated the high, gloomy chamber. No one was sitting near the hearth, so he assumed that his wife was still at her devotions. Going to the fire to throw on a couple of the logs stacked at the side, he suddenly saw a pair of feet sticking out beyond the further monks’ settle. Aghast, he thrust the seat out of the way and saw that his wife was lying motionless on the flagstones.

‘Matilda! Matilda, what’s wrong?’ He dropped to his knees alongside her, fearful that she had had a stroke or a seizure. She was lying on her side, and he tugged at her substantial body to turn her on to her back. Then, even in that poor light, he could see the bruises on her throat. She was dead — stone dead.

De Wolfe had seen too many corpses in his time to even attempt to revive her, and he rocked back on his heels, stunned by the realisation that his wife was dead. To his credit, the thought that he was now free of her never entered his head. Though he had made many empty threats in the past, these were just an angry retaliation to her jibes and he had never contemplated her demise as the answer to his marital problems. Now he felt confused, as if this was all happening to someone else.

‘Matilda, what the hell happened to you?’ he croaked, then berated himself for being such a fool. A practical man of action, he pulled himself together and stood up, a cold fury slowly overtaking him at whoever had robbed him of his wife, however undesirable to him she might have been.

He stared almost maniacally around the chamber, as if he might see some murderer skulking in a corner. Was this anything to do with the heretic hunt or was it some random robbery with violence? What about those two evil bastards from Polsloe? They had already attacked someone inside the city — and that was also an attempted throttling.

Or could it be someone getting back at him for his actions against those who wished to exterminate heretics? Perhaps that madman Alan de Bere? Or the lay brother Reginald Rugge — he knew Matilda well, as he was always lurking around St Olave’s. The possibilities swirled around in his head, confusing him, making him yell out in anguished frustration.

But he was the coroner, he told himself sternly … For God’s sake, pull yourself together, man!

He suddenly realised that he was now the First Finder. It was different being on the other side of the fence that usually divided a law officer from the people in the street or the village. What was he to do? Should he raise the hue and cry?

He stood indecisively, looking down at the inert body of the woman he had been married to for over seventeen years. For once unsure of what to do next, he stood transfixed, trying to get his thoughts in order.

There was a click behind him as the hall door opened and he swung around in a crouch, automatically whipping out his dagger to confront the return of the killer.

‘For Christ’s sake, what are you doing, John?’ came a familiar voice. ‘Put that damned knife away.’

It was Richard de Revelle, his detested brother-in-law, who came cautiously towards him, as John’s knife hand slowly subsided.

‘I came to visit my sister. Is this the welcome I get?’ he brayed in his high-pitched voice. Suspecting from John’s manner that something was amiss, he hurried forward, keeping his brother-in-law at arm’s length until he reached the chairs near the hearth. Finding them empty, he dropped his gaze and saw his sister lying motionless on the floor. With a cry of horror, he dropped to one knee and, like John, instantly recognised that she was beyond any mortal help.

‘What have you done, you bastard?’ he shrieked, looking up fearfully at de Wolfe, as if he expected him to jump murderously upon him. ‘You’ve killed her, you swine!’ He struggled to his feet and backed away from the coroner.

‘I knew this would happen! I’ve heard the many threats you’ve made against the poor woman!’ He stumbled backwards a few more steps. ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later, but you’ll not get away with it, damn you! I’ll see you hang for this!’

His hysteria seemed to jerk John back into rational thought. ‘Don’t be so bloody silly, Richard!’ he said dully, dropping his knife carelessly on to the flagstones. ‘I found her like this when I came in, not three minutes ago. It must have been those two swine who attacked that woman in Polsloe. I must send for the sheriff. He’ll know what to do.’

‘Damned right he will!’ shrilled de Revelle. ‘He’ll arrest you for murder if he knows what’s good for him!’ He moved warily towards the door, half-afraid that de Wolfe was going to jump on him.

‘Where are you going?’ snapped John. ‘You must help me get her decently laid out, not left crumpled on the cold floor.’

‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ shouted de Revelle. ‘You’ve done enough damage already. And nothing must be moved until the sheriff and his men get here — you should know that, as so-called coroner!’

He sidled to the door. As he vanished, he shouted, ‘I’m off to raise the hue and cry — though they’ll not have far to search for the killer!’

John slumped into his chair and stared across the room at where his wife’s feet pointed at him accusingly. The fire had livened up and he could see her more clearly, lying there murdered before her own hearth. The feeling of unreality began to creep over him again and he leaped up to dispel it, but again hovered indecisively over her still form.

Then the door opened again and Mary entered, straight from the street with a woollen shawl draped over her head and shoulders.

‘What’s going on, Sir John?’ she asked briskly. ‘Your brother-in-law is hammering on the door of the next house.’

He looked at her dully and wordlessly waved a hand towards the hearth. His cook-maid came forward to stare at what was behind the chair. Typically of her, she neither screamed nor shouted but dropped to her knees and felt Matilda’s face with the back of her hand.

‘She’s still warm,’ she said harshly.

‘But dead, Mary! She’s been strangled by some bastard.’

His voice was flat and desolate. The maid stood up, pulling the shawl from her dark hair and spreading it gently over the body of her mistress.

‘She must be covered up. It’s not seemly for her to be left like this,’ she said briskly. Not for a moment did she think that John was responsible. Her mind was on what needed to be done.

‘You sit down and I’ll get you some brandy-wine, then you can go for help, before her brother causes you more mischief. She hurried to the side table and brought him a cup of strong spirit, the same stuff that had been used to start the fire in Milk Lane. He swallowed it in a couple of gulps and then stood up again.

‘I must go to the castle to see if Henry de Furnellis is still there,’ he announced thickly. ‘Can you send old Simon down to the Bush to tell Gwyn what’s happened?’

She nodded and went to the door, pushing Brutus out of the way, as he was peering in, wondering what was happening. ‘I’ll take him with me out of the way.’

She disappeared, and with leaden feet he made for the street door. As he reached it, he collided with Richard de Revelle, who pushed him back inside before John could resist.

‘No, you don’t, you stay here!’ screeched Richard. ‘Help, he’s trying to make a run for it!’ he yelled at a higher pitch. Behind him came Clement the doctor and then two men John vaguely recognised as belonging to the house around the corner in the Close, some minor lay functionaries from the cathedral. They all crowded into the vestibule, almost filling it, before de Wolfe could retaliate.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘Get out of my house this minute!’

Richard grabbed him by the arm. ‘We are the hue and cry, and you are under arrest!’ he yelled, an almost maniacal look of triumph on his face as he saw a chance of repaying all the indignities that de Wolfe had heaped on him over the past years.

For answer, the coroner pulled his arm free and landed his brother-in-law a punch on the chest, then another on the jaw that sent him reeling backwards to hit the wall behind.

‘Don’t you dare handle me, you madman!’ he hissed and advanced on Richard, prepared to strike him again.

Clement seized his arm and tried to calm him down. ‘Sir John, I beg you to behave like the gentleman you are. Just let us see what the situation is in your hall.’

Breathing hard, de Wolfe pulled himself together and allowed the physician and the other men through the inner door. By now, two other men from the corner house on the High Street had been summoned, together with Andrew from his stables opposite. Cecilia and Lucille hovered behind them, the maid attracted from the yard, wide-eyed with apprehension. They all trooped into the high chamber, where the new logs were now burning brightly enough to give a good light. As John led the way across to the chairs standing before the hearth, Richard pushed his way forward, rubbing his chin with one hand and gesticulating with the other.

‘You are all witnesses to his assault upon me!’ he babbled. ‘He is a dangerous man. Be careful. He has already killed, he is violent and not to be trusted!’

His protests were ignored, as the sight of Matilda’s body had transfixed them. Mary’s shawl covered her head, but Lucille gave a piercing scream and collapsed sobbing on to the floor, in spite of the fact that her mistress had made her life a misery. It was Cecilia who ran forward and crouched at Matilda’s side, gently pulling back the woollen cloth and feeling for a heartbeat in the woman’s neck.

‘Clement, come here quickly!’ she commanded. ‘See if anything can be done for her.’

Her husband joined her on his knees and, pushing her out of the way, felt Matilda’s throat and then lifted up her eyelids one at a time. ‘She is dead — she cannot be revived.’ He crossed himself, as did several of the men standing around.

‘I told you, de Wolfe killed her,’ rasped de Revelle. ‘You can see the grip marks of his fingers on her throat!’

Clement got up, while Cecilia reverently replaced the shawl over the dead woman’s face. Then she went across to where Lucille was crumpled on the floor making whimpering sounds.

‘Come on, my girl, I’ll take you next door away from all this trouble.’ She put an arm around the maid and led her sobbing to the door, leaving the men looking at each other in consternation, though the physician advanced on the coroner.

‘What do you say to all this, sir?’ asked Clement sternly.

John glared at him. ‘I say that this is none of your damned business!’ he snapped. ‘But if you must know, I came home a short while ago from the Bush alehouse to find the street door open and my wife dead upon the floor!’

‘Ha! A likely story!’ brayed Richard. ‘I found him standing over my poor sister’s body, still warm after his murderous assault. He tried to silence me with his dagger. Look, there it is, still upon the floor!’

He pointed dramatically at the knife which lay on the flagstones. Seven pairs of eyes stared at de Wolfe, as if waiting to hear his explanation, but they were disappointed.

‘I don’t have to answer your ravings, de Revelle,’ he snarled. ‘You are expert at causing trouble where none exists. I shall wait for the sheriff, who holds the office in which you were found so wanting in honesty.’

One of the men from the Close, a lawyer in the bishop’s service, frowned at his response.

‘This is a difficult situation, Sir John. What is required is a coroner, as you well know. But you yourself are the coroner here, so what is to be done?’

‘Let the sheriff decide,’ snapped John. ‘He is the king’s representative in this county.’

‘And your bosom friend, of course!’ sneered Richard, still rubbing at his aching jaw to emphasise how badly he had been assaulted. ‘What chance is there of him going against your interests?’

As if in answer to the question, there was a commotion outside and the doors were flung open as Henry de Furnellis and his chief clerk came in. He had had only a short distance to travel when summoned, as though he had a manor outside Exeter he also had a town house near the Guildhall.

A gabble of explanations was hurled at him, but Henry ignored them and walked straight up to de Wolfe. His lined old face, resembling a tired bloodhound, looked calmly at the coroner.

‘What’s going on, John?’ he asked mildly.

‘I found my wife lying there on the floor, strangled,’ he replied. ‘And this idiot thinks I did it!’ He jerked his head at his brother-in-law.

De Furnellis looked down at Matilda’s body for the first time. ‘Good God, John! I’m so sorry. Who could have done this awful thing?’

This provoked another cacophony of chatter, above which Richard’s reedy voice rose in protest. ‘What did I say? We will get no justice here!’

He thrust his way through the men thronging the chamber and vanished into the night. The sheriff scowled at those remaining.

‘Clear the room! This is now king’s business. My clerk will take your names in case you are needed as jurors or witnesses.’ He hustled them all outside, and when the last had gone he slammed the door. ‘Now, John, tell me what happened.’

His down-to-earth manner cleared the turmoil in de Wolfe’s mind, and in a few succinct words he explained what had happened.

‘Of all things that I needed at that moment was that bloody fool de Revelle appearing on the scene,’ he said bitterly. ‘It was manna from heaven for him, of course, to catch me in what he imagined was a compromising situation!’

The sheriff looked down at the still shape on the floor. ‘What are we to do with her, John? It’s not decent for her to be left lying there.’

De Wolfe grabbed his hair in a gesture of consternation. ‘In one thing, Richard is right. We need a coroner, for I am not above the law and that is what is demanded. They have raised their hue and cry and I am First Finder. There must be an inquest, and the coroner, whoever he is, should be able to view the corpse where it lies.’

As he uttered the word ‘corpse’ he shivered, the realisation seeping over him that his wife was now just a dead body. Though he could generate no affection for her, she had been a part of his life for so long that he found it hard to believe that she was no more.

Henry de Furnellis pulled at the jowls under his chin as he thought what to do next. ‘Can we get Nicholas de Arundell back just to deal with this?’

This was the manor-lord from near Totnes who had temporarily taken on the coronership when John had been called to Westminster.

John shrugged and gave a great sigh. ‘I suppose so. He’s the obvious answer. He must be sent for straight away, so that he may be here in the morning.’

The sheriff looked down again at Matilda. ‘But can we leave the poor woman here until then?’

‘A sheriff and a coroner can hardly go against the rules laid down by the king’s justices,’ said John. ‘The body must be left undisturbed until the coroner has the opportunity to view it.’

Eventually, they decided to leave her where she was, as in any case the alternatives were difficult. Taking her to lie in the usual mortuary in the castle cart-shed was not to be contemplated and putting her before an altar in either the cathedral or St Olave’s was too much of a departure from the legal process.

‘I will send down a soldier from Rougemont to stand guard over the door,’ declared the sheriff. ‘And another can ride at dawn to Hempston Arundell to fetch Sir Nicholas. With forced riding, he could be back here soon after noon.’

With a last look at the shrouded body near the hearth, Henry firmly shepherded his friend from the hall and closed the door.

‘I didn’t do it, you know,’ said John suddenly as they stood in the vestibule.

The sheriff gripped his arm in a gesture of friendship. ‘It never entered my mind that you did, John! But that bastard de Revelle is going to squeeze every ounce of trouble for you out of this.’

He opened the door to the lane. ‘What are you going to do tonight? You can’t stay here.’

‘I’ll sleep down at the Bush — not that I’m likely to get much sleep,’ he answered. ‘Now I must see to Mary.’

When de Furnellis had left, he went around to the yard, where Brutus was whimpering at Mary’s feet. Though he had been treated with disdain by Matilda, the hound knew that something was very wrong in the household.

‘What will you do tonight, Mary?’

The cook-maid raised her hands. ‘What can I do but stay here, as usual? I’m not afraid of ghosts.’

‘I didn’t harm her, Mary,’ he said, repeating the assurance he had made to the sheriff. She reached up and kissed his bristly cheek.

‘Of course you didn’t, Sir John!’ she said vehemently. ‘But I fear for your safety now, all the same.’

De Wolfe went back to the Bush and told his dreadful tale to the horrified Gwyn and Martha. Already patrons were coming into the tavern who had heard the news higher up in the town, spread by the men who had been turned out for the hue and cry. Some looked askance at the coroner, but others came across to offer their sympathy and support.

‘It must be those bloody ship-men that ravished that poor woman,’ said a carpenter he knew. ‘Flood Bretayne with soldiers, I say, to flush them out!’

Gwyn sat John at his table and pressed a jug of ale upon him, as the only way he knew to express his feelings, while Martha tried to get him to eat again, which he declined.

‘De Revelle is out to make trouble for me over this, Gwyn,’ he said soberly. ‘He sees this as his big chance to even up old scores.’

‘It’s nonsense; no one will take him seriously,’ scoffed his officer.

‘I hope not, but I have a bad feeling about this. He found me standing over her still-warm corpse — and I pulled a knife on him, as I thought it was the killer returning.’

Gwyn still dismissed his fears, and soon Martha persuaded him to go up to the loft and lie down on one of the better feather mattresses. In spite of his fears, John slept dreamlessly for a few hours before dawn, but as soon as he awoke all his troubles came tumbling down on him again.

By the time he finished his morning oatmeal gruel, Thomas appeared in a highly agitated state, as by now everyone in Exeter knew of Matilda’s death. He was almost beside himself with concern and fear for his master’s welfare, as already rumours were circulating that the coroner himself was a suspect.

‘And I’ll wager I can guess who is promoting that notion,’ growled Gwyn. ‘I’ll wring the swine’s neck myself if he causes you serious trouble, Crowner!’

Together, the three set off for Rougemont, after John had arranged with Andrew for one of his ostlers to ride to Stoke-in-Teignhead with a hasty note which Thomas had penned for him. His sister Evelyn could read fairly well, as she had spent time in a nunnery when young. In the note, John explained what had happened and expressed his sincere hope that William was improving. He also asked that a message be sent to Hilda, explaining his inability to visit any of them for the time being.

Up at the castle, John went straight to see Henry de Furnellis, who confirmed that a soldier had already left on their swiftest horse to bring Nicholas de Arundell back to Exeter.

‘Is there any news of Richard de Revelle yet?’ demanded John. ‘No doubt he’ll be abroad soon to make as much trouble as he can.’

The sheriff shook his head. ‘Not a sign of him here, but Sergeant Gabriel says the porter on the South Gate saw him riding out with a servant as soon as it was opened at dawn.’

‘He’s up to something,’ growled Gwyn. ‘He’ll not just ride away and lose an opportunity like this.’

The sheriff agreed. ‘He can’t be going to his manor at Tiverton. He’d have used the East Gate for that.’

It was afternoon before they discovered where the

former sheriff had been.