A Plague of Heretics

CHAPTER ONE

‘You can’t keep riding around half of Devonshire just to look at folks dying of a murrain,’ objected the sheriff, pouring de Wolfe some wine from a pitcher on his table. ‘There’s no profit in it for the king’s courts if there’s no crime — and sooner or later you’ll catch it yourself!’

As he picked up the cup and drank, the coroner grunted, his favourite form of response. ‘I agree, but what do I do when I get a message from a bailiff or a Serjeant of the Hundred? The law obliges them to notify me of any unusual deaths.’

Henry de Furnellis, a grizzled old knight almost a score of years older than John, shook his head. ‘Now that this yellow distemper is becoming more common along the coast, we’ll have to tell the local officers not to bother you with such deaths. I hope to God that it doesn’t spread further inland.’

The coroner, sprawled in a leather chair with his long legs sticking out towards the hearth, nodded his agreement. ‘The folk down there are blaming it on vessels coming in from across the Channel, but from what my shipmasters tell me, at the moment there’s no such disease in Normandy, Brittany or even Flanders.’

De Wolfe was a partner in a thriving wool-exporting business in Exeter, which had three vessels that regularly sailed back and forth to the places he had mentioned.

‘Well, just be careful, John!’ rumbled the sheriff. ‘We don’t want to lose you again, after just getting you back in harness.’

After being the county coroner for two years, de Wolfe had recently spent a few months in London at the king’s command but was now back and, three weeks earlier, had resumed his old duties.

They were sitting in the sheriffs chamber in the keep of Rougemont, Exeter’s brooding castle in the upper corner of the old walled city. Outside, the November morning was grey and cold, with an easterly wind hinting at early snow. John usually called upon his old Crusader friend each day, to discuss cases, politics and generally grumble about the world going to the dogs, in the way that older men do, though de Wolfe was only forty-two. Together they were the main law officers in Devon, the sheriff being the king’s representative in the county, responsible for keeping the peace and the collection of taxes, while the coroner had a multitude of functions, including the complicated business of bringing cases to the royal courts.

‘Are you settling back in again, John?’ asked his grey-haired colleague solicitously. He looked across at de Wolfe, who he thought was looking a little drawn and haggard. At the best of times, the coroner was hardly a cheerful soul, but now his long face, large hooked nose and the deep-set eyes below the dark eyebrows looked even grimmer than usual. His jet-black hair, worn long and swept back, unlike the neck-crop of most Norman gentry, was still without a trace of grey, but de Furnellis thought he detected signs of ageing in the coroner’s face.

‘I’m glad to be back home,’ said John in his deep, sonorous voice. ‘Westminster didn’t suit me. There was too little work and too much palace intrigue for my liking.’

‘And Matilda? How is she taking her return home?’

He spoke carefully, for he was well aware that this was a delicate subject. The coroner’s scowl deepened.

‘Bloody woman! Without her, life would be so much easier. She’s trapped with me, just as I am trapped with her.’

‘The convent didn’t suit her once again?’ probed Henry, though he knew the answer well enough.

De Wolfe shook his head, swallowing the last of his red wine before replying. ‘They won’t take her back again in Polsloe, that’s for sure. Twice she’s gone in there and twice she’s left. The beds are too hard, the food is too plain and they wear dowdy raiment, she says! What the hell does she expect in a nunnery?’ Moodily, he banged his wine-cup back on Henry’s desk.

‘Her main complaint now, one that’s eating her up inside, is that I deprived her of living in the royal court of Westminster when I resigned as Coroner of the Verge. She’ll never forgive me for that, as long as she lives.’

The sheriff decided to back away from such a sensitive subject, and he was saved further embarrassment by his chief clerk entering, to hover with a sheaf of parchments and an impatient expression on his lined face. De Wolfe took the hint and pushed himself to his feet to pick up his wolfskin cloak from a nearby bench.

‘I’ll see you in the Shire Court tomorrow, then,’ he promised. ‘I’ve only one case to present, left by Nicholas de Arundell.’

The mention of that name caused de Furnellis to shake his head sadly. ‘A nice young man, but not cut out to be a coroner,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen a man so relieved when he was told that you were taking over once again.’

John gave a lopsided grin. ‘He wasn’t the only one! Even though I have to stay up in that damned draughty chamber in the gatehouse, it’s better than staying home with Matilda!’

He swung his cloak over his shoulders and loped out into the great hall of Rougemont.

The little priest who had braved the risks of pestilence in Lympstone was having his hair cut. This was a very public process, as he sat on a stool at the edge of Exeter’s High Street near Carfoix, where the four old Roman roads crossed at the centre of the city. The portly barber, who also pulled teeth and cut toenails and corns, charged half a penny for a haircut, though in Thomas de Peyne’s case this was hardly a bargain, as much of his thin lank hair was already shaved off for his priestly tonsure, a wide, bare circle on top of his head. Short of stature, Thomas had a thin face, a pointed nose and a weak chin, as well as a lame leg from the effects of spinal phthisis as a child, but an agile mind and a good education more than compensated for his poor physique.

As the man snipped away with his rusting scissors, Thomas’s attention was drawn to a small crowd on the opposite side of the crossing. They were listening with varying degrees of attention to a man standing outside a baker’s shop, earnestly lecturing them, with many flourishes of his arms. Due to the rumble of carts and barrows and the constant cries of stallholders yelling the merits of their goods, it was difficult for Thomas to follow what he was saying, but what he could hear obviously had some religious significance. However, the words ‘free will’ and ‘man makes his own destiny’ were enough to tell the little priest that the man haranguing his unresponsive audience was one of those who followed an alternative path to God from that offered by the Church of Rome.

When the barber had brushed off the remaining hairs from his worn cassock and relieved him of his halfpenny, Thomas dodged a porter jogging past with huge bales of wool balanced on his shoulder-pole and limped across the narrow street to listen to the orator. His interest was mainly professional, as Thomas was a conventional, devoted servant of the Church, faithful to all its tenets and rituals. However, though his faith was rock solid, he had an academic interest in the beliefs of those outside the Roman Church, ranging from Mohammedans to the various critics and non-conformists within the Christian world itself.

As he neared the fringe of the dozen people, including a couple of matrons clutching market baskets, he heard mutters of discontent from some.

‘It’s blasphemy. It ought not to be allowed!’ came a wavering voice from an old grey-bearded man.

‘The cathedral should lock him up, the scurrilous bastard!’ came a more forthright comment.

Thomas stopped to listen for a few moments, as the crowd shifted, some leaving and a few more stopping as they passed along the crowded street. He heard nothing he had not heard before, as mild heresy was not that uncommon, either from unguarded tongues loosened by drink in alehouses or more discreet discussions behind closed doors. The present exponent, an emaciated fellow dressed in poor clothing, was broadcasting his beliefs about the way in which the Father and Son should be worshipped. It was somewhat unusual, and certainly risky, for such views to be shouted abroad in a city street, but Thomas had no intention of doing the cathedral proctors’ work for them by denouncing or arresting the fellow.

He listened for a few moments and decided that the arguments that the man was setting forth were typical of those heretics who declared that all men had free will and that the Catholic Church was corrupt.

‘Man can only be saved by knowing himself, not by intercession with the true God only through the priesthood,’ the man brayed.

Thomas sighed at the obviously Gnostic preachings of the poor fellow and moved away from the crowd, who were becoming more irate at the blasphemies of the speaker. If the onlookers did not beat him up, then the orator was in danger of being picked up by the emissaries of Bishop Marshal, thought Thomas, especially if some canon or vicar happened to be passing by.

As he made his way back up the crowded High Street, he consoled himself with the thought that Rome had had to contend with heretics for almost a thousand years and that some poor crank yelling on an Exeter street was hardly likely to bring the Christian Church crashing to its knees.

It was still only about the eighth hour of the morning and he had no duties at the cathedral until two hours before noon, when he was due to teach Latin grammar to a class of unruly choirboys. A couple of months had passed since the coroner’s team had returned from London, and since his master had been reinstated in his old job they had returned to their long-established routine of meeting each morning in the bleak chamber at the top of the castle gatehouse.

He limped along the High Street and then up the steep slope of Castle Hill and across the drawbridge of the dry moat, to the inner gate of Rougemont. A young soldier, who looked hardly old enough to handle sharp weapons, was on guard duty and waved him through with a cheerful greeting. Inside the arch, Thomas turned into the guard-room, where three more men-at-arms were squatting on the earth floor playing dice. They ignored him as he crossed to a low doorway and laboriously began to climb a stone staircase set into the thick wall. Two floors up, he pushed through a curtain of sacking meant to reduce draughts and went into a barren room with two arrow-slit windows that gave a view down over the city.

‘Here’s our favourite dwarf!’ cackled a huge man sitting on the sill of one of the window embrasures. He had tangled ginger hair and large pair of drooping moustaches to match. A ruddy face with a large bulbous nose was relieved by bright blue eyes. Gwyn of Polruan was the coroner’s officer, a former Cornish fisherman who had spent the past twenty years as John de Wolfe’s bodyguard, squire and faithful friend. He had a very large body, encased as usual in coarse serge breeches and a tattered leather jerkin.

The priest scowled at Gwyn, for although they were firm friends he sometimes tired of the Cornishman’s jibes at his small size and puny muscles.

‘You’ve had your hair shorn,’ grunted de Wolfe, almost accusingly, staring at his clerk’s head. ‘Is it some sort of religious penance?’ He glared up from where he sat at his trestle table.

‘No, Crowner, not at all!’ replied Thomas indignantly. ‘It’s just that I wanted less cover for fleas. My lodgings are infested with them.’ The clerk shared a room with a cathedral secondary in a house on Priest Street in the lower town.

He pulled a stool up to the table, which along with the coroner’s wooden chair and a small charcoal brazier was the only furniture in the spartan chamber. Sir Richard de Revelle, the previous sheriff and de Wolfe’s brother-in-law, had grudgingly allotted John the least desirable room in the whole castle, as a token of his contempt for the new office of coroner, which he looked on as usurping his own authority.

As Thomas spread out his writing materials on the table, John resumed his conversation with Gwyn. Usually, the pair conversed in the Celtic tongue, as Gwyn was Cornish and John had learned Welsh at his mother’s knee. However, they reverted to English in deference to Thomas.

‘Some claim that this yellow curse is brought into the ports by ship-men from abroad,’ growled the coroner. ‘Did you ever see such outbreaks in Cornwall?’

Gwyn shook his massive head. ‘Not myself, but my grandfather told me of such deaths many years ago. They were around Falmouth and Newlyn, so maybe they’re right about harbours giving it entrance into the country.’

‘I’ve heard people blaming rats for the plague,’ contributed Thomas as he smoothed out a sheet of parchment.

The Cornishman scratched his crotch ruminatively. ‘Odd you should say that, for my father used to be a tinner before he took to fishing at Polruan. He said that in tin workings where there were many rats, men used to get sick with yellow skin and eyes and some died. But they didn’t pass it on to other men, as far as I could make out.’

He squinted out of his narrow window opening at the roofs of the city below, where a cold east wind was swirling a few flakes of snow about.

‘Are we going out to every death from this pestilence, Crowner?’ he grumbled. ‘If it spreads, we’ll have no time for any other work, especially if it reaches other more distant ports, like Dawlish or Dartmouth.’

He almost bit his tongue as he let slip ‘Dawlish’, for that was where his master’s woman lived and he had not meant to mention the possibility of the yellow death endangering her there. But de Wolfe was phlegmatic about the risks.

‘Thank Christ it’s almost the end of the sailing season, so there’ll be few vessels coming in there from abroad until the spring.’

‘It’s said that very cold winter weather freezes out the contagion,’ said Thomas consolingly. ‘So let’s pray for plenty of snow and ice this year.’

‘Looks as if it’s starting already,’ growled Gwyn, staring out through the embrasure. ‘I’ll have to scrounge another brazier from the barracks. This bloody chamber gets cold enough to freeze the balls off those rats of yours, Thomas.’

‘They’re not my rats, you Cornish lump!’ retaliated the clerk, but John cut short their frequent bickering.

‘You asked about holding inquests on these deaths, Gwyn,’ he said. ‘The sheriff was talking about that earlier. It seems that the Justices in Eyre have declared that unless there’s anything suspicious, we can dispense with investigating them.’

His officer pulled his thick jerkin more closely around him, as the strengthening wind blew more persistently through the unglazed window slit.

‘That’s a blessing. I don’t fancy taking the curse back to my wife and sons at the Bush,’ he muttered.

The coroner, also feeling the sudden cold, rose from his seat behind the rough table and draped his dark cloak around his shoulders. ‘I’m going down to the Guildhall. I want to talk to Hugh de Relaga about our vessels. Talking of Dawlish, I think that two of the ships are there now, so I want to know if they can make any more voyages before being beached for the winter.’

As he made for the doorway, the mischievous Gwyn added a helpful suggestion. ‘Best go down to the coast and see for yourself, Crowner!’

Though his expression was blandly innocent, de Wolfe knew that he was slyly hinting at an excuse for visiting the delectable Hilda of Dawlish.

The Guildhall, recently rebuilt in stone, was in the High Street, only a few hundred paces from de Wolfe’s house in Martin’s Lane. He strode down from the castle, conscious of the biting wind, though the snow flurries had ceased. If this was the weather in early November, thought John, we might be in for a hard winter — perhaps all to the good, if it damped down this threatened epidemic.

The narrow street was as crowded as usual, stalls and booths obstructing each side. The middle, with its central culvert that carried filth downhill, was filled with handcarts, porters pushing barrows and ox-carts piled with bales of wool or straw. The rest of the space was clogged with jostling humanity, all buying, selling, talking, shouting and cursing.

The coroner, a head taller than most men, pushed his way through to reach the wide door of the hall, which was the centre of the economic and civic life of Exeter. As well as providing accommodation for the various trade guilds, it housed the city council, the group of burgesses who ran the administration, under the leadership of the two portreeves. There was talk of electing a mayor, a continental practice which had recently been adopted by London and a few other towns, but for now Hugh de Relaga and Henry Rifford led the more prominent merchants and tradesmen who governed the city.

Almost all the building was taken up by the main hall, parts of which were divided up by movable screens to form alcoves to accommodate a variety of guild and business functions. A number of merchants and tradesmen were standing around, chattering and gesticulating as they conducted their business. At the back was a pair of small rooms, one of which was for the portreeves and their clerks. The two leaders came in at least once a day, though they had their own profitable businesses to run elswhere in the town. Hugh de Relaga was a prominent dealer in wool, and his colleague, Henry Rifford, was a leather merchant and tannery owner.

John was pleased to find Hugh at his table in a corner of the chamber, poring over a list of accounts just supplied by his chief clerk. As a trader, it was essential to be literate — a rare accomplishment in a society where few but those in holy orders could read and write.

‘I trust we are making a fortune, Hugh!’ he called from the doorway.

The rotund merchant rose from his chair with a broad smile and waved de Wolfe to a nearby stool. He was an unfailingly cheerful fellow, with a fondness for gaudy clothing. Today he wore a yellow linen tunic under a surcoat of bright red satin, with a mantle of green velvet draped over the back of his chair. His head was swathed in a turban-like coil of red brocade, the free end hanging down over one shoulder.

‘We’re doing very well, John, though these outbreaks of distemper may affect the transport of goods,’ he said breezily. ‘However, our long voyages will soon be ending for the winter.’

He was repeating John’s earlier remark to Gwyn about their ships being laid up for the season. They were vital for their business venture, as when Hilda had been widowed the previous year she had brought her late husband’s three ships into the existing partnership between de Relaga and the coroner. They used them to move their wool and cloth around the Channel ports as far distant as Flanders and the Rhine.

The portreeve sent one of his clerks for wine and pastries, and over refreshments he gave John a summary of their present trading position. Though de Wolfe was a ‘sleeping partner’, he took a healthy interest in the fortunes of their firm. He had invested the wealth he had acquired over years of campaigning into their joint business and had benefited considerably from the thriving expansion of Exeter’s commercial life.

Hugh pushed aside his parchments and smiled benignly at the coroner. ‘So you’ll not starve this month, John. We are doing quite nicely. But tell me how other matters are going with you — have you settled back fully into your old harness?’

The coroner set his cup on the table and wiped his lips appreciatively. Trust Hugh to have only the best wine from the Loire.

‘It hardly seems as if I’ve been away for those months,’ he said candidly. ‘At least, it does as far as my duties go. At home it’s a different matter!’

The portreeve nodded sympathetically. It was a little difficult for him, as he was about the only friend of John’s that Matilda would tolerate, mainly because he was rich, well dressed and always made a point of flattering her. But he knew the situation in Martin’s Lane and was sad that his friend felt so frustrated and unhappy with his lot. He decided to avoid the subject and stick to John’s coronership.

‘You found Westminster not to your taste?’ he asked.

‘Like living in a bloody hive full of bees!’ grunted de Wolfe. ‘All gossip and scandal and intrigue, but very little actual work for me.’

He had been Coroner of the Verge for only a short while, posted there on the direct orders of King Richard, but after dealing with an extraordinary crime he decided that he wanted to leave, partly from feelings of guilt at not having done enough to solve it.

They spoke a little more about the sporadic cases of the yellow plague that had been cropping up, and John told him of the most recent one in Lympstone. For once, Hugh looked seriously concerned. ‘Lympstone! That’s getting uncomfortably close to Topsham.’

This was the port at the upper end of the estuary of the River Exe, where much of their goods were handled. If the disease hit Topsham, then their shipments would be badly disrupted. Like so many worried people around the southern coast, they began discussing possible causes of the yellow curse, without any hope of an answer.

‘Why don’t you ask the opinion of your new neighbour?’ suggested Hugh. John looked at him blankly for a moment, then realised what he meant.

‘The new physician? I’ve hardly said a word to him yet, though my wife seems to think that he’s some kind of saint.’

Three months earlier, while John was away in London, the house next door in Martin’s Lane had found a new tenant. Empty for well over a year since the silversmith who lived there had been murdered, it had been bought cheaply by the former sheriff, Richard de Revelle, John’s brother-in-law. Always striving to make yet more money, Richard had rented it out to Exeter’s first resident physician, Clement of Salisbury, who had recently arrived in the city to set up in practice.

Apart from muttering an occasional greeting when they passed in the street, John had kept clear of his neighbours, not being a very sociable individual. However, from the limited conversation he had with Matilda, he gathered that the new doctor and his wife were welcome additions to the upper levels of Exeter society.

Clement was a good-looking man of about John’s age, who dressed exceptionally well, as did his handsome wife. Best of all in Matilda’s eyes, they were very devout and already constant attenders at the cathedral. Now Matilda had invited them to her own church of St Olave’s in Fore Street, for additional services during the week.

‘Perhaps I’ll have a few words with him when I next see him,’ muttered de Wolfe. ‘Though I doubt he’ll know any more about plagues and distempers than the monks at St John’s Hospital. He seems to be more interested in dancing attendance on the wealthier folk in the city.’

As he spoke, he realised that his friend was one of those wealthier folk, but de Relaga was not one to take offence. They spoke for a little while longer, until the clerks began to get restive as they hovered about the portreeve with sheaves of parchment. John finished his wine and rose to leave, his final query to Hugh being about his brother-in-law.

‘Have you seen anything of Richard de Revelle lately?’ he asked. ‘I’ve not set eyes on him since I returned — not that it distresses me, but I always feel uneasy if I don’t know what mischief he might be up to!’

The portreeve grinned. ‘Have you not heard that he’s become a pig farmer now?’

John stared at him, suspecting some jest, for which Hugh was well known. ‘A pig farmer? The last I heard, he was making money with that private school of his down in Smythen Street.’

De Relaga nodded, the length of brocade wound around his head bobbing as he did so. ‘He’s still got that, but he’s found a new way of making yet more money. He has several acres of mud down near Clyst St George and another somewhere about Dartmouth, where he has hundreds of swine.’

John almost gaped in surprise. ‘I can’t see that dandified creature pouring buckets of pigswill or shovelling manure!’ he exclaimed.

The portreeve shook his head. ‘I doubt he’s ever even seen the damned hogs! He’ll have ill-paid slaves to do that for him.’

‘So what’s he up to, for God’s sake?’

‘As I said, making money! He discovered that the king’s army in France needed feeding, so he’s supplying salted pork and smoked bacon by the ton. No doubt at inflated prices, but the soldiers have to be fed. He sends shiploads of the stuff over to Barfleur and Honfleur, mainly out of Exmouth, Topsham and Dartmouth.’

‘Well, well! It’s a change to see that rascal engaged in some honest trade for once,’ grunted John. ‘But I’ll wager there’s some mischief somewhere — bribing royal purveyors to give a higher price or some such crafty deceit.’

Hugh shrugged. ‘Perhaps he’s seen the error of his ways at last. I even considered offering to carry some of his cargoes across the Channel in our ships.’

‘His money is as good as anyone’s, I suppose,’ conceded John. ‘I’ll leave it to you, as long as you watch the bastard like a hawk!’