The Witch Hunter

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In the late afternoon, the two men rode in through the South Gate and as they walked their tired horses up the hill to Carfoix, John sensed that many of the people they passed seemed either to shy away or give them uneasy stares. They were not hostile and some gave a civil touch of the hand to their temples, but it was as if they expected that the return of the coroner would start some new crisis in the city. Gwyn felt it too and looked up questioningly at the clear sky. ‘Feels like we’re waiting for a thunderstorm!’ he grunted. ‘What in hell’s the matter with everyone?’

They got at least part of the answer when they came level with the new Guildhall in High Street. Standing outside, talking to his clerk, was the flamboyant figure of Hugh de Relaga, one of the city’s portreeves and the active partner in John’s wool venture. Dressed in a bright red tunic with a vivid green surcoat over it, he usually had a smile on his tubby face, but today he looked decidedly unhappy. He stepped into the narrow street and held up a hand to the coroner. ‘You’re back, John. Many wish you hadn’t left the city these past couple of days.’

De Wolfe stared down at him, uncomprehending. ‘What’s happened?’

‘That underhanded scut of a sheriff has hanged them already! As soon as your back was turned, he held a special court yesterday, to which the cathedral proctors delivered those two women. He convicted and sentenced them within ten minutes and they were taken to Heavitree this morning.’

Heavitree was where the huge gallows stood, at the far end of Magdalen Street, a mile east of the city. John groaned and Gwyn spat out some of the foulest language he could muster.

‘The evil turd!’ snarled the coroner. ‘His days may be numbered, but he’s making as much trouble as he can before he goes. Did no one try to stop him?’

‘What could anyone do?’ wailed the portly burgess. ‘He’s still the sheriff and shows no sign of stepping down. Ralph Morin was outraged, but he said he was powerless to stop it. I saw the archdeacon arguing with Canon Gilbert, but obviously to no avail.’

‘De Bosco? Trust that madman to be there — why in God’s name doesn’t the bishop intervene? Is he totally spineless?’

The portreeve clutched at the feather in his velvet cap as a sudden breeze whipped up the canyon between the buildings. ‘I have heard a rumour today that Henry Marshal may have lost his appetite for witch-hunting, after all these deaths and the fatal fire at the Bush. We burgesses sent a deputation to him yesterday, complaining about the disorder and the danger from such fires. The whole city could be burned to the ground if we get more of this rioting.’

John tried to suppress his anger and swore to stamp out the evil that seemed to be infecting Exeter over this issue. ‘I’m taking this higher than a bloody bishop,’ he ground out grimly. ‘I’m reporting all this to the Chief Justiciar. Hubert’s the only one who can bring this to an end swiftly.’

‘Do it, John — and quickly! Though it will take at least another week to get a response from Winchester, if the justiciar is still there.’ He thought for a moment, his amiable face wreathed in a frown. ‘Look, I’ve got a fast messenger going to Southampton at dawn tomorrow, with an order for a ship’s master sailing for Flanders. He could easily ride on to Winchester in a few more hours. He reckons on riding forty miles a day, with changes of horses — far quicker than the usual carrier. If you get your clerk Thomas to write a full account of the situation, I could add my portreeve’s seal to it, to ensure that it gets proper attention.’

John accepted the offer gladly and after some more words of wrath and commiseration, rode on to the castle gatehouse. Gwyn carried on through the East Gate to go home to his wife in St Sidwells, who saw less of him than Matilda saw of her husband.

Inside the inner ward, he met both Gabriel and Brother Rufus, both of whom gave him the same news with long faces. Most people had never expected the convictions in the consistory court to end in the death sentence for two women — and certainly not with such unseemly haste, which John strongly suspected was due to the sheriff’s desire to act while the coroner was away. He was very unhappy about this, but felt no personal guilt. It was de Revelle who had hanged them, not John — and his first duty had been to ensure Nesta’s safety.

His simmering anger was such that he did not trust himself to confront the sheriff just yet, until he had cooled down. He gave Odin to a groom in the castle stables, with orders to get him fed and watered, then climbed to his chamber, where he found the industrious Thomas laboriously scribing on his rolls. He too was saddened by the death of the cunning women, but happy to hear that Nesta now seemed to be well out of harm’s way.

‘Give that up for now, Thomas, I’ve got important work for you,’ commanded de Wolfe, and for the next hour the clerk wrote at John’s dictation, translating Norman French directly into perfect Latin. The coroner recorded everything that had transpired during the past weeks, especially the perfidy of the sheriff, the obsessive mania of Gilbert de Bosco and the intransigence of the bishop. When it was finished, Thomas read it back to him and, after a couple of additions, it was ready for delivery to Hubert Walter or one of the members of the Curia Regis, if the justiciar was absent.

‘Add a copy of that treasure inventory from the constable’s clerk,’ John instructed. When Thomas had rolled up the parchments and tied them securely with tape, he impressed his seal upon some wax melted across the knot. He did this with his signet ring, which carried the same snarling wolf’s-head device that was on the battered war shield hanging in his hall at Martin’s Lane.

By the time he had sent Thomas off to Hugh de Relaga with the precious manuscript, he felt that he was ready to face his brother-in-law. As he stalked across the inner bailey with a face like thunder, people scurried out of his path even more readily than usual. However, when John clumped up the steps and marched to the sheriff’s door, once again he found it locked. He spotted one of de Revelle’s clerks trying to pass through the hall without being noticed, but yelled at him, demanding to know where his master was.

‘He’s gone to his manor at Revelstoke, Crowner,’ answered the man nervously. ‘Be away a few days, I reckon.’

‘Yellow-bellied son of a goat!’ muttered John. ‘Afraid to face me, the bloody coward. But he has to come back — unfortunately — then I’ll get him!’

Frustrated on this front, he walked back down to his house, knowing that he now had to face Matilda, who would undoubtedly want to know why he had been away for two nights. He was in no mood for conciliatory excuses and walked into the hall prepared for a blazing row. To his surprise, he found her silent and subdued. She sat in her usual chair, staring at the pile of unlit logs in the cold hearth. Given her strong views on the biblical treatment of witches, he doubted that her depression was due to the hangings that morning. He had not seen her since she left the house two evening ago, after he had told her bluntly about her brother’s latest misdemeanour, so he had no means of knowing how she had reacted to the further fall of her idol.

‘I hear Richard has gone to Revelstoke for a few days,’ he muttered gruffly, for something to say to break the silence.

‘Gone to escape your persecution, no doubt,’ she answered in a dull voice.

This was too much for her husband, who had been prepared to be conciliatory when he saw her low spirits. ‘My persecution, by God!’ he exploded. ‘What do you call his strangling of those two pathetic women this morning? No wonder he’s fled the city, he’s not man enough to face me, after doing that the moment my back is turned!’

Matilda made no reply for a moment. Usually well dressed, with hair stiffly primped by Lucille, today she looked limp and bedraggled, her hair straying untidily from beneath her cover-chief. At forty-four, this evening she looked a decade older, but when she finally turned her head and looked up at her husband hovering over her, there was still fire in her eyes. ‘I cannot decide who I hate most, my brother for his determination to fall from grace — or you, who hound him at every turn!’

De Wolfe jabbed his fists on his hips and bent lower to put his face closer to hers. ‘It was not I who dipped my hand into that treasure chest, woman! Nor did I plot against the king who appointed me to office. And who was it who paid his whore’s sister to give false testimony? And whose name has become a byword in this county for underhand dealings and embezzlement?’

He paused to draw breath and pulled himself upright. ‘And it will not be me who sits in judgement on him, Matilda. As before, when he was removed from office in ’93, it will be the King’s ministers who decide his fate. So don’t say that I hound him. In fact, I should be ashamed of myself for avoiding my legal duty by not exposing him in the past — which I did at your pleading, may I remind you!’

He stalked to the door, full of righteous indignation, but as he reached the screens he heard a stifled sob and, turning round, saw that her head had fallen forward on to her hands. Her back was heaving with suppressed grief and the sight of such a broken woman suddenly changed his simmering anger to guilty compassion. Walking softly back to the fireplace, he bent and placed his arm around her bowed shoulders.

‘Easy, wife, easy! You know that Richard can’t continue to act in this way. If it stops now, then he will probably be allowed to go back to his manors and live a quiet life. If he does not, then sooner or later he will surely hang. This is for the best, you will see!’

The sobbing faded and for a brief moment one of her hands reached out to squeeze his wrist. ‘Leave me now, John. You should not see me in this state.’

She said no more and, confused and embarrassed as he always was by strong emotion, he went slowly out into the lane. For the next hour he sat alone in the nearest tavern, the Golden Hind, and meditated deeply over a quart of cider.

De Wolfe, tired after his previous day’s riding, rose well after dawn the next day. He left the solar quietly, not to awaken Matilda, who was snoring. He had heard her whimpering in the night as they lay back to back with the width of the wide mattress between them and now she slept the sleep of the exhausted.

After breaking his fast in Mary’s kitchen, he had his customary Saturday wash in a bucket of lukewarm water and shaved with the little knife of Saracen steel that he kept specially honed for the purpose. Then he walked down to the cathedral and went into the huge, dim nave, which was completely empty, although a service was taking place in the choir beyond the screen. He stood waiting, listening both to the distant chanting and prayers and to the chirping of birds that flew in and out through the unglazed windows high up near the beamed roof.

He could see figures indistinctly behind the carved woodwork, dressed in white surplices covered with long back cloaks, even in the summertime warmth.

Soon, prime, the first of the daytime offices, was over, and John saw the participants begin to stream out through the passages on either side of the screen. There were few of the twenty-four canons there, their place being taken by their vicars and John was relieved to see no sign of Gilbert de Bosco, as he would not trust his temper to let him pass unchallenged. The precentor, treasurer and succentor were followed by a couple of punctators, who kept a record of those present, as those absent without good cause were disciplined — and missing canons forfeited their daily ration of bread from the bread-house near the West Front. Behind them came a group of younger vicars, eager to get something to eat before the next service, followed by the even more youthful secondaries and the jostling, restless choirboys. Finally, with a slow gravity befitting their seniority, came a trio of archdeacons. One was an older man, Anselm Crassus, Archdeacon of Barnstaple, another John FitzJohn, Archdeacon of Totnes, and the third John de Alençon, for whom de Wolfe was waiting. When he saw the coroner standing in the nave, he made his apologies to his companions and came across, his ascetic face even more grave than usual. ‘You have undoubtedly heard what happened — I’m sorry, I did what I could, but to no avail.’

‘I’m sure you did, friend. I only wish I had been here myself, but you know what happened down at the Bush?’

The archdeacon nodded sadly. ‘Everyone in Exeter knows of that murderous scandal — including the Lord Bishop, who seems to have taken fright at what he too readily condoned.’

‘Thank God some good has come of it, though it needed a martyr in that poor old hag to bring it about. Do you think this will see the end of this madness now?’

The two men started to walk towards the brightness of the door in the West Front. ‘I sincerely hope so — I doubt that Henry Marshal will pursue this crusade as actively now, if at all. And the town seethes with rumours that Richard de Revelle is on the slippery slope, though no one yet seems to know why.’

John explained to his friend what had happened, confident that his words would be as safe as if they were uttered in the confessional.

‘But what of this crazy colleague of yours, Gilbert de Bosco?’ he asked the priest. ‘If I read his nature right, he’ll stubbornly dig in his heels and try to carry on with his ill-conceived campaign.’

De Alençon reluctantly agreed. ‘You may well be right, but he’ll have precious little support now. I have made it my business to go around the parishes in the city and make it clear to the priests that they have more important pastoral duties than inflaming people against a few cunning women.’

Out in the early sunlight, they paced the few yards to Canons’ Row, where their ways parted. As they walked, de Wolfe told him of the uncompromising message he had dispatched that morning to Winchester.

‘That should see the matter of the sheriff settled,’ observed the archdeacon. ‘But as for our bishop, he is a powerful man with powerful friends, notably Prince John himself. It will take a lot to shake his foundations, especially as our king, God bless him, seems to have an unfortunate soft spot for his rebellious brother.’

De Wolfe knew this to be true, as the Lionheart had repeatedly forgiven John’s treachery and even restored many of his forfeited possessions.

The priest went off to his house before the meeting of chapter and then the next services of terce, sext and nones, while the coroner strode up to a house near St Catherine’s Gate, another exit from the Close up a lane beyond St Martin’s Church. Here lived Adam Kempe, one of the regular customers of the Bush, a master carpenter who employed several men. Adam was also shocked and angry at the burning of the inn, especially as, like so many other men, he was an admirer of Nesta and her brewing. He readily agreed to go with John to view the ruins and they spent an hour surveying the wreckage, which had now cooled down. There was no sign of any remains of Bearded Lucy, but John did not expect any until the charred timbers and ash were removed.

The carpenter agreed to supervise the rebuilding, which would be at John’s expense, the first task being to get a team of labourers to clear the site and dump all the debris on the waste ground alongside. As John wanted to hold an inquest on Lucy, they would begin later today to try to recover any of the poor woman’s bones.

Adam Kempe gave a rough estimate of how much new timber would be needed and John promised to contact his brother William to organise the felling and trimming of sufficient trees from their manor down near the Teign.

‘A month should see it roofed and after a couple more weeks the lady will again be selling the best ale in the city,’ promised the craftsman, optimistically.

With that reassurance ringing in his ears, de Wolfe went back to his chamber in Rougemont, for the morning ritual of bread, cheese and cider with his officer and clerk. For once, all seemed quiet, as there were no outstanding deaths, rapes or assaults to be dealt with, though Thomas had a never-ending series of rolls to be completed, for presentation either to the regular county courts or to the next visitation of the Commissioners of Gaol Delivery, judges who came at irregular intervals to try criminal cases. The General Eyre, which was a much greater visitation to look into the whole administration of the county, as well as to try criminal and civil cases, came at even more infrequent intervals but the coroner’s cases had to be recorded for this as well, so the clerk had the endless job of making duplicate or triplicate copies on his sheets of parchment.

‘What happens next, Crowner?’ asked Gwyn, from his usual seat on the window ledge, where he could look down on anyone approaching the gatehouse from the outer ward.

‘I can do nothing until the sheriff sneaks back and I can roast him with my tongue,’ answered de Wolfe. ‘Though it may give me some satisfaction, it cannot bring those poor women back to life.’

‘Do you think that Winchester will take action over your message?’ said his officer, with doubt in his voice.

‘I bloody well trust so!’ snapped the coroner. ‘Hubert Walter is already well aware that de Revelle is a liability, from previous scandals. If he doesn’t act this time, then I’m going to give up this appointment in protest. We’ll find ourselves a war somewhere and clear off out of this rotten city!’

These were empty words and they all knew it, as John was getting too old to go off roistering to France, leaving behind Nesta, his house and his wool business. For a while they continued to talk over the present problems and discuss the rebuilding of the Bush, until their peace was broken by the sound of feet clattering up the stone stairs of the tower. Osric’s ungainly figure pushed through the curtain, seemingly all arms and legs. ‘Crowner, this city’s getting beyond! Another attack, one that looks like turning into a murder, unless God wills otherwise!’

De Wolfe’s stool grated on the floor as he stood up abruptly. Three faces stared at the constable in expectation, as he gabbled on.

‘Henry de Hocforde is bleeding in the house of Cecilia, Robert’s widow. Looks like she stabbed him!’

The de Pridias family had a house in St Mary Arches which befitted a wealthy mill-owner. Built of stone, it was double fronted, with a room either side of the door and two rooms upstairs. In one of the downstairs chambers the coroner found Henry de Hocforde lying on the floor, with a folded blanket under his head and a bemused Roger Hamund squatting alongside him, looking as ineffectual as usual. From the other room came the sound of female voices, one wailing, the other trying to pacify. Several servants stood around, looking helpless.

John and Gwyn crouched alongside the injured man, whose hands were clasped over his belly, blood oozing between the fingers. His blue tunic was soaked in blood over his lower chest and stomach. He was conscious, but rambling and muttering, his face deathly pale in contrast to his usual high colour. De Wolfe gently moved one of his hands and saw a small slit in the dark and sodden cloth above his belt. There was a pool of glistening blood-clot around it and John put two fingers into the rent in the tunic and gently ripped it wider, to get a view of his skin. Beneath, he had a fine cambric undershirt, equally saturated. When the coroner tore this apart in a similar way, he saw a narrow, oval wound in the skin, one end rounded, the other sharp. It was slowly welling blood, but de Wolfe knew from his years of experience on the battlefield that what was leaking out was probably but a fraction of the internal bleeding. He looked up at Osric, who was hovering behind them.

‘Run to St James’s and get Brother Saul, quickly. If anyone can deal with this, he’s the man.’

Saul was a monk in the tiny infirmary attached to St James’s Priory near the East Gate, the nearest Exeter had to a hospital. John felt sure that this was a futile gesture, as Henry looked likely to be dead before the monk arrived, but he felt he had to make every effort to save the rival miller and weaver. For the same reason, he now grabbed the right hand of the late Robert de Pridias’s son-in-law and pressed it over the wound, much to Roger’s horror.

‘Just keep some pressure there, until help comes,’ he grunted. He leaned his face over the victim’s and spoke to him, but got nothing but a few rambling words in response. He glared at Roger Hamund. ‘So what happened?’

‘He came here an hour ago, demanding that Cecilia should begin arranging the sale of our mill to him. He claimed that my father-in-law had promised to sell, just before he died, which is a damned lie!’

‘Were you here then?’ snapped John.

‘No, my wife was with her mother, but I only arrived a few minutes ago, after this accident had happened.’

‘Accident? A knife in the belly is a strange accident!’

‘I know nothing of it except what the womenfolk told me. They say it was an accident.’

De Wolfe climbed to his feet and beckoned to Thomas, who was lurking near the door, as he had no stomach for blood. ‘Stay with him and try to comfort him. I fear he is beyond anyone’s help,’ he added in a low voice. The clerk’s pastoral instincts overcame his squeamishness and he dropped to his knees alongside the injured man, making the sign of the Cross and murmuring a litany under his breath.

De Wolfe jerked his head at Gwyn. ‘Let’s see what the women have to say about this.’

Before they left the room, the Cornishman drew his attention to a dagger lying on the floor, near Henry’s left leg. He bent to pick it up and held it out to his master. ‘Must be his, his scabbard is empty.’ He turned it over in his hand. ‘But there’s not a drop of blood on it and the blade is too wide to have caused that wound. Besides, this has two cutting edges, so it couldn’t have slit the skin like that, with one blunt end to the wound.’ As usual, he competed with his master over their expertise in the interpretation of lethal injuries.

John shrugged. ‘I didn’t think he had stabbed himself anyway,’ he said, moving to the door.

In the other room, beyond a heavy hide flap that closed off the doorway, they found Cecilia de Pridias on a stool, slumped over a table, with her daughter Avise standing alongside her, looking defiant and defensive. Cecilia raised her head and showed reddened, tear-laden eyes. John suspected that her weeping was not for the man lying in the other room, but for fear of her own predicament. ‘He attacked me, Sir John! He came here demanding that we give up our business to him. The very man who brought about the death of my dear husband!’ Her voice was quavering, but still held anger.

‘Why should he do that, if he came to do business, however unwelcome?’ asked John, trying keep the sarcasm out of his voice. This was the woman who had helped to hound four women to their deaths.

‘Because she told the swine what she thought of him,’ spat Avise, her eyes glittering with hatred. ‘He killed my father for the business and he tried to do the same to my mother.’

‘Just tell me what happened,’ said John patiently. ‘Were you there all the time?’

‘I was indeed,’ replied the daughter. ‘De Hocforde became abusive when my mother continued to refuse to have any dealings with him and when she loudly accused him of bringing about my father’s death by having a curse placed upon him. He became angry and violent and pulled out his dagger, waving it about.’

This sounded unlikely, but de Wolfe kept his temper. ‘Madame, your husband did not die as a result of magic.’

The fury that Cecilia had held for Henry de Hocforde now transferred itself to the coroner, for confounding her beliefs. ‘You have kept trading me that lie from the beginning! I tell you, he did not die of a seizure!’ she shouted.

‘I agree with you,’ said John. ‘I now believe that he was deliberately poisoned with sugar of lead.’

Cecilia’s rage collapsed like a pig’s bladder pierced with a needle. She stared at him open mouthed. ‘Poisoned? By whom?’

‘The apothecary, Walter Winstone — though he is now in no position to admit or deny it.’

The sharp-witted widow rapidly collected her senses. ‘Then it was at the behest of de Hocforde, if you are right. Why else should an apothecary want to kill a good customer?’

De Wolfe did not want to be sidetracked from the stabbing. ‘How did he come to be injured?

The daughter broke in rapidly here, too quickly for John’s liking. ‘We told you, he burst into a flaming temper and advanced on my mother with his dagger. I screamed, but there were no servants within earshot and my brave mother was forced to pick up the knife she used to cut threads for her embroidery to defend herself.’

‘He stumbled in his rage and fell upon the blade that I was holding out to ward him off. My knife was very sharp, it has to be for the work it does.’ Cecilia pointed to a corner of the room, where a small, narrow knife lay on the floor, its blade red with blood.

De Wolfe thought the whole story a complete tissue of lies, but Avise stoutly supported her mother. ‘I saw it all, it was just as she described,’ she said vehemently. ‘He is a violent madman, who uses violence to get whatever he desires. My mother was in fear of her life and was defending herself!’

They both stuck resolutely to their version of events, and John saw that it was pointless to keep badgering them at the moment. ‘We’ll see what the victim has to say about it,’ he grunted and took Gwyn back with him to the other room. It was much too soon to expect any sign of Osric coming back with Brother Saul and they found Thomas solicitously holding a cup of brandy-wine to the lips of the mortally injured man.

‘I thought it might help him,’ muttered Roger, who looked very uneasy at the situation, with his wife and mother-in-law obviously lying through their teeth.

John crouched again by the victim’s side and saw that his pallor had worsened and that his breathing was becoming more rapid and shallow. Although he was no physician, he had attended enough mortally injured men to recognise the agonal stages. He felt Henry’s pulse, which was thready and feeble. Thomas, who also knew a dying man when he saw one, looked up quizzically at the coroner and murmured that they needed a priest.

‘You are a priest, man — or soon will be again! Do what is necessary or it will be too late. But let me speak to him first.’

He bent over Henry and spoke his name in a firm voice, asking whether he could understand him. Somewhat to his surprise, de Hocforde rolled his eyes towards him and nodded. ‘Am I dying?’ he whispered.

John felt under no obligation to lie. ‘Yes, Henry. We have sent for a physician, but I have no doubt that you will soon be in the next world.’

The man gave a faint sigh and closed his eyes. ‘I have brought it upon myself. Greed has laid me low.’ His lids rose again and he looked at Thomas. ‘Is that a priest there?’

‘Yes, he will be with you at the last. But now that you accept that you have no hope of living, have you anything to tell me? About your dealings with the de Pridias family or Walter Winstone?’

De Wolfe was being legally correct, as a dying declaration was valid in a court only if the victim had no expectation of survival, when the law assumed that it was the truth. There was a silence, then another whisper, though it was clearly heard in the quiet room.

‘I paid that knave of an apothecary well to do away with Robert de Pridias, but he was useless. I had to employ a sorcerer to curse him to death.’

‘And who was that?’ asked John grimly, avoiding putting a name into the man’s mouth.

‘Elias Trempole, God rest him.’

‘And did you have him and the apothecary killed?’

There was another pause and sweat appeared on the pallid brow of the dying man. ‘I had to do it. Winstone was threatening to expose me. Trempole had to go too.’

‘And who did you employ to slay them?’

‘Hugh Furrel — but the fool made it too obvious that the deaths were related. I have been dogged by fools all along.’

He gave a sudden cough and closed his eyes again.

‘He’s going soon, master,’ Thomas warned, and started to administer the last rites. These included the seven interrogations required by the Church to ensure that the dying person was a true believer and sincerely regretted his sins in order to obtain the final absolution — but it was too late. Although Henry was still alive, his brain had faded from want of blood and Thomas got no response. However, he continued to recite the Latin monologue of extreme unction and when Saul arrived a few minutes later was still doing so, with Henry’s heart still beating, albeit little more than a flicker.

John abandoned the task of getting more information and went out into the street with Gwyn.

‘We’ll never know now, will we?’ grunted the ginger giant. He looked at his master with a sly grin. ‘You asked him all about his crimes first, Crowner. Maybe if you’d started with who stabbed him, we’d know now.’

John scowled at him. ‘Are you accusing me of something, you old devil? I don’t like that malicious old bitch in there, but that bastard Hocforde had no less than three people murdered to suit his own ends.’ They stood waiting for Saul and Thomas to come out to tell them that the mill-master was finally dead. ‘At least we can clear up a few unfinished inquests now. I’ll leave the widow Cecilia to God and her conscience, if she possesses one!’

By noon, when like most people, he took the main meal of the day, John was again alone in his hall. Mary said that Matilda had gone off in a sombre mood to pray at the cathedral, a sure sign of the seriousness of her devotions.

He ate in solitary silence, apart from the panting Brutus, who sat slavering under the table, waiting for scraps. It was a scorching day outside and the old hound felt the heat — as did many a manor bailiff and village reeve, looking hopefully towards their fields of grain.

A man bleeding to death made no difference to John’s appetite and he made short work of a wooden bowl filled with mutton stew, taking his small eating knife from his belt to spear the solid lumps and drinking the liquid with a horn spoon. A piece of boiled salmon followed, all too common a fish on most dinner tables but by Matilda’s orders, strictly limited to once a week in the de Wolfe household. Some dried figs and raisins made up the dessert, brought back from Normandy on one of the ships that had taken a cargo of their wool to Caen.

His stomach satisfied and his mind glad of some peace without his wife glowering at him across the hearth, he sat and finished another pint of ale, while Brutus crunched contentedly on a piece of bone that John had fished out of his stew. He stared unseeingly at a faded tapestry hanging on the opposite wall, which vaguely depicted some biblical scene, as his mind reviewed the events of the last day or two.

The Bush was destroyed, but already its rebuilding was in hand. Nesta was safe and could remain out of sight until this present madness had been resolved. It looked as if Gilbert de Bosco’s obsessive campaign was grinding to a halt, if the archdeacon’s view that the bishop no longer had any stomach for it was correct. The burgesses weighing in with their concerns about the effect the unrest was having on commerce was also significant, as they were a powerful lobby, which even the Church could not totally ignore.

The death of Henry de Hocforde was something of a side issue now, but at least it cleared up a few murders and unfinished inquests. John doubted that they would ever see Hugh Furrel again, but if he showed his face in Devon he could now be hanged fairly rapidly.

The unknown quantity was still outstanding — the matter of Richard de Revelle. Although his cumulative misdeeds were enough to have him dancing at the end of a rope, he was a slippery customer and his fate depended partly on how heavily his powerful friends would weigh against the attitude of the King’s men in Winchester. If Hubert Walter was away and some lesser chancery clerk or a minor baron dealt with the message that John had sent, then perhaps very little would happen. De Wolfe scowled to himself at the awful thought that no significant censure would come back from Winchester and that the sheriff would remain in office to crow over John and make his life unbearable. If that happened, John vowed that he would either ride off with Gwyn to find a war somewhere — or elope with Nesta and go and live in Wales.

He prayed that the Chief Justiciar would send someone with sufficient clout to attend to the situation in Exeter — at least one of the Justices of Eyre or a member of the Curia Regis.

If Richard de Revelle was ejected from office, there would be the problem of a successor, perhaps a temporary caretaker until King Richard could be consulted as to his permanent representative in the county. The last time that Richard de Revelle had been ousted from the shrievalty, back at the time of the Prince’s rebellion in ’93, his place as sheriff had been taken by Henry de Furnellis, an elderly knight from Exeter. His father, Alan de Furnellis, had been sheriff twenty years earlier, but had died in office within a year. Henry was a dull, pompous man who did as little as possible to exert himself, but as far as John knew he was honest, which would be a welcome change in a county sheriff. If de Revelle was ousted, then he grudgingly accepted that de Furnellis would be acceptable as a stopgap, at least until a better long-term candidate could be found.

His musings were interrupted by voices in the vestibule outside and he half expected it to be the usual visit by Gwyn informing him that some new corpse had been found or a woman had been ravished. But Mary put her head around the screens to announce that Adam the carpenter had called to see him. John went out to the vestibule to meet the stocky, almost bald craftsman, who stood holding a hessian sack in his hands.

‘I got my journeyman and two apprentices to start clearing the wreckage as soon as you left, Crowner,’ he explained. ‘And almost straight away, when they dragged off the main ridge beam, I saw this lying among the ashes.’

With Mary and Lucille peeping in horrified fascination around the corner of the passageway, Adam Kempe upended the sack and tipped the contents out on to the beaten earth floor of the vestibule. Amid a shower of charred wood fragments and burnt straw, a blackened skull and several fragmented bones spilled across the ground. The skull had burned through over much of the cranium and what was left was fragile and brittle, as were several segments of leg bone and some vertebrae.

‘There were more bits there, but we thought this was enough to show you. The lads are collecting the rest of the poor old hag as they move away the rest of the debris,’ said the carpenter, with morbid satisfaction.

John bent and picked up the skull, turning it over in his hands. The best-preserved parts were the few teeth that were left in the old woman’s jaws, though even they were blackened and cracked.

‘Well, at least the inquest jury will have something to view!’ grunted the coroner. ‘It’s too late to arrange today and tomorrow’s Sunday, so it will have to be on Monday. Whoever found this will have to attend the inquest. I’ll hold it in the Shire Hall at Rougemont.’

He scooped up the bone remnants and dropped them back into the sack. Adam departed, leaving Mary to cluck her tongue at having to clean up a pile of ash and some small fragments of Bearded Lucy from her clean vestibule floor.

The next day Matilda was still subdued and hardly spoke a word to her husband, except to ask him civilly whether he would accompany her to church that morning. Feeling sorry for her low spirits and unaccountably slightly guilty — although he knew no real reason why he should be — he agreed and, both dressed in black, they walked to St Olave’s, where he endured a long-winded Mass and an oration from Julian Fulk. He was thankful that at least the unctuous priest had dropped the witchcraft theme and suspected that John de Alençon had been firmly countermanding the edicts of Gilbert de Bosco on that score.

However, that particular canon seemed undeterred and had thrust himself upon the priest at the church of St Petroc in the high street, almost belligerently announcing to the man that he would give the sermon today, as if this were some great favour.

Having heard that the archdeacon had been undermining his crusade and in spite of learning of the bishop’s new coolness regarding the issue, Gilbert stubbornly persisted in his mission. However, still fermenting in the back of his mind was the image of the burning Lucy and her last words cursing him. Like John, he had a fleeting vision of something strange and unearthly at the moment the roof crashed upon the old woman, and he had been uneasy ever since. Each evening, he could not prevent himself from looking up at the sky and checking on the size of the moon, which was now at least three-quarters full.

The previous day, he had felt a burning sensation around the back of his neck and by evening he had a hot red swelling chafing against the collar of his cassock. His steward had put hot clay poultices upon it, but by this morning he had four egg-sized lumps pouting under the skin and a visit to the cathedral infirmarian had confirmed his diagnosis of a series of boils, amounting to a carbuncle.

‘They’ll have to get more proud than this, before they burst!’ cackled the infirmarian, an old Benedictine who had been retired from Buckfast Abbey to look after the health of the Exeter ecclesiastics.

Gilbert now had a long length of coarse flannel cloth wrapped around his neck, covering a foul sticky paste applied by the old monk. What with the heat of the day and the internal heat of the inflamed tissues, he was most uncomfortable and could hardly turn his head. He refused to believe that this was anything to do with the curse, but part of his mind could not help recalling the seven curses placed on Egypt in the Book of Exodus, one of which was a plague of boils.

Worse was to come, and a genuine fear descended upon de Bosco, which only his deep faith managed to keep at bay. At St Petroc’s, when the time came for him to stand on the chancel steps and deliver his sermon on the iniquities of cunning women and their heresy and sacrilege, he suddenly felt a most peculiar feeling spreading down the left side of his body. He opened his mouth to speak, but it drooped down to one side, spittle running out of the corner. At the same time, he felt his left arm go numb and found he was unable to move it.

Desperately afraid that he had suffered a seizure, he tried to speak, but only gargling noises came. The congregation, standing below him, looked on curiously until the parish priest, aware that something was wrong, came across and led him back to a chair at the side of the chancel. Here Gilbert sat in dizzy terror until the incumbent had rapidly brought the service to an end and dismissed the intrigued congregation.

‘You had better sit there awhile and I will send down to the Close for the infirmarian,’ ordered the priest. A few minutes later, the monk who had been treating his boils arrived and, after prodding the canon, pumping his arms and legs, then pushing up his lids to stare into his eyes, he suggested that a litter be sent for to carry de Bosco back to his house. By now Gilbert was feeling better and though his speech was still affected by the drooping lip and numb tongue, he had only a tingling sensation in his left arm and leg, their mobility appearing to be almost normal.

‘I can make my way upon my own feet, thank you,’ he mumbled ungraciously and, leaning on the infirmarian and his own steward, who had also been sent for, he managed to stumble back to Canons’ Row.

For the rest of the day he lay on his bed, anxiety gnawing at him like a cancer, but as the hours went by, he seemed to recover almost completely, except for a slight floppiness of the left side of his mouth. The carbuncle progressed, however and the boils began to erupt like angry little volcanoes, oozing thick pus into the bandage around his neck. As he lay on his pallet late that evening, he could look out at the darkening sky through the window, unshuttered because of the heat. He dozed off and when he awoke a little later, he saw an egg-shaped moon, a little larger than the previous night, mocking him from above the cathedral towers.

On Monday morning the sheriff still had not returned from his manor at Revelstoke, which was on a lonely part of the coast a few miles east of Plymouth. John wondered whether Richard had decided that the game was up and had retired permanently to the country, leaving the shrievalty vacant, but on reflection rejected this attractive notion, as the wily sheriff was not one to abandon all his privileges and rewards without a fight.

John’s own functions had to carry on and he dispatched Gwyn to round up juries so that he could hold his inquests upon Henry de Hocforde and Bearded Lucy, as well as reopening those on Robert de Pridias, Walter Winstone and Elias Trempole. This should be a day to clear up a record number of cases, he thought with sombre satisfaction. By the ninth hour, all the jurymen and other witnesses were assembled in the barren chamber of the Shire Court, with John sitting on the low platform in the sheriff’s chair. Thomas was at a trestle table to one side, armed with quills, ink flasks and a pile of palimpsests, previously used parchments from which the old writing had been scraped off and the surface dressed with chalk. The coroner had no expense budget, having to find everything out of his own pocket, so his thrifty clerk rarely bought the much more expensive new parchment or even more costly vellum.

On the other side, Ralph Morin, John de Alençon and the castle chaplain sat along one of the benches. They had no official reason to be there, but the archdeacon felt that, given the circumstances, the cathedral chapter and the bishop should be represented, if only to show their concern. The castle constable was there in case there might be some further disturbance — and Brother Roger was just plain nosy. Gwyn lumbered around the people in the hall, like a sheepdog herding his flock, and Gabriel stood at the back with a couple of men-at-arms, keeping a wary eye out for any trouble.

Eventually Gwyn strode to stand on the dusty floor below the coroner and opened the proceedings with the formal calling summons, bellowed at the top of his voice. ‘All ye who have anything to do before the King’s coroner for the county of Devon touching the deaths of various persons, draw near and give your attention!’

De Wolfe’s first inquiry was into the death of Henry de Hocforde. His wife had died in childbirth many years before and his two adult sons stood at the back of the hall, apparently not in any deep state of mourning and anxious to get back to the mill, which was now theirs. The coroner avoided the issue of ‘presentment of Englishry’, as although it was patently obvious that de Hocforde was of Norman, not Saxon, blood, it would be impossible to levy a ‘murdrum fine’ on the whole of Exeter, as would have been done in a village.

The ‘First Finder’ was accepted as Avise Hamund, as although technically the first person to see Henry dead was Brother Saul, she was there at the moment of the fatal knife thrust. Of course, by definition, Cecilia was also there, as she held the knife, but de Wolfe thought it better to distance the culprit as much as possible.

The jury consisted of a dozen men and boys from the streets around Cecilia’s dwelling, where the death had occurred. John called the widow, her daughter and son-in-law, who all stuck firmly to their account of Henry’s angry descent on their household and his unprovoked assault upon the wife of Robert de Pridias, over the dispute about disposing of their mills. Thomas de Peyne and Gwyn of Polruan attested that the deceased man had made a dying declaration, but had not said anything that indicated that he had been attacked by Cecilia.

There being no further evidence, the jurors were marched out to one of the cart-sheds that leaned against the wall of the inner bailey, where they solemnly paraded past the body of Henry de Hocforde, which lay on the floor under a canvas sheet. Gwyn whipped this off and they were shown the fatal wound in his chest.

Back in the hall, John de Wolfe told the bemused twelve that death was undoubtedly due to a knife wound to the belly and that there was no evidence to contradict the story of the family witnesses that it was inflicted in self-defence. In tones that suggested that any argument would not be acceptable, he directed them to bring in a verdict of ‘justifiable homicide’, and after a few seconds of whispered discussion the man appointed foreman agreed and they left the court with signs of obvious relief.

The inquests on Walter Winstone and Elias Trempole were taken together and were equally brief. The jury included the First Finders and those who saw Hugh Furrel in the vicinity of Waterbeer Street and Fore Street around the times of the attacks, together with the same jurors who had been empanelled for the indeterminate first inquests. Once again, Gwyn and Thomas were called to verify the dying declaration of de Hocforde and to confirm that he admitted paying Hugh Furrel to murder them.

Both victims had been buried some time ago, but the same jurors had viewed the bodies at the earlier inquests, which satisfied the legal requirements. With no difficulty, the verdicts were returned as wilful murder by Henry de Hocforde and Hugh Furrel — and in due course the latter would be declared outlaw at the county court, except in the unlikely event of him showing up there.

Now trickier matters had to be settled. The first hitch was when the coroner enquired of his officer why Canon Gilbert de Bosco was not visible in court, as he had been requested to attend the inquest on Lucy. In answer, a young priest approached the dais and looked up nervously at John de Wolfe.

‘I am Peter de Bologne, vicar to Canon Gilbert de Bosco, sir. He has instructed me to tell you that he is not well enough to carry out your summons to attend this court — but also that, even if he had been in good health, he would have refused to come, as you have no jurisdiction over a member of the cathedral chapter.’

He stood back warily, as if afraid the messenger might be punished for bringing unwelcome news. John, with a face like thunder, pondered this for a moment. He did not know whether Gilbert’s impertinent claim was true or not, as he had never before needed to summon a senior cleric to an inquest. He turned to de Alençon, who sat near by. ‘John, what do you say to this?’

The wiry archdeacon shook his head. ‘The Church lawyers have not yet caught up with this new office of coroner. You must admit, the Article of Eyre that promulgated it last year was more than a little short on detail. It ran only to one clause, you know!’

‘But can this bloody man just thumb his nose at the King’s courts like this?’

‘He cannot be tried by any of them, that’s for sure, being able to claim benefit of clergy. Whether or not that extends to inquests, where no one is actually being tried, I suspect no one yet knows. Perhaps this is the first test case?’

John made his rasping throaty noise, which he did when he could think of nothing civil to say, but the archdeacon carried on.

‘In any case, the man is ill, there’s no doubt of that! The whole town knows that he was struck by a minor seizure when he stood to preach yesterday. What with that and his carbuncle, everyone is whispering about the hag’s curse!’

John sighed and had to accept the inevitable, which was to adjourn the inquest on Bearded Lucy, whom he referred to as ‘Lucy of Exe Island’, remembering then that the town constables had reported that after the fire at the Bush, part of the mob had gone down to the marsh where she had lived and tipped her pathetic dwelling into the river, where it broke up and floated downstream to the sea.

It was not only Gilbert’s absence which decided him to wait until another day, but also the failure of the sheriff to turn up. He wanted him present when he interrogated Heloise and her immoral sister, to establish that Richard de Revelle had had a hand in the attack on the Bush.

All that was left was the much-delayed inquest on Robert de Pridias, for which Cecilia had been pressing since his death. Her own narrow shave with a murder charge made her less triumphant than would otherwise have been the case, but she still managed a smirk of satisfaction when she heard the coroner call the matter before the court. He used the same jury as for the last cases, as it was impractical to get a score or even a dozen men in from Alphington at that time on a Monday morning, but Gwyn had got Gabriel to send a couple of soldiers to fetch in the two men who saw Robert drop from his horse and the ale-wife who announced that he was dead.

They gave their simple testimony, then John called Richard Lustcote, the master apothecary.

‘This blackening of the gums, especially around foul teeth — what can that signify?’ he asked him.

The benign seller of pills and potions beamed at him, as if this were some kind of riddle.

‘Almost certainly plumbism — which means lead poisoning, Crowner.’

‘And could that occur in any natural way?’

Lustcote shook his head. ‘Impossible! The poison would have to be given in repeated amounts over a period. Something like sugar of lead, also called Plumbum acetas.’

‘Could this be given in food? Is it tasteless?’

‘It has no particularly obnoxious taste, but in any case, if supposed medicaments were being administered, it could either be added or even totally substituted.’

‘And could it cause sudden death, as in this man who tumbled from his horse?’

The apothecary looked dubious. ‘It would be unusual, though I hesitate to say impossible, never having killed anyone with lead myself!’

He thought for a moment. ‘But of course, if a man already had some disorder of his humours or a weakness of his heart, then I suspect that plumbism might finish him off.’

With that John had to be content, and he shied away from any suggestion that necromancy may also have contributed, much to Cecilia’s disappointment. Still, she was satisfied that she had had her inquest after all, and vindicated when the coroner brought in a verdict of murder by the hand of Walter Winstone, at the instigation of Henry de Hocforde — both of whom were beyond earthly justice, whatever awaited them in the valley of death.