The Grim Reaper

CHAPTER NINE

Next morning, de Wolfe felt as if time was replaying itself from the previous Tuesday, as a thunderous knocking on the front door woke him soon after dawn. This time he was alone on the wide pallet in the solar: the evening before Matilda had announced to Mary that after her devotions in St Olave’s she would spend the night with her cousin in Fore Street — an abdication for which John was profoundly thankful.

Mary had answered the door before he could struggle into his tunic and shoes and get down the stairs from the solar. When he reached the vestibule, he found that, instead of the expected Gwyn, the callers were Gabriel from the castle, with Osric the constable lurking behind him. Bleary-eyed from sleep and his heavy night at the Bush, the coroner waited for the sergeant to explain himself.

‘We’ve got another, Crowner! At least, we think we have.’

John glowered at him as he pushed his brain into full working order. With his black locks tousled from bed, and a week’s growth of dark stubble on his cadaverous face, he looked even more menacing than usual. ‘Got what? A nd where’s Gwyn?’ he demanded sourly.

‘Hasn’t appeared yet — he was probably on the ale at St Sidwell’s last night,’ replied Gabriel. ‘A dead priest is what we’ve got. At St Mary Arches.’

De Wolfe sat down heavily on the vestibule bench, where he usually changed his footwear. ‘A priest? Murdered?’

The lanky Osric chimed in nervously, ‘Gabriel thinks so — but I wonder if he didn’t kill himself, in remorse for the other slayings.’

De Wolfe glared up at them. ‘Well, which is it? A murder or a felo de se?’

The sergeant of the guard threw the town constable a withering look. ‘God’s bones, man of course it’s a bloody murder!’ He appealed to de Wolfe: ‘Come and look for yourself, Crowner.’

John pulled on a pair of boots and threw his worn wolfskin over his shoulders. As they opened the big oak door, he snapped a request to his maid-servant, who was standing in the entrance to the passageway: ‘Mary, slip down to Canons’ Row and tell Thomas to get himself up to St Mary Arches as quick as he can. If Gabriel’s right, we might need his reading and biblical skills.’

A few minutes later, after pushing through the early morning crowd of traders and their customers that thronged the narrow high street, Osric and the sergeant led the coroner up a lane that turned off Fore Street just before St Olave’s. A few yards up on the right was the church that gave the narrow street its name. St Mary Arches was bigger and wealthier than many of its fellows in Exeter, as although Bretayne was but a few hundred yards away, it lay in a district of craftsmen and merchants. Even so, it was still a simple, rectangular building, albeit in new stone with a sturdy tower at the street end. A handful of people clustered around the open twin doors, kept out of the church by the other constable, Theobald, who was as fat as Osric was stringy.

The three men hurried up the steps and went through a round Norman arch into an empty nave. High clerestory window openings gave a good light, revealing walls painted with scenes from the scriptures, though not of the hell-fire variety depicted down at St Mary Steps. At the other end, another round arch led into a short chancel, two steps up from the paved floor of the nave. A large gilded wooden cross stood above a carved rood screen and, beyond, the altar, of solid Dartmoor slate, was covered with a lacy white cloth. Paintings of Christ and the church’s patron saint, Mary, hung on each side of the altar, which boasted a silver cross and candlesticks.

The only thing that disturbed the symmetry was a body sprawled across the chancel steps. The legs pointed towards the altar, the arms were outspread and the head tilted down, the shaven tonsure gleaming in the morning light.

‘There he is, Crowner, just as the first parishioner attending for Prime found him,’ said Gabriel, his voice echoing in the empty nave.

Taking the lead now, de Wolfe hurried up the church, his boots slapping on the sandstone floor. A few yards from the chancel steps, he stopped abruptly. ‘What the hell is his face in?’ he exclaimed irreverently.

‘That’s why I reckon he drowned hisself,’ claimed Osric.

As he moved up to the body, de Wolfe saw that the priest, dressed in a white linen alb, lay with his face in a shallow copper pan, which sat on the floor below the lower step. Stooping down, he could see that it was half full of a red fluid, which looked like diluted blood, submerging his mouth and nose.

‘If it’s a suicide, he was damned clever to have hit himself on the head first.’ snapped Gabriel, scowling at the city constable.

Following the sergeant’s pointing finger, de Wolfe saw that towards the back of the head, in the thick brown hair that surrounded the shaven patch, was a mat of drying blood.

‘Could that blood in the dish have drained from that?’ quavered Osric, his suicide theory demolished.

De Wolfe dipped a finger in the pan and held it to his nose. ‘It’s not blood, it’s wine!’ He got to his feet and stood with his hands on his hips, hunched over the bizarre scene. ‘Drowned in wine, by Christ! This surely has to be unique!’

Gabriel looked at him. ‘Can you drown in a pan? There’s no more than a couple of quarts in that.’

‘Why not? We were built to breathe air, not Anjou red or whatever it is! If the nose and mouth are covered, that’s good enough.’ De Wolfe turned and looked back down the nave, to where a clutch of curious faces was peering in, past Theobald, the rotund constable. ‘Do we know who he is? Which man found him?’

Osric yelled to his colleague, oblivious of the sacred surroundings, and Theobald marched an elderly man down towards them. He was well dressed in a good serge tunic, over which was draped a dark red velvet cloak. A tight-fitting leather helmet was tied with tapes under his chin. His large grey moustache failed to hide the anxious look on his lined face. ‘Crowner,’ he said, ‘we met briefly at one of those guild banquets a month or so past, though you’ll hardly remember me. I am William de Stanlinche, a silversmith from this street.’ He tried to avert his eyes from the corpse on the steps.

‘Who is this unfortunate cleric?’ grated de Wolfe.

‘Our deputy priest, poor Arnulf de Mowbray. I can hardly believe that this is happening, Crowner.’ The silversmith seemed distraught at the loss of his vicar.

‘And you found him this morning?’

‘I was first here, almost an hour ago. I come to Prime several times a week before I go to my workshop. He was lying there, just as you see him. I touched his head and hand to make sure he was dead and he was cold. Then I ran to knock at all the doors in the lane, as we must, and someone went off to find the constable.’

‘Do we know when he was last seen alive?’

William de Stanlinche nodded and pointed quaveringly at the crowd gawping at the door. ‘Several of them were at Matins at midnight. Arnulf held the service for about the usual half-hour.’

‘Why did you say “deputy” priest?’

William turned his back on the corpse and spoke with apparent relief about something different.

‘Father Simon Hoxtone is our regular priest, but he’s been laid low with phthisis these past nine months — sick unto death, I fear. We have had several priests sent here in his place, mostly vicars loaned from the cathedral. The last was Arnulf, who came about three months ago.’

Something in his voice made John suspicious. ‘Was there something about him I should know?’

The elderly man shuffled awkwardly. ‘He was not a great success, Crowner. I fear he had a great partiality for ale and wine. Sometimes he was incapable of holding the Mass or even taking confession, because of his disability.’

He hesitated, and John knew there was something more. ‘Was it only the drink?’ he demanded.

William cleared his throat uneasily. ‘I’m afraid he was seen more than once with loose women when he was in his cups. Some parishioners were outraged, especially some of the wives. It was reported to the Archdeacon, and some other cleric was to have taken his place as soon as they found someone more suitable.’ He paused and gave an embarrassed cough. ‘De Mowbray seems to have been shunted from place to place, as every position he held soon became untenable.’

John gave one of his throat rumbles. Arnulf de Mowbray was obviously a burden to every church that was saddled with him, but he could hardly imagine John de Alençon ridding himself of even such a troublesome priest in such a drastic fashion as this!

He dismissed William with a curt word of thanks and told Osric to hold any others outside who had been present at Matins or who had come to attend Prime. He was just going to curse Gwyn for not being on hand, when his lumbering officer burst through the church entrance with Thomas de Peyne in tow. Pushing aside the crowd at the door, he ambled down the nave with the clerk trying to keep up with him.

‘I went up to Rougemont when the gates opened, but they told me you were down here with Gabriel,’ he boomed, oblivious of his surroundings. When he reached the group at the chancel steps, he stared with interest at the dead priest. ‘Got another, have we? Who’s it this time?’

The sergeant gave him a quick summary while Thomas bobbed his knee to the altar, then began crossing himself spasmodically beside the corpse, muttering to himself.

‘Never heard of the Eucharist wine being dispensed in a wash-bowl before!’ chortled Gwyn irreverently, earning a poisonous glance from the devout Thomas.

De Wolfe ignored his officer’s sacrilege and dropped to a crouch to look again more closely at the head of the corpse. ‘I wonder what was used to strike him? Like the other two, there’s no pattern of any particular weapon.’

Gwyn bent over and prodded the bloody pad at the back of the man’s head. ‘Must have been something round or flat, as the skin is split in a star-shape. Could have been almost anything.’

De Wolfe gazed at what he could see of the face above the few inches of wine in the copper pan. ‘His features are reddened, but he’s tipped downwards, across these steps, so the blood would sink there anyway. We’d better get him up, I suppose.’

He rose to his feet and motioned to Gwyn to lift the dead man on to his back. Just as the Cornishman took a grip beneath the armpits, the coroner suddenly stopped him with a gesture. ‘Wait! What’s this on the stone alongside him?’

Gwyn released his hold and looked to where de Wolfe was pointing, at the lower step, which was almost obscured by the corpse’s shoulder. He saw an irregular disc of dried wax, about half the size of his palm. ‘There’s some marks scratched on it,’ he grunted.

De Wolfe touched the yellowishgrey plaque. ‘Dried candle-wax. It has some letters on it and a strange outline.’

‘Looks like a little snake, with a head and tail. It’s even got an eye and a forked tongue,’ observed Gwyn.

Thomas was too small to see past the two large men hovering over the cadaver, but his master moved aside and beckoned him forward. ‘Thomas, d’you think these four marks are letters? The first looks like a P, but I can’t make out the others.’

Gingerly, trying not to get his face too near the body, the squeamish clerk squinted at the dried pool of grease. He saw that letters had been crudely scratched into it with something sharp, like a pin. ‘They must have been done when the wax was still soft, for the lines have melted a little, making it hard to read,’ he murmured.

‘Maybe, but that’s certainly a serpent,’ snapped John impatiently. ‘What do you say the letters are?’

Thomas’s long nose moved a little nearer to the chancel steps. ‘They seem to be P-R-O-V, as far as I can make out,’ he said uncertainly.

‘What in hell’s name does that mean?’ growled Gwyn.

Thomas stepped back from the body thankfully and stood thinking for a moment, looking woebegone in his threadbare black gown, tied around the waist with a grubby white cord.

‘Given the two previous biblical messages on the Jew and the woman, it surely can mean only one thing.’

‘Which is what?’ barked the coroner, exasperated by his long-winded assistants.

‘The other two were from the Gospels, but this must be the Old Testament. “P-R-O-V” must refer to the Book of Proverbs.’

‘And what does that tell us?’

The clerk looked sheepish, as his much-vaunted scholarship was, for once, found wanting. ‘The Old Testament is very large, Crowner. I know almost every word of the new books of Christ, but there are few priests, even great scholars, who can recollect every part of the Old Testament. I will have to refresh my memory.’

Gwyn gave a loud guffaw, which echoed throughout the empty church. ‘Caught you out at last, have we, Thomas-Know-It-All! I thought you had this religion business at your fingertips.’

The clerk looked angry. ‘I only have the Vulgate for the Gospels in my bag here. I will have to find the full Bible to study Proverbs.’

Sergeant Gabriel made an obvious suggestion. ‘This is a church, surely they’ll have one here?’

‘Not by any means. Some parish priests can’t even read and many poor churches can’t afford the Vulgate of St Jerome,’ retorted Thomas cynically. ‘St Mary Arches is a cut above many, though, so perhaps they will. I’ll try the aumbry.’

He looked around the building and limped off to a small door in the north wall of the chancel, bowing and making the Sign of the Cross repeatedly as he cut across in front of the altar. There was a large locker or cupboard behind the oaken door, built into the thickness of the wall, where the priests kept their service books and where the materials for the Sacred Host were stored. The others watched while Thomas rooted about on the shelves, crossing himself repeatedly as his hands passed near the chrismatory for holy oil and the pyx for the reserved bread. Then he backed out and reverently closed the door, holding a heavy leatherbound book. After a low obeisance to the altar, he crossed to the south side of the chancel and sat in the centre of the sedilia, a trio of wooden seats for the priest and his helpers. As he carefully turned the pages, John lost patience with watching him and motioned to Gwyn to lift the body from the steps. ‘Haul him away from this wax. I want to lever it off the stones without damaging it.’

His officer picked up the dead priest like a baby and stepped down to the floor of the nave. Red wine dripped from the nose and chin, staining the flagstones. Then Gwyn turned him over and laid him flat on his back below the steps.

Meanwhile, John had carefully slid the edge of his dagger under the plaque of candle-grease and popped it up intact. He opened the pouch on his belt, wrapped the wax in the ragged sheet of parchment that had been left on Aaron’s body and put them away. ‘Now let’s have a proper look at him,’ he grunted.

‘Are we taking him to St Nicholas’s?’ queried Gwyn, doubtfully. ‘That miserable prior won’t take kindly to us using his store as a mortuary again.’

‘This is a priest, so we’ll have to abide by what the clerics want done with the cadaver. I’ll get the Archdeacon up here straight away.’ De Wolfe called to Osric and told him to go to the cathedral and tell John de Alençon what had happened. Then John turned his attention to the corpse. There was nothing obvious to be seen, apart from the wetness and the reddish suffusion of the face. The lips and cheeks were violet, and a dribble of froth came from the mouth.

‘His phlegm is pinkish,’ observed Gwyn.

‘It’s no wonder, as he’s been breathing in good red communion wine,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘Let’s look at his neck and hands.’

There was nothing untoward to be seen there and the coroner rocked back on his heels alongside the body. ‘We can hardly undress him here, in front of the altar of his own church,’ he said. The priest wore his alb, a long robe of whitish-cream linen, with long sleeves, embroidered around the neck and hem. The coroner shied away from hauling it up to his neck to examine his chest and belly. ‘We’ll leave it until the cathedral settles him somewhere more private,’ he decided, getting to his feet.

In the chancel, Thomas de Peyne also rose and came to the steps, the Vulgate in his hands. For a moment, John thought that the little clerk was about to read a passage to the congregation, but Thomas said, ‘I’ve found it, Crowner. Once again, it’s most apt for the circumstances.’

De Wolfe and Gwyn stood silently side by side under the chancel arch as Thomas began reading. ‘I’ll just translate the general sense of bits of the later part of Solomon’s Book of Proverbs, for it’s scattered over a page or two.’ The clerk was in his element and his own troubles were forgotten for the moment as he stood in the church with the Book of Books in his hands.

‘Just get on with it, man’ grated his master, breaking the spell.

Thomas cleared his throat and slowly turned the Latin script into Middle English.

‘ “Who has redness of the eyes? They that tarry long at the wine. Look not upon the wine when it is red for it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.”’

He turned back a page. ‘Here it says, “Oh, my son, take my advice and stay away from whores, for they form a deep and narrow grave.” ’ Thomas closed the book. ‘There’s more advice about staying on the path of righteousness, but the principal message is to avoid strong drink and loose women.’

De Wolfe stroked the black stubble on his chin. ‘The serpent and the adder certainly fit the little sketch on the wax. This fellow, whoever he is, undoubtedly knows his way about the scriptures.’

As Thomas limped back across the chancel to replace the book, Gwyn stated the obvious once more. ‘It has to be a priest. No one else would carry on like this.’

John nodded in agreement. ‘The sooner we get the cathedral heads together over this, the more chance we have of getting somewhere — for, I must admit, I have not the faintest idea where to start.’

‘A nd the deaths are starting to come more quickly,’ observed Gwyn. ‘Where does this bloody madman intend to stop, I wonder?’

The daily Chapter was to be held late in the morning, but before that, the coroner had another meeting with Exeter’s archdeacon, John de Alençon. The senior priest had already met de Wolfe earlier at St Mary Arches, when he had hurried around after being summoned by the constable Osric.

The ascetic cleric had been greatly distressed to see the body lying in the nave and had himself shriven it and given absolution, with Thomas de Peyne acting as his self-appointed assistant.

Soon a trio of other canons arrived, having heard the news on the episcopal grapevine, followed by a gaggle of vicars, secondaries and priests of other parishes. Soon the church had more people in it than it did at an average service and de Wolfe began to despair of performing his legal obligations. ‘Priest or no priest, there must be an inquest,’ he muttered, in the Archdeacon’s ear.

‘But not here and now, John,’ replied his friend. ‘The body must be taken down to the cathedral. There is a small chamber off the cloisters that is used as a mortuary when required.’ He looked around at the people milling in the nave. ‘This place must be brought to order — devotions here must be resumed as soon as possible. I’ll get one of the vicars to take charge — he was to be appointed here very shortly anyway, in place of this poor wretch.’

Leaving Gwyn to supervise the removal of the corpse, the two Johns made their way down to the great cathedral church of St Peter and St Mary, Thomas tagging along unobtrusively behind. The Archdeacon led the way to the Chapter House, a square wooden building just outside the south tower of the cathedral. The ground floor was the daily meeting place of the canons, where current church business was debated, everything from the order of services and choral matters, to finance and the disciplining of errant priests.

The Chapter was run by the senior canons, and although the bishop was a member, he had no direct control over the business, his remit being the whole diocese of Devon and Cornwall, rather than the cathedral itself — though in practice, his will and word were never challenged. Inside the room contained a quadrangle of benches, with a wooden lectern in the centre for the reading of the scriptures. In one corner, an open wooden staircase rose to the floor above, which was the ‘Exchequer’, the scriptorium and library of the cathedral. It was old, cramped and outdated, and plans were afoot to build a bigger Chapter House in stone, once the bishop had confirmed the gift of part of his adjacent palace garden.

‘Come upstairs, we can talk there awhile, before Chapter begins,’ invited de Alençon, leading the others up to the Exchequer. It was a musty chamber, with a number of high desks and stools. There were shuttered window openings in each wall, between which were shelves carrying scores of parchment and a few books, some chained to the sloping reading boards below the shelves.

Two priests were working laboriously on the diocesan accounts at a couple of the desks and another was reading at a desk. The Archdeacon crossed to a corner furthest from them, and motioned de Wolfe to a stool and took another facing him. The coroner’s clerk melted into the shadows behind his uncle, determined not to be left out of anything even remotely ecclesiastical.

‘This is a tragic state of affairs, John,’ began de Alençon. ‘I have sent a message to the Bishop, who says he will receive us later today to discuss this matter. Thank God he is in Exeter for once, because of the arrival of the Justices.’

De Wolfe perched on his high stool like some great hunched crow, his mantle hanging from his shoulders like a pair of folded wings. ‘The culprit has to be one of your priests, John. He must be stopped quickly, for he seems to have developed a taste for killing. Unless we find him, I doubt this will be the last tragedy.’

The canon anxiously fingered the wooden cross hanging around his neck. His thin face was furrowed with concern and he passed his other hand through his wiry hair in a gesture of despair. ‘But how can we trap such a madman — for crazy he must be?’

‘Crazy and cunning, it seems. Have you no idea who among your flock of clerics might be deranged enough to act like this?’

De Alençon gave a heavy sigh. ‘I have not the slightest notion, my friend.’

‘But you must know every priest in Exeter, if not the whole of Devon,’ said de Wolfe, impatiently. ‘Surely you can narrow down our search to those who are in some way unbalanced in their minds?’

The troubled archdeacon rubbed his forehead in anguish. ‘Some of these matters involve the confessional, John. That is inviolate, even in murder.’

‘I’m not asking you to reveal any detail, only to help me list those priests you consider worthy of investigation. Ones who have some marked peculiarity of character.’

John de Alençon cast around for some means of assuaging his conscience. ‘Well, naturally the number from whom I personally have heard confessions is very small — all priests have their allotted confessor and the ones that I have taken are few. What I have heard of some priests has come from my administrative role as archdeacon, aided by common cathedral gossip!’

De Wolfe managed to conceal his impatience. His old friend was sometimes as long-winded as Gwyn. ‘So, can you name a few, John? I must get started soon — this series of killings cannot be kept from the king’s Justices next week. They will not look kindly upon a community that cannot protect its citizens from one of it own priests!’

The Archdeacon nodded, convinced by the coroner’s appeal to the public good and the possible censure of his monarch’s judges, for like John de Wolfe, John de Alençon was devoted to Richard the Lionheart.

‘There are certainly some odd characters among our clerics, John. For example, Adam of Dol, down at St Mary Steps, has a most ferocious notion of Christianity — but apart from that, he seems sane enough. Peter de Clancy at St Lawrence is eccentric in that he shouts every word of the services, instead of speaking or chanting, but that is a far cry from being a multiple murderer.’

De Wolfe felt that this was not getting him very far in his quest. ‘Do you know every priest here?’ he asked.

‘I know their names, certainly, and I have probably met every one, too. But I cannot claim an intimate knowledge of each. As I said, every priest has his own confessor — even the Bishop — and they would be more acquainted with the nature of their charge. But that brings us back to the sacred trust of the confession and you cannot expect to get far along that road.’

The coroner scowled. ‘Is confession so inviolate that it conceals a killer and puts others of God’s flock at risk?’

De Alençon turned up his hands in a gesture of supplication. ‘All depends upon the person confessing. If his confessor advises or pleads with him that such a dire sin must be brought into the open, then the subject may disclose it outwith the religious confession. But that would be extraordinarily rare — who is going to put their head voluntarily into the hangman’s noose?’

There was a heavy silence.

‘So how are we to proceed?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘Take this matter to the Chapter, when it assembles below. There are many there who know different priests better than I. They can at least offer some suggestions as to who to interrogate — if the bishop allows, of course.’

De Wolfe bristled. ‘The Bishop allows? He may be able to divert accused clerics from the secular courts to his own, but he cannot stop me asking questions of anyone I choose, priest or not.’

The Archdeacon smiled wryly. ‘You may find that Henry Marshal has powers you had not guessed at. But let us meet that problem when it comes.’ He sighed. ‘Meanwhile, the urgent task is to place this affair before the members of Chapter. Now that one of our own brethren has fallen victim, you should find that the Church will stir itself to take action.’

As if to underline his words, John heard the shuffle of feet and the murmur of many voices below, as the canons and their vicars began to assemble for the short service before their daily meeting. De Alençon rose to his feet, but motioned to John to stay where he was.

‘We have some chants to sing and prayers to say first, then there will be the usual daily business. When that is done, I will send up for you to join us to discuss this sad affair.’

He gathered his black robe about him and set off for the steps in the corner of the library. Thomas moved towards his master and whispered urgently into his ear, causing de Wolfe to call after the Archdeacon, ‘Thomas has a caution for us, John.’

The senior canon stopped and came back to the pair.

‘What has that fertile mind of yours thrown up now, nephew?’

The coroner answered for him: ‘He points out sensibly that for all we know the culprit may be a member of your Chapter.’

The clerk, looking slightly shamefaced, crossed himself hurriedly, as if insuring himself against his uncle’s displeasure at what he was about to say. ‘Whoever is leaving these messages must be well versed in the Vulgate, sir. Perhaps someone quite senior in the priesthood is responsible, for it is a matter of regret that many parish priests are unlikely to have that degree of learning.’

De Wolfe agreed. ‘When we had that problem over treasure in Dunsford church a few months back, it was your canons who helped — especially Jordan de Brent, the curator of this very scriptorium.’

‘Not that my master is accusing him of anything, Uncle,’ gabbled Thomas hastily, touching his head, heart and shoulders rapidly as if warding off the very thought.

De Alençon bobbed his head in understanding. ‘You think that if the miscreant is among us, he might profit by learning of our efforts to unmask him?’

‘Yes. We will discuss any possible candidates openly, but if it comes to devising stratagems to catch him, we must guard our tongues. Even if the fellow is not within the Chapter, I’m sure that the famed gossip of the cathedral Close would soon spread the message far and wide.’

The Archdeacon patted John’s shoulder. ‘I think I have the answer to that — I’ll call you down shortly.’

De Wolfe sat in a reverie for the next half-hour, while Thomas wandered off and became engrossed in a thick volume of theology chained to a nearby shelf. From below, came the harmonious chanting of the vicarschoral and some choristers, then the mutter of prayers, followed by a series of voices, the content of which was inaudible upstairs.

As he waited, John wondered what life with Matilda was going to be like for the next few days. Long experience had taught him that when he offended her, she was at first enraged, then ignored him for a day or two. This usually thawed into a period of sarcastic comments about his infidelity, before she returned to her normal state of sulky instability, where any incautious remark tipped her back into fury.

He suspected that, later today, when she returned from staying with her widowed cousin she would act as if he was invisible, keeping out of his way either in her solar or at church. But de Wolfe also knew that as the judges were arriving next week, she would recover rapidly to take up invitations to dine with the great and good.

Then his musing turned to more pleasant things, his delight at the reconciliation with Nesta. The greyness of the past weeks had lifted and he looked forward to his visits to the Bush like a child with a new toy. He hardly dare admit to himself that he loved her, his self-image of an ageing warrior too world-weary and cynical to indulge in such adolescent fancies. But being with her and enjoying her open nature and affectionate manner, lifted his spirit like nothing else could. Even their coupling in the big bed — glorious though it was — was no longer the main attraction at the Bush Inn.

He never wished Matilda dead — in truth, the thought had never crossed his mind — but he hoped that one day her religious mania would lead her to its logical end and she would enter a nunnery. He was not sure if that was enough to annul the marriage that neither of them had wanted — he must tactfully sound out his friend the Archdeacon one day. Sometimes, he even contemplated throwing up this life in Exeter and running away with Nesta — maybe back to Wales, where she would feel at home and where he had many friends.

Suddenly his musing was interrupted by a change in the muffled sounds from below. The chanting ended and a young chorister came far enough up the steps to summon him down to the meeting. With Thomas slinking unobtrusively behind, John descended into the hall, with a score of faces upturned towards him. The vicars and other minor orders had gone, leaving almost the full complement of Exeter’s twenty-four canons to offer their advice.

John de Alençon stood at the lectern in the centre, with the Precentor, Treasurer and two other senior canons seated behind him. The other double rank of benches formed a square around the chamber, filled with black-cloaked priests, an occasional flash of white surplice showing underneath. The Archdeacon invited the coroner to sit opposite the lectern, and as he did so, Thomas rapidly slid behind him. The sonorous voice of de Alençon began the proceedings.

‘Brothers in God, you are all well aware of the reason for this unusual extension of our session. Regretfully, our brother Arnulf now lies before the altar of St Paul in the cathedral, done to death by someone of evil intent who, even more regrettably, may also be a priest.’

A buzz of concern whispered about the Chapter House, as although everyone knew of de Mowbray’s death, the actual circumstances were not yet common knowledge. De Alençon held up his hand for silence.

‘Though the crime occurred in a church and to a man in Holy Orders, it was outwith the confines of the cathedral precinct. In any event, our Lord Bishop is well known to have delegated his ecclesiastical jurisdiction in cases of violent crime to the secular authorities — though if the culprit truly is a priest, then he will decide whether or not the Church will deal with him.’

He paused and looked around the silently attentive throng. ‘The purpose of this meeting is to see if Chapter can assist the king’s sheriff and coroner in discovering the identity of this madman. This cruel and blasphemous death seems to be one of a series committed by the same perpetrator, who is well versed in Holy Scripture.’ He went on to outline the circumstances of the three deaths, with emphasis on the biblical quotations. After more shocked murmuring had subsided, he beckoned to the coroner and stepped aside for him to take his place at the lectern.

De Wolfe’s tall figure stooped over it, a hand braced on each edge. He scowled around the expectant faces, feeling almost as if he was about to deliver a sermon. ‘There is no doubt that the man who committed these foul deeds is indeed one of you, in that he must be in Holy Orders,’ he began, his voice echoing harshly in that bare chamber. ‘Moreover, he must be a priest within these city walls. My inquests on these crimes against the King’s Peace have revealed nothing to put a name to the killer, so the sheriff and I need your help to bring him to justice — and, indeed, to prevent further tragedies.’

He gazed around the chamber as if trying to spot the villain by the sheer intensity of his gaze.

‘We need to be told of any of your colleagues, either in the cathedral or in the city churches, who might be so unbalanced in their minds as to be capable of these awful acts.’

There was a silence as each member of Chapter looked covertly at his neighbours, as if expecting to see the mark of Cain on their brows. Then de Wolfe stepped aside from the lectern and the Archdeacon took his place again. ‘If there is any brother who wishes to speak, let him do so now.’

Once more, a wave of murmuring swept along the benches, heads going together and eyes shifting this way and that, but no one volunteered anything. De Alençon repeated his exhortation and eventually an older canon stood up from his place in the front row. He was Simon Lund, a corpulent man with fleshy lips, drooped on one side from a slight stroke. ‘I presume that, with this request, you are not inviting us to break the sanctity of the confessional, Archdeacon?’ he brayed, rather indistinctly. ‘Not that I have anything useful to divulge myself,’ he added hastily.

John de Alençon shook his head decisively. ‘Indeed not, Simon. That remains inviolate, as always. But no one should be inhibited from adding names to a list of priests whose habits and preferences may make them worthy of some enquiries. We are not seeking accusations, only some leads as to who might merit investigation.’

This was followed by another silence and the Archdeacon became impatient. ‘I appreciate that it might be difficult for you to speak frankly on such a sensitive issue at such short notice and in such a public fashion. So let me say that the Precentor, the Treasurer, the King’s coroner and I will form a small group which you may approach confidentially at any time. We will be meeting with the Lord Bishop later today to discuss this matter further and hope that before then some of you will feel able to offer us some suggestions.’

He stood down from the lectern and the meeting broke up, with groups of canons animatedly discussing the drama, which had brought some welcome excitement into their otherwise humdrum routine.

The two Johns walked out into the May sunshine, and moved out of the crowd’s earshot.

‘I gave them no idea of what steps we were likely to take in this matter, John,’ said de Alençon with a wry smile. ‘Mainly because I have no idea what can be done. Let’s hope that some will provide a few clues as to the more unbalanced of our clerical community before we meet the bishop this afternoon.’

The coroner grunted, he was not hopeful that anything useful would come out of his friend’s appeal to his colleagues. De Alençon noted his silence. ‘Give me until this afternoon, John,’ he said. ‘I will speak with the other canons and see what we come up with. I think I will ask our archivist, Jordan de Brent, to join the Precentor and Treasurer when we go to meet Bishop Marshal. Jordan has the best knowledge of the other churches in Exeter and is an astute, wily old fellow.’

All the members of Chapter were rapidly vanishing in search of their midday meal and the thought of food was suddenly attractive to the coroner. With a final exhortation to his priestly friend to think hard about renegade clerks, he decided to abandon any thought of returning to Martin’s Lane and set off in happy expectation for the Bush, leaving the forlorn figure of his clerk standing in the doorway of the Chapter House, his lips still moving in silent conversation with himself.