A Plague of Heretics

CHAPTER THREE

Soon after a grey November dawn, when the cathedral bells were ringing for Prime, the coroner made another call upon the sheriff and brought him up to date with the events surrounding the bizarre killing of Nicholas Budd. Then he went across to his chamber in the gatehouse, where he found Gwyn and Thomas huddled over the brazier. The wind had dropped outside, and it was marginally warmer but still miserable.

‘A lot to do today,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘We’ve got the Shire Court first, though that should be disposed of quickly. Then there are hangings to attend out on Magdalen Street as well as this murder to pursue.’ As he stood rubbing his hands above the charcoal glowing in the iron bucket, he sensed that Thomas was itching to say something.

‘I went down yesterday to attend the burial of those poor souls in Bretayne,’ said the clerk with a return of the slight stutter which afflicted him when he was excited. ‘I saw something curious.’

John frowned at him. ‘You’re a devil for danger, Thomas!’ he said sternly. ‘First at Lympstone, now here in Exeter. I would be very sad if you took in whatever noxious vapour causes this plague.’

‘And I’d be sorrier still if you brought it back to us!’ grumbled Gwyn, thinking of his family.

The little priest shook his head stubbornly. ‘God will protect me. I was afraid that those people might have been buried without so much as a prayer, let alone a proper shriving.’

‘And were they?’ demanded de Wolfe.

Thomas looked a little abashed. ‘No, as it happens. The old priest from St Bartholomew’s was there, God bless his soul. He was sober enough to say a few words as they threw the bodies into the pit.’

‘So what was this that aroused your curiosity?’ asked John.

The clerk ran a finger over the tip of his sharp nose to remove a dewdrop. ‘For some reason, maybe shortage of cloth in that poverty-ridden place, the bodies were not fully covered. Their heads were sticking out from the rags that passed for shrouds.’

De Wolfe sighed, for Thomas was catching Gwyn’s habit of spinning out every tale.

‘I noticed that four out of the five were as yellow as French lemons, as was to be expected. But the oldest man was still lily-white.’

The coroner and his officer digested this for a moment.

‘And you think that has some meaning?’ asked Gwyn.

‘Well, if this was a plague pit for those who perished from the yellow curse, why wasn’t he yellow?’ said Thomas defensively.

‘Are you suggesting that he might have died from something else?’ said John.

The clerk shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘It bears thinking about! It would be a good way to get rid of a murdered corpse, putting it in with plague victims, now that they are no longer coroner’s business.’

Crafty Thomas knew that this would pique his master, who was jealous of his duty to investigate all suspicious deaths.

‘Well, it’s too late to look into it now,’ boomed Gwyn. ‘He’s six feet under a layer of quicklime and soil by now.’

‘We could get him dug up again,’ retorted de Wolfe.

‘I doubt any labourer would risk shovelling out a plague pit, even for extra wages,’ said Gwyn. ‘Especially on such flimsy evidence as the colour of his face.’

John had to agree, but he was reluctant to let the issue drop. ‘We must enquire about how he died, but first find out who he was.’

‘I already know that, Crowner. I made enquiries on the spot. He was Vincente d’Estcote, from down near the town wall, opposite the Snail Tower. A fellow of fifty-five, an impoverished porter who carried mainly for the fulling mills on Exe Island. He lodged with the family that died and was found dead in the house with them. No one cared about the circumstances; they were too concerned to get them out and buried before the contagion spread.’

Once again, de Wolfe marvelled at the resourcefulness of his clerk, who was worth far more than the three pence a day he was paid for his work.

‘This dreadful killing in Raden Lane must be our first priority, but later we must find out more about the death of this fellow,’ he commanded.

After attending the single case of declaring outlawry held in the Shire Hall, a bleak barn-like building in the inner ward of the castle, they walked down Castle Hill and across to St John’s Priory, tucked away just inside the city wall, which had been built by the Romans, neglected by the Saxons and restored by the Normans.

It was a small Benedictine house, with just a prior and three brothers, devoted to caring for the sick and in schooling a few local children. The only ward was a large room with a row of straw mattresses on the floor down each side, dominated by a large wooden crucifix on the end wall, confirming Clement of Salisbury’s claim that God was the only real healer of bodies and souls.

They found Brother Saulf there, a tall, gaunt monk who acted as hospitaller. He had had some medical training in Flanders before entering the cloister and had been very helpful to the coroner on several occasions. Saulf led them around to the back of the tiny priory, where a small shed stood in the shadow of the ancient city wall. Functioning as a store for stretchers and old furniture as well as a mortuary, it now sheltered the corpse of Nicholas Budd, which lay on the ground covered with a sheet. Gwyn pulled it back and they looked down at a face now cleaned of all the blood and clot that had obscured it the previous day. His open eyes stared up glassily and his lips were distorted by the havoc that a knife had wreaked inside his mouth. Grey hair and stubble marked him as being probably in his fifties.

The monk bent down and picked up something wrapped in a rag from alongside the cadaver. ‘This is his tongue and throat parts,’ he said, unrolling the bloodstained cloth. ‘It should be buried with the body, for decency’s sake.’

Gwyn poked at it with a finger, while Thomas contrived to look elsewhere. ‘Must have been a damned sharp knife, Crowner,’ he observed. ‘Clean cuts, very little ragged edges.’

‘I try to heal bodies, rather than disordered minds,’ said Saulf gravely. ‘But I would have thought that whoever did this was making retribution for something that this poor man had said.’

De Wolfe stared thoughtfully at the Benedictine. ‘You suggest that cutting out the tongue and voice-box, the organs of speech, might mean that the victim had caused offence?’

‘Must have been a bit more serious than just telling him to bugger off!’ offered Gwyn facetiously.

They examined the body carefully, but apart from the wound on the head there was nothing else of significance. The scrip on his belt contained four pence and a tarnished medallion of St Christopher. The fingers were slightly callused and had some small healing cuts, consistent with his work as a woodcarver. The monk pulled the sheet back over the body when they had finished. ‘What happens now?’ he asked. ‘Did he have any relatives that will attend to his burial?’

De Wolfe straightened his back and moved away from the corpse. ‘We will have to make enquiries at his home, then I will have to hold an inquest. I will let you know about disposing of the body as soon as I can.’ He offered a dozen pennies to Saulf, which the monk gratefully received as a donation to the funds of the hard-pressed hospital, then left with his two assistants. They made their way down to Curre Street, which was one of the small lanes that led from the High Street towards the North Gate. It was lined with a mixture of houses and tenements, varying in size and shape, some with shopfronts and others being the work premises of various crafts. They found Osric outside a cordwainer’s shop, talking to the owner.

‘I was just asking about Nicholas Budd, Crowner,’ the town constable explained. ‘His workshop is next door, and this man says that Nicholas was at home the day before yesterday, but he’s not seen him since.’

‘Kept himself to himself, did Budd,’ volunteered the shoemaker. ‘Nice enough fellow, but very quiet. Lived alone, can’t say as if I’ve ever heard of him speak of family. Certainly, he never had no visitors here.’

There was no more to be learned, and Osric confirmed that his enquiries elsewhere along the street had been equally barren.

‘Let’s have a look in his house,’ commanded John, pushing open the door, which was unlocked. Nicholas Budd had occupied the ground floor of the small thatched house, the upper storey being used by a family of six who gained access by steps from the backyard. The woodcarver used the front part of his premises for his trade, with two workbenches, stacks of seasoned timber and a rack of tools on the wall. The floor was ankle deep in shavings and offcuts, but beyond a flimsy wattle partition, the rear part of the premises was clean. A firepit, now cold and dead, occupied the centre, and a table, a stool and a blanket-covered palliasse on the floor were the only furniture in Budd’s living quarters. Some food and few pots were on the table, and a small keg of cider stood in one corner.

John sent Gwyn into the yard to look around and to make enquiries among the people upstairs, while he and Thomas looked around the ground floor. There was little enough to study, and within a couple of minutes they had drawn a blank.

‘So why was the poor devil so cruelly mutilated?’ muttered de Wolfe pensively. ‘It seems he had no life other than carving his bloody wood, by the looks of it.’

Thomas nodded, his beady eyes roving around the living room.

‘Not even a cross or a pilgrim’s badge on the wall. Yet something he did must have caused great offence to someone.’

Gwyn came down to report that the goodwife upstairs had not heard her neighbour since the day before yesterday. ‘Usually, she hears him sawing and chopping down here. So it looks as if he met his death the night before last.’

‘Did she say anything about relatives who might wish to know of his death — and who might pay for his burial?’ asked John.

Gwyn shook his head, his ginger locks swinging wildly. ‘She knew very little about him, it seems. Thinks he came here from Bristol a couple of years ago. Doesn’t attend any church, which apparently causes offence to some of the neighbours.’

With nothing more to be learned, the trio took themselves off to the castle gatehouse, where they ate some bread and cheese and drank ale mulled with an old sword heated in the brazier.

Thomas was never keen on ale, a great handicap in a world where it was almost the only safe drink, given the dangers of all water, whether drawn from wells, rivers or ditches. However, when heated, Thomas could tolerate it better, though he preferred cider.

‘You must round up a jury for this afternoon, Gwyn,’ said de Wolfe. ‘Osric, Theobald, the lad who found the body and a few folk from Raden Lane who were knocked up by the constables. We’ll look on them “First Finders”, though as usual they’ll know damn all about what happened.’

‘Best add that shoemaker and the woman upstairs from Curre Street,’ said the Cornishman. ‘I wonder if he was in a craft guild — they might pay for his burial expenses?’

‘Who did he work for, I wonder?’ mused de Wolfe. ‘Must be a freeman on his own, I expect. If he carved stuff for churches, maybe my friend the archdeacon might know of him?’

The coroner was correct in this, but not in quite the way he expected.

Some time before noon, John made his way back towards Martin’s Lane for dinner, taking his horse Odin back to the livery stables opposite. He had ridden out to the gallows on Magdalen Street to witness and record the hanging of two thieves and a captured outlaw, a sight which in no way put him off his expected meal. However, on the doorstep he met Mary clutching a basket filled with new bread and a brace of sea fish from the market.

‘Your dinner will be another hour, Sir Coroner,’ she announced firmly. ‘My fire went out, thanks to the damp wood that old fool Simon has been chopping, so I had to relight it.’ In spite of her protests, he tore a chunk off one of the loaves and loped away, chewing the warm bread.

‘I’ll go down to see the archdeacon while I’m waiting,’ he called over his shoulder as he headed for Canon’s Row. This was where some of the prebendaries of the cathedral lived, only a few hundred paces from his house. It lay along the north side of the Close, the large burial ground outside the huge twin-towered church of St Mary and St Peter.

One of the houses was occupied by Canon John de Alençon, one of the four archdeacons of the diocese. An uncle of Thomas de Peyne, he was the one who several years before had prevailed on John to take on the disgraced and penniless priest as his clerk. He was an old friend of the coroner, an ascetic with a strong sense of justice and piety, his only worldly weakness being a love of fine wines. As usual, he offered the coroner a cup of an excellent Anjou red as a preprandial drink. They sat in de Alençon’s study, a spartan room contrasting strongly with the luxurious accommodation beloved of many of the senior churchmen.

‘It’s good to have you back as Exeter’s coroner, John,’ said the archdeacon warmly. ‘But I hear you have already had a distressing problem?’

‘This strange murder up near the East Gate? It’s not every day we get victims with their tongues and throats slashed out.’

‘Who was he? I’ve heard no details of the tragedy.’

John took a sip of the luscious red fluid. ‘That’s partly why I called, to see if you knew of him. He was a carver of devotional objects, so I thought maybe you had had dealings with him.’

De Alençon stared at his friend in surprise. ‘A woodcarver? Surely you can’t mean Nicholas Budd?’

‘You knew him, then? I thought you might and wondered if you could tell me something of him.’

The archdeacon looked suddenly very sombre, his thin face and crinkled grey hair giving him a stern appearance above his black cassock.

‘I can tell you a lot about him, John! In fact, Nicholas was due to get into the public eye very soon, though not in the horrific way you describe.’

De Wolfe placed his wine-cup down carefully on the table. This was far more than he expected and he thought again how often chance ideas turned up vital information. ‘Tell me, then,’ he said, and his friend continued his story.

‘The cathedral chapter and the bishop’s legal deacon have been debating what to do about Budd for some weeks — and only last Friday, several of the canons gave instructions for him to be arraigned before a special court.’

John’s black eyebrows rose. ‘What’s he been up to? Ravishing the nuns at Polsloe?’

His friend ignored his flippancy; this was a serious matter. ‘In the opinion of some of my fellow canons, that would be a trivial offence compared with what they consider his mortal sins. They want him to be tried for heresy.’

‘Heresy? I thought that was something that was known only in France and Germany — not that I know much about it,’ admitted the coroner.

His friend shook his head sadly. ‘I agree that it is not openly evident in England, where thankfully the rule of Rome is rarely challenged. But under the surface there are still those who doubt or even strongly dispute the right of the Church to be the only channel of intercession between man and God.’

De Wolfe was neither an educated person nor had he much interest in religion, other than a passive acceptance of the inflexible dominance of the Church, instilled into everyone from childhood. He was more interested to know why Nicholas Budd had had his throat torn out.

‘So what has this woodworker been doing, to bring down the wrath of your chapter upon him?’

The archdeacon sighed. ‘It was not what he was doing, John, but what he was saying. One of the proctors’ bailiffs heard Budd talking to a group of labourers on the quayside, dispensing the usual nonsense about every man being his own salvation. The proctor told one of my colleagues and he began a crusade against this man.’

He paused to sip his wine and sighed again. ‘I’m afraid the matter has escalated since then, as this canon found supporters for his views and has forced the chapter to take the matter to the bishop. It is difficult for me, as I admit to not having such strong feelings about the issue as some of my colleagues.’

The archdeacon paused to top up John’s cup before continuing. ‘Somewhat to my discomfort, I am the one who will have to deal with this matter, as the bishop appointed me as his vicar-general. Unlike some other dioceses, the bishop here has no chancellor to deal with such administrative and disciplinary matters.’

‘But I thought that the chapter dealt with such things?’ objected John, to whom the labyrinthine workings of the Church were a mystery.

De Alençon shook his grey head. ‘It has been traditional for the archdeacon of the see to be given this duty. In fact, we are sometimes called the oculus episcopi, “the eye of the bishop” — which does not increase my popularity with my brother canons, who sometimes suspect me of being Henry Marshal’s spy!’

De Wolfe looked at the priest from under lowered brows. ‘I get the feeling that you are not as enthusiastic as your brothers about pursuing this man?’

‘I am not, John. Our Church has been plagued by such critics since its early days in Rome. Then they posed a more serious threat, but stern measures over the centuries have repulsed them until, certainly in this country, they are mere irritations like the fleas and lice in our hair.’

‘I have heard somewhere that in the south of France there are many who challenge the supremacy of the Roman Church,’ said de Wolfe.

‘That is true. That area has always been full of strange beliefs, such as claiming that the Holy Mother herself fled there with Mary Magdalene — ludicrous, when everyone knows that after the Crucifixion she went to Ephesus to live out her days near St John.’

The coroner did not know that, but he failed to see the relevance. ‘Are they not called after the town of Albi?’ he asked as he stood up to leave. ‘I once rode through there to get to some campaign in Toulouse.’

De Alençon nodded. ‘The Albigensians, sometimes called the Cathars. They might pose a threat one day and will have to be dealt with, but I doubt we have many adherents in Devon.’ He finished his wine and saw his friend to the door. ‘If you want to know more, get my nephew Thomas to give you a lecture! He’s always keen to show off his knowledge.’

As they stood on the doorstep, John had a final question. ‘What will happen to this enquiry now that Budd is dead?’

John de Alençon shrugged. ‘No doubt it will be dropped, as Canon fitz Rogo can hardly press for the prosecution of a corpse.’

With much more to think about than when he came, the coroner left the cathedral precinct and went home to Mary’s grilled fish.

The inquest on the woodcarver that afternoon was a brief and unhelpful formality. For convenience, John held it in the yard behind St John’s, adjacent to the ramshackle mortuary. Gwyn had assembled a dozen men and older boys for a jury, which included anyone who might be of use as a witness. The enquiry had to be held with a viewing of the corpse, so Gwyn had lifted it out of the shed and laid it gently on the ground. He left the sheet over it for as long as possible, but at some stage the dreadful wound had to be displayed to the jurymen.

There was virtually no audience — different from the usual inquest in a village, when everyone turned out to gawp at a novelty that livened their dull lives. Rather to John’s surprise, there was one unexpected onlooker, his friend and partner Hugh de Relaga, dressed in his usual colourful costume, in spite of the sombre occasion.

‘What brings you here, Hugh?’ asked de Wolfe, taking him aside just before he began the procedure.

‘I represent the guilds, John. We were told of this poor man’s death and that he has no known family. We shall look after his funeral and see that his property is safeguarded, if he has any.’

Each trade had its guild, which not only regulated the quality of goods, fixed their prices, controlled working conditions and prevented unfair competition but acted as a friendly society for members, looking after widows and children in times of hardship.

‘Did you know anything of this particular man?’ asked John.

De Relaga’s chubby face was framed by a bright green coif, a tight-fitting helmet of linen, tied under his chin with tapes. He looked like some woodland elf, John thought, but it was an effective protection against the cold east wind that had arisen.

‘Not personally, as obviously he was in a different guild from mine,’ he answered. ‘But the warden of the woodworkers who told me of this tragedy this morning said that he had been a very devout man and worthy of all our help.’

The coroner thought it best not to disillusion his friend of the direction of Budd’s devotion and moved off to conduct his inquest. Gwyn bellowed his call to order and the jury shuffled into a line facing the coroner. Thomas set up his parchment, pen and ink on the back of a handcart, as far away from the corpse as possible, ready to transcribe the proceedings for future presentation to the royal justices when they arrived for the next Eyre of Assize.

John first called the lad who had discovered the body, who seemed quite unaffected by the gruesome experience. Osric and Theobald told how they had been called, and Gwyn in turn reported that all enquiries so far had found no witnesses to the killing. Nicholas Budd had worked alone, so that there was not even a journeyman or an apprentice to offer any evidence about his habits, mental state or even when he had last been seen alive. The woman from above Budd’s workshop was the only one who could state that the carver had been heard two evenings before, but she had nothing else to offer.

Finally, Gwyn paraded the reluctant jurors past the cadaver, demonstrating the neck wound and offering the severed tongue and voice-box to them, in the manner of a butcher trying to sell offal to a housewife. When they were back in line, a few shades paler in the face, de Wolfe harangued them to obtain a verdict, though in fact giving them little choice.

‘This is a preliminary enquiry, so that the law may allow the deceased man to be buried,’ he snapped, glaring along the row of faces. ‘The verdict is yours, but it seems unavoidable that you must find that Nicholas Budd was foully murdered. It cannot be an accident and I doubt he would have cut out his own throat and then laid it carefully on a stone beside him!’

He pulled his wolfskin cloak more tightly around him as an icy gust swept through the yard. Then he stabbed a finger towards the largest man in the jury, a bruiser of a fellow who wore the bloodstained apron of a slaughterman.

‘I appoint you foreman, so consult your fellows and give me your verdict.’

He didn’t actually add ‘And be damned quick about it’, but the message was there and within a brief moment the man from The Shambles turned back to mumble their agreement that the woodcarver had been slain by persons unknown.

‘When I get further information I may need to reconvene this inquest, but until then you may all go about your business.’

When they had shuffled away, Gwyn covered up the corpse and put it back into the mortuary until Hugh de Relaga sent men to collect it. John took his friend the portreeve aside.

‘I don’t know what plans you have for a funeral, but I would advise you to keep clear of the cathedral,’ he murmured.

The portreeve immediately pressed him for an explanation, but John held up his hand. ‘I can’t explain now, but suffice to say that it would be best if you have him buried in one of the smaller churches. Better still, go out to one of the nearby country parishes. He has no relatives, so it will make no difference.’ He clapped a hand on the shoulder of his mystified friend and made his way back to Rougemont.

‘So what do we do now?’ asked the sheriff. ‘If it was an ordinary killing, some knife fight in a tavern or a robbery with violence, we could arrest everyone within sight and beat it out of them. But with these secret murders, we never seem to get anywhere.’

De Wolfe was amused at the ‘we’, as Henry de Furnellis rarely stirred himself to go hunting miscreants. He was sheriff for the second time, reluctantly coming back after John’s brother-in-law had been ignominiously deprived of office. Now over sixty, he wanted a quiet life and was looking forward to someone else being appointed in his place.

‘Surely this heretic business must be involved?’ boomed the third man in the sheriff’s chamber. ‘Why else would someone want to cut the poor bastard’s throat out, if he was just an inoffensive woodworker?’

This was Ralph Morin, the castle constable, a man as big as Gwyn, looking like one of his Viking ancestors with his forked beard. Rougemont had always been a royal possession, ever since the castle was built by the Conqueror, and Morin, as castellan and commander of the garrison, was responsible directly to the king.

De Wolfe nodded, as he reached for the inevitable cup of wine, dispensed by Henry. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Ralph. But I have a lot of digging to do before I can find out why.’

‘The archdeacon said that a few of the canons were after this fellow, so are you going to tackle them about it?’ asked the sheriff.

John nodded. ‘I’ll start this very day,’ he promised. ‘Though if I know these snooty clergy, they’ll be reluctant to even give me the time of day. They always shelter behind the power of the bishop or some such excuse.’

‘Is he buried yet?’ queried the castellan.

‘Being put down this afternoon, I think. Probably in St Bartholomew’s, where they disposed of those plague victims.’

De Furnellis looked across at John from his seat behind his table. ‘There were five more deaths in Topsham last night,’ he said sombrely. ‘I hope by Christ and all His Blessed Saints that we get no more in the city. Did you get any help from that doctor last night?’

‘He was as much use as my hound! Less, in fact, as Brutus can at least catch a few rats if he shifts himself.’

‘You think rats might be a cause?’ asked Morin. ‘I’m afraid of them getting among my garrison. The unmarried soldiers all live close together in the barrack-halls, and if one gets a cough or running nose they all get it.’

‘Get a few dogs in, Ralph, and get rid of any rats,’ advised John. ‘God knows if they are anything to do with the yellow plague, but according to this bloody doctor I’ve got next door the only prevention is prayer!’

Morin threw down the last of his wine and stood up. ‘Apart from Exeter itself, the other cases have been in Lympstone, Dartmouth and now Topsham. They’re all ports, so maybe there is something in this allegation that bloody sailors are bringing it in.’

‘Well, we can’t stop them coming — and half of them are Devon ship-men who live here,’ countered Henry.

When the castellan had gone, Henry looked quizzically at de Wolfe. ‘I gather you were not too impressed by your new neighbour?’

John gave one of his all-purpose grunts. ‘Thinks too much of himself for my taste. He’s only interested in the sound of coins jingling in his purse and preaching at everyone about the power of God! Told me to my face that he won’t help out at St John’s or go near the plague sufferers in case it affects his trade with the high-paying patients.’ He thought for a moment, then added, ‘But he’s got a most desirable wife!’

Henry, knowing his friend of old, clucked his tongue. ‘Now, John, none of that! You’ve got enough problems as it is. Stick to hunting criminals and having a trip to Dawlish now and then.’

It was good advice, and de Wolfe decided to take it. He was overdue for a visit to his family in Stoke-in-Teignhead and Dawlish was on the same road.

He left the keep, clattering down the wooden steps from the high entrance to reach the rock-hard mud of the frozen inner ward. Going back to the gatehouse to collect Thomas, they walked together back to the centre of the city.

‘I need to talk to this canon your uncle mentioned,’ said John as they went through a lane which came out in the Close.

‘Richard fitz Rogo? He was Archdeacon of Cornwall until recently; now he’s settled back into being just a canon. He is a rich man, with a private income, apart from his benefice.’

As John expected, his clerk was a walking encyclopaedia, especially where the Church was concerned.

‘What sort of man is he?’ he asked as they walked through the dishevelled area in front of the cathedral. Though it was holy ground, it was hardly a haven of episcopal calm. Rough paths led between grave-mounds, some fresh, some weed-covered and others gaping open awaiting fresh customers. Urchins played among the piles of dumped refuse, and dogs romped along with them. A few beggars slumped against the mounds, half-dead with cold, and a drunk wandered erratically past, singing incoherently.

‘This place is a disgrace,’ muttered Thomas indignantly before answering the coroner. ‘Richard fitz Rogo? He is a stern man, an upright pillar of the Church, but not given to much humour or pleasantries.’

‘Does he live in a simple fashion, like your uncle John de Alençon?’ asked the coroner.

Thomas shook his head. ‘He enjoys the luxuries of life very much, as you will see if we can get invited into his dwelling. It is just there.’

He pointed to one of the houses that lined the Close on the side facing the great West Front of the cathedral. It lay behind the small church of St Mary Major and its yard backed on to buildings in the High Street beyond.

John had brought his clerk with him, as he had learned that the presence of a priest was often useful when dealing with the clergy, especially those in the senior ranks. Thomas trotted to the door of the stone-built house and sought out the canon’s steward. Many of the lower orders of priest would be in the cathedral now, at one of the interminable services that occupied most of the day, but the less energetic canons had vicars and secondaries to stand in for them. Canon Richard was evidently one of these, for Thomas reappeared and conducted his master into the house, following the steward to a door leading to one of the two rooms on the ground floor.

Inside, he found a comfortable chamber with a large brazier glowing hotly in the centre. Some padded chairs stood around it, and a table, a cupboard and a wine cabinet completed the furnishings, apart from some expensive tapestries that softened the harshness of the stone walls.

A fat man with a bald head hauled himself from one of the chairs and greeted John as Thomas made a brief introduction and then retired to stand inconspicuously against the door. Richard fitz Rogo was pink and fat all over, including his cheeks and puffy neck, which overhung the neckband of his black cassock. A heavy woollen cape hung over his shoulders against the cold, though at the moment his room was probably one of the warmest places in Exeter.

‘Sir John, we have not met before, but I have seen you in the distance, attending Mass with your devout wife.’

His voice was strong and resonant, the utterance of a man used to getting his own way. The coroner muttered something neutral and sat down in the other chair, as the canon indicated.

‘I have no doubt that you wish to seek my help in respect of this sinner who was found dead yesterday in Raden Lane?’

‘You know about that, then?’ said John.

‘All Exeter knows about it, coroner. Even to the strange injuries he suffered.’ Again de Wolfe marvelled at the way in which news passed around the city like lightning.

‘You knew this man Nicholas Budd?’

The canon, who had let his corpulent body sink back into the chair, shook his head.

‘I had never met him, though I would have done shortly when he was due to be arraigned at the bishop’s court — but God took a hand in the matter.’

‘So how did you discover that he was deserving of your attention?’

Fitz Rogo smiled indulgently, but his small cold eyes took away any hint of humour. ‘Those who deny the authority of the Holy Church cannot conceal themselves for long. They are like rats skulking in the midden, but the hounds of Rome always flush them out!’

This colourful reply did nothing to answer John’s question.

‘But how came he to be brought to answer for his sins at this particular time?’

The priest ran a finger around his collar to ease away his drooping jowls. ‘Let me explain, Sir John,’ he said rather condescendingly, as if lecturing a backward chorister. ‘Some time ago, the Papal Legate — the Holy Father’s representative in England — passed on to every bishop a message from Rome. This expressed concern at the revival of blasphemous and seditious beliefs contrary to the Catholic teachings of the Church, especially in southern France and Germany.’

‘And in England?’ interposed de Wolfe.

The canon hummed and hawed a little. ‘Admittedly, they were not on the same scale as in these other places. But we were all told to be vigilant and to stamp out heresy wherever it may be found, lest these evil seeds take root and blossom.’

He scowled at some private memory. ‘I regret to say that Bishop Marshal did not appear to be unduly disturbed by the threat, probably because he is so concerned with the politics of Church and State that he has little time for dangers closer to home.’

He sniffed disdainfully, mindful of his own failed efforts to obtain the mitre. ‘In fact, our bishop is rarely in his diocese, as I expect you are aware.’

Even John, uninterested as he was in religious matters, knew from his conversations with John de Alençon that Bishop Henry Marshal was to be found more often in Westminster, Canterbury or Coventry than he was in Devon. But all this was not getting him any nearer to learning about Nicholas Budd.

‘But how came you to seize upon this particular man?’ he demanded, tiring of the canon’s lecture.

‘My brother canons — at least, two of them — and myself decided to augment the bishop’s lack of enthusiasm by carrying out the Legate’s instructions more directly,’ explained fitz Rogo with an air of self-importance. ‘We instructed the proctors’ men to keep a special lookout for any hints of heresy and even to pay agents among the common folk to keep their ears open for the same.’

‘You mean you set spies among the people?’ said John bluntly, but the canon seemed impervious to sarcasm.

‘All means are legitimate in the service of God,’ he said piously. ‘The devil employs every evil artifice in his campaigns, so we need to follow his example.’

‘So what did your spies report to you?’ asked John irreverently.

‘They found that Budd was seducing people with his blasphemous ideas, both among his customers and folk that he met in the market or the alehouse. And as if this was not blatant enough, more recently he has been meeting secretly with others in dwellings or in the countryside to discuss and elaborate on their foul concepts.’

‘How could you know of this, if they were held in private places?’ demanded John.

‘Our agents passed themselves off as possible converts to this religion of the Antichrist,’ boomed the priest. ‘In fact, one of them seemed to be so taken with the sedition that he has refused to work for the proctors any longer. We are keeping a sharp eye on him,’ he added threateningly.

‘Did Nicholas Budd know that he was to be arraigned?’

‘Indeed he did. The proctors’ men delivered a message to him a week ago, telling of the time and place that he must present himself before the preliminary examination. If he had failed to appear, they would have seized him and incarcerated him in the proctors’ cells near St Mary’s Church.’

The canon rubbed his podgy hands together, almost in delight.

‘But now he has been spared that ordeal — and the Church is rid of one more blasphemer.’ Fitz Rogo seemed quite pleased at the outcome.

‘If the Church had found him guilty, would he have had his tongue and throat cut out?’ asked de Wolfe cynically. ‘For that was his fate, and I see no other reason for a quiet tradesman to be so brutally done to death, apart from his beliefs.’

The former archdeacon shrugged. ‘Perhaps some citizen more zealous than the Church itself was so incensed by this man’s heresy that he took the law into his own hands.’

The coroner felt that he was going to gain very little from this man and his entrenched attitude. ‘You say that you have two fellow canons who are equally assiduous in heeding the Legate’s warning. Can you tell me who those are?’

‘All the priesthood should be equally assiduous, Sir John, in carrying out the orders of the Papal Bull issued some twelve years ago. And, indeed, every Christian man and woman who respects the authority of Rome should be on the lookout for these evil people who would undermine the very fabric of the Church, including yourself, coroner,’ he brayed pompously. ‘But the leaders in this crusade were Ralph de Hospitali and Robert de Baggetor — and, of course, myself’

‘What about the other canons — there are twenty-four, are there not?’

Fitz Rogo looked slightly evasive. ‘Naturally, we are all concerned about this insidious evil — but some of my fellow prebendaries have other duties and other priorities, so it is left to we three to push forward the campaign. And I might tell you, Sir John, this man Budd was but one of many who have fallen by the wayside and absorbed this poison that seeps into the country from abroad.’

The canon’s last words rang in John’s head as he and Thomas walked back across the Close. ‘Poison seeping in from abroad’ was all too familiar a phrase, given the possibility that the yellow plague was being imported into Devon from foreign parts.

‘So what did you make of that, Thomas?’ he asked his clerk as they trudged towards South Gate Street. ‘Somehow I can’t see that fat priest as a knife-wielding killer.’

His clerk looked shocked at the suggestion that one of his seniors could even be considered as a murderer. ‘Indeed not, master! Yet I agree that there seems to be every reason to think that Budd’s heretical beliefs were the cause of his death.’

‘So we must look elsewhere for a culprit, Thomas. Yet do not dismiss anyone from suspicion, especially those with strong religious convictions. I spent two bloody years of my life at the Crusades, which were all about one faith trying to annihilate another.’

They walked through Bear Gate, then crossed the busy road that led down to one of the main city gates, to reach the warren of small lanes that ran down the slope towards the river.

‘I will have to speak to the other two zealous canons that fitz Rogo named,’ said John as they walked down towards Priest Street, where Thomas lodged. ‘But we can go together in the morning. What do you know about them?’

‘Like fitz Rogo, Robert de Baggetor was formerly another archdeacon, this time of Barnstaple. He is a severe man, immovable in his old-fashioned attitudes. I have heard him preach thunderously about those who voice the slightest criticism of the established Church. He is a reactionary in the strongest sense of the word.’

‘And the other one?’ prompted de Wolfe.

‘Ralph de Hospitali? A little younger than the other two, but equally zealous. He is a thin, active man, never still and always wanting to impress upon his juniors the perils of straying outside the strict rituals and formalities laid down by Rome. He is especially insistent that the Vulgate should never be made available in the vernacular, in case common people should read it and not require the interpretation of we priests.’

Thomas sounded bitter about this particular canon, and John suspected that his clerk had suffered a tongue-lashing from him at some time.

They parted at the end of Idle Lane, as John wished to call at the Bush to down a quart or two of his officer’s new ale, to see if he had mastered Nesta’s recipe. It was still an hour or two until dusk, and Thomas announced that after a prayer and a bite to eat in his lodgings he would walk down to St Bartholomew’s to see if there was any more news of the latest plague victims.

‘When I told you that one man was not yellowed, you said we must enquire further,’ he said with a frown. ‘Something worries me over that, but I can’t put my finger on it.’

‘You be careful, Thomas,’ admonished the coroner. ‘That part of town is unhealthy, and we don’t know how contagious this curse might be.’

His little clerk limped away, the cold weather making his spinal problem worse. John turned off down the lane to the tavern and sank thankfully on to his bench by the fire, where a pile of oak logs was warming the low taproom. The inn was quieter than usual, and John guessed that some of the regular patrons had stayed at home, fearful of possible contagion in crowded places. Edwin came up with a pottery mug of ale and waited until John had passed a favourable comment on Gwyn’s efforts.

‘Edwin, they tell me that you have become very religious these days,’ ventured the coroner. ‘What do you know of any people preaching heresy in the city nowadays?’

The old man leaned with his fists on the table, his one good eye fixed intently on de Wolfe. ‘It’s a scandal, sir, a real scandal that such folk should be allowed to walk the earth!’

He sounded almost viciously indignant, unlike the easy-going, hard-drinking old soldier that John knew previously.

‘Blasphemers like those should be hanged — or, better still, burned at the stake, to get them used to the everlasting fires of hell that they are bound to suffer eventually!’

De Wolfe could almost smell the brimstone coming from the potman’s nostrils and thought he might learn something useful here.

‘Who are these people you speak of, Edwin?’

The potman tapped the side of his prominent nose. ‘I know that fellow that was killed was one of them,’ he said, again confirming the efficiency of Exeter’s gossip-mill. ‘I heard him spouting his evil nonsense once, down in the Plough Inn in North Gate Street. There were several of them in there, gabbing about free will and the right of every man to choose his own salvation. Fair makes me sick now, though then I had not seen the light of God’s will and knew no better.’

‘Do you know of any more like him in the city?’

‘I used to hear others, but I never knew their names, back in the days when I was too ignorant to care. If I spotted any now, I’d be straight around to the proctors to denounce them!’

He banged an empty pot angrily on the table, and John marvelled at the change that the prospect of hellfire had on the elderly when they felt that they were soon to come face to face with the Almighty.

‘What about in the countryside — are these heretics confined to the towns?’ he asked.

Edwin scowled, his dead eye wandering horribly out of line with the good one. ‘The bastards are everywhere these days, Sir John! My sisters live out in a village and even there they tell me that some men and even a woman or two refuse to attend the church. They have heard that they meet secretly in a barn, but I don’t know if that’s true.’

John was willing to clutch at any straw that might further his investigation and asked Edwin where his sisters lived.

‘In Ide, Crowner, just a couple of miles outside the city. It’s a scandal that their parish priest doesn’t do something about it, but he’s a drunken sot who can hardly read.’

Just then, Martha bustled in through the back door and Edwin limped away, trying to look busy.

‘What nonsense has that old fool been stuffing you with, Sir John?’ she asked, but with a smile on her face. ‘Since he’s taken up religion, that’s all he talks about. He’ll end up as a bishop before he’s seventy.’

‘They say that only fools and children speak the truth, Martha. I pick up useful information in some of the most unlikely places.’ He turned down her usual offer of food, pleading that he must go home and eat whatever Mary had prepared that night, though Gwyn’s buxom wife was also an excellent cook.

‘How’s that husband of mine behaving himself, Sir John?’ she demanded. ‘I hope his new passion for brewing ale isn’t keeping him from his proper tasks.’ She was eternally grateful for de Wolfe’s generosity in given them the tenancy of the Bush, which gave them a far better home than the decrepit cottage they had rented in St Sidwell’s.

The coroner reassured her that his officer was as diligent as ever, but as they were going through a quiet patch in their duties, apart from this murder, Gwyn was quite welcome to spend time in his brewing-shed, especially if he produced such good ale as today’s batch.

With her thanks ringing in his ears, he left for home and another sullen session at the supper table with Matilda. As he reached his front door, he glanced at the neighbouring house, hoping to see the lissom shape of a far more attractive woman that his wife, but there was no sign of Cecilia and with a sigh he went inside to face the bane of his life.