The Grim Reaper

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

As the trio were walking through the town on that pleasant May evening, a pair of priests had their heads together in their lodgings in Priest Street. They were not normally friendly and rarely said more than a civil good-day to each other, but circumstances had driven them closer.

Many of the narrow houses in the street were divided into rooms for the lesser ranks of the clergy. This evening, Edwin of Frome, the Saxon priest from St Martin’s, had met Henry de Feugères of St Paul’s on the doorstep as they returned for their supper and a few hours’ sleep before Matins. The incumbent of St Paul’s stood aside for the other to enter and, with a casualness that was too good to be true, offered an invitation to the other: ‘Father Edwin, have you a moment to spare? Perhaps a cup of wine in my chamber?’

Startled by this unusual gesture, the morose priest from St Martin’s nodded and followed the other down the gloomy passage to a room at the back, which had a shuttered window that looked into the yard behind. The house had two floors with six rooms for resident clerics, plus a common refectory and cubby-holes for three servants. As usual, the kitchen, privy and wash-shed were outside in the yard.

Edwin pushed aside the heavy leather flap that closed his doorway and led his guest into a room that contained some good furniture, including a raised bed, an oak table and several leather-backed chairs. There were two cupboards on the walls and, apart from a small crucifix on the wall, there was little to show that it was a priest’s cell. Henry de Feugères went to one of the cupboards and took down a stone bottle and a couple of pewter cups. Pouring a drink for them both, he waved Edwin to a chair and sat himself on the other side of the table.

‘Unfortunately, we have something in common,’ he began, looking keenly at the sad features of the other priest.

Edwin nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. ‘Both favoured by a visit from the crowner as a result of being branded a misfit by those in the cathedral precinct,’ he muttered bitterly.

‘At least we are not alone, Brother,’ said the burlier priest, with an irony that was not lost on the Saxon. ‘Gossip has it that half a dozen have had the episcopal finger pointed at them.’

They drank the red wine in silence for a moment. Then Edwin spoke. ‘It is an outrage, but we Saxons have suffered such persecution for the last hundred years and more. I have no doubt that that is the reason for my name being on this shameful list.’

It was an invitation for Father Henry to hazard a guess at why he was included in the Bishop’s black list, but he was more circumspect. ‘I can think of no excuse for such an insult in my case!’ he blustered, ‘except that my face does not fit in the exclusive clique that the canons run down at the cathedral there.’ He failed to mention his reputation for unreasonable rages, which exceeded in violence those Edwin visited upon perverters of the Vulgate. They sipped their wine silently, each brooding on his problems.

‘What can we do about this slight on our characters?’ demanded Edwin. ‘It’s pointless petitioning the Archdeacon or the Bishop, for it’s they who have caused this in the first place.’

‘If we raise too much dust, we’ll get posted to an outlandish chapel on Bodmin Moor or some such remote place,’ agreed Henry de Feugères.

‘Then what about a letter to the Archbishop?’ suggested the Saxon.

The priest of St Paul’s snorted. ‘Hubert Walter is more a soldier and politician than a priest — God knows why the King appointed him to the See of Canterbury. We’d get nothing from him, except a reference back to Henry Marshal — and we’d end up on Bodmin Moor just the same.’

Another sullen silence ensued while their minds roved over the limited possibilities, until Edwin of Frome spoke again. ‘Then what about the Justices? They’re in the city now and although one is another canon, the other is a cleric from Chancery, Serlo de Vallibus. Maybe he can do something.’

‘We certainly want our names cleared,’ declared de Feugères, slamming his fist on the table, his temper always simmering near the surface. ‘Everyone now knows they sent John de Wolfe to interrogate us. I’ve seen my own parishioners staring at me and whispering. One child even threw a mud pie at me this morning — I smacked his arse roundly for his trouble.’

The Saxon looked dubious. ‘What we need is for the real killer to be caught. That’s the only way these sneers will abate. But if you think petitioning the Justices in Eyre might help, we can do it — there’s little to lose, after all. We’ll go along to the court tomorrow and waylay this Chancery clerk.’

The priest of St Paul’s had a distant look in his eyes. ‘Something you just said, Edwin. About the real killer being caught. That would indeed be the best way to lift this burden from our shoulders.’

‘But we have no idea who that might be,’ objected the Saxon.

‘The gossip is that the coroner’s clerk is the most likely candidate. I’m not concerned about whether he is or not, but giving the sheriff or the Justices a name would take the pressure off us.’

‘Unless the killer struck again afterwards,’ said the still dubious Edwin.

De Feugères downed the rest of his wine and refilled their mugs. ‘It’s better than nothing. I’m damned if I want law officers pestering me every few days, trying to get me to confess to something I didn’t do.’ He gave a quick, shrewd glance across at the other priest. ‘I certainly know that I’m not the culprit. I presume that also applies to you?’

Edwin of Frome looked shocked. ‘Of course not! How could such a thought even cross your mind? Because I’m a Saxon, I suppose, dedicated to slaying the invaders of my country.’

De Feugères held his temper in check and held up a placating hand. ‘Let’s keep to the problem of accusing this Thomas de Peyne, who may well be the true killer, anyway. We can’t name him as such openly, because the fact that we are suspected ourselves would make our testimony worthless.’

‘So we must betray him anonymously?’

De Feugère nodded. ‘The easiest way would be with an unsigned note. We could get some urchin to deliver it for a halfpenny, I could get one of the servants to find one in the street well away from here, so that it could never be traced back to us.’

Edwin looked dubious. ‘Deliver it to whom? It’s no good sending it to the coroner who investigated us, he would never accept a threat to his own clerk.’

The irascible de Feugères struggled to control his impatience with the stupid fellow opposite — no wonder a handful of Norman invaders were able to defeat millions of his race within a few months.

‘Of course not. Send it to the sheriff — there’s no love lost between them. De Revelle would be delighted with such a suggestion.’

‘Will you write it or shall I? The script needs to be disguised, just as I understand that the note left at that Jew’s murder was deliberately obscured.’

‘Then you pen it and I’ll have it delivered,’ said de Feugères. ‘Maybe we can think of something else on another day to reinforce suspicion against de Peyne. As my patron St Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “in the mouth of two or three witnesses, shall everything be established”.’

This final cleverness was a mistake on Henry’s part, as Edwin’s obsession took fire like flame across dry heathland.

‘You misquote, sir!’ he yelled. ‘The true word of God is “shall every word be established”.’

It took de Feugères a full ten minutes to assuage Edwin’s outrage and get down to composing their mischevious note.

As the priests were plotting over their wine, de Wolfe and his companions were only a few hundred paces away in the Bush, telling Nesta Thomas’s tale of woe.

‘Of course you must stay here, Thomas. I’ll give you a corner upstairs — there’s a spare straw pallet hanging across the rafters. No doubt Edwin and the girls can find you some victuals — you eat hardly enough to keep a mouse alive.’

‘I’ve twopence a day from the crowner, lady,’ said the clerk anxiously. ‘Will that do for now?’

John grinned at him. ‘I think I can persuade the landlady here to accept that, so don’t fret, young fellow. Just do your tasks, get your body and your mind sound again and all will turn out well.’

This was a long speech for the taciturn coroner and Nesta beamed at him, her eyes, for some reason, filling with tears. ‘You just go down to the Close and get your belongings. Bring them back here and I’ll tell Sarah to show you where you can sleep.’

Thomas grabbed her hand and, with a quick bob of his head, kissed it. Then he crossed himself jerkily and, his pinched face working with emotion, ran off to collect his meagre possessions from the canon’s house. All he owned was his scribe’s bag, a spare under-shirt and hose and a couple of books.

Gwyn hauled himself from the table where they sat and, with a tact unusual for him, said that he would go with Thomas to his lodging in case he was set upon by spiteful vicars. His real motive was to leave his master alone with Nesta, as he recognised the look in the crowner’s eye.

Gwyn was hardly out of the door before John slid his arm around Nesta’s shoulders and was whispering in her ear, his eyes rolling suggestively towards the floorboards above. ‘Let’s slip upstairs so that you can show me where poor Thomas will be lodged — and then maybe we can rest awhile in your room before we come down again.’

She dug him hard in the ribs with her elbow, but slid off the bench with no sign of reluctance and pulled the white linen coif from her head to let her dark auburn hair cascade over her shoulders. ‘You’d better be quick then, Sir Crowner — it’s but a short walk for him from here to the Close and back!’

As it happened, Gwyn returned before Thomas. He had called at the Crown tavern on the way back to give his master long enough to inspect the upper regions of the inn. He found the coroner sitting decorously in his usual seat, with a jug of best ale and a satisfied expression on his long face. Nesta sat complacently by his side.

‘The little fellow has gone off to reclaim one of his precious books, which he loaned to some secondary, lodging in Goldsmith Street. He says he’ll be back to claim his bed within the hour.’

‘It’s a disgrace the way they treat that poor man.’ Nesta was still indignant at the heartless eviction of Thomas. ‘It wasn’t much they gave him, and then to get him thrown out on some trumped-up excuse like that!’

‘The Precentor sees it as yet another way to goad me, I’m afraid,’ grunted de Wolfe, ‘so poor Thomas suffers on my account. De Boterellis knows of my hold over the sheriff because of the Prince John affair and attacks me out of spite on his behalf.’

Nesta signalled to the old potman to refill their mugs. ‘Are you no nearer discovering the madman responsible for these killings?’ she asked. ‘Until you do, Thomas will be for ever under a cloud.’

John shook his head glumly. ‘Whoever it is is too clever for us so far. I thought that with the drowning of William Fitz-William, we might have a chance, but nothing came of it.’

The Welshwoman’s pretty round face screwed up into a scowl at the mention of the dead merchant. ‘There’s been so much gossip about that evil man and those poor boys that it’s a wonder something like that hasn’t happened before. His treatment of them was no secret in the town, but the lads had no one to speak or act for them. So much for the caring nature of the parish priests — it’s a wonder a few more of them haven’t been murdered like that Arnulf de Mowbray.’

De Wolfe reflected that Nesta was always one to help the afflicted and the neglected.

‘Have you questioned all the priests that your friend the Archdeacon suggested?’ she demanded.

‘We have indeed — and much good it did us,’ he replied glumly. ‘They either told us to go to hell, or played dumb, or looked shocked that we should even think they were not perfect angels.’

Gwyn sucked down some ale and squeezed the dregs from his huge moustache. ‘We’ve not seen Walter le Bai yet. He’s a skivvy to one of the canons, isn’t he?’

‘He assists Hugh de Wilton, according to the Archdeacon, but they are both out of the city until tomorrow. If they have been away for a couple of days, that clears him anyway, as Fitz-William was killed during that time.’

They sat talking for another hour, with Nesta jumping up at intervals to speak to a favoured customer or to sort out some problem with Edwin or the serving girls. As well as being a popular ale-house, the Bush provided the best tavern food in Exeter and offered the cleanest lodging for travellers. Nesta’s hard work and her pride in keeping a decent house had amply repaid de Wolfe’s help in the desperately difficult days after her husband’s death.

The May evening was sinking towards dusk and reluctantly John had to think about leaving the comfortable company of his friends for the frosty atmosphere of Martin’s Lane. ‘Are you heading for the gate before curfew tonight?’ he asked Gwyn, as they hauled themselves to their feet.

A rueful grin spread over the hairy officer’s ruddy face. ‘I’d better go home once in a while, Crowner, though one of the wife’s sisters is staying to have yet another baby and I’ll probably have to sleep with the dog.’

John knew that Gwyn lived in a one-roomed hut at St Sidwell’s, with two young sons and a huge hound — but he also knew that they were as happy a family as could be found anywhere in the county.

There was still no sign of Thomas returning, but Nesta had promised to give him a meal and lay him a mattress in the roof space above, so the coroner gave her a last hug and a peck on the cheek then followed Gwyn out into the twilit city. They walked in companionable silence up through the lanes towards Carfoix, the central crossing of the main streets. Though it was still dry, clouds had rolled in to make the evening seem darker. Suddenly Gwyn noticed a faint glimmer above the roof-tops. ‘Is all that good drink affecting my eyes, or can I see a red glow up ahead?’

De Wolfe, whose mind had been on Nesta’s fair face and body, looked up. Between two steeply pitched roofs on the corner of the high street, he could just make out a pulsating redness, then a few rising sparks. In every city, where most of the buildings were still made of timber, fire was the ever-present fear. Few boroughs had escaped being burned to the ground over the years, many of them repeatedly.

‘It’s towards St Keryan’s, I reckon,’ bellowed Gwyn, and began a lumbering run across Carfoix to reach the street that led to the North Gate. The small church he had named was almost halfway to the gate on the right-hand side, but it was soon clear that the fire was in a side-street that turned off before it. Other townspeople were running in the same direction, partly from curiosity and partly from dread of a widespread conflagration.

‘It’s here in Waterbeer Street!’ called Gwyn, as he skidded round the first corner into the lane that ran parallel with High Street to join Goldsmith Street. About four houses up from the turning, on the opposite side of the alley, smoke and flame were pouring from behind the upper storey of a house. Luckily, it was half-timbered rather than just wood, with stone walls on the ground floor and plastered cob between a timber framework on the upper part. It was roofed with split stone, rather than thatch or wooden shingle, which again delayed the flames taking hold.

De Wolfe ran close behind the galloping Cornishman until they halted before the closed front door. A score of neighbours and gawking sightseers were clustered there, shouting and gabbling, but with no apparent plan of action.

‘Is anyone inside?’ roared de Wolfe above the clamour of voices and the crackle of flames from the back. He knew that most of the houses in Waterbeer Street were let as lodgings and several were known to be brothels, so the occupants tended to be a shifting population.

Gwyn pushed at the stout oaken door, but it was barred from inside.

‘Around to the yard!’ snapped John.

The house, typically tall and narrow, was very close to its neighbours on either side, but on the right there was a passage wide enough for a person or a handcart to get through. They pounded down it, ignoring a shower of sparks that a gust of wind sent at them. A handful of people stood at the back, including Theobald, one of the town constables. Also, to John’s surprise, the robust figure of Brother Rufus was there in his black robe, gazing up like the others at the upper floor.

‘It’s the bloody steps that are burning!’ yelled Gwyn. Like John’s own house, a substantial wooden staircase rose from the yard to a balcony that gave access to the two solar rooms at first-storey level. It was burning briskly, and the flames were spreading across the part of the balcony supported on beams projecting from the house wall. Someone up there was screaming, regularly and repetitively. It was a woman’s voice, but no one could be seen on the balcony.

As no one on the ground seemed keen to launch a rescue, de Wolfe jabbed Gwyn in the back and ran across to stand under the end of the balcony that was not on fire. A pair of thick posts ran up from the ground to take its weight, braced by a series of cross-beams.

‘Here’s a ready-made ladder! You go round and see if you can batter in that front door, while I shin up this way.’

Reluctant to leave his master to the more dangerous job, Gwyn hesitated, but a steely look in de Wolfe’s eye made him shrug and lumber back down the passageway. They had been in many tighter corners than this over the years and, with a little thrill at a rerun of their old adventures, he felt sure that the coroner could look after himself.

By now, de Wolfe was climbing the cross-braces, ignoring the twittering protests of Theobald, who had run across as soon as he had seen what the coroner was doing. De Wolfe yelled at him to stay where he was. ‘No need for extra weight on this thing — the damned lot will fall down once the fire spreads a bit more,’ he yelled.

Once on the slatted planks of the balcony, the fire and smoke were almost overpowering, but thankfully the breeze blew them away from him. The screaming was still coming from behind the nearest of the two doors that opened off the platform. Without hesitation, de Wolfe raised his foot and crashed his boot against it near where the inside latch would be. The flimsy fixing gave way, the door flew open with a bang and the screaming stopped. He dodged a wave of flame as the wind momentarily changed direction, and dived for cover into the room. Though it was dark inside, the reflection of the flames outside gave enough flickering light for him to see two frightened occupants — a sight that almost felled him with surprise!

Cowering against the wall, alongside a disordered bed, was a young woman clutching a crumpled blanket around her, which failed to hide the fact that she was naked beneath it. On the other side of the bed, frantically pulling on a pair of long woollen hose, was Sir Richard de Revelle, the King’s sheriff for the county of Devon.

The room was filling with a strangely scented smoke through the open door. A quick glance backwards showed that the fire was creeping rapidly along the boards of the balcony and had almost reached the threshold.

‘We’ve got to get out fast!’ snapped de Wolfe, putting aside his astonishment in the urgency of the moment.

‘I can’t go out there,’ hissed de Revelle, frantically. ‘not with her and those people watching down below!’ By now he had pulled his tunic over his head and grabbed his shoes.

For a split second, de Wolfe exulted that his brother-in-law was, once again, in a tight corner, but the vision of Matilda rose up in his mind’s eye and he knew he had to do something fast to save her shame, if not her brother’s.

In the further corner of the room was a curtain-covered doorway. He sped across and pushed his head through the opening. Beyond was a small passage leading to the room opposite. In the dim light, he could just see a pair of hinges and a ring set in the floor. When he pulled it open, he found he was looking down into a similar passage behind the front door. Thunderous blows told him that Gwyn was busy forcing it open. There was no ladder in place, but this was no time for such luxuries.

He dodged back into the upper room and pulled Richard to the trap-door. ‘Drop down there and hide somewhere. When Gwyn gets the front door open, slip outside and pretend you’ve just arrived to investigate the fire.’

The desperate sheriff swung down, his hands gripping the edge then dropped. The fall was too low to cause him any damage. Dropping the trap and rushing back into the bedroom, John unceremoniously grabbed the woman, who had started to scream again. He slapped a hand over her mouth and wrapped a sheepskin from the bed-coverings over her blanket. ‘Come on, my girl! Out of the door and keep going!’

He bundled the terrified wench on to the balcony, then pushed her to the right, a wayward pulse of flame singeing the curly wool of the sheepskin, as they ran the few steps to the further end. He hoisted her over the rail on to the upper cross-member, and a dozen faces gaped up at them from below as the girl felt with her bare feet for the lower bars. Halfway down, both sheepskin and blanket fell off her and the bemused audience gaped as she scrambled stark naked the rest of the way to the ground. The constable threw the fallen coverings back over her shoulders and led her across the yard, away from the fire, as de Wolfe shinned more expertly down from the balcony.

Several onlookers had found leather buckets and large pottery jars, which they filled from the well in the yard and threw on to the fire — to no avail, for with a crash and an explosion of sparks, the burning balcony collapsed as the supports burnt through. This removed the danger of igniting the whole house and brought the flaming timbers down within reach of the water carriers.

Meanwhile, John had hurried over to Theobald and the girl, who were huddled against the wall of the next house. He saw that she was moderately attractive and under the smuts on her face, her lips and cheeks were reddened with rouge. It was time for urgent action if he was to save the sheriff from shame and dishonour. ‘Are you from the Saracen, girl?’ he asked, in a low voice. She nodded. ‘Then say nothing to anyone, d’you hear? Nothing as to who was with you. Do you understand?’

The tone of his voice penetrated her shock and she nodded again, her teeth chattering with delayed terror. John turned to the constable. ‘Take her back to the Saracen straight away and see that she speaks to no one — especially the landlord, Willem the Fleming. Stay with her, get her some clothes and drink. I’ll come down to talk to her within the hour.’

Mystified, but obedient to the coroner’s commands, the constable led the young harlot away, swathed in a blanket. After a quick glance to see that the fire was now no longer a threat to the house or its neighbours, de Wolfe hurried round to the front, where a large crowd was now thronging the narrow street. He found Gwyn blocking the doorway.

‘What in hell’s name is going on, Crowner?’ he growled. ‘I found the sheriff lurking inside. How did he get there?’

De Wolfe groaned — things were getting out of hand. ‘Let me past, I’ll speak to him. Say nothing to anyone outside.’

Inside the dark passageway, he found de Revelle skulking inside the doorway to one of the lower rooms, which appeared to be vacant lodgings.

‘I told you to slip into the street and look as if you’d just arrived!’ he hissed, in exasperation.

‘That hairy monster that attends you refused to let me out until he’d spoken to you,’ spat de Revelle, as ungrateful as ever, even after John had once again saved his reputation and possibly his life.

The coroner looked his brother-in-law up and down in the gloom. ‘Are you respectable now? If so, we will pretend to examine these rooms together, then go out as if we have been companions here all along.’ For a few moments, they strode about — thankfully, the sparsely furnished rooms were empty of their transient lodgers and fornicating couples. In the meantime Gwyn had understood the subterfuge, and was pushing back the curious crowd loudly demanding that they make way for the coroner and the sheriff. When they came out of the door behind him, John hissed again into Richard’s ear. ‘Just drift away now, back to Rougemont and say nothing. I’m off to see that girl and make sure of her silence. You’d better pray hard that none of this comes out. And there’s probably no need to tell your confessor — Brother Rufus is in the backyard!’

He walked up the lane with de Revelle until they were past the crowd, then left him and came back to Gwyn. ‘Let’s get round to the yard again.’

As they hurried down the side passage, his officer broached a matter that had concerned de Wolfe.

‘Did you notice that smell, Crowner? I can still get a whiff of it even now. It reminds me of that Greek fire that was used in the battle at Acre.’

In the yard, the flames were dying under endless buckets of water from the well, but hissing steam was rising from the blackened wreckage of the balcony. An aromatic pungency hung in the air and both John and his officer sniffed deeply.

‘It’s naphtha, that’s what that smell is!’ said a deep voice behind them. The burly chaplain from the castle was sniffing at his fingertips. ‘I pulled away some of the timber for them to throw water on it and now my hands are stinking of it. They used to use it in flares when I was a chaplain with William Marshal’s troops.’

De Wolfe nodded at this confirmation of Gwyn’s identification.

‘So that means the fire was set deliberately,’ he said. ‘Those stout timbers wouldn’t have caught fire just from a flint and tinder or the light from a candle. Someone has lit a block of naphtha against them.’

The three men stared at each other, trying to make sense of this arson.

‘Why try to burn down a lodging house in a mean street like this?’ asked the priest.

De Wolfe studied his face for any sign of duplicity or sarcasm, but saw none. Yet he wondered if the monk, Richard de Revelle’s chaplain and confessor, had known of his master’s clandestine presence in the house that night.

Gwyn had wandered over to where the neighbours were still pouring water over the sizzling wreckage. There were two shuttered window openings on the ground floor and John saw his officer bend to stare at something on the stone sill of the one furthest from the fire. After a moment’s close scrutiny, Gwyn turned and beckoned to the coroner. ‘Does this mean anything? It looks like writing’

De Wolfe stooped alongside him and Gwyn pointed out a series of fresh scratches in the soft limestone of the window surround. Though shallow, they were clean and distinct, looking as if they had been made with the point of a knife, like the letters on the millstone in Fitz-William’s well.

A growing unease pervaded John’s mind and he cursed that Thomas was not here to offer his usual expertise. ‘It’s writing surely enough, but I can’t read it.’

‘Let me see, then,’ came a voice from behind and there was the ubiquitous Brother Rufus. Somewhat reluctantly, Gwyn moved aside for him and the heavily built priest peered short-sightedly at the sill.

‘Is it another Biblical quotation?’ demanded de Wolfe impatiently. If it was, their killer had radically changed his modus operandi.

‘It is indeed, this time from the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans.’

‘And what does it say, for Christ’s sake?’

‘It was for Christ’s sake, Crowner. But I fear that our scribe has a warped sense of religious faith, for this one is hardly appropriate to an attempt at murder.’ De Wolfe felt like murdering the monk himself, as he seemed as long-winded as Gwyn in getting to the point. But before he could bellow his frustration, the chaplain continued. ‘It reads, “Vengeance is mine — heap coals of fire on his head.” ’

‘That seems apt enough in the circumstances — though it doesn’t tell us why it was done and against whom.’ De Wolfe choked back the fact that the occupants had included a corrupt sheriff, an appropriate target for a self-appointed avenging angel.

Gwyn, insensitive to the careful path his master had to tread, stated the obvious in a loud voice: ‘But there was another bloody harlot there, Crowner! Our killer has done for one already, so he must be having a crusade against loose women.’

De Wolfe reflected that the identity of the girl who had climbed naked down from the balcony must surely have been known to half the men who saw her in the yard, but as long as the sheriff’s presence was kept secret, no harm was done.

‘Why did you say that the quotation is not right for a murder?’ growled Gwyn, who did not take to any priests, apart from Thomas.

‘To the best of my recollection, the full sense of that passage from Romans is that “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,”’ answered Rufus. ‘But it goes on to tell us ordinary mortals not to take the law into our own hands, as the Almighty is quite capable of doing his own work when it comes to retribution.’

‘What about these “coals of fire”?’ demanded John. ‘They seem to fit this scene.’ He waved his hand at the glowing embers and the clouds of smoke still wafting around the yard.

The monk smiled knowingly. ‘But Paul said, “If thine enemy hungers, feed him, and if he thirsts, give him drink — for in doing so, you shall heap coals of fire on his head.” This is hardly such an act of kindness, trying to burn him to death.’

De Wolfe noticed that Rufus said ‘him’ even though only a girl had been seen escaping from the house — but perhaps he had been referring to the ‘enemy’ in the scriptures. However, he had a gut feeling that the nosy priest knew that Richard de Revelle had been inside. ‘How came you to be in this yard so quickly tonight?’ he snapped.

Brother Rufus looked at him guilelessly. ‘I was on my way back to Rougemont from the cathedral, to prepare for Matins in my little chapel. I saw the flames and, being curious, followed these other good men in case I could be of some assistance.’

Waterbeer Street was by no means on a direct route from cathedral to castle and the coroner told him so. The affable monk took no offence at this oblique expression of suspicion. ‘You’ll remember that I have lately come from Bristol and previously had no knowledge of Exeter. So I make a point of varying my path each day, to build up my familiarity with the city.’ The man seemed to have an answer for everything.

De Wolfe turned to Gwyn. ‘Stay here until you have questioned as many people as you can about the start of the fire. Catch some in the street before they leave — and talk to the neighbours. See if they remember any strangers loitering about. Then find the owners and other residents of this place — if there are any who stay longer than it takes to drop their breeches!’ He dipped his hands into a nearby bucket of water and rinsed the soot off them.

‘You’ve got more on your cheeks, and your hair is singed at the front,’ said Gwyn.

As de Wolfe sluiced water over his face, he gave more orders to his officer. ‘Find Thomas and get him up here to check on those words under the window.’ He looked sideways at the priest. ‘I mean no slight on your biblical prowess, Brother, but I have to hold an inquest on all fires in the city, even when there’s no corpse, so my own clerk needs to record any evidence.’

He rubbed his face dry with the sleeve of his tunic. ‘Now I’m going down to the Saracen to see that girl, and then I’m off to Rougemont to talk to the sheriff. He’ll not be pleased that this has happened on the very night the King’s Justices are here.’

After he had been to the Saracen, de Wolfe barged into the sheriff’s chamber unannounced. He found de Revelle slumped morosely behind his table, a large goblet of wine in his hand, for once ignoring the profusion of parchments spread before him. He had already washed the smuts from his face and hair and was swathed in a plum-coloured velvet house-gown. He raised his head slowly to the coroner, a scowl on his petulant face. ‘Come to crow over me again, I suppose?’

John grinned at him, though it was more of a leer. ‘How you enjoy yourself at night is none of my business — unless it involves plotting against the King whom you represent in this county.’

The sheriff tried to counter this veiled threat with haughty bluster. ‘You are in no position to preach about morals! It’s common knowledge that you have been betraying my sister for years with that woman from the inn — and God knows how many others.’

De Wolfe kept his grin in place. ‘But, Richard, I don’t pick up painted whores and have to flee almost bare-arsed from burning buildings in full view of our worthy citizens.’

The sheriff seemed to sag in his chair, his attempt at defiance crumpling. ‘I need a woman now and then! My wife is never here and a man has natural desires. You should know that above all people.’

The frosty Lady de Revelle kept away from Rougemont and her husband as much as she could, though she would have to put in an appearance at the feasting this week.

‘I’ve just come from the Saracen, where I had a few words with your paramour,’ announced John, planting himself in a folding chair opposite the sheriff.

De Revelle drunk the rest of his wine and banged down the pewter cup. ‘I never even got my money’s worth, damn it! We’d hardly got started when that fire began.’ He stared wildly at the coroner. ‘What the hell is going on, John? Was that sheer coincidence?’

De Wolfe shook his head slowly. ‘You’re not going to like this — and neither are the royal judges, if they get to hear of it.’

With his brother-in-law becoming more incredulous as he went on, John related their findings in the backyard at Waterbeer Street: that naphtha had been used in a deliberate arson attack and an ambiguous Biblical text had been scrawled at the scene, reduced Richard to a state of furious agitation.

‘Why should this murderous swine want to kill me? And what is that damned nonsense about vengeance and coals of fire?’ He jumped up and shakily poured more wine, without offering any to his saviour.

De Wolfe watched him stalk about the room, his fair hair and beard spiky from its recent wetting, his small head sticking out of the long red gown like a globe atop a tournament tent. ‘There’s plenty of folk who’d be happy to see you dead or shamed,’ he said. ‘You send men to the gallows every other week from your shire court, and their families might want vengeance. Even the tinners have threatened violence to get rid of you as Lord Warden of the Stannaries.’ He paused. ‘To say nothing of those who despise you for your adherence to Prince John.’

Richard’s face flushed with anger and shame. ‘But if what you say is true about this poxy message scratched on the window-ledge, this is the same man who’s been killing sodomites, whores and Jews. What’s that to do with me?’

‘He seems to have a private crusade against evildoers — and that includes you!’ answered de Wolfe, with some relish. ‘At least you are unique.’

‘What the hell d’you mean by that?’ snarled the sheriff.

‘You’re his first failure — thanks to Gwyn and myself!’

De Revelle muttered something under his breath, which sounded far removed from an expression of gratitude, but he sat down and seemed to remember his duty as a host: he poured some wine for his brother-in-law. ‘Is any of this going to come out?’ he mumbled anxiously.

‘The fact of the fire is already common knowledge, and as for the rescue of the girl, a dozen men saw that — much to their delight.’

‘You say you’ve spoken to her?

‘Just now, at the Saracen. She was more frightened of my threats of retribution if she talked about you than she was at the shock of almost being burned alive like a witch.’ He took a deep swallow of the good red wine. ‘And I promised her that you will send her a purse of silver, to make sure that she stays silent.’

The tight-fisted sheriff scowled again, but managed to hold his tongue.

‘As far as I can make out, no one has realised that you were in the house with her — except the would-be assassin, of course. I can’t believe he would go to those lengths just to dispose of another common harlot.’

‘He did so before, with that red-headed strumpet,’ the sheriff objected.

‘I suspect he’s choosing to punish one example of each sin,’ said John. ‘If he intends eliminating every prostitute in Exeter, he’ll be working full-time until Christ Mass! Anyway, that text from the Gospels fitted you better than the girl, with its talk of vengeance.’

‘Vengeance for what?’

‘There’s plenty to choose from, Richard. Sheriffs are the least popular people in the land. Maybe your good wife hired an assassin?’

De Revelle groaned. ‘I hope by all the saints in heaven that she never gets to hear of this! She will be here by noon tomorrow.’ The chill prospect of his wife’s acid tongue caused him to think of his sister. ‘And Matilda? What about her? Does she have to know?’

This was one score that de Wolfe was not going to let pass. When he had caught out her brother in his attempted treachery last year, Matilda had pleaded with him to save the sheriff from disgrace and perhaps even execution. He had agreed, and in return gained several months’ respite from her domineering abuse. Now he had the chance to build up a little more credit, by telling her how he had saved her brother from both cremation and ridicule.

‘There can be no secrets between husband and wife, Richard,’ he said, with a straight face but with underlying glee. The sheriff groaned and pleaded for his silence, but John cut across his words. ‘There are more important things at the moment. How did that new chaplain of yours happen to be around Waterbeer Street at the wrong time? Could he have known you were in the house?’

De Revelle’s eyes widened. ‘Was he there? He didn’t see me, did he? He’s an inquisitive bastard. I don’t know why William the Marshal sent such an unsuitable fellow to us. It must have been some arrangement with his brother, Bishop Henry.’ Then a further thought struck him. ‘A priest … well lettered, knows the Gospels. John, do you think …?’

De Wolfe knew well enough what the sheriff meant, for the same idea had cropped up in his own mind, but there was no real evidence for incriminating the genial Franciscan.

‘But it can’t be him. He’s from Bristol and knows almost no one in these parts,’ went on de Revelle. ‘Though he may have followed me down from the castle out of sheer curiosity.’ He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t believe it was Rufus. What about that other priest, though?’

De Wolfe stared at him. ‘What other priest?’

‘Your damned clerk, that twisted little runt with the evil eye. Where was he when all this was happening tonight?’

He said this with a return of his old spitefulness and John was incensed, not only because of the slight against Thomas but because he had no answer. He had no idea where Thomas de Peyne had been that evening, after he left the Bush to fetch his belongings. ‘He’s well accounted for,’ he lied brusquely, but vowed to check this as soon as he next had Thomas and Gwyn together.

A crafty look came into his brother-in-law’s eye. He moved across to his littered table and produced a small leaf of parchment from under a ledger. ‘This was delivered to me today, John. I know you have no understanding of letters, but I’m sure you’ll accept it when I read it out. You can have it checked by someone else later.’

De Wolfe glowered suspiciously at him, ignoring the slur on his literacy as he nodded brusquely for the sheriff to continue.

‘It reads as follows. “I saw the short clerk who scribes for the crowner running away from the house of the cordwainer, soon after the Matin bells on the night he was slain.” So what about that, Crowner?’ The triumph in his voice was evident.

‘Very good, Richard. Did you write it yourself?’

De Revelle leered back at his brother-in-law. ‘You can’t shrug it off so easily. It was handed to your friend Sergeant Gabriel, no less, by some street child who was given a coin by some nameless man in the town.’

‘Great evidence, sheriff! Unsigned, uncorroborated, unproven — and who could have seen my clerk or anyone else in the city in the pitch darkness of midnight?’

‘I don’t care about that. The very fact that someone has sent this note strengthens the suspicions against your clerk. The finger is pointing, John.’

Though inwardly he felt more concerned than he dared show, de Wolfe again dismissed the message with an airy nonchalance. ‘God forbid that we should take any notice of some mischief-maker who can use a pen and ink. In fact, this almost certainly points to a literate priest — and there is a whole clutch of those who are aggravated by being named by the cathedral as suspects.’ He slammed his palm hard on to the table in front of the sheriff. ‘I should worry more about the Justices in Eyre, if I were you. They may well hear of the fire and even the fact that our resident Exeter murderer left his trademark behind once again. Of course, your part in this must never come to light — unless you do something stupid.’

He drank the rest of his wine and left for the gatehouse, leaving a chastened de Revelle behind him.

It was past midnight when de Wolfe reached home, but for once he cared nothing for his lateness or for the noise he made when he clumped up the solar steps and dropped his boots with a thump on the bedroom floor. Tonight, he cared little for Matilda’s scowling face at the disturbance he caused, as he usually tiptoed in stockinged feet to escape her withering tongue. A single rush light burned in a dish of water on the floor, giving enough light for him to see her sitting up in bed, her hair confined in twisted wires and parchment scraps, to be wrestled into ringlets by Lucille for the banquet next evening.

As soon as he dropped on to the edge of the bed to pull off his hose, he went on the attack. ‘I have disturbing and distressing news for you, wife,’ he began, and launched into a full and accurate version of the evening’s events, sparing her no details of her brother’s dishonourable part in the affair. Matilda listened in frozen disbelief as he finished his catalogue of Richard’s misdemeanours. ‘All he was concerned with, was his own escape and the concealment of his presence there,’ he concluded.

Matilda was still bolt upright in bed, her back against the wall. Her face was grim and, although he waited for her denials of everything he had said and a diatribe about his wanting further to discredit her brother, she said nothing. She knew that what he had told her must be the truth. Matilda was not blind to the weakness of men when it came to women, but the shame he had narrowly escaped that night would weigh heavily on her for a long time to come. John could imagine the verbal lashing that her brother would get from Matilda in the very near future.

‘Will this melancholy tale become common knowledge, John?’ were the only words she could find. There was ineffable sadness in her voice and suddenly her husband abandoned any trace of satisfaction in possessing this weapon against her. His voice softened as he said, ‘I promised you before that I would protect him as best I can and I will keep my word — short of him becoming involved in any more acts of treason. This affair tonight was conduct unbecoming a senior law officer, but carnal weakness is a lesser offence than seditious leanings against the King.’

He took this opportunity to hint that amorous exploits were of little consequence, compared to the important activities in life. Matilda, for all her many failings, was an intelligent woman and the message was not lost on her.

A simple ‘Thank you, John,’ was her uncharacteristically short response, as she heaved herself down under the blanket and turned away from him.

He stripped off the rest of his clothes and slipped into his side of the bed. As they lay there, one on each edge, he listened uneasily to her muffled sobs as she cried herself to sleep over her repeatedly fallen idol, Richard de Revelle. Once again, his emotions were confused. She was his wife and would be until death — or until she took herself to a nunnery: his iron sense of duty would keep them bound together in this loveless union. Yet he would never allow her to be harmed and — except when he was in a temper — he had no wish to see her unhappy. At times like this, when she cried into her pillow, he felt guilt, shame, and almost tenderness for the woman who had shared his life for sixteen years. But he knew that in the morning, she would be grim old Matilda once more, throwing his feeble attempts at companionship back in his face and driving him down to the Bush, where humour, love and understanding would start the cycle of his emotions turning full circle once again.