The Grim Reaper

CHAPTER THREE

De Wolfe had instructed Gwyn earlier to round up all those involved in the discovery of the moneylender’s body and have them at the Shire Hall in Rougemont by the tenth hour of the morning.

He arrived at the bare stone building as the distant cathedral bell was tolling for High Mass, the sixth of the nine daily services. The hall was the venue for the sheriff’s fortnightly County Court and would also house the long-awaited Eyre of Assize and General Eyre the following week. John used it for most inquests in the city: desolate though it was, at least it provided a roof over his head. A n open archway led into a large barren chamber, with an earth floor and a knee-high wooden platform at one end, with trestle tables, stools and a high-backed chair favoured by the sheriff. De Wolfe hoped that de Revelle and the castle constable, Ralph Morin, would make some effort before next week to improve the place for the King’s Justices. However, it was adequate for the brief inquest that he was obliged to hold on the moneylender.

As he arrived, Gwyn was marshalling a score of men in front of the platform, cursing good-naturedly and pushing them into a ragged line. These were the jury, dragged reluctantly from their daily work in Southgate Street. As John climbed on to the dais and sat down, he saw that the fletcher who had found the body and the Saxon constable were present, along with a couple more faces he recognised as having been at the scene of the death. Thomas de Peyne was seated at a table, already pulling out his ink, pens and parchments.

De Wolfe yawned as he waited for Gwyn to get organised — he had been roused from his bed earlier than usual and was beginning to feel the effects. As the gingery giant harassed the motley crowd into some sort of order, a garrison soldier arrived with a small handcart, on which a long shape was covered with a coarse cloth. The man wheeled it into the hall and left it immediately below the coroner, where he sat in the centre of the platform. ‘Here’s the corpse, Crowner. I was told to bring him from our cart-shed.’

De Wolfe nodded and the man-at-arms left, passing a rather dandified figure in the archway. De Wolfe was surprised to see that the newcomer was Hugh de Relaga, one of Exeter’s two Portreeves, the leaders of the city burgesses. Some cities were now electing mayors, but although there was talk of it, Exeter had not done so yet. The short, rotund merchant strutted to the platform and hauled himself up to sit on a stool alongside the coroner.

‘What brings you here, Hugh?’ asked John, with one of his rare grins. ‘You should be in your counting house, increasing our fortune.’ He and the Portreeve had a wool-exporting business with a warehouse on the quayside. De Wolfe played no part in the trading, but had invested in it much of the loot he had accumulated in foreign campaigns, and the burgess’s skill in buying and selling made them both a comfortable profit each year.

The fat little merchant was puffing with the exertion of hurrying up to the castle and produced a yellow silk kerchief to mop his brow. ‘I heard about Aaron’s murder from our constable. He lent money to a number of tradesmen in the city, including one or two burgesses, I suspect.’

De Wolfe looked down at him from his chair. ‘I doubt he was killed because of any money transactions, Hugh. He certainly wasn’t robbed.’

De Relaga, resplendent even at mid-morning in a scarlet tunic and a blue mantle, with a close fitting helmet of red silk tied under his chin with tapes, dabbed at his face. ‘Thank God for that, John. I was afraid that some debtor had decided to cancel the loan by beating him to death.’

By now, Gwyn was yelling for silence and when the jurymen and witnesses had quietened down, he yelled out the Royal Summons in a voice that sent the starlings flapping from the roof-beams: ‘Anyone having anything to do before the King’s coroner for the county of Devon touching the death of Aaron of Salisbury, draw near and give your attendance!’

The jurymen shuffled uncomfortably, raising dust which danced in the shafts of bright sunlight that struck through the archway. De Wolfe leaned forward, like some great black bird about to strike with the long beak of his nose. ‘Let the First Finder step forward.’

The small man who had visited the Jew early that morning was prodded by Gwyn to stand alongside the death cart, just beneath the forbidding figure of the coroner. He confirmed that he was Rufus Fletcher, and when Gwyn lifted the cloth over the cadaver’s face, he identified the dead man as Aaron of Salisbury. Then he repeated the story he had told de Wolfe a few hours earlier. ‘… I knocked up the four nearest householders, then sent for the constable,’ he concluded virtuously. Here he paused to consider the safest course, then added, ‘We didn’t start a hue-and-cry, Crowner. It was pointless as the old fellow was as stiff as plank so he must have been dead for hours.’

This echoed what de Wolfe had told the sheriff, and after a few more questions, which produced nothing useful, the arrow-maker stepped back thankfully into the crowd, relieved that he hadn’t been amerced for some legal transgression, which had become so common at inquests as to be almost a routine form of taxation.

The coroner looked over his shoulder to check that Thomas de Peyne was keeping the record, then turned back to his captive audience. ‘As to presentment of Englishry, it is both impossible and unnecessary,’ he barked. ‘It is well known that the dead man was a Jew, which is sufficient for the law.’

Since the Conquest, anyone found dead was presumed to be a Norman and a heavy ‘murdrum’ fine imposed on the surrounding community as a penalty for assassinating one of the invaders. The process was fast becoming ridiculous, as it was well over a century since the Normans had seized England and it was increasingly difficult to define who was a Norman, rather than a Saxon or Celt. However, the fines were a lucrative source of income to the Crown and the only way they could be avoided was for the family of the deceased to swear before the coroner that he was English. De Wolfe took a fair, common-sense view of the issue, unlike some coroners who would do their utmost to extract the fine, especially if they could divert some of it into their own purse.

Now de Wolfe gestured to Gwyn, who again dragged the covering from the upper part of the old man’s corpse, then walked to the edge of the dais, with Hugh de Relaga peering inquisitively alongside him.

‘You jurymen, gather round,’ he commanded, in his sonorous voice. ‘You have a duty to examine the cadaver with me, every one of you.’

The jury shuffled closer, some of them rheumy old men, others just lads; all males over the age of ten were eligible for this service.

‘Gwyn, lift up his head!’

The officer grabbed the ears of the corpse and lifted it clear of the table. Rigor mortis had stiffened the neck and the shoulders rose from the cart, so that the matted blood at the back of the head was visible to the gaping jury.

‘He has had a grievous blow to the cranium,’ declared John. ‘There seems to be no breakage of the bone, but certainly he would have lost his senses.’ He motioned to Gwyn, who let the head drop with a thump.

‘Show them the bag,’ he commanded. Gwyn reached under the legs of the body, pulled out the leather money-bag and held it up to show the jury, pushing a fist inside to display how wide and deep it was.

‘This pouch was over his head, the drawstrings tightened about his neck.’ He gestured again to Gwyn, who handed the leather bag to the nearest member of the jury, who took it gingerly, as if it might bite him. As it was passed from hand to hand, de Wolfe continued, ‘You will see that it is strong and has tight seams. It would easily have cut off the victim’s air, especially if he was out of his wits from the blow on his head and could do nothing to save himself.’

Gwyn retrieved the money-bag, restored it to the cart, then covered up the old man for decency’s sake. The jury gaped up at the coroner, waiting for the finale of his performance.

‘I have no other evidence to offer you,’ rasped de Wolfe, who had decided to omit the news about the Gospel text as being none of their concern. ‘Now, does any man among you know anything useful about the death of this man?’ He glared along the row of faces huddled around the handcart. He expected the jury to provide information as well as a verdict.

There were a few muttered denials. The less any man became involved with the law, the safer it was for him. Every step of the legal process was beset with penalties if things went wrong.

‘Did any of you know anything of Aaron’s life? Some of you were traders in that street and must know something of him,’ snapped de Wolfe. He glared at the man Gwyn had appointed foreman, a cloth merchant from a shop near the Jew’s house. ‘You, surely you had some knowledge of him?’

The serge-trader shrugged dismissively. ‘I knew him slightly, Crowner, just to pass the time of day. He kept very much to himself.’

‘All his clients came to him so he didn’t need to venture out much,’ added a stall-holder from Southgate Street. ‘Some of us borrowed a few marks from him when times were difficult. He was a fair man, given the trade he was in.’

There were murmurs of agreement.

‘Anything else? Was there ever any trouble in his shop? Did anyone ever attack or threaten him?’

There was silence as each man looked at his neighbour and shook his head.

‘Do you know if any priests were customers of his?’ demanded the coroner.

This obscure question was met with some blank stares, and a few titters.

The stall-holder spoke up again. ‘It would be a strange usurer who didn’t have clerks as clients, Crowner. Some of our canons have expensive tastes in food and wine.’

‘And women!’ came a hoarse whisper from behind someone’s hand.

‘People who patronise Aaron and his like don’t wish to advertise their visits,’ the foreman went on. ‘They tend to slink into his doorway like a fox into a culvert, for there’s shame in being short of money.’

A few more questions soon confirmed de Wolfe’s expectations that nothing new would be learned, so he directed the jury briefly as to their verdict: ‘This inquest has established that the deceased was Aaron of Salisbury and that he was not a Norman, even though no presentment of Englishry can be made. It is also obvious that he met his death in his domicile in this city of Exeter on …’ He paused and cleared his throat noisily, while he turned to flick his fingers at Thomas who was writing busily. ‘On whatever date it is, in the seventh year of the reign of King Richard.’ He jutted his chin at the jury as if challenging them to contradict him, then concluded, in a loud voice, ‘It is obvious that he died of a blow to the pate and mortal suffocation from that bag being tied over his head. That cannot be an Act of God, or an accident or self-inflicted, so it has to have been murder.’

He raised his voice almost to a shout at the end and glared at the cluster of citizens below him. ‘Now give me your verdict, foreman.’

There was a hurried hissing of whispers. Then the cloth merchant raised his face to the coroner. ‘We find it was murder, Sir John, by persons unknown.’

After the unsurprising result, the jury hurried away, eager to make up for an hour of lost business, while Gwyn trundled the handcart back to the shed on the opposite side of the inner ward. In the Shire Hall, John de Wolfe and Hugh de Relaga sat down at the trestle table to wait while Thomas completed the inquest roll in his impeccable script.

‘This is a strange business, John, if you say that the old fellow wasn’t robbed,’ said de Relaga. He knew most of the commercial gossip of the city, being a Guild Master as well as a leader of the council, and the abrupt cancellation of debts, now that the lender was defunct, might help several of his fellow merchants. ‘Had you better go through his ledgers, John, to see if anyone might have profited considerably by his death?’

De Wolfe had already decided to ask Thomas to do this, but he felt obliged to tell his friend about the parchment found on the body. ‘So it looks as if some aggrieved priest might have killed him,’ he finished.

The wool-merchant dabbed again at his round, red face. ‘That could be a bluff, John, making it look like some deranged cleric to cover up the real purpose of escaping from a money bond.’

John shrugged. ‘It could be, I suppose. But how many of your burgess friends can read, write and quote the Gospels?’

‘Many can pen a few words or have some clerk who is more proficient — not all accounting is done on tally-sticks these days. But I admit you have a point. Few of my acquaintances could quote you more than two lines from the Holy Book.’

When Thomas was ready to pack up his writing materials, the coroner and his gaudy friend stepped down from the platform and strolled outside into the spring sunshine. As they crossed the castle bailey towards the gatehouse, Hugh reflected again on the death of the moneylender. ‘What will you do with the corpse? He obviously can’t be buried in the cathedral Close like everyone else.’

‘I’m going down to see the Archdeacon now. He’s most likely to know about such things.’

‘Has the old man got relatives? I seem to remember that the Jews have strict rules about quick burials. There are a few others of his faith in the city that could be asked.’

‘There is a daughter in Honiton. The castle sergeant sent a messenger this morning to seek her out, but even if he finds her, she’ll not get to Exeter before tomorrow.’

They walked in silence, until de Relaga spoke again. ‘This note from the scriptures … Is it possible to name a man from his penmanship?’

De Wolfe stopped in his tracks and looked down at the Portreeve. ‘I don’t know, Hugh — I’ve never thought about it. Isn’t all script much the same?’ As neither man could write more than his name, differences in handwriting were outside the experience of both.

‘I’ll ask that snivelling clerk of mine,’ said John. ‘He knows all about pens and parchment and suchlike. Though how we’d go about such a test is beyond me.’

It was approaching the time for the midday meal and when they reached the corner of Martin’s Lane, de Relaga trotted off to his comfortable house near Carfoix to enjoy his usual large dinner.

De Wolfe walked past his own home, glancing furtively at the door in case Matilda appeared. He carried on past the farrier’s opposite, where his horse Odin was stabled, then continued across the front of St Martin’s church on the corner of the Close. Though he saw the small building several times a day, he looked at it now with renewed interest, as he had at every one of the parish churches he had passed that day. Did this one house a murderous priest, he wondered.

He loped past the first few houses of Canon’s Row, which was the continuation of Martin’s Lane forming the northern boundary of the Close, with the huge bulk of the cathedral towering above him to his right. His gaze rose unbidden to the narrow builder’s gallery that ran along the outside of the nave, just below roof level and almost forty feet above the ground. Just before it met the massive projection of the North Tower, there was still a faint pale smear running down the masonry, where Thomas’s cloak had rubbed off some of the lichen from the stones when he had made his unsuccessful suicide bid some weeks earlier. If that garment had not snagged on a protruding water-spout halfway down and broken his fall …

De Wolfe sighed at the memory, and forged on past the large, closely packed houses until he reached the dwelling of Archdeacon John de Alençon. There were four archdeacons, each responsible for one part of the huge diocese of Devon and Cornwall. De Alençon’s responsibility was the city of Exeter, the most populous area with some four thousand inhabitants served by those numerous parish churches.

The house was tall and narrow, and stretched back a long way to the yard behind, with a privy, kitchen-shed and laundry-hut. The canons’ houses were all different, with varying frontages and roofs, but all were spacious enough to accommodate a priest, sometimes his vicar, and a number of servants.

The canons were expected to offer hospitality to visitors and to hold regular feasts for the benefit of prominent citizens and senior clergy. Many enjoyed this festive existence, being fond of luxuries and good living. The Spartan precepts of Bishop Leofric who, in the previous century, had introduced the strict Rule of St Chrodegang had long been forgotten by most, but John de Alençon was an exception. An ascetic man, he kept his house simply furnished, had but three servants and, apart from a moderate appreciation of fine French wine, appeared free of vices.

His bottler showed de Wolfe into the Archdeacon’s study, which was also his bedroom. The only furniture was a pallet in one corner, a plain table with two chairs and a large wooden crucifix on the wall. De Alençon rose from the table where he had been studying a bulky leatherbound book. His thin face broke into a warm smile as he greeted his friend, the lined brow and cheeks lit up by the bright blue eyes. He grasped de Wolfe’s arm in welcome, and motioned to his servant to bring wine.

Moments later, they were seated across the table from each other, a cup of best Anjou red in their hands, with a stone jug between them for replenishment.

‘How is that poor nephew of mine faring?’ asked de Alençon.

‘I sometimes fear for his sanity,’ said John. ‘He’s taken to talking to himself a lot and he glares at the world as if he hates its very existence — but at least he’s not tried to kill himself lately.’ He took a long sip from his cup, savouring the flavour of the French grapes. ‘I suppose you’ve heard nothing more about any possibility of his being received back into the Church?’

The Archdeacon shook his head sadly. ‘As I told you before, John, it seems quite impossible. There are forces working against him because they wish to see you shamed.’ There was a short silence as he refilled their cups then looked at his friend with a quizzical smile. ‘But you didn’t come here to talk about Thomas?’

The coroner shook his head. ‘I have a couple of questions for you. You’re always a fount of knowledge when I need it.’

The senior cleric smiled gently. Painfully thin, his plain black cassock fell loosely about his narrow shoulders. The short, crinkled hair that covered his head was grey, though he was barely a dozen years older than de Wolfe’s forty summers.

‘I’ll do what I can, John. I doubt you wish to discuss theology.’

The coroner’s first question was about the burial of the murdered Jew.

‘I’ve heard about the killing,’ replied the Archdeacon. ‘That house belongs to our Chapter. The Treasurer’s clerk was muttering this morning that, as a tenant, the cloth merchant had no right to rent out those rooms.’ He rubbed his long thin nose. ‘I claim no real knowledge of Jewish funeral rites. I expect you know as well as I that they do their utmost to bury their dead before the next nightfall.’

‘That’s impossible in this case,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘We’re waiting for the daughter to come from Honiton tomorrow.’

‘Is it really impossible?’ answered de Alençon gently. ‘If she has the body taken away, the delay will be even greater. Why not bury it today? There are other Jews in Exeter who would gladly see to the arrangements.’

‘The daughter may wish to see her father’s body. And where can we bury him? Surely your Church would not welcome him in one of their grave-pits.’

De Alençon smiled sadly. ‘Certainly that would be impossible. Unlike some of my brethren, I feel great sympathy for his race, especially since the tragic disgrace in York and other cities, which followed King Richard’s Coronation. But there is now a small plot outside the walls in Southernhay which those of the Hebrew faith have purchased for a cemetery.’

The coroner chewed this over in his mind. ‘Maybe I’ll do that. Then his daughter can decide later what she wants done with him.’

De Alençon prompted his friend to ask the other question he had mentioned.

‘The same issue, really,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘This old fellow’s murder last night.’ As he related the story of the Gospel quotation he fished in the pouch on his belt and handed over the creased scrap of parchment.

After de Alençon had studied it, he handed it back and gazed steadily at his friend. ‘You’re wondering who could write and quote the Scriptures, other than a priest?’

The coroner nodded. ‘As usual, it was your nephew who spotted that straight away. Then Hugh de Relaga suggested that whoever wrote this might be traced by his penmanship. Is that possible?’

The Archdeacon pursed his lips dubiously. ‘I’ve never considered the matter before, John, but when I was in Winchester years ago, I was in charge of the scriptorium for a while and I could certainly have put a name to the writer of each document from the style in which he used his quill.’ He looked quizzically at de Wolfe.

‘But where would you start? There must be over a hundred clerics in Exeter, counting all the canons, vicarschoral and parish priests. Even the young secondaries and some of the choristers can read and write, you know.’

‘I doubt we need to consider the juniors in this. You are the Archdeacon of Exeter, so you must know all the parish priests. Are any of them strange or unstable?’

De Alençon smiled wryly. ‘We have our share of peculiar people in the Church, just as in any other walk of life, but no one that I would consider a potential killer.’

The coroner waved the parchment at him before he tucked it back into his belt-pouch. ‘What do you read into this, then? Is the perpetrator following some godly command from the Bible that he casts out the moneylender from the temple? And is he likely to go on cleaning up the city, like some holy vigilante?’

The Archdeacon shrugged. ‘Perhaps he just hates Jews, which is not uncommon now in England.’

They discussed the affair until the wine jug ran dry and John’s stomach told him it was past time now for the midday meal.

He left the Archdeacon pondering on potentially wayward priests in his diocese and made his way back the short distance to the house in Martin’s Lane. When he entered his high, sombre hall, Matilda was already well into her dinner, seated at one end of the long oak table that was the main item of furniture in the gloomy chamber. She was ladling more of Mary’s hare stew from an earthenware pot into a wooden bowl, but paused to glower up at her husband as he sat down opposite. ‘You were late, as usual, so I began without you,’ she snapped. Along with religion, eating was Matilda’s main interest in life. Her appetite almost equalled Gwyn’s.

Mary came in with more bread and a quart of ale for her master, who drew a small knife from his belt and, with the aid of a large spoon carved from a cow’s horn, loaded his own bowl with stew. They ate silently for a few minutes, until John felt obliged to start a conversation, if only to fend off the sulky cloud that he sensed appearing over his wife’s head.

He told her about the murder of the moneylender that morning, which failed to grab her interest: Matilda classed Jews with Saxons and Celts as beneath the consideration of a Norman lady. Though she had been born in Devon and had spent but a few months of her forty-six years with distant relatives across the Channel, she acted as if she was a high-born Norman in exile in this inferior land. It was a matter of shame to her that even her husband was part Celt, his mother half Welsh and half Cornish.

However, when John came to the part of the story about the Gospel text, Matilda’s ears pricked up, for Church business was her favourite subject. Suddenly he remembered that she had a compendious knowledge of Exeter’s clergy, which might be useful to him. ‘The Archdeacon agrees with me, that the most likely culprit is a priest. Can you think of any cleric in the city who might be evil enough to do this?’

He had phrased his question badly, for she bridled at his words. ‘Indeed, I do not! They are almost all devout and righteous men — some are saints.’ She was incensed that her irreligious husband should cast such aspersions on her heroes.

Then her tone became a little less harsh. ‘Admittedly, there are some priests whose characters leave something to be desired. A few are fond of drink or women — though those failings are shared by most men,’ she added sarcastically. ‘But a murderer among our clergy? Never!’

But her husband sensed she was not as emphatic as her words implied and persisted in his question. ‘But who among them might have some hidden vice, do you think?’

Flattered against her better judgement to be asked for her opinion about her beloved priests, she twisted her square face into a grimace of concentration. ‘Well, Robert Cheever of St Petroc is certainly too fond of the wine cask. He has been helped to his lodgings more than once after falling in the street,’ she answered grudgingly. ‘And Peter Tyler of St Bartholomew’s lives in sin with that old hag who cleans the church. What he sees in her is beyond my comprehension.’ Warming to her theme she dipped deeper into the vat of gossip, filled by her cronies at St Olave’s. ‘I did hear tell, though there’s no proof, that Ranulph Burnell of Holy Trinity was overly fond of the young choristers at the cathedral.’

She threw down her spoon with a clatter. ‘But that’s no reason to suspect any of them of being a killer. Maybe you and the Archdeacon would be better employed in looking among some of the canons and their vicars down in the Close — there’s some odd characters there, God knows.’

Matilda glared at her husband and threw a final jibe at him, which echoed her brother’s remark earlier that day.

‘And if you are really seeking a weird priest, why look further than that perverted clerk of yours!’

There was a silence while Mary cleared the bowls and set down a dish of raisins imported from France. When she left, with a sly wink at John from beyond her mistress’s back, he once again pulled out the piece of parchment from his purse and showed it to his wife, still hoping to coax her away from her threatened black mood. ‘This was left with the corpse.’

She studied it, although like her husband she was unable to read it, as only one person in a hundred was literate. He explained the translation that Thomas had given him, that it was an apt quotation from the Gospel according to St Mark. ‘You don’t need to tell me, I know the passage well,’ she snapped, but she held the scrap of palimpsest reverently for a moment, then handed it back.

‘It may be possible to match the handwriting with whoever scribed it,’ he observed. ‘Only a priest would think of a trick like this and have the ability to write it.’

Grudgingly, she agreed. ‘One of the law clerks or my brother’s scribes could write the words but probably only a cleric would know the text.’ Now hooked on the mystery, Matilda had a new thought. ‘That’s obviously a copy made from a Gospel, isn’t it?’

Her husband stared at her, not understanding.

‘Yes, there’s blank space above and below it, nothing else,’ he said. ‘It’s not an actual leaf from a Bible.’

‘Then it must have been penned by a priest,’ she brayed triumphantly. ‘An unholy layman might have torn the page from a Vulgate, but a priest would revere the Holy Book too much to desecrate it. And he would know that copies of the Gospel are precious and expensive. He must have copied the passage out, even at the risk of having his script recognised.’

De Wolfe grunted his acceptance of her reasoning, though as he had assumed all along that the culprit was in Holy Orders, her assurance took him no further in identifying the villain. After a few more minutes of profitless discussion, Matilda abruptly pushed back her stool and announced that she was retiring to her solar for her customary nap before attending Vespers at St Olave’s.

After she had stumped off to command Lucille to prepare her for her rest, John took his pot of ale to one of the cowled monk’s chairs set alongside the hearth. Though the house was of timber, he had had this great stone fireplace, copied from one at a manor in France, constructed against the back wall. It was his pride and joy. Its tapering chimney rose up to the roof-beams to carry out the choking smoke that used to fill the chamber from the old fire-pit in the centre of the floor.

With his hound squatting alongside him to have his ears fondled, de Wolfe sat quietly until he judged that his wife would be snoring in their solar. Then, with a low whistle to Brutus, he left the hall, picked up a grey surcoat in the vestibule and let himself out into the lane. Taking the same route that he and Gwyn had followed at dawn, he went into the cathedral Close and strode along the rubbish-strewn paths between the grave-pits. Brutus loped hither and thither, sniffing at each pile of refuse and cocking his leg against every bush until they came through Bear Gate into the busy market street where the old Jew had died.

De Wolfe ignored the scene of the crime and dived into the lanes opposite, which led steeply down towards the river, where the West Gate and Water Gate lay. The alleys were crowded with the usual throng of porters carrying bales of wool, men pushing carts and barrows loaded with goods. Traders shouted the merits of their wares from their stalls, and hawkers pushed trays of sweetmeats, pies and trinkets under his nose. Beggars rattled coins in their bowls at him and cripples and blind men held out hands hopefully for alms.

As he went down the slope, the houses improved somewhat as the lane became Priest Street,^fn1 where most of the parish priests and many of the vicars and secondaries lodged. As he passed the narrow dwellings, John wondered if somewhere within them lurked a cleric of a murderous nature.

A short distance into the ecclesiastical ghetto, he turned right into Idle Lane, a short track leading across to the junction of Stepcote Hill and Smythen Street, where the smiths and metal-workers had their shops and forges. The lane’s name came from the bare plot left by a fire some years ago, which had not yet been rebuilt. Only the Bush Inn had survived: its stone walls had resisted the fire that had engulfed its timber-built neighbours.

As he neared the tavern, de Wolfe’s loping stride slowed and Brutus was now well ahead. De Wolfe, a tiger of the Crusades and a warrior afraid of no man, was fearful at the prospect of facing his former mistress, the landlady of the Bush. After falling out with her more than a month ago, he had avoided the tavern until now, but the thought of Nesta’s sweet face — and an admitted ache in his loins — had helped him screw up enough courage to visit what had been almost his home-from-home. Yet as his dragging feet took him ever more slowly along the few yards of Idle Lane, he felt the unfamiliar signs of panic as he imagined a sharp confrontation with the comely Welsh woman. He stopped fifty paces from the inn and looked anxiously at it, as if he might be able to see through the walls and gauge what sort of reception he might have. The Bush was square, with a high steep thatch that came down almost to head height. At the front there was a pair of windows, one to each side of the door, and along the wall nearest to him was a hitching rail for patrons’ horses, which ran back to a gate into the yard behind. Here the kitchen shed, the brew-house and the wash-hut shared a dusty patch with the privy.

For a moment, he considered sneaking in through the back door to spy out the situation, but then his pride got the upper hand. With a muttered oath at his own foolishness, he strode to the heavy oak front door, over which hung a large bundle of twigs to indicate the tavern’s name to its illiterate patrons.

With his dog at his heels, he ducked under the lintel and went inside. Immediately, nostalgia overtook him as he savoured the eye-smarting atmosphere of woodsmoke, spilt ale, stale sweat and cooking. When his eyes adjusted to the haze and the dim light from the shuttered windows, he saw that there were only a dozen or so people in the single big room: it was mid-afternoon and still quiet.

The murmur of conversation dropped as he walked to his favourite bench near the empty hearth. Heads turned, then drooped away to whisper to each other. The coroner’s liaison with the inn-keeper was common knowledge, as was their recent rift, and his sudden reappearance was good fodder for gossip, but the other customers were careful not to whisper too loudly. They knew that the short-tempered knight was quite capable of cuffing the head of anyone he suspected of making personal remarks about him.

He dropped down on to the bench with Brutus against his knees under the rough table. Almost immediately, a clay pot containing a quart of ale was banged down on the scrubbed boards. ‘Good to see you again, Cap’n,’ wheezed the old potman, his one good eye swivelling independently of the horrible whiteness of the other, which had been speared, years before, at the battle of Wexford. De Wolfe had been in the same Irish campaign and old Edwin had great respect for him. De Wolfe grunted at him, though he was fond of the aged rascal, who was often a useful source of news.

‘You’re the only serving man here, these days, I hope?’ he rasped.

Edwin grinned back, tapping the side of his pockmarked nose. ‘She’s not taken on any more young men from Dorset, that’s for sure. Learnt her lesson, I reckon.’ He looked furtively towards the back of the smoky room as he hissed the words.

‘Where is she, then?’ De Wolfe asked, gruffly to hide his unease.

‘Upstairs, Cap’n. She spends a mortal lot of time in bed these days — on her own, though!’ he added, with a leer, then limped away, his twisted leg another legacy of his days as a man-at-arms in Strongbow’s army. John sat supping the ale, which was widely acknowledged to be the best in Exeter, thanks to Nesta’s prowess in brewing. He turned on his bench to survey the room, half relieved that the auburn-haired landlady was not yet in sight. Most of the other drinkers, the majority of whom he knew well, were studiously avoiding his gaze, though one or two caught his eye and gave a nod.

As usual, there were a few strangers too, mostly merchants and craftsmen passing through the city. In a far corner, a few clustered around a table in the company of a couple of whores, who used the inns to pick up their clients. In a community of only a few thousand people, de Wolfe knew most of the harlots by sight, but one was new to him. She was a handsome, if somewhat raddled, girl of about twenty, noticeable because of her bright red wig, her low-cut scarlet kirtle, and the boldly striped hood of her green cloak, the trademark of a Southwark whore. He wondered why she was plying her trade so far from London. Still, he had had no need of strumpets since he had returned from the wars three years ago and his interest in her was merely passing curiosity.

His eyes moved to the back of the low chamber, where Edwin was drawing off ale and cider from a row of casks wedged up along the rear wall. Near him was a wide ladder that led to the upper floor beneath the roof. The sight of it triggered his nostalgia again. How many times had he climbed it, following Nesta to her tiny room, partitioned off from the open sleeping floor where the overnight guests rented a penny mattress? He had spent so many pleasant afternoons up there — and a few nights when he could arrange an alibi. He had even bought his mistress a fine French bed, a luxury indeed in a time when most folk slept on a palliasse on the floor.

The time went on, and de Wolfe was on his third jug of ale. There was still no sign of Nesta and soon his bladder complained of the quantity he had drunk. Rising, he went out through the back door and relieved himself against the rickety fence beyond the wash-house. On his return, he stopped alongside Edwin, who was pouring ale slops from a leather bucket back into one of the casks. ‘No sign of the mistress, then? Does she often stay abed this long?’

‘No telling what she’ll do these days, Crowner. She’s lost some of her spirit, I reckon, since that young bastard ran off with her money. She leaves much of the running of the tavern to the two wenches and myself.’

John rumbled in his throat, a sound that might have meant almost anything. ‘I’ll just finish my jar, then be off.’ He decided he would stay until he heard the distant cathedral bell ring out for Vespers.

‘Shall I tell her you were seeking her?’

De Wolfe shook his head, his face grim. ‘If she’s not down in a few minutes, forget I was here,’ he said. When he slumped back on to his bench, even Brutus seemed to gaze up at him forlornly.

A few feet above his head, the landlady of the Bush was oblivious of his presence below her. She lay on the French bed in her shift, having pulled off her working gown and linen coif so that her mane of dark red hair flowed over the folded sheepskin that did service as a pillow.

As she stared up at the woven hazel branches that supported the thatch, her mind wandered for the thousandth time over the events of the past few weeks. Life seemed so flat and empty, a dull routine of brewing, cooking and chivvying the tavern servants. The brief excitement of Alan of Lyme had soon turned into shameful betrayal when he had run off with a week’s takings and one of her maids. Her dalliance with him had been born partly of flattery from a smooth-tongued younger man but also as an act of defiance against John, whose devotion to his duties had come before his devotion to her.

She shifted uneasily on the woollen blankets, as she also admitted to herself that the break from him had been an acknowledgement of the hopelessness of their affair. He was a Norman knight and the second most senior law officer in the county, married to the sister of the sheriff. Though the marriage was a hollow shell, there was no way in which it could be broken — and even if Matilda were to die, what king’s coroner would marry a lowly tavern-keeper?

Nesta tried to convince herself that she had ended the affair mainly for his sake, to rid him of the encumbrance of a common ale-house woman, but her heart told her that this was not true. She had been piqued that he had stayed away so much and for so long, and the sudden appearance of a good-looking young man, with his blandishments and flattery, had caught her at a vulnerable time.

Now she was regretting it deeply, especially as she had rejected John’s clumsy attempts at reconciliation when Alan had decamped with her money and her prettiest servant. Her pride had provoked her into sending the coroner away, with a bitter message about their future. He had not been near her since and the passing weeks had made any hope of mutual forgiveness fade to nothing.

She was still young, barely twenty-eight, and knew she was as attractive a widow as could be found anywhere in the city. Had she so wished, she could have found a decent man without difficulty — one who would marry her and help her run the inn, as her Meredydd had done when they first came to Exeter. But the zest had ebbed from her life and as she lay staring up at the dusty rafters, she wondered if she should sell up and go home to Gwent, back to her own people.

Her eyes filled with tears of despair and self-pity, but she brushed them away angrily as she heard the cathedral bell tolling. It was time to pull herself together and get down to her neglected business. Swinging herself from the couch, she looped up her long hair and crammed it into the linen helmet, then stepped into her long green kirtle before trying an ankle-length hessian apron around her waist. By the time she had laced her shoes around her ankles and climbed down the ladder, the table near the hearth was empty.