The Witch Hunter

CHAPTER TWO

When John de Wolfe went home to his wife that evening, he decided that attack was the best form of defence against what he could foresee would be a burning issue when Cecilia de Pridias next met Matilda at church. He would get his story in first and hope to moderate the inevitable tongue-lashing that would come in the next day or two.

He rode past the new Guildhall in the high street and turned right into Martin’s Lane, a narrow alley that was one of the entrances to the cathedral Close, the episcopal enclave around the great cathedral of St Peter and St Mary. Halfway down the short lane he slid from his stallion and led Odin into the farrier’s yard on the left, where the beast was stabled. Directly across the way were three almost identical houses, the one on the left being his own. It was a tall, narrow building of weathered timber, with a peaked slate roof. A heavy oak door and a shuttered window were the only breaks in its blank face.

With a muted sigh, he lifted the iron latch and stepped into the vestibule, a small room with a row of hooks for cloaks and belts hanging on the back wall. He slumped on to a bench, its only furniture, and pulled off his riding boots, groping under the seat for a pair of leather house-shoes.

As he pulled them on, there was the padding of paws from a passageway to his left, which led around the side of the house to the back yard and a large brown hound appeared. Brutus was as pleased as ever to see him and licked his hand as his great brush of a tail wagged slowly back and forth.

‘Got to face the dear woman now,’ he whispered to the old dog, as he stood up and went to the door of the hall, at the opposite end of the vestibule from the passage entrance. Brutus watched him, then decided that he preferred the back yard and vanished as de Wolfe pushed open the inner door and stepped into the main room of the dwelling.

Inside was a wooden screen to stop some of the draughts that in windy weather moaned around the sombre hall, which rose right up to the bare roof beams high above. The dark timber was partly covered by faded tapestries, except on the inner wall, which was of new stone. This was where he had had a large fireplace built with a conical chimney tapering up to roof level, a device he had seen in Brittany. Before this innovation, the smoke from a central fire-pit used to cause an eye-watering fog to fill the hall, as it sought to escape by seeping out under the eaves.

On this hot summer evening there was no fire, as their maid Mary did all the cooking in a hut in the yard. But as he trudged past the long oaken table with its stools and benches, he saw that one of the cowled chairs facing the empty fireplace was occupied. His wife was staring at the cold stacked logs as if they were crackling cheerfully on a cold winter’s night.

‘You’re late, Mary has been waiting to bring the supper in,’ she grated, without any word of greeting. John was so used to this that he took no notice and went to a side table to pour some red wine from a pitcher into a pewter cup. He saw that Matilda already had one in her hand.

‘I had to ride out to Alphington to see a corpse,’ he said with studied indifference. He brought his drink to the hearth and sat in the chair opposite his wife. Looking at her, he remembered that she had been almost comely when they married, some sixteen years earlier. Now her stocky frame had filled out and her square face had thickened, with loose skin under her eyes and throat. She was forty-four, his senior by four years, but looked a decade older. Her thin-lipped mouth was turned down at the corners in permanent disgruntlement. He admitted that his own behaviour had done nothing to make her nature more amiable, but neither of them had wanted to marry in the first place, having being pushed into it by their ambitious parents. His father, Simon de Wolfe, was a modest landowner with two manors at the coast and saw marriage into the much richer de Revelle family as a way of advancement for his second son. Matilda’s parents had hoped that a dashing young knight who was carving out a name for himself in the Irish and French wars, was a good way of getting their youngest and least attractive daughter off their hands, so the bride and groom had little say in the matter and had regretted it ever since. They had never had children, which was hardly surprising, as John had made every effort to stay away from home for most of their married life. Only in the last two years, since he had returned from Palestine and had run out of wars to fight, had they lived together for more than a few months — and although they now slept together, sleep was the operative word, for neither felt the slightest inclination to indulge in marital congress.

‘So what was this body that kept you from your supper?’

Her voice jerked him out of his reverie and he remembered his plan to forestall Cecilia de Pridias’s inevitable complaints about him.

‘Someone you knew, I’m afraid. It was Robert de Pridias, the fulling and weaving merchant. I think you know his wife quite well.’

Matilda sat up abruptly in her chair, her small eyes alert at the news.

‘Robert dead? Poor Cecilia, I saw her only yesterday at St Olave’s. How did he die? Why were you called? Was it some accident — or worse?’

‘He died of a seizure, on the back of his horse. A natural death, but sudden. It seems he had pains in his chest for some time and was under the care of an apothecary.’ He deliberately emphasised the natural aspect, to defuse the coming criticisms.

‘So why were you called?’ she snapped. Whatever her faults, no one could ever accuse the sharp-witted Matilda of any lack of perception.

John sipped his wine as he thought about the safest answer.

‘His wife — now his widow — has some strange idea that he was done to death through being cursed. Extraordinary idea, I had considerable difficulty in trying to convince her otherwise.’

‘Henry de Hocforde!’ she exclaimed, much to her husband’s astonishment.

‘What about him?’ he said feebly.

‘She has spoken to me in confidence about the trouble between the two fullers. I have the ear of many influential folk in this city, John.’

Matilda’s two weaknesses — apart from food and drink, which accounted for her heavy appearance — were fine clothes and social snobbery. As sister to the King’s sheriff and wife to the King’s coroner, she considered herself amongst the elite of the county hierarchy. It galled her to find that John had not the slightest interest in social advancement and she had to prod him mercilessly to take part in prestigious events in the city. The de Pridias family were rich merchants, Robert having been master of his guild, so his wife had been someone worth cultivating.

‘Cecilia told me that de Hocforde had been putting pressure on her husband to sell his mill. It seems that the affair was becoming quite oppressive and that Robert’s health was suffering from it.’

This was quite different to the widow’s claim that he was ‘hale and hearty’, thought John. Aloud he said, ‘But that’s a long way from murder by witchcraft, which she accused de Hocforde of perpetrating!’

He meant this to sound jocular, but Matilda’s granite face showed no amusement. ‘Never mock what you do not understand!’ she snapped sententiously.

This surprised him, as Matilda was pathologically religious, spending half her waking hours at either the nearby cathedral or in St Olave’s Church in Fore Street. Indeed, very recently, after he had offended her even more than usual, she had taken herself to Polsloe Priory, intending to take the veil — until she found that the poor food and dowdy raiment was not to her liking. For her now not to dismiss outright any un-Christian practices like witchcraft, seemed at variance with her faith — though on reflection he decided that after many centuries of acceptance, magic was so deeply ingrained in most people’s minds that a veneer of religious belief was not sufficient to extinguish it.

Matilda demanded more details and he described the finding of the effigy under the dead man’s saddle. ‘Cecilia de Pridias was very loath to accept that his death was from some stroke seizing his heart, even though he had had these chest pains and had been attended by Walter Winstone for some time,’ he concluded, determined to get his version of events firmly in place.

His wife glowered at him and sniffed her disdain. However, for once her scorn was not directed at John, but at the mention of the apothecary.

‘A scoundrel, that man Winstone! I advised Cecilia to seek a better dispenser, such as Richard Lustcote. Winstone’s reputation is dubious in the extreme. If he was supposed to be treating Robert, he made little success of it, if the poor man fell dead from his horse!’

John noted that Matilda’s mental gymnastics had now allowed her to leave witchcraft in favour of the apothecary’s medical negligence.

‘So what will happen now?’ she demanded, as Mary came in to start setting out their supper.

‘Nothing, as far as I am concerned,’ grunted John, fetching the wine jug to take to the table. ‘A witnessed death from natural causes is no concern of a coroner, much as his widow might demand it.’

‘I trust that you were considerate and civil to the poor woman, John,’ grated Matilda, as she heaved herself from her chair.

‘I was diplomacy itself, wife,’ he replied coldly. ‘Though no doubt she will voice her complaints to you in due course.’

The man and wife sat at opposite ends of the long table, perhaps symbolic of the emotional distance that separated them in life. Mary, their handsome cook and maid-of-all-work, brought in wooden platters of cold meats, which included the remains of the dinner-time goose and some slices of boiled ham. A few hard-boiled eggs and a dish of onions fried in butter completed the meal, apart from a dessert of fresh red plums. They ate their main meal at noon, but Matilda’s robust appetite had expanded their supper repast beyond what most people ate in the evening. There was silence for a while as she got down to the serious business of eating and as soon as she had finished she left the table, muttering that she was retiring to the solar. This was the only other room in the house, built on to the upper part of the hall at the back, reached by outside stairs from the yard. As she lumbered into the vestibule, heading for the passageway, she started screeching for Lucille, her personal maid.

Sighing with relief, de Wolfe refilled his wine cup and went to sit by the hearth to fondle the ears of Brutus, who had slunk in when the mistress had left the hall. He listened to the familiar sounds that came faintly through a slit in the wall high up on one side of the chimney, where the solar communicated with the hall. His wife was chiding Lucille, a snivelling French girl from the Vexin, north of Rouen. The evening ritual of getting prepared for bed was being played out, with Matilda snapping at the maid for brushing her hair too roughly or being too clumsy in undressing her. The coroner knew that all this would eventually subside, when his spouse would say her lengthy prayers before getting into bed. As soon as he decided that she was asleep, he would take Brutus for a walk — and it might just so happen that their feet might take them in the direction of the Bush tavern in Idle Lane.

The sun was setting as Henry de Hocforde strode along the upper part of High Street, away from his fine house in Raden Lane, near the East Gate. The rays reddened the buildings on each side as he walked almost directly towards the fiery orb, now low in the western sky. There were still many folk ambling along, gazing at the few stalls that remained open this late — and more than one drunk rolled out of an alehouse door into his path. But no one hesitated to get out of the way of this tall man as he stalked along with a face like thunder. Well dressed and with an arrogant swing to his shoulders, he was not a person to obstruct, especially as the ivory-headed staff that he carried looked as if it was more for use than ornament. As he reached the Guildhall, one of the city’s finest buildings which had been rebuilt in stone not many years before, he turned right, then left again into Waterbeer Street, which ran behind the high street. It was an unsavoury lane, several low drinking dens and brothels doing nothing for its reputation. However, there were a few respectable houses and shops there as well and it was for one of these that he was aiming. Halfway down on the right was an old timber building, squeezed in between two newer dwellings in stone. It was narrow and roofed with wooden shingles, some of which were missing, thanks to a storm a month earlier. At street level, there was a door alongside a wide window, the shutter of which was hinged down at right angles to form a display counter for the apothecary’s stock-in-trade. It carried a meagre array of pots and jars, the tops covered in parchment tied down with cord. In addition, there were a few crude glass vials of coloured liquid and some small bundles of dried herbs. Inside the window, the apothecary’s apprentice, a runny-nosed lad of about twelve, sat rolling pills on a grooved board, keeping one eye on the counter to see that no light-fingered passer-by lifted any of the unimpressive items. De Hocforde marched through the door, dipping his head to avoid the low lintel. He glared at the boy and demanded to know where his master was.

‘Out in the yard, sir. Hanging bunches of rosemary out to dry.’

Hocforde didn’t care if Walter Winstone was hanging up his dirty hose to dry and rapped on the apprentice’s pill-board with the head of his staff.

‘Go and get him, boy. Quickly!’

The lad looked up at the imperious visitor and saw a stern face below dark hair shaven close around the sides and back, leaving a thick cap on top, in the style beloved of many aristocratic Normans. His dark red tunic was plain, but reeked of quality, as did the intricate silver buckle on a wide belt that carried a handsomely tooled leather pouch and an ornate dagger. He had seen him in the shop before, but did not know his name, as his master always took this customer upstairs for private consultation. The apprentice dropped his board and scurried away through a door at the back of the shop, leaving Henry to scowl at the musty shelves filled with earthenware pots of all sizes, many with crude Latin or alchemaic lettering painted on them. One wall was lined with ranks of small wooden drawers, again labelled with incomprehensible symbols. Hanging from the ceiling, from nails driven into the roof beams, were faded bunches of dried vegetation and some dusty, leathery objects that seemed to be desiccated lizards or snakes. A moment later, the boy hurried back and slipped hastily on to his stool to continue rolling his grimy pills.

‘The master will be with you now, sir,’ he piped, keeping his eyes down to appear industrious when Walter came in. The apothecary appeared in the dooway and bowed his head obsequiously to his visitor. He was a small man, with a marked limp in his left leg due to a childhood illness. A sallow face with projecting yellow teeth gave him the look of a large coney, an appearance that was strengthened by his large stuck-out ears. A frizz of short sandy hair was matched by a narrow beard that rimmed the edges of his face. He wore a nondescript tan tunic over cross-gartered leggings, a long leather apron hanging from his neck. Walter opened his mouth to greet his esteemed customer, but Henry de Hocforde cut him short.

‘Upstairs — now!’ he snapped, crossing to the inner door and almost shoving the apothecary back through it. In the storeroom behind, there was a wide wooden ladder going up to the next floor and Winstone clambered up ahead of his visitor, apprehensive at his obvious ill temper.

At the top was a work-room, with benches where ointments and potions were made, and behind it were the apothecary’s living quarters, a dismal room with a straw mattress on the floor in one corner and a table, stool and cooking utensils along the far wall. An unglazed window, its shutter half open, looked out on to a yard where more herbs were drying on lines stretched between poles.

Walter Winstone nervously indicated the stool, but de Hocforde ignored him and perched on the edge of a table, where he was still taller than the other man.

‘I want to know why I wasted my money on you. In fact, I want it back, as you did nothing for me!’

The apothecary squirmed at the harsh, uncompromising tone of the merchant. ‘Give it time, master! I will devise some other means, never fear.’

Henry gave a humourless laugh, almost a bark. ‘You haven’t heard, then? You’re too late, you useless worm. The man’s dead!’

Walter gaped, then a false smile cracked his face, pushing his teeth even farther out. ‘Then it did work! I told you to be patient.’

‘No thanks to you, you charlatan! Fifteen shillings I’ve paid you altogether, over the past months — and for what?’

‘But he’s dead — which is what you wanted all along!’ protested the smaller man. ‘My tampering with his medicaments had the desired effect in the end.’

De Hocforde leaned forward threateningly. ‘You’re changing your tune now. The last time I was here, to complain that nothing had happened, you said you had stopped the poison, as it was without effect. You were working on something else. So how has he just died, when you ceased your efforts four weeks ago, eh?’

The apothecary wrung his hands in agitation. ‘I told you, sir, this is a slow poison, it had to be to avoid any suspicion. Its action is cumulative. It continues to reside in the body long after the dosing has ceased.’

‘Nonsense, man! The fellow stayed as fit as a fox after two months of your pathetic efforts.’

Winstone shook his head emphatically. ‘Indeed not. I attended him weekly and he showed certain signs of the plumbism I was inducing. He had belly-ache and was almost totally costive — his wife told me that he spent hours in the privy with no result.’

Henry de Hocforde went red in the face. ‘I don’t give a damn whether he could shite or not! I paid you to kill him and you failed dismally. So just give me back my fifteen shillings and I’ll not darken your door again!’

Although Walter was a timid man, the thought of handing over a hundred and eighty silver pennies provoked some desperate defiance. ‘So why then did he die, if it wasn’t from my efforts?’ he bleated.

‘Because I took other measures, my patience with yours being exhausted!’ hissed the fulling master. ‘Last week I sought out a witch to place a curse on de Pridias — at a fraction of the cost that I wasted on you!’

Walter’s watery eyes opened wide in astonishment. ‘A curse? Surely you can’t believe in that old witch’s nonsense?’

‘This old witch did the trick. This afternoon the fellow fell from his horse, stone dead!’

‘Sheer coincidence. It was the long-term effect of my Plumbium acetas, without a shadow of doubt!’ stammered the apothecary.

For answer, Henry held out his hand menacingly. ‘My money — now!’

Walter Winstone backed away slightly, but his defiance remained, mixed with cunning. ‘It would go ill with you if the news leaked out that you had done away with a rival merchant … all Exeter knows that you have been trying to wrest the ownership of his mill from him!’

De Hocforde’s hand shot out and grabbed the smaller man by the shoulder. He dragged him close and bent so that his inflamed face was inches from the man’s nose. ‘You little rat! Who was it who had been feeding poison to the man for weeks? D’you think anyone would take you word against mine, you miserable little tyke? You’d hang from the gallows tree and I’d be there to see you off!’

He shoved the apothecary away and Walter staggered back and fell heavily against the far wall.

‘Now give me that money — or you’ll wake up one morning soon and find your throat’s been cut! I know men in this city who’ll kill for a shilling — a pity discretion stopped me from employing them on de Pridias.’

Defeated for now, the apothecary fumbled at his belt for some keys and went reluctantly towards a locked chest in the corner.

When John de Wolfe strode out into Martin’s Lane with his hound, he had intended to go straight down to the Bush tavern, but he was accosted by a familiar figure as he entered the Close. As he began walking between the mounds and grave-pits of the burial ground towards the huge bulk of the cathedral, he saw a lean, cassocked figure approaching from the direction of the West Front.

It was John de Alençon, Archdeacon of Exeter, one of the four archdeacons who under Bishop Henry Marshal, administered the various parts of the large diocese of Devon and Cornwall. Though de Wolfe was by no means an enthusiastic churchgoer, the two Johns were firm friends, their main bond being mutual loyalty to King Richard and antipathy to his treacherous brother, Prince John, Count of Mortain.

The priest waved a greeting and the coroner waited for him to approach, as he was obviously heading for his dwelling in the row of canons’ houses that formed the northern side of the cathedral Close. He was a thin man, not overly tall, but erect. Some years older than John, the shock of wiry hair that surrounded his shaven tonsure was iron grey. A bony, somewhat sad face was relieved by a pair of clear blue eyes, which twinkled as he grasped his friend’s arm in greeting.

‘Another fine evening, after all those terrible weeks of rain. Let’s hope the harvest will be saved, God willing.’ The words were spoken fervently, not as a casual remark. The awful growing season of that year might mean starvation for many next winter, unless the crops could revive within the next month. That the day was unusually hot was demonstrated by the absence of the archdeacon’s hooded cloak, an almost obligatory part of a senior priest’s outdoor dress.

‘Come over for a cup of wine, John. I have some new Poiteau red I’d like you to try.’

John de Alençon was an ascetic man, unlike many of the twenty-four canons of the Exeter chapter, some of whom revelled in luxurious living. But his one weakness was fine wine, which he appreciated for its quality, rather than quantity.

The two Johns walked together through the mess of the Close, weaving along paths of hardened mud between heaps of rubbish strewn among the graves. Beggars, cripples and drunks squatted on their haunches and pedlars rattled their trays at them as they passed. Urchins and louts ran across the resting-places of the dead, playing ball or tag and ignoring the screeches of protest from mothers and old crones when the infants in their charge were pushed over.

‘This place is becoming a disgrace,’ grumbled the coroner, glowering at the incongruity of these squalid acres, compared to the majesty of the cathedral that soared above them.

His friend agreed, with a sigh of frustration. ‘With only a couple of men working under our proctors, it’s impossible to control it. And it’s the only open space in the city where the people can escape the squalor of the streets.’ The cathedral Close was an enclave belonging solely to the Church, where only canon law applied, even the sheriff and coroner having no jurisdiction here, except along the main pathways.

They passed the treasurer’s house, built against the north wall of the cathedral and reached Canons’ Row, the narrow road that bounded the north side of the Close. There they made for one of the central houses of the dozen or so that stretched from St Martin’s Church across to the city wall. It was an old two-storey structure of timber, with a thatched roof. A side passage went around the back, where the usual stable, kitchen-shed, privy, wash house and pigsty were set in a muddy yard, alongside a small area that the archdeacon kept as a private garden.

John commanded Brutus to wait outside as they went up to the iron-bound front door. They were met by John’s steward-cum-bottler, one of only three servants that the austere priest employed. They went into his study, a small room on the ground floor, where de Alençon spent most of his time. A table, two stools and a low cot in one corner were the only furniture, apart from a large wooden crucifix on the wall. The rest of the house was occupied by his two vicars-choral, who deputised for him at some of the nine services each day — and several secondaries and choristers, young men who were prospective priests in training.

John waved his guest to one of the stools and sat on the other, pushing aside a pile of leather-bound books on the table to make way for a flask of wine and two goblets that his servant brought in. The goblets were another luxury, being of heavy glass, instead of the usual pottery or pewter. When they had sampled the French wine and commented on its taste, the archdeacon turned to current events, especially his friend’s recent activities. He always seemed fascinated by the coroner’s work and liked to be kept up to date with happenings outside his sheltered ecclesiastical world.

After relating a few tales about various inquests and cases at the last Shire Court, de Wolfe told him about the death of Robert de Pridias that day.

‘I met him several times,’ mused the canon. ‘Both at guild feasts and when our treasurer purchased a large consignment of cloth for garments for our secondaries and servants. He had many weavers working for him, as well as his fulling mill, so he must have been quite a rich man.’

When the coroner told him of the widow’s accusations against Henry de Hocforde — and the finding of the pierced effigy — de Alençon frowned. ‘Defaming a man like that is unseemly, even allowing for the distress of a bereaved wife,’ he said sadly. ‘But this business of the straw figure is a sign of the Church’s failure to banish magic from the common mind. I despair of ever completely wresting superstition from our flock.’

John gave one of his rare lopsided grins. ‘Isn’t religion just a different kind of superstition, John? We worship a God that none of us has ever seen and we revere his son who was a Jew living in a distant land a thousand years ago!’

If the archdeacon hadn’t known his friend’s penchant for teasing him on the subject of his faith, he would have been shocked — might even have accused him of heresy. As it was, he smiled gently.

‘I know full well you don’t mean that, John de Wolfe! But seriously, the efforts of priests like myself over centuries have only managed to lay a thin skin of Christianity over most of our population.’

He stopped to savour his wine, then continued. ‘Many find it hard to distinguish between the mysteries of the Holy Sacrament and the antics of the old wives and witches who cast spells for a wench to get a good husband or to make their neighbour’s cattle fertile.’

‘So you don’t think that de Pridias was done to death by necromancy?’ asked the coroner, half jokingly.

‘It’s too ridiculous even to contemplate,’ said the archdeacon, rather sharply. ‘You did right in refusing to pander to the woman’s nonsense, though of course I’m sad for her in her loss, God rest his soul.’ He made the sign of the Cross, reminding de Wolfe again of his own clerk’s irritating habit.

‘If the Church so disapproves of the widespread belief in magic and the casting of spells, why does it not proscribe it more severely?’ asked John, the wine putting him in a ruminative mood. ‘Your masters in Rome have always been quick enough to pounce drastically on any whisper of heresy or other activity which is not to their taste.’

De Alençon smiled wryly at his friend’s deliberately provocative cynicism. ‘That day may come, John, but at present we have more pressing enemies at the gates of God’s kingdom, as you should well know, having been a Crusader yourself.’

The coroner continued to worry at the topic like a dog with a bone. ‘But such widespread superstition surely cuts at the heart of your teachings that there is only one God. If he is the jealous God that the Scriptures describe to us, then should not his servants — the Church — be trampling these witches and wizards underfoot?’

The archdeacon, warming to a theological debate, raised his eyebrows at his friend. ‘Where does all this philosophical talk come from, John? You always pretended to be a rough, blunt soldier. You must have been listening too much to that strange relative of mine.’

Thomas de Peyne, the coroner’s clerk, was de Alençon’s nephew and it was through his influence with de Wolfe that the disgraced little priest had at last been given a job. Once a teacher in the cathedral school at Winchester, he had been defrocked when a girl had accused him of interfering with her. Only ‘benefit of clergy’ had prevented him being hanged for attempted rape, but he had almost starved after being ejected from holy orders, until he walked all the way to Exeter to throw himself on his uncle’s mercy.

De Wolfe drank the rest of his wine and refused another glass, as he intended drinking ale at the Bush. Before he left, he made one last assault on his friend’s implacable faith.

‘So you’re not going to round up and hang all the cunning women in Devon? They can continue to compete with the bishop and all his minions in working miracles, without any challenge?’

The archdeacon prodded him hard in the chest with a finger. ‘You’re trying to provoke me, John. You must be short of other challenges this week.’

As they walked to the front door, the priest had the last word. ‘These old wives — though not so old, some of them — do little harm and quite a lot of good, John. Many folk cannot afford to visit an apothecary and, anyway, there are none to visit out in the countryside. Many a croup or constipation has been cured by their harmless herbal potions. And if people are gullible enough to pay a ha’penny for a spell to make their lover more potent or to get a better crop of beans, who are we to deny them?’

De Wolfe had to be satisfied with this moderate and civilised comment, and it gave him something to think about as he whistled for his dog and set off for the tavern.

The archdeacon’s words were still on his mind when he reached Idle Lane, a short track joining Priest Street to the top of Stepcote Hill, which led down towards the West Gate. The name came from the waste ground that surrounded the ale-house — several years earlier, a fire had destroyed the surrounding wooden houses, leaving the stone-built inn standing, and as yet only weeds and bushes had reclaimed the scorched area.

He pushed open the front door, over which a large bundle of twigs hung from a bracket, perpetuating the old Roman sign for a tavern. The big room that occupied the whole ground floor was crowded with drinkers, this being a popular place, famed for its good ale, decent food and relatively clean mattresses in the loft. Thankfully, the warm summer evening did not require a fire in the large stone hearth against the end wall, which made the atmosphere redolent only of the smell of spilt ale, sweat and unwashed bodies, without the eye-watering swirl of wood smoke from the chimney-less fireplace. Benches around the walls and a few rough tables surrounded by stools formed the amenities for patrons, all set on a rush-covered earth floor. At least the rushes were clean, being replaced every few days — unlike in the nearest rival tavern, the notorious Saracen on Stepcote Hill, where the filthy straw was more a nest for rats than a floor-covering.

John advanced to his favourite place against a wattle screen set at the side of the hearth. A couple of young men seated at the small table immediately rose and, bobbing their heads in respect, found stools elsewhere. All the regulars at the Bush knew that this was the coroner’s spot and yielded it to him with good grace.

He sat down and Brutus slid under the table after a longing look at two patrons opposite, who were sharing a pig’s knuckle on a thick trencher of gravy-soaked stale bread. The old dog knew that with luck, the bone would come his way when they had finished.

De Wolfe settled his back against the screen and looked around contentedly. For once, his life was fairly stable. Matilda was her usual grumpy self, but was not in any particularly belligerent mood — at least, not until Cecilia de Pridias stirred her into action, as she surely would. His mistress was neither pregnant nor having another affair with a younger man and even Thomas seemed to have abandoned his efforts at suicide. Gwyn, of course, was the same as ever — gruff, amiable and constant in his fidelity.

Feeling at peace with himself, John looked around the crowded taproom, nodding to several aquaintances, who touched their foreheads in a respectful salute to a man almost everyone admired and not a few feared. As the second-most powerful law officer in the county, he was looked upon with some awe by many, yet most acknowledged him as a fair-minded man with an honourable record of serving their king in many a campaign, from Ireland to the Holy Land.

His eyes roved about, but he could not see Nesta, his beloved Welsh mistress. At the back of the chamber was a row of casks propped up on stands and wedges, from which old Edwin, the potman and one of the serving-maids, drew the ale and cider that had made this establishment famous in the city. As soon as Edwin’s one remaining eye saw that the coroner had come in, he filled a clay quart pot from the barrel of ‘best’, and limped over with it, dragging his war-wounded leg through the rushes.

Banging the jar on the table, he beamed a crooked grin at John, the white of his dead eye rolling horribly, a legacy of a spear-thrust at the Battle of Wexford. He greeted John, using his old military title.

‘Evening, Cap’n! The mistress is out in the brew-shed, stirring the mash. She’ll be in shortly.’

Nesta was the genius behind the quality of the ale, having learned her trade in her native Gwent before moving to Devon some years before. She was the widow of Meredydd, a Welsh archer who had served under John, until they had both given up campaigning. He had bought the inn with his accumulated booty from years of warfare, but within twelve months was dead of the yellow jaundice, leaving his wife almost destitute with debt and with a tavern to run alone. De Wolfe had come to her rescue with a loan and gradually a business relationship had grown into affection and then love. It was no secret in the city, where most affluent men had a leman or two — and it was certainly no secret to Matilda, who bore the burden of his infidelity with abrasive ill grace, though she could not bring herself to abandon her marriage to such a senior member of the Norman hierarchy.

John took a deep draught of the ale, a slightly cloudy brew flavoured with oak galls, then stared again at the back of the taproom. A wide wooden ladder gave access to the upper floor, which was mainly an open loft where straw-filled pallets provided the accommodation for overnight lodgers. However, one corner had been partitioned off as a small bedroom for the landlady, in which John had installed a French bed, a novelty in a city where most folk, even the well-to-do, slept on a mattress at floor level. He had spent many a passionate hour in there and even a few nights, when either his boldness or circumstances allowed. Tonight was not going to be one of them, he mused ruefully, his eyes still roaming around for a sight of his mistress.

Eventually he was rewarded, at the same time as his hound was rewarded by the coveted knuckle-bone being thrown down into the rushes by the grinning pair on the next table. The back door of the inn opened and Nesta entered from the yard, where the cook-shed, the brew-house, the pigsty and the privy were situated. She shouted a last command over her shoulder at one of the maids, then scanned the room eagerly with her hazel eyes. When they lighted on John, her heart-shaped face lit up with delight and she hurried across to him, though not failing to give a smile and a touch on the shoulder to her favourite patrons as she went. De Wolfe’s heart warmed as he watched her coming, yet part of his mind stood aloof and cynically asked why a middle-aged old soldier was acting like a callow lovesick youth, for at forty he was twelve years older than the ale-wife. Nesta came up to the table, gave him a quick peck on the cheek and slid on to the bench alongside him.

‘And how is Sir Coroner this evening?’ she asked softly, with her usual bantering affection.

‘All the better for seeing you, cariad! And even better after a few mouthfuls of this good ale — you’ve excelled yourself with this last brew.’

They spoke in Welsh, her native language and one that John had learned at his own mother’s knee. Even Gwyn spoke it with them, as his own Cornish tongue was very similar — to the eternal annoyance of Thomas de Peyne, who came from Hampshire.

Nesta took a drink from John’s pot and nodded her approval of her own handiwork, then they went on to speak lightly about the day’s events and the increasing trade at the inn. Because of his financial stake in the Bush — though he took no profits from it — he was always interested in its fortunes. Lately it had been sharing in the increasing prosperity of the city, which because of the wool trade and the tin exports was going from strength to strength.

As she talked, he looked down at her, this petite woman coming only to his shoulder. Her light gown of pale yellow linen was tightly girdled at her waist, which emphasised her shapely breasts. A felt helmet, laced under the chin, failed to hide all the deep auburn curls that peeped out across her high forehead. Her large hazel eyes were set wide above a snub nose and when her slightly pouting lips parted, they revealed an almost perfect set of white teeth, unusual in a woman of twenty-eight.

John was totally entranced by her and, in spite of the vicissitudes that they had suffered in past months, he felt closer to her than ever before. They continued to talk for a few minutes, Brutus even forsaking his new bone to lay his slobbering mouth on the hessian apron that she wore over her kirtle. Like Gwyn, she was fond of all animals and they responded in kind. Every few minutes, however, some minor crisis in the inn caused her jump up and go off to harangue either one of her serving maids or a customer who had become obstreperous. Even then her decisive voice and pithy commands avoided giving deep offence — John saw again how well she was suited to handling what could become a fraught or even violent situation.

He managed to decline her offer of another meal, having not long risen from his own supper table. As he drank a few more jugs of the weak liquor, John followed his usual practice of keeping her up to date with his cases, as not only was he flattered by her genuine interest, but sometimes both her common sense and her fund of local knowledge were helpful to him. The Bush, being the most popular inn in Exeter, accommodated a steady stream of travellers seeking a pallet in the loft and more than once, the gossip Nesta picked up from these, as well as from her regular customers, had been of considerable value in his investigations. He related the story of that day’s excursion to Alphington and the death of Robert de Pridias.

‘Did you know him at all, dear lady?’ he asked.

Nesta shook her head. ‘I think he frequented the New Inn, it was nearer his dwelling. But of course I know of him. He was a fuller and weaver, master of his guild.’ She paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I heard something else, too. Wasn’t there bad blood between him and another fuller? I remember some of the weavers who come in here talking about it several weeks ago.’

‘Henry de Hocforde, that would be. The widow is accusing him of murdering her husband by witchcraft!’ John related the full story, ending by mockingly describing the pierced corn-dolly. He had expected Nesta to be amused, but she looked strangely serious.

‘Don’t dismiss it too easily, John. There are many things that defy explanation.’

‘You sound like Matilda!’ he said in a surprised tone. ‘And even my friend the archdeacon declined to pour scorn on the possibility. Do you believe that these cunning folk have the power of life and death?’

‘We are Celts, John, you and I. At least, your mother had a Welsh father and a Cornish mother. The tradition of spells and charms is strong amongst us, but even the pure English have plenty of faith in occult matters.’

He looked down at her curiously. This was the first time he had ever heard her speak of such things.

‘This is what John of Alençon said, in different words. I had thought as a churchman he would have condemned all such beliefs out of hand, but he was remarkably tolerant of them. He said that the mass of our peasantry had little else to aid them when they were in trouble.’

Nesta pulled off her hot and restricting coif and shook out her luxuriant red hair, which fell to her shoulders.

‘Where else can they turn, with little money and no apothecaries? The parish priests are often of little help. They are either drunks or corrupt or just plain ignorant.’

She glared at him almost defiantly, challenging him to contradict her.

‘I seem to have touched a raw spot in you over this issue,’ he said mildly.

‘Maybe because I have a little talent in that direction myself,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘Not so much these days in the city, but when I was at home in Gwent, I did what I could to help those who needed it.’

De Wolfe was intrigued — this was something she had never mentioned before. ‘You mean that you had some gift yourself?’

‘It was nothing important, but my own mother had taught me a little about herbs and various means of treating small illnesses and other problems. She said that her mother and grandmother were quite notable healers in their day, so maybe it runs in families.’

‘What kind of miracles did you perform?’ he asked, half seriously.

Nesta pinched his arm, quite painfully. ‘Don’t mock me, Sir Crowner! Our little village had the same troubles as everywhere else. Sickness, palsies, fits and seizures … though probably there were more problems among the animals and crops. Pigs without litters, fields with strips where the oats always failed.’

She hesitated, her eyes seeing a scene a hundred miles and five years away. ‘Then sometimes, a wife would want a man-child, or any child at all to please her husband — while another poor weak woman could not face being with child yet again. Those of us who had the gift tried to help. The village was like a big family, everyone did what they could.’

John nodded, although he could not fully appreciate what she was saying. Though he had been born and brought up in the Devon village of Stoke-in-Teignhead, he had been comfortably raised in the manor house that owned the village and most of the villagers, so his empathy with the lower reaches of the feudal system was limited.

‘Do you still practise the black arts?’ he said, trying to lighten the mood a little. Nesta gave him a ferocious scowl, which was not entirely feigned.

‘There is black magic as well, John — be assured of that! But what village folk attempt to do against cruel nature is far from that. I have tried to help a few people here, yes. My maid’s mother had a tumour on her neck two months ago, which I tried to assuage with poultices, a potion and a few charms.’

‘Was it successful?’ he asked, soberly now.

Nesta shook her head sadly ‘She died three weeks past. There are many things that only God can deal with. Even an expensive apothecary or the monks at St John’s could not have done anything for her.’

John had a niggling query, but it was a sensitive issue.

‘Nesta, dear, when you were with child yourself not long ago, I know that you wished to be rid of it, mainly for my sake. Yet you went elsewhere for the purpose.’

She sighed and her eyes became moist. He kicked himself for his insensitivity in bringing it up, but Nesta seemed willing to explain.

‘You cannot treat yourself, John. Much of the power is in the mind, not the herbs. You have to convince the other person that what needs to happen, will happen. You cannot do that to yourself. That is why I went to Bearded Lucy — not that she was successful.’

The woman that Nesta mentioned was an old crone who lived in a hovel on Exe Island and who had a wide reputation as a cunning woman.

De Wolfe felt that this conversation was taking a morbid turn and steered it away to other topics. He was helped by a sudden commotion at the back of the room, where stools were being thrown over and a fist fight had erupted between a pair of tinners who had drunk too much. Nesta streaked away to deal with it and with the help of Edwin and a couple of dependable customers, the most aggressive miscreant was manhandled out into the lane, Nesta’s strident voice following him with pithy advice not to return until he was sober.

John grinned to himself, not intervening as experience had told him that his mistress was more than capable of dealing with such episodes.

The dusk was now well advanced and after one more jug of ale, he kissed the landlady goodnight and with a last regretful look at the ladder to his French bed, called to Brutus and made his way home.