The Grim Reaper

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The coroner left the priory of St Nicholas at dusk, going from there to Priest Street to find Julian Fulk. Matilda’s news that the priest of St Olave’s was leaving suddenly was curious, but John had little expectation that it was in any way connected to the Gospel killings, unless Fulk was running away in expectation of being exposed.

Most of the dwellings in Priest Street were lodging for clerics and he had to ask directions to the right house. The priest was at home, living in two comfortably furnished rooms, which suggested that he had some means of his own as well as his pittance from parish tithes.

Fulk was resting after his meal before preparing for the midnight Matins, which he insisted on holding even though sometimes he had no congregation at that hour. Confident that one day he would be officiating in some great cathedral, he drove himself to observe most of the canonical hours, even in a tiny church like St Olave’s. He was surprised to see the coroner, but invited him in civilly and gave him a cup of good wine. He seemed more subdued than usual and his normal false heartiness had evaporated. As de Wolfe sat drinking his Anjou wine, he felt that whatever oddities might be in the priest’s nature, he was unlikely to be a serial killer. But, for Thomas’s sake, he had to pursue every chance to the bitter end.

‘They say you are leaving Exeter rather suddenly?’ The plump priest gestured impatiently. ‘This city is like a village. Every time you fart, the news is around the taverns within five minutes.’

De Wolfe agreed with that, but it was no answer to his question. ‘Is there an urgent reason for us losing you? There is nothing wrong, I trust, between you and the Church authorities?’

The priest began to spit out a litany of complaints against the religious establishment in England — their indifference to his ability, their deliberate campaign to keep him in some ecclesiastical backwater and similar expressions of outrage that soon convinced John that he was quite paranoid about the Church’s attitude towards him. But nothing in his tirade gave the coroner hope that Julian Fulk was anything but a vain, self-opinionated wind-bag.

Tiring of the repetitive monologue about the iniquities of bishops, abbots and priors, John finished his wine and took his leave, more depressed than ever that nothing now could save Thomas.

His feet took him the short distance to Idle Lane and he flopped down on his usual bench in the Bush, feeling ten years older than he had the previous day. Even the usually loquacious potman was subdued when he brought over a quart of ale, and when Nesta came in, she sat quietly by his side, with little to say once he had told her of the fruitless efforts he had been making.

He described his visit to Thomas and the clerk’s apparent calm. ‘I’ll see him again in the morning — and, along with John de Alençon, go with him to the gallows at noon,’ he said sombrely.

He saw that tears were running silently down Nesta’s cheeks at his mention of the hanging-tree beyond Magdalen Street, for it brought home with awful finality the fact that this tragedy was really going to take place. ‘I’m a coward, John, for I can’t bring myself to visit him,’ she whispered. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say and all I’d do is weep and make things worse for him. Neither can I come out beyond the walls with you tomorrow, for I couldn’t bear to see him die. But Gwyn will be with you — he called in here earlier looking for you.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Only to know if you had any good news, poor chap. He said he would call to see Thomas on his way home to St Sidwell’s, before the gates closed.’

He sat with Nesta a little while longer, then decided to go home. The lack of anything useful or comforting to say to each other had depressed them even further. It was now quite dark outside, but his feet knew every pothole in the twisting lanes without him being conscious of guiding them. However, he was certainly conscious of his full bladder as he crossed the rough wasteground at the side of the tavern. After two quarts of ale, he needed to relieve himself against the trunk of a gnarled elder tree that was dimly visible at the edge of Smythen Street.

As he stooped to hoist up the hem of his long tunic, a figure materialised out of the gloom behind him and struck him a violent blow on the back of the head, pitching him forward to lie stunned at the foot of the tree.

John de Wolfe was found less than ten minutes later by three men coming up from the Saracen ale-house. One, who was quite drunk, tripped over his legs and, cursing, stumbled against the elder tree. Though it was so dark, they heard a body on the ground groan, though the sounds were strangely muffled. The other two, who were less inebriated, bent over him, just able to make out the shape of a man. The groans became louder, now being mixed with slurred words, but were still indistinct.

‘There’s a bloody bag over his head!’ exclaimed one man, feeling around with his hands. ‘Let’s get some light, quickly.’

The other, a porter from Milk Street, looked up Smythen Street for any glimmer of a candle behind a shutter. The street was mainly occupied by forges and blacksmiths, hence the name, though a couple of houses had lately become schools. Seeing a faint flicker across the road, the porter ran across and hammered on the door, shouting, ‘Stop thief!’ at the top of his voice, then ran next door and repeated the cry.

Meanwhile, the rapidly sobering drunk and his friend squatted alongside the victim, who was fast recovering his senses. His stifled groans became more strident and he dazedly lifted his hands to the covering over his head, which the third man, a weaver from Curre Street, was already trying to remove.

‘There’s a purse-string around his neck!’ he complained, but then managed to undo the knot and pull off the leather bag. Groggily, John struggled to sit up and by this time, several people had run across from nearby dwellings. By the light of a horn lantern they propped him against the tree, at which he started to curse fluently and hold the back of his head gingerly with one hand.

As soon as the faint lights fell on his face, the rescuers recognised him. ‘Holy Mary, it’s the crowner!’ yelled the porter. Half a dozen neighbours were now clustered around, some risen from bed and wearing only their under-shirts. A buzz of excitement went round when they realised that it was John de Wolfe, known to every person in the city.

‘You’re bleeding, Crowner,’ said the man with the lantern. ‘The back of your head has taken a nasty knock.’

De Wolfe looked blearily at his bloodstained fingers, then tried to get to his feet. He failed miserably, and fell back against the tree.

‘Stay quiet, sir, you need someone to attend to that cut. We must get you to St Nicholas’s, that’s the nearest place.’

Though his head was throbbing like a drum, de Wolfe’s senses were rapidly returning. ‘Did you see anyone running away? he demanded thickly.

‘Not a chance,’ said the weaver. ‘It’s as black as the inside of a cow’s stomach tonight, Crowner.’

‘What was that over my face?’ he demanded, his memory returning piecemeal.

The weaver held up a large leather bag with a plaited string threaded around the neck to close it. Even in the poor light, de Wolfe saw that it was similar to the one that had been over the moneylender’s head, though such bags were commonplace.

‘Lucky you didn’t suffocate with that cutting off your air,’ said some morbid Jonah amongst the cluster of onlookers.

The weaver shook his head. ‘The seam around the bottom has ripped. There’s a hole in it, thank God.’

‘The footpad must have tugged it down too hard over your head, Crowner, and torn the stitching,’ added the porter. He thrust a hand into the bag and poked three fingers through a gap in the bottom. ‘There’s something in here, Crowner.’ He pulled out a crumpled scrap of parchment and held it close under the flickering light of the lantern. ‘There’s some writing on it. Can anybody here read?’

No one could, but de Wolfe stretched out a shaking hand to grab the fragment, his fury over having been assaulted fading as his fuddled senses realised what this meant. A warm feeling of relief flooded through him as it dawned on him that Thomas must now surely be saved. He slumped back and a contented smile relaxed his face in the gloom. If the Gospel killer was still active, then his clerk, locked in Stigand’s foul gaol, must be innocent! As the townsfolk fussed over him, he sent up a short and rather curt prayer of thanks to the God whom he was not convinced existed. Though he had killed many men himself and seen thousands more die on a score of battlefields, he surprised even himself at the depth of feeling he had experienced over the hanging of a miserable little scribe. He knew that Gwyn felt the same and wanted to tell his officer the good news — but that was impossible until the morning: Gwyn was at home in St Sidwell’s, outside the locked city gates. But at least he could tell Nesta, who otherwise would probably cry half the night.

‘Help me back to the Bush!’ he commanded, trying to struggle to his feet.

‘You’re in no fit state yet, Crowner,’ protested the weaver. ‘We’ll take you to St Nicholas’s to have your head seen to first.’ A forge-master from a nearby workshop dragged across a loose hurdle from around his yard and, though he protested, they laid de Wolfe gently on it and four of them trotted the few hundred yards to the little priory, with a posse of concerned neighbours running behind. The coroner was a respected and popular man in Exeter and his fellow citizens were determined to do all they could for him in this emergency.

As they went, he bellowed orders from his stretcher, his strength returning rapidly. ‘Send for Osric the constable, and all of you be sure to tell him exactly what happened, especially about the bag and that parchment.’ He wanted to make sure that independent witnesses confirmed the circumstances, so that the damned sheriff could not claim that he himself had fabricated them.

‘And someone go to the castle and call out whoever they can find — the sheriff, Ralph Morin or Sergeant Gabriel. We should have the streets searched, though God knows who we are looking for!’

He ended his stream of orders with a final demand that someone should go back to the Bush and tell the landlady what had happened.

The one person he failed to remember was his own wife, Matilda.

If the pockmarked prior of St Nicholas’s was annoyed to see John de Wolfe back again so soon, he concealed it well. He immediately sent the infirmarian to deal with the coroner’s head wound and, with the porter and the weaver standing solicitously by, the old monk cleaned and anointed the cut on the back of his scalp. ‘Nothing terrible, Crowner, but keep this length of linen bound around your head for a day or two to keep out the dirt,’ he instructed, as he wound cloth around de Wolfe’s scalp like a Moorish turban.

De Wolfe thanked him, then held up his fist, in which he still clutched the fragment of parchment found in the leather bag. ‘Can you tell me what is written here, Brother?’

The infirmarian took it and held it towards the pair of candles on a shelf nearby. ‘A few words, but I cannot fathom their meaning.’

‘What are they?’

The elderly Benedictine screwed up his eyes and held the parchment further away. ‘It says, “For thou do not enquire wisely concerning this” … whatever that might mean.’

De Wolfe looked blankly at him, forgetting the pounding in his head. ‘Is that from the scriptures?’

The infirmarian looked again at the words. ‘It certainly sounds biblical — but to my shame, I have no great knowledge of the Holy Book, being more concerned with potions and salves.’

The prior was hovering in the doorway, listening to what was said. He came forward and took the scrap of parchment from the monk’s fingers.

‘Neither do I recognise that quotation — but there are some further letters at the end …’ He pulled the fragment towards his nose, for unlike the older man, he was short-sighted. ‘They seem to be “Ecc”, which must surely refer to Solomon’s Book of Ecclesiastes — though it could also be Ecclesiasticus, the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, in the Apocrypha.’

John was not concerned with the academic origins of the words. As long as they came from the Vulgate, that was good enough to lay them at the feet of the murderer. At the moment, all he cared about was saving Thomas de Peyne from the gallows tomorrow and even the prospect of catching the killer took second place to that.

The significance of the quotation was at first obscure, but on thinking about it a little more, his still-shaken brain decided it was a rebuke for being too searching in his investigations. That was good, he thought, for it meant that the culprit was getting worried that the law was closing in on him.

Events moved quickly after this, as did de Wolfe’s return to full activity. He was a tough old soldier who had suffered a multitude of injuries far worse than this and, within an hour, was able to stand and walk about, though his head still ached abominably. Before that, though, Nesta had arrived breathless and, ignoring the gossip that was sure to follow, threw her arms about John and tearfully celebrated both his lucky escape and the reprieve it surely must mean for Thomas.

‘You could have been killed,’ she snuffled. ‘And almost in the backyard of my own tavern! I feel responsible for letting you walk out into such danger,’ she added illogically.

‘The crowner was a lucky man, mistress,’ said the weaver, grinning at the sight of the coroner and his mistress showing such public affection, and in a priory, of all places. ‘The knock on the head was not too bad, but that bag over his chops would have smothered him, had not the stitches given way.’

This sent Nesta into another paroxysm of emotion, which was cut short by pounding feet outside and the entry of the huge castle constable, Ralph Morin, followed by Gabriel and Osric, the town guard.

The story was told all over again and the leather bag and the parchment passed around, for de Wolfe was anxious for them to verify all that had happened, to defeat any counter-attack by the sheriff and the Justices. ‘Osric, make sure that you get the name of every man who came to my aid in Smythen Street tonight. They may be needed to give testimony.’ Ralph Morin, a good friend of de Wolfe and a covert adversary of de Revelle, promised he would send all the available men-at-arms from Rougemont to scour the streets, though this was little more than a gesture in the pitch dark, when they had no idea who they were looking for.

‘Have you any suspects we should put our hands on at the moment?’ he demanded. ‘You say it must be a priest, but who are the most likely candidates?’

‘There are a hundred to choose from, Ralph, and I have no evidence against any of them. One of the possibles is locked up just across the passage here, so it can’t be him.’

The prior shook his head. ‘No, he’s not! He went out a few hours ago.’

De Wolfe stared at him. ‘But he was raving mad when I came to see him. How can he have gone? Did he escape?’

The prior shook his tonsured head. ‘After you left, he suddenly became calmer. He put on his clothes and asked us to send for his fellow priest and confessor, Adam of Dol. I had no reason to refuse. Adam came up and said he was taking de Capra back to his dwelling. I protested for a while, but had no power to keep de Capra against his will if a brother priest was willing to look after him, so off he went, as quietly as a lamb.’ The prior sounded glad to have been relieved of the responsibility. De Wolfe walked to the doorway. ‘I’ll go up to Rougemont myself very soon. My clerk needs to be put out of his misery about tomorrow — and I need to have a few strong words with the sheriff. Where is he, anyway?’

‘Eating and drinking with the Justices down at the New Inn,’ said Morin sarcastically. ‘He’s not one to let slip any chance of fraternising with the high and mighty!’

John grunted. ‘We’ll call in on him and their lordships on the way. I’ll enjoy spoiling their digestion by telling them that the hanging is off.’

De Wolfe set off for the New Inn, with Ralph Morin close by his side in case he staggered or collapsed. But his hard head and his exultation at Thomas’s rescue kept him on his feet as he walked with increasing confidence through the darkened streets of Exeter. With his white bandages swathing his head, he looked more like one of Saladin’s warriors than the King’s coroner. At the inn, the landlord told them that the sheriff had left for Rougemont and the judges had already retired, so they carried on to the castle, although John found the temptation to drag the Justices from their beds hard to resist.

With Osric and the sergeant-at-arms following behind, they arrived at the keep. There, de Wolfe and Morin marched into de Revelle’s outer chamber without ceremony. It was empty, but John hammered on the inner door to the sheriff’s bedroom, remembering the time, some months earlier, when he had caught him in there with a whore.

This time he was alone, and opened the door petulantly, dressed in a gaudy silk surcoat to cover his nakedness. He stared in sleepy incredulity at his brother-in-law’s Levantine headdress and was even more incredulous when he heard that the Gospel killer was still on the loose. For several minutes, nothing would convince him that this was not some underhand plot of de Wolfe’s. ‘But you weren’t killed, were you?’ he brayed. ‘This was just some opportunist cutpurse in that unsavoury part of town!’

John jingled the coins in his purse to quash that notion. ‘Neither was de Vallibus killed, was he? Nor that harlot in the fire — and maybe there was another who didn’t die!’ He winked at Richard, who understood that unless he was careful the full story of Waterbeer Street might leak out.

The sheriff weakened, but muttered again that there must be some mistake, so Ralph Morin yelled for Osric and Gabriel to come in from the hall. They told their story, listed the numerous eye-witnesses and then, as the coup de grâce, produced the leather bag and the parchment note.

De Revelle stared at this, then feebly suggested it might be a forgery.

‘A forgery?’ roared de Wolfe. ‘It was found inside the bag that almost killed me. And d’you think I knocked myself unconscious, then swallowed the weapon that did it?’

De Revelle, sitting slumped behind his table in his peacock-blue robe, capitulated. ‘Very well, but we’ll get that canon, Jordan de Brent, up to look at it in the morning. He’s the expert on writing.’

‘That will tell you nothing, but if it pleases you, do it. At the same time, you can get him to look at that ridiculous note you read to me about my clerk, to see if that was a forgery. Now I’m going below to the undercroft to tell my much-abused clerk the good news.’

The sheriff leapt up, his surcoat falling open to reveal a hairy chest and a white belly. ‘He’s not being released tonight, whatever you say! Not until this is put to the Justices and they agree, understand? I’ve suffered some of your damned tricks before, John, so keep away from him tonight, d’you hear!’

De Wolfe was not disposed to fight him for the sake of a few more hours in a cell and, gathering up his precious bag and parchment, left the sheriff to fume over yet another humiliation at the hands of his brother-in-law.

Feeling decidedly shaky now that the rush of excitement and exultation was fading, de Wolfe headed for home, Osric shepherding him as far as his front door. As he headed for the steps up to the solar, Mary came out of the kitchen-hut and almost fainted when she saw his bandaged head in the moonlight, for the silver orb had risen since the events of a few hours ago.

He turned down her offer to make him something to eat and drink, but told her of Thomas’s deliverance, at which she was as overjoyed as Nesta had been, for the little clerk was an object of sympathy and affection to all the women — except Matilda. The thought of his wife sent his eyes up to the solar door.

‘She’s been in bed these many hours,’ Mary reassured him. ‘So get yourself there as well. You’ll have no trouble until the morning.’

Next morning Matilda was surprisingly concerned about his head, though she cooled a little when she discovered that he had suffered the injury only a few yards from the Bush Inn. Even so, she made him promise to attend her favourite apothecary’s shop in the high street that day to have the dressing changed. When he told her of Thomas’s reprieve, she showed none of the scorn he expected — in fact, he sensed that she was grudgingly pleased that his obvious distress over his little clerk had been lifted.

After breaking his fast early, he hurried up to Rougemont, his legs, if not his head, back to normal. Gabriel had already told Gwyn of the night’s dramatic happening and the big Cornishman was half drunk with delight and celebratory ale. He had wanted to rush over to the undercroft and drag Thomas out there and then, until the sergeant had cooled him down. ‘Best wait until the crowner has sorted things out with the sheriff and the Justices,’ he warned. ‘We don’t want to mess things up by being too hasty.’

De Wolfe was about to do this now, and all his witnesses had been gathered in the Shire Hall well before the time when the court session was due to start. They were waiting for the Justices and the sheriff to come across from the keep.

Richard de Revelle had reluctantly told them the story, and they sat down at one of the clerks’ tables on the platform with solemn faces, a suspicion of a scowl on those of Sir Peter Peverel and Walter de Ralegh.

De Wolfe stood over them, told them the facts again and produced the leather bag and the parchment note. His own injury was obvious, especially as some blood had seeped through the linen, which made it look all the more impressive. A few of the witnesses from Smythen Street were called to confirm the attack, and Osric nervously added the names of others who could support the story. The judges listened in stony silence, though the Archdeacon from Gloucester looked relieved that one of his brethren looked certain to be declared innocent.

By this time the cathedral archivist, Canon Jordan de Brent, had appeared, summoned from the dusty Exchequer above the Chapter House. He sat at the table and looked at the most recent message from the Gospel killer, together with the others and the disc of hard candle-wax from the steps of St Mary Arches. He looked intently at them and then shook his head. ‘The writing is deliberately disguised,’ he pronounced. ‘All the notes are different in style and slope and are irregular, so it was not a normal freehand.’ He peered more closely at two of the notes for a moment. ‘Yet I would suggest that these two notes were by the same hand,’ He held up the first, found at the scene of Aaron’s death, and the one from last night. ‘Each of these has a strange hook on the letter T. The writer, though he has successfully varied all his other letters, must have forgotten this one quirk, perhaps in haste or panic. I think it confirms that last night’s message was written by whoever killed the Jew.’

When he was shown the letter that had been delivered to the sheriff, accusing Thomas of being at the scene of the cordwainer’s death, the old canon declared that the handwriting was unlike that in any other of the notes.

Though the sheriff and two of the judges argued for several minutes against Thomas’s lack of guilt, they knew they were making bricks without straw and grudgingly, they had to admit that there was no reason to hold him in custody any longer. This was all de Wolfe needed and he bobbed his head in grudging deference to the Justices, gave the sheriff a look of cold disdain and hurried away, leaving them to begin a shortened session, as they had to witness half a dozen hangings at noon — thankfully without Thomas as one of the participants.

The castle constable came across with the coroner and his officer to deliver Thomas from his cell. Stigand would probably not have accepted de Wolfe’s word alone that his clerk was to be released, even at the risk of Gwyn’s threat to tear off his head. When they entered the cell to tell him the news, the clerk was sitting on the edge of his bed, his book open in his hands. Though the foetid chamber was tiny, he still appeared small within it, looking up at them pathetically. His lank hair hung down like a curtain from his shaven crown and his long, sharp nose seemed to dominate his receding chin even more than usual. When de Wolfe gave him the news of his acquittal and release, he seemed less exultant than they had expected and the coroner wondered fleetingly if Thomas had seen hanging as God’s offering of an alternative to the mortal sin of suicide.

Yet Gwyn had more than enough enthusiasm for them all. The ginger giant grabbed the puny man in his arms and danced out through the iron gate, yelling in triumph. With his free arm, he shoved the odious gaoler in the chest, sending him sprawling into the stinking straw, then ran out with the clerk into the sunlight of the inner ward.

A few moments later, they gathered in Gabriel’s guardroom in the gatehouse for a celebratory drink, where even the abstemious Thomas was cajoled into taking a cup of cider. He still had his precious Vulgate clutched in his hand and John suspected that if he had been hanged, it would have been tucked under his arm as he fell from the gibbet.

The coroner explained in detail what had happened the previous night and the clerk nodded at intervals, seemingly dazed by the speed of events. ‘We’ll get you back to the Bush now. Nesta can feed you and give you a bucket of warm water in the yard to wash off the filth and the lice from that damned cell,’ promised his master.

‘Can I start work again today?’ asked Thomas. ‘And go back to the canon’s house to live?’

Gwyn roared with laughter, but the little clerk was serious.

‘Tomorrow, certainly,’ answered de Wolfe gravely. ‘The court session finishes early today.’ There was silence as they realised why this was so and how close Thomas had come to being part of the reason for it.

Soon Gwyn left to take Thomas to the Bush for the promised food and wash, leaving Ralph Morin and Gabriel sitting with the coroner to finish their ale.

‘I’m damned if I’ll attend the hangings today,’ growled John. ‘Let one of the court clerks take the details — we can copy them on to the rolls later.’

Later, as they walked across the inner ward, they were joined by Brother Rufus coming from the keep. He was intrigued by de Wolfe’s Moorish headgear. When he heard the whole story, he congratulated John on Thomas’s salvation, then listened as Ralph again broached the subject of the killer: ‘He’s still out there, John. Why do you think he attacked you last night? He must have been following you, to know that you would be leaving the tavern after dark.’

De Wolfe ran his hands through his thick hair, bunching it back on to his neck. ‘According to the sense of that text he wrote, it seems he was warning me not to investigate so persistently. Some chance he’s got of that — I’m not one to take heed of such threats!’

‘Three times he’s failed to kill,’ mused the constable. ‘Is he getting careless — or was it deliberate?’

De Wolfe snorted. ‘Not much doubt about him being serious when he tied a bag over my head! That’s how he killed the moneylender.’ His hawk-like face, with the downturned lines at each side of his mouth, was a grim mask as he vowed to catch the maniac who still stalked the city. ‘I don’t know how and I don’t know when, Ralph, but one way or another, this bastard has to be stopped,’ he declared.

The Viking-like constable pulled at his forked beard, his favourite mannerism when perturbed. ‘Where can you start, though?’

‘My guts tell me that there’s something very odd about three of the priests on the cathedral list. I’ve spoken to all of them more than once, right up to yesterday — and last night someone tried to put a permanent end to my probing.’

‘Which three?’ persisted Morin.

‘Y our namesake, Ralph, the madman from All-Hallows-on-the-Wall. Then there’s his neighbour, Adam of Dol, who wants to save us all from hell-fire — he seems to have appointed himself as protector to Ralph and gets into a great fury when I question him. And lastly Julian Fulk, who is obsessed with his own importance, through somehow I don’t see him as a killer.’

‘Many of my ecclesiastical and monastic friends are more than a little strange,’ objected Rufus of Bristol, ‘but I doubt that any is a multiple murderer.’

John shrugged. ‘I agree with you, Brother. But the fact remains that someone is killing or attacking our citizens and all the circumstances point firmly to it being a cleric.’

Ralph Morin stuck doggedly to practicalities. ‘So what can you do about it? The bloody sheriff seems remarkably uninterested in the matter, though I suspect that the Justices, aggrieved at losing your Thomas, will soon be kicking his arse.’

De Wolfe winced as a ripple of pain shot through his head from the wound but it soon passed. ‘I’m going down to aggravate those parish priests again,’ he said, with stubborn determination. ‘Especially Ralph de Capra and Adam of Dol. If I tweak their tails hard enough, in their anger they might let something drop. It’s worth a try, for I’ve no other ideas to follow up.’

The castle constable and his sergeant went off about their business, but the persistent Brother Rufus asked if he could accompany John on his visits to the parish priests. As castle chaplain, he seemed to have plenty of spare time, the coroner thought — but his tiny chapel of St Mary near the gatehouse provided only two services a day, except on Sundays so his duties were far from onerous.

‘We’ll wait for Gwyn and Thomas to come back, then walk down towards the West Gate to twist a couple of arms.’

Outside that same West Gate, the river Exe bulged out over an area of marsh and mud, cut through by leats that filled at high tide and during floods. This was Exe Island, covered in reeds and coarse grass, with some huts, a few small houses and several fulling mills. Every year when the river was in flood, some shacks were washed away and people were drowned, but during this particularly dry month, the Exe was behaving itself. Just upstream of the West Gate, the old wooden footbridge was still the only way to cross with dry feet. Below this was the ford, where all carts, cattle and horsemen had to cross, for the new bridge downstream was still incomplete. Its many long arches spanned dry ground on the city side, allowing for floodwater at spring tides and after storms on Exmoor. There was even a small chapel on this part, though the bridge was nowhere near complete, as the construction of the western part had stopped a year ago when the builder, Nicholas Gervase, ran out of funds.

Soon after Thomas de Peyne had washed himself down in the yard behind the Bush, another priest was slipping furtively into this tiny church. It was little more than a simple room poised on the upstream edge of one of the piers, projecting out on a buttress fifteen feet above the grassy mud of Exe Island. The interior was virtually bare, except for a stone shelf around the walls and a stone altar covered with a cloth, on which stood a wooden cross. The place was intended for travellers wishing to give thanks for their safe arrival at Exeter or to pray to St Christopher for a safe journey into the wild West Country. A chaplain had been appointed by the diocese, but he visited rarely.

The priest was carrying a large pottery flask and, incongruously in broad daylight, a small lantern. He produced a flint and tinder and, with some difficulty, his shaking hands managed to light the candle in the lantern, which he placed alongside the cross on the altar. Then he sank to his knees in front of it and, head bowed, began to gabble in a monotone that soon rose to become a frenzied supplication in a mixture of Latin, English and Norman French. This went on for half an hour, the man rocking back and forth on his knees, beating his breast. Finally, he collapsed on the floor and lay flat on his face, his arms and legs spreadeagled on the cool slabs.

He lay immobile like this for some moments, then silently got up and walked stiffly to the altar, picked up the lantern and the flask and moved like a sleepwalker to the open doorway. Outside in the sunlight, he walked down the unfinished bridge to where the empty roadway came to an abrupt end over the final pier that stood at the edge of the Exe’s main channel. The water flowed smooth and deep below him, as he stood with his feet near the edge.

Setting down the flask and the lamp, he pulled his long black tunic over his head and threw it on to the ground. When he kicked off his scuffed sandals, he was as naked as the moment he was born.

Picking up the pitcher, he upturned it over his head and let about a gallon of turpentine mixed with strong Irish spirits gush over his body, holding it until the last drops of the oily liquid had coursed over his shoulders, chest, belly and legs. He threw the pot aside then picked up the lantern. He moved until his toes were curled over the very edge of the masonry, and looked down at the water, moving almost silently below. Then he opened the door of the lantern and, with a cry of exultation and despair, clasped it to his chest so that the flame almost touched his skin. The light spirits ignited into an almost invisible blue flame and flashed across his body. The heat caught the heavier turpentine alight and in seconds, the man was a human torch. With another scream, this time of mortal agony, he threw up his arms and his back arched in unbearable pain.

Just outside the West Gate, two porters with great packs of raw wool were sitting for a rest, when they saw what seemed to be a flaming crucifix in the distance. With yells of alarm, they sprang up and ran down the bridge towards it, followed by one of the gatekeepers and a few passers-by. Until they reached halfway, the astonished men could still see the writing, contorting figure, from which flame and smoke swirled into the still air. But suddenly and with a final despairing cry, the living cremation pitched forwards and fell into the river below, a last hissing and bubbling marking where the body sank beneath the uncaring surface.

De Wolfe had just crossed Carfoix when shouts and the sound of running feet coming up Fore Street told him that yet another emergency was in the offing. Gwyn and Brother Rufus were with him, one on each side of Thomas, who seemed to have recovered rapidly from his ordeal.

As they neared St Olave’s church, people in the street were turning to look at three men jogging up the slope from the West Gate, shouting and waving their arms to attract his attention.

The leading man panted to a stop in front of him. It was Theobald, the town constable. ‘Crowner, there’s a body just dragged from the river. Can you come quickly?’

De Wolfe scowled. Drowned bodies were one of the most common type of case he had to deal with. There was usually no great urgency about viewing them, especially as now he had other things on his mind.

‘Can’t it wait a little? Or get a barrow and take it to the dead-house on the quayside.’

Theobald shook his head. ‘It happened not half an hour ago. He set fire to himself on the new bridge and then jumped in. It’s a priest, by the clothes he left behind.’

The word ‘priest’ instantly grabbed John’s attention, but the ever-inquisitive monk got in first. ‘Priest? Who was it?’

‘We’re not sure, his face was badly scorched, but it looks like the priest of All-Hallows.’

‘Ralph de Capra?’ snapped de Wolfe.

Theobald nodded. ‘About his height and build. His hair’s burnt off and most of his skin’s gone, but it’s most likely him, especially after that caper he had on the city wall yesterday.’

They all hurried down towards the river and Theobald led them across the mud of Exe Island below the new bridge, followed by a crowd of onlookers. The corpse had not drifted far: a hundred paces away from where the man had jumped into the river a dead tree had trapped his body in its branches. The two porters who had seen the conflagration on the bridge had rushed down and dragged it ashore, where it now lay on its back on the rough grass. Even in the open air, the smell of cooked flesh was distinct.

As they stood over it, Thomas and Brother Rufus competed with each other in crossing themselves repeatedly, but John and his officer dropped beside the body into their usual crouch.

‘Bit of a mess, but I reckon it’s de Capra right enough,’ said Gwyn. The face was bright red with blackened patches, and was completely skinned, as were much of the shoulders, chest and thighs. All the hair had gone and the scalp was scorched. The burning and swelling of the eyelids and lips made the features grotesque, but there was no doubt that it was the mad priest of All-Hallows-on-the-Wall.

‘He’d have been a damned sight worse if he hadn’t jumped in the river,’ offered one of the porters, with morbid satisfaction.

‘Stark naked, he was, standing on the end of the bloody bridge like a bush afire!’ contributed the other excitedly.

De Wolfe rocked back on his heels to ponder the situation. Was this a final act of contrition for killing and assaulting all those people? There was no proof of that — even priests are allowed to go mad without necessarily being serial killers.

‘Shall we haul him off to the mortuary, as you said, Crowner?’ asked Theobald.

John got to his feet and looked again at the scorched cadaver.

‘No, he’s a clerk in Holy Orders, so we must see what the cathedral wishes to do about this. The Archdeacon is responsible for the parish priests, so he must be told — and the Bishop, if he’s still in the city.’

A wide circle of people had formed around the scene and as they moved to allow de Wolfe and his party to pass through on their way back to the higher ground outside the city wall, Brother Rufus reminded him of Ralph de Capra’s recent movements. ‘He was being sheltered by the priest at St Mary Steps, both before and after he was taken to St Nicholas. I wonder if he knows about this?’

‘That’s further reason to speak to him, as soon as we can,’ grunted the coroner. ‘He seemed quite fond of that deranged fellow, so it may come as a nasty shock.’

Privately, de Wolfe wondered if the same nasty shock might trigger some useful reaction in Adam of Dol, but when they reached the little house behind the church, no one was in. The four investigators came back down the steep cobbles at the side of the church and went in through the front door.

Inside the empty nave, they saw Adam with his back to them, up a ladder set against the blank wall at one side of the chancel arch. He wore an old black robe stained with paint, the skirt pulled up between his legs and tucked into a broad leather belt. A tray of small pots was balanced precariously on one of the rungs and he was leaning out with a small brush, meticulously putting pigment on another of his terrifying images.

He was so intent upon his artistic endeavours that he failed to hear them come in. Gwyn nudged his master and pointed to the new scene, mostly in red and black, which contrasted starkly with the whitewashed walls. It was only partly completed, but showed an angel and a winged devil fighting over an agonised human, each trying to drag him up to heaven or down to hell. The details were very well drawn and the face of the angel was undoubtedly that of Adam himself. The devil was equally clearly that of Henry Marshal, Bishop of Devon and Cornwall!

‘That’ll not increase your popularity in the cathedral precinct,’ said John in a loud voice. The priest turned so suddenly that he was in danger of falling from the ladder, but when he saw who his visitors were, he snarled, ‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse what they think down there! They’re only interested in fancy vestments, good food and their fat tithes and prebends. Saving souls is the least of their concerns.’ He turned back to his painting, deliberately ignoring the coroner and his companions. He was adding a disembowelled corpse to the free hand of the bishop-devil, presumably one which Satan had already seized from the forces of heaven.

John waited patiently, while Brother Rufus stared with rapt attention at all the other wall-paintings, and the ever-inquisitive Thomas wandered over to the chancel steps to leaf through a thick book that lay on a wooden lectern.

After a little time Adam finished what he was painting and leaned back a little to admire his work. Then he put his brush on the tray and slowly came down the ladder. Rubbing his hands on his grubby tunic, he came across the nave towards de Wolfe, his red face as truculent as ever. ‘Anyway, what do you want, Crowner? I’ve seen enough of you lately. Can’t you leave us alone?’

The ‘us’ brought home to John that he had an unpleasant duty to perform. Quite bluntly, he told Adam of the gruesome death of his priestly neighbour less than an hour before. If he had been hoping for a reaction, he was not disappointed, for after a moment’s shocked inertia, the burly priest gave a bull-like roar and charged at the coroner, his hands open as if to seize his throat.

Gwyn, who had spent many years as bodyguard to his master, stepped calmly between them and grabbed the priest’s wrists in a bear-like grip, forcing the man down to his knees.

‘Now, none of that or I’ll have to hurt you,’ he said benignly.

However, Adam’s mouth could still function and he poured out a torrent of invective at de Wolfe, widening it to include the sheriff, constable, bishop, all the archdeacons and most of the Exeter canons. ‘If you had not persecuted that poor man, he would still be alive!’ he raged. ‘He lost his faith, as many of us do at some time or another, but he was hounded into insanity by you all.’

Rufus tried to intervene, pointing out that though racking doubts about the very existence of God were an occupational hazard of being a priest, few were driven to madness and self-destruction. Adam ignored him and continued to rage at the coroner and the faithless world in general, his fleshy face almost purple with anger.

John let the abuse wash over him and motioned to Gwyn to let the man get to his feet, though the Cornishman kept a wary eye on him in case he became violent again.

As the priest continued to shake his fist, wave his arms and rant about the indolence of the Church, Thomas sidled up to de Wolfe and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Crowner, come over here, quickly,’ he whispered, and pulled him the few paces to the chancel steps where the Vulgate now lay open on the lectern. The clerk pointed a finger at one page, where John saw faint but distinct underlining in powdery charcoal beneath some of the beautifully regular lettering of the Latin text. Thomas turned feverishly to another page, which he had marked with a small feather dropped by one of the birds that nested in the roof beams. ‘Here again passages have been marked — and in other places!’ he hissed.

As de Wolfe stared at him with dawning comprehension, he became aware that Adam’s tirade was running down in volume and virulence. The priest had noticed the activity near his lectern.

‘Are these the same quotations as at the scenes of death?’ he muttered, leaning closer to his clerk.

Thomas bobbed his head. ‘This one is from St Mark about the moneylenders in the temple — and the first was that about the millstone around the neck.’

Adam’s angry monologue had faded to silence now and de Wolfe saw that both Gwyn and the castle chaplain had turned to listen to what Thomas was saying. ‘Hold him, Gwyn, I have some questions for that man!’ snapped John urgently, but he was too late. With surprising agility for one so heavily built, Adam of Dol raced for a small door at the front of the nave, alongside the entrance from the street. Gwyn pounded after him, but the priest slipped through and slammed it after him. They heard a bar being dropped on the inside and though Gwyn crashed his great body against the oaken door, it shuddered but held fast. The four left in the nave clustered around the doorway in excited frustration.

‘Where does this lead?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘It can only be to the bell-tower,’ suggested Rufus.

Shouting over his shoulder to Gwyn to break it open, de Wolfe ran out into the narrow street between the church and the city wall near the West Gate. Turning, he looked up at the squat, square tower that had been erected only a few years earlier with funds donated by a rich burgess in memory of his wife. Just under the flat top, there was a small arch on each of the four sides, which allowed the peals from the central bell to ring out over the city. He could see no one under the front arch so he hurried back into the nave.

Gwyn had failed to shift the door with his shoulder and rubbing his bruised muscles, was on his way to fetch Adam’s stout ladder to use as a battering-ram. There was silence from behind the door and John wondered whether Adam might decide to follow his fellow priest’s example by killing himself. However, the coroner decided that it seemed out of character with the man’s truculent nature, unless by leaping from the bell-tower, he could land on the coroner and personally send him to hell, having failed the previous night with his leather bag.

As he waited impatiently for Gwyn to break down the door, de Wolfe noticed that Brother Rufus and Thomas were staring at the other gory scenes painted by Adam high on the walls. They were pointing at particular parts of the murals, which were frighteningly realistic in their sharp detail. ‘Crowner, look at that face — and that one,’ brayed the monk. ‘Can you see who they are?’

John peered up, following Rufus’s finger. Though the main characters in the scenes were angels and devils, there were several smaller individuals, almost all agonised victims of sin. Suddenly, his eyes registered what the other two were indicating. In the lower corner of the first painting, one face was unmistakably that of Aaron, the Jewish moneylender, and in the next, a woman with flowing hair and prominent breasts was Joanna of London. Astounded, John moved along and found the merchant sodomite Fitz-William, then the unmistakable pointed beard and close-set eyes of Richard de Revelle.

‘No sign of the crowner here, in his gallery of rogues,’ chaffed Rufus. ‘I suppose as you were the last victim he hasn’t had time to include you.’

Gwyn had by now grabbed the ladder, letting the pots of pigment crash down to stain the nave floor. As he charged across the nave with the stout timbers held like a lance, John tried to assimilate all that the last few moments had revealed. It was patently obvious that Adam of Dol was the deranged killer and the attacker that they had been so desperately seeking — for whose sake Thomas had come so close to a humiliating death. If only he had taken more notice of these damned paintings earlier, then a great deal of trouble — and even a life or two — might have been saved.

A thunderous crashing began at the base of the tower, where Rufus of Bristol had joined Gwyn in swinging the heavy ladder against the stubborn door. While they were assaulting it, John laid a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and shouted a question at him: ‘Were all those quotations underlined in the book?’

‘Like the faces up on the walls, all of them except the one left at your attack, master. But that was but a few hours ago.’

They were interrupted by the rending of wood and turning, they saw that the door to the tower was hanging from its hinges. With a roar, Gwyn dropped the ladder and dived through the opening. By the time John had followed him inside, his officer was still roaring, but with further frustration. A tiny room, the floor rush-covered, was empty but for a broom and a bucket. In one corner there was a square hole in the ceiling and below this a rope ladder lay crumpled on the floor, thrown down from above. They could hear heavy feet pacing up and down on the boards overhead and a muffled litany of imprecations.

‘Come down, Adam! There’s no way you can escape,’ yelled Rufus, in his usual interfering way. Thomas scowled at him, annoyed that the chaplain had been first to notice the faces in the wall paintings, though Thomas still could claim recognition of the marked passages in Adam’s Bible.

The coroner joined in calling upon the priest to surrender, but was met by another barrage of defiance, mixed with the usual commentary on the Armageddon soon to come.

‘The Book of Revelation must be his favourite reading,’ muttered Thomas cynically, though he made the Sign of the Cross a few times, to be on the safe side.

‘Any fear of him jumping from the top?’ asked Rufus, echoing John’s earlier thoughts.

‘Any hope, you mean!’ countered Gwyn cynically.

‘It would certainly solve many problems — not least those of the Bishop,’ said Rufus wryly.

‘What d’you mean?’ asked de Wolfe suspiciously.

The castle priest shrugged. ‘Unlike our little friend here, Adam is a fully fledged parish priest, still in Holy Orders. The Bishop proscribed torture for Thomas, though technically he is a layman, so I doubt he’ll withhold Benefit of Clergy for this man.’

‘That’s not my business, thank God,’ grated de Wolfe. ‘My concern at the moment is to get the swine down from up there.’

Adam’s head appeared in the trap above, an almost manic leer on his face as he stared down at them. ‘My work on this earth is nearly finished — but the Lord will deliver me from mine enemies!’ he yelled triumphantly.

‘I’ll bloody deliver you, you evil bastard!’ shouted Gwyn angrily. He bent and picked up the end of the ladder that was lying across the ruined door, and propped it just below the hole into the upper chamber, where the bell-rope hung. As he began to climb the rungs, John called a warning, as Adam’s face vanished and was replaced by one of his feet. ‘Watch your face, man!’

The furious priest above was kicking downwards as Gwyn’s head reached the ceiling. A heel skimmed the red hair as Gwyn dodged and retreated a rung or two.

‘Right, your time has come, unless you can get God to whisk you out of there right now!’ he roared. Reaching behind him, he pulled his dagger from his belt and went back up the rungs. The foot stamped down again, but this time the coroner’s officer jabbed it through the leather sole. There was a yell of pain and Gwyn dropped the knife to grab Adam’s ankle with both hands and pull it with all his considerable strength.

For a second, the open-mouthed spectators standing below thought that both men were going to fall on top of them and scattered to the opposite wall. But though the priest came bodily through the trap-door, he managed to grab the edges as he fell. Now Gwyn had him around the knees and reached up to land Adam a punishing blow in the belly. The priest jackknifed down on top of the Cornishman. Careless of any further injury, Gwyn tipped his prisoner sideways off the ladder, letting him crash on to the thick layer of old rushes on the floor. Adam lay there bruised and winded — silent for once on the subject of sin and retribution.

By the end of that week, most loose ends had been cleared up.

The Eyre of Assize went more quickly than had been expected and all the Gaol Delivery and criminal cases had been finished by Saturday, leaving de Wolfe relatively free of the court: the General Eyre, which the sheriff was dreading, had little to do with the coroner.

The Justices were subdued when it came to acknowledging their grievous error over the identity of the Gospel killer, though Archdeacon Gervase assumed a rather condescending ‘I told you so’ manner. Walter de Ralegh was gentleman enough to offer a gruff apology to John in private, but Serlo de Vallibus and Peter Peverel did their best to avoid the subject.

Richard de Revelle’s main concern was to keep his name clear of any association with the fire in Waterbeer Street, afraid that a trial might bring out some embarrassing evidence. He was therefore overjoyed to hear that Bishop Henry Marshal had exercised his right to insist on Benefit of Clergy for Adam of Dol, preventing him being dealt with by the secular courts — which in this case would have the Exeter Eyre of Assize that very week.

Meanwhile, the deranged priest of St Mary Steps was closely confined in one of the cells adjacent to the cloisters, kept for erring clerks by the proctors, the representatives of the Chapter who, with their servants, were responsible for law and order in the cathedral precinct.

As John de Alençon related to de Wolfe a few days later, Adam was first brought before the Bishop for his sins to be explored. As he was not a cathedral priest, the Chapter had no jurisdiction over him but, given the uniquely heinous nature of his crimes, a preliminary interrogation was considered necessary, before the matter went to the Consistory Court of the diocese. The Bishop led this inquisition, assisted by some senior canons. De Alençon, as Archdeacon of Exeter, was present as Adam’s immediate superior, and the Precentor, Thomas de Boterellis, with the Treasurer, John of Exeter, made up the group, along with Jordan de Brent, the archivist.

The deposed incumbent of St Mary Steps was led by two proctors into the Bishop’s audience chamber in the palace. Given Adam’s tendency to physical violence, his wrists were shackled and a pair of burly servants stood on either side of him. As if anticipating his ejection from Holy Orders, he had been dressed in a smock of drab hessian instead of his black clerical robe, but he displayed no sign of shame or contrition. On the contrary, he glared at his accusers with aggressive contempt as he stood before the Bishop’s great chair, the others hunched on stools alongside.

The cold-eyed Henry Marshal was more than equal to the challenge as he opened the proceedings. ‘Are you mad, Adam, or just evil?’ he asked quietly.

The priest’s face flushed with righteous anger. ‘Neither, Lord Bishop! I do the Lord’s work in my own way, because the efforts of you and your feeble cohorts to counter the devil and all his works are futile.’

‘You wretched man! How dare you insult your fellow labourers in the vineyard of God, they who use compassion and solicitude in place of your sadistic perversions?’

Adam continued to bluster about the need to warn their flocks of the torments that awaited sinners, but the prelate cut him off with an imperious gesture. ‘Be quiet! Your evil obsessions weary me. Do you deny that you have been killing and attacking innocent people in this city?’

Adam glowered at the faces before him. ‘I carried out the tasks that the Almighty charged me to perform.’

‘And how did he call upon you?’ cut in Canon Jordan, in his deceptively mild voice.

‘His voice came to me in the night, clearer than you are speaking to me now. Many a time, God answered my prayers for guidance, telling me how to outwit Satan.’ His voice rose. ‘He told me how to make up for the weakness of our Church, for I was his appointed disciple.’

‘Cease this arrogant blasphemy!’ snapped the Bishop. ‘You have been indulging in these abominable practices for your own depraved pleasure.’

De Alençon decided to join the inquisition. ‘These killings you admit to now, they began recently. What caused this escalation in your misdeeds?’

‘As I told you, it was the voice of God. I could see signs of wickedness going unchecked all around me in this city. I was called to bring retribution and convince those in power of the peril of neglecting their duty. I assumed that God was calling others to do the same in other places, as part of a great crusade against Lucifer, who was clearly winning the fight.’

The Archdeacon marvelled at the way in which a madman could rationalise what he was doing, to justify his indulgence in the very same sins against which he alleged that he was campaigning.

‘Did you intend to slay every whore, every moneylender, every sodomite in the city?’ enquired the Precentor in his acid tones.

Adam, who seemed to have a logical answer to every slur on his fantasies, shook his bull-like head. ‘Of course not! It was but a sign, a token of warning to those who committed similar sins. And you have interrupted my work, damn you all! God will be unforgiving when you go to judgement, though you be bishops and archdeacons all!’

Henry Marshal sighed. It was impossible to penetrate this disordered mind. He turned to John de Alençon. ‘Archdeacon, I gather you have some further information?’

De Alençon leaned forward and unrolled a parchment that he had been holding. ‘In the last few days, we have learnt that the parish priest of Topsham, one Richard Vassallus, was a secondary and a vicar at the cathedral of Wells at the same time as Adam of Dol. This was now many years ago, but Vassallus was sent for yesterday and was able to give me some pertinent facts about his old colleague.’

The others turned to him with expectant interest, but the prisoner barked his derision. ‘Vassallus was a weak-kneed fool, as well as a liar. He has hated me ever since I broke his jaw after he derided my theories about countering Satan’s wiles!’

The Archdeacon ignored the interruption. ‘This priest said that Adam had a reputation for outbursts of ungovernable violence when at Wells. He was known to consort with loose women — though we must accept that was not a unique crime, even among young clerics — and he was suspected of having been involved in the fatal mutilation of a whore in Bristol. The sheriff’s men came to make enquiries, but nothing could be proved.’

‘Liars, all of them! God had not then called me to do his bidding,’ ranted Adam, until a proctor rapped him across the neck with his rod.

‘Was there anything else?’ asked the Bishop.

‘There were two mysterious fires when he was at Wells. Part of the dormitory was burnt down and later, there was a fire in the Chapter House that damaged the scriptorium. Again, suspicion fell on Adam, but no proof was forthcoming. However, the canons had him transferred to their superior house of Bath Abbey, where it seems his dubious history was not known.’

De Alençon unrolled his scroll a little more and continued, ‘By chance, I was discussing the matter with one of the Justices now in the city, Gervase de Bosco, who, as you all know, is an archdeacon in Gloucester. He told me that almost a year ago, he was one of those holding the Eyre of Assize in Wiltshire. Two deaths were presented by the coroner there, one from Salisbury, the other from Devizes, which were never solved, no perpetrator ever being found.’

The others waited with interest upon the rest of the Archdeacon’s explanation.

‘The victims were both harlots, mutilated in an obscene way. One had also been damaged after death by fire. Other whores who frequented the same ale-houses as the dead girls told a vague story suggesting that a man with a priest’s tonsure had been the last man seen with the victims, but in the absence of any other evidence, nothing could come of the matter.’

There was a pregnant silence.

‘Murdered whores, mutilation and fires seem to recur often in this sad story,’ said the Bishop. ‘Have you anything to say on the matter, Adam of Dol?’

The priest’s pugnacious face jerked up defiantly. ‘Sin is sin, whether it be in Exeter, Salisbury or Devizes! It needs to be rooted out wherever it occurs.’

‘Which offers you your perverted pleasures at the same time, no doubt,’ said Henry Marshal dryly. ‘If that is the last of your sad catalogue, Archdeacon, then I have something to add, which I learnt only today.’

The company turned expectantly to their superior.

‘Since it became public knowledge that this deranged fellow had been apprehended, his own confessor came to me in great concern. Father William Angot, of the church of Holy Trinity, has been on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and only returned yesterday, so he knew nothing of the spate of killings during these past few weeks. Mindful of the sanctity of confession, he has been disconsolate about what to do but came to me for guidance. Though we accept that confessions are never disclosed, even to fellow priests, in the circumstances I gave a dispensation to Father William to divulge what he felt was relevant to this vile situation.’

‘You had no such right!’ howled Adam, his eyes bulging in a face almost puce with rage.

Ignoring his outburst, Henry Marshal continued in cold, even tones: ‘Though this evil man had not deigned to make confession for almost half a year, according to William Angot, in the past he has admitted to such strange behaviour and actions that his confessor urged him repeatedly both to desist and to seek counselling from higher authorities. He had suggested pilgrimages to Canterbury and even to Rome, but Adam rejected these notions with scorn.’

All eyes and ears were now on the Bishop, waiting to hear what came next,

‘From such confessions over several years, William gathered that the roots of this man’s madness are rooted in his childhood. His father treated him with contempt and his mother and a sister were confined by force in a nunnery, due to distressing afflictions of the mind. In his rejection, he began to torture small animals and developed a passion for fire, causing a number of conflagrations on their estate in Totnes. Eventually, his father disposed of him to the cathedral school in Wells, mainly, it seems, as a means of getting rid of a troublesome embarrassment.’

Adam began again to shout denials and curses and tried to move towards the dais on which his accusers sat, but the proctors and their henchmen restrained his struggles.

‘His so-called confessions became progressively more like the abuse and cant we are hearing from him today — which is another reason why I have sanctioned the limited revelation of his dealings with Father William. He admitted his fornication with harlots, thankfully well away from Exeter, and he gave broad hints about the revival of his fascination with fire and torture, which seem to have been manifest in a perverse degree in his preaching and those abominable paintings that desecrate the walls of St Mary the Less. I have been myself to see them today and have given orders that they be whitewashed over without delay.’

This provoked another howl of protest from Adam, who viewed the obliteration of his artwork as an even greater tragedy than his own arrest, but the Bishop was unmoved as he brought the interview dispassionately to an end.

‘Adam of Dol, it is the Consistory Court that will finally judge you, though I will appoint its chancellor and its members. At this stage, all I will do is to wonder whether you are totally deranged or totally evil. Whichever it is, there is no doubt that the Satan you claim to fight, has invaded your mind. Indeed, he seems to have been residing there since your childhood and it is a great pity that those who had the care and teaching of you in the early days of your church career did not cut out this perversity, root and branch.’ With the words, ‘Take this creature out of my sight’, he rose and, to the bows of his colleagues, turned to leave through the door behind his chair.

‘And that’s that, until the Consistory Court is convened next week,’ concluded John of Alençon later, over a flask of wine with his friend the coroner.

‘One thing puzzles me,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘His relationship with Ralph.’

De Wolfe told the whole story to Gwyn, Thomas and Nesta, when they were sitting at their table in the Bush on Saturday evening. The matter had been aired again that day in the Shire Hall, when John de Alençon, as Archdeacon of Exeter, had come to deliver his Bishop’s decision to the Justices.

‘Henry Marshal has done this to emphasise the Church’s independence of royal authority,’ commented the coroner sourly, ‘and I suspect he has used the opportunity to hint at his own partiality to Prince John by delivering a snub to King Richard in taking Adam out of the jurisdiction of his courts.’

‘I should have broken the bugger’s neck instead of his ribs when I pulled him off that ladder,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘It would have saved a lot of trouble.’

Nesta, resplendent in a new kirtle of fawn wool under her white linen apron, looked radiant and content, with her lover and friends around her. But she was rather hazy as to the outcome of this latest drama.

‘The Bishop refused to give this “Benefit of Clergy” to poor Thomas here,’ she said, ‘so why is this murderer so favoured? And what does it mean, anyway?’

‘Poor’ Thomas, as he seemed fated to be known from now on, provided her with an explanation himself, glad to be free of competition from the erudite Brother Rufus. ‘It’s existed for centuries in many countries, in one form or another — mainly to emphasise the Church’s superiority over kings and emperors, as the crowner said just now.’

‘It just seems a way of avoiding the harsh justice that the rest of us have to endure,’ objected Nesta.

Always a champion of his beloved Church, the clerk disagreed and explained further. ‘It doesn’t absolve priests from trial, but transfers their judgement to a different court. It had a great boost in England in old King Henry’s reign, when as part of his penance for having Thomas Becket killed’ — here he paused to make the Sign of the Cross — ‘he accepted the Church’s demand for recognition of Benefit of Clergy, which took them from the secular courts to the Bishop’s Consistory Court.’

‘So it’s entirely up to Henry Marshal what happens to this murdering bastard,’ grumbled Gwyn, wiping the ale from his moustache. ‘He can let him off if he wants to.’

‘It’s not that simple. The Consistory Court makes the final decision.’

‘Oh, come on! Who’s going to be brave enough to cross the Bishop, eh? He must already have some crafty scheme to deal with this madman.’

John was massaging Nesta’s thigh under the table, but he didn’t allow that pleasant pursuit to distract him from the conversation. ‘The Archdeacon told me that Henry Marshal is going to recommend that Adam be incarcerated in the Benedictine monastery of Mont St Michel in Normandy. It seems the Bishop is a friend of the Abbot there, and can ensure that the maniac works off his obsessions with hard labour for the rest of his life, carrying building stones up the mount for the new church on top. I think he’d probably prefer to be hanged.’

Thomas’s forgiving nature allowed him to feel a twinge of pity for Adam. He crossed himself again and said, ‘At least he’ll be near Dol, his birthplace, which is within sight of Mont St Michel.’

Nesta’s forehead wrinkled in thought. ‘I’ve heard somewhere that even men who are not really priests have been given this Benefit of Clergy. Can that be true?’

Again Thomas was the fount of knowledge. ‘It can happen, especially to those clerks in minor orders who can read but who are not yet ordained. The usual test is to give them the Vulgate and see if they can read the first sentence of the fifty-first Psalm — “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy loving kindness — according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.” ’

‘That bit of the Psalms is famous,’ observed the coroner. ‘It’s known as the “neck verse” because it’s saved many a cleric from the rope — and some who weren’t even in Orders of any kind!’

Gwyn snorted his disdain. ‘I could learn that off by heart, without being able to read.’

‘Maybe you better had — it might come in useful, in case you tumble any more priests out of their bell-towers,’ said de Wolfe, with a grin.

Nesta, having been further from the dramatic events of the past week or so, had a wider perspective of the whole affair and could see gaps in the story.

‘Why did Adam start on this mad crusade — and why at this particular time?’ she wondered aloud.

John shrugged, as the same question had bothered him. ‘Who can fathom the mind of someone as possessed as he was? As to the timing, I think the imminent arrival of the Justices triggered it. Maybe he wanted to show that his own brand of God-given retribution was more effective than man-made laws.’

‘Did he kill at random, d’you think?’ asked the Welshwoman.

‘He must have chosen his victims in advance,’ de Wolfe replied, ‘as he had to find appropriate texts. He seems to have put their faces on the wall of his church later, as he hadn’t got around to mine, unless he was about to add it when we caught him up that ladder.’

The others were silent for a moment, then Thomas asked, ‘How did he manage never to be seen at any of his killings? He was hardly a skinny wraith like me,’ he added.

‘Apart from the attack on Justice Serlo, they were all at dead of night and this city is hardly well lit,’ replied John. ‘A priest with his black robe and cowl is virtually invisible after dark, and if he’s challenged by the constables, he always has the excuse that he’s going to some church for Matins or to give the Last Offices to the dying.’

Gwyn agreed. ‘He’s lived in Exeter for years, and must know every lane and alleyway. I suppose he stalked his victims and struck when the best opportunity arose.’

‘He certainly stalked me to good effect!’ said John, pointing ruefully to his head. His turban-like bandage was gone, but he still had a very sore spot on his scalp.

Swallowing the last of his ale, de Wolfe prepared to leave. He had spent precious little time at home this past week and wished to avoid damaging Matilda’s fairly benign mood. She had been relieved that events had concealed her brother’s folly in Waterbeer Street and also that her own niggling doubts about Julian Fulk had been dispelled. In addition, the public acclamation of her husband’s success in unmasking the Gospel killer had significantly notched up her standing within her social circle — especially since another feast for the Justices, this time at Rougemont, had given her another opportunity to display both her finery and her famous husband.

As John stood up, he put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘I spoke to your uncle when he was at the court today. He’ll no doubt talk to you himself, but it seems that the Bishop is a little conscience-stricken at refusing you Benefit of Clergy when you were in such dire trouble and then proved innocent. He has hinted that he might withdraw his objections to your eventual return to Holy Orders.’

The clerk’s face lit up as if a shaft of sunlight had struck it. Tears appeared in his eyes and he clutched at the sleeve of his master’s tunic. ‘God preserve you, Crowner! But even if I am restored, I will remain your clerk for a long while yet. You may again need someone who can interpret the scriptures for you!’

Next morning, de Wolfe ambled up to his chamber above the gatehouse of Rougemont, partly to get out of the house on a Sunday and also to give Brutus some exercise: the old hound’s joints were getting stiff.

With the dog resting by his feet under the table, he spent a few minutes studying his reading lessons, badly neglected during the recent busy weeks. Soon bored and thirsty, he rose to look for Gwyn’s store of cider, which he kept in a large jar in the corner of the barren room. The Cornishman’s frayed leather jerkin, discarded in the warmer weather, was draped over the two-gallon pot and when John pulled it off, something fell out of the large poacher’s pocket inside. It was one of Thomas’s little pottery jars of ink, a curious thing for the illiterate Gwyn to be carrying. Intrigued, de Wolfe dipped his hand into the pocket and pulled out a quill pen and a ragged piece of blank parchment.

Sitting back at the trestle, he felt in the pouch on his belt and pulled out the folded note with the text from Ecclesiastes that had been left at the scene of his own assault. When he put the irregular margins of the two fragments of parchment together, they fitted exactly. Staring at them with slowly dawning comprehension, John now knew why Gwyn had chosen to make his own private visit to the clerk on the last evening before he was due to be hanged. The Cornishman must have overcome Thomas’s resignation to a welcome release from this world and persuaded him to use his accomplishments with a pen to forge a note in a disguised hand, similar to that left with the dead Jew.

Slowly, de Wolfe sat back on his stool. A lopsided grin creased his face as he put up a hand to feel the still-tender swelling on the back of his head.

‘Thank you, Gwyn,’ he said quietly. ‘But now I owe you one!’