The Witch Hunter

CHAPTER THREE

Early the next morning, which was a Wednesday, Cecilia de Pridias forsook her usual church in Fore Street and walked to the cathedral. She went just before the eighth hour to attend prime, the third service of the episcopal day which began with Matins just after midnight. The new widow was swathed in a black mantle, secured at the shoulder with a circular silver brooch, the hood pulled up over the white cover-chief and wimple that enveloped her head. In spite of her sombre attire, her face bore a flinty expression that suggested determination rather than mourning.

Her daughter Avise and podgy son-in-law Roger trailed behind her as she climbed the steps of the West Front and entered the small entrance set in the massive doors, which were opened only on ceremonial occasions.

Inside, the huge nave was almost empty, the only sound apart from their feet on the flagstones being the chirruping of birds as they flew in and out of the unglazed windows high on the walls. Ahead in the distance was the pulpitum, the carved wooden choir-screen that seperated the priests from the common folk. It crossed the nave just before the two side chapels in the bases of the great square towers that formed the arms of the crucifix-shaped building.

Cecilia marched down the centre of the echoing nave, to where a dozen people, mostly women, stood a respectful distance in front of the ornate screen, between the two small altars of St Mary and St John the Baptist. The service was just starting, as with no clock nearer than Germany, everyone’s time-keeping was approximate and the chanterel bell had started ringing before the de Pridias family had turned into Martin’s Lane.

Beyond the screen, the prayers and chanting seemed remote to the small congregation, the clergy and their acolytes being seen and heard indistinctly through the intricate woodwork. This was a choral service, not a Mass and the priests were indifferent to the small audience outside. In the cathedral, the numerous daily offices were not primarily for the benefit of the public, but were held as perpetual acts of worship to God, offered by the complex hierarchy of canons, vicars and secondaries. The lay population was served by more than two dozen churches scattered around the city and it was a matter of indifference to the chapter of the cathedral whether anyone turned up to listen in the nave, other than on special days, when pomp and ceremony required an audience.

Prime droned on for about forty minutes, with psalms, chanting, prayers and responses being orchestrated beyond the choir-screen by the precentor and his assistant, the succentor. Some of the other people dropped to their knees on the cold stones at appropriate moments in the service, but devout as Cecilia was, she had no intention of prostrating herself on the grubby slabs in her best cloak. At St Olave’s, she always took her own padded kneeler, but here she contented herself with a bowed head at the more solemn moments.

The formalities ended with a blessing given in high-pitched Latin by one of the archdeacons, after which the choristers, secondaries and priests processed out of their stalls and dispersed, most to get some refreshment before terce, the next service held at around the ninth hour. This was what Cecilia had been waiting for, and with Avise and Roger trailing behind, she went to the north side, where a passage went through to the crossing of the cathedral, at the base of one of the towers. A stream of boys and young men hurried past in their black cassocks, followed at a more sedate rate by their seniors, most draped in their cloaks as the heat of the day had not yet arrived. The lady stood respectfully with her head downcast, but her sharp eyes were scanning each figure as they emerged from the gloom behind the end of the screen. After a few moments, she saw the person for whom she had been lying in wait and moved forward towards him.

Canon Gilbert de Bosco was her cousin, though a dozen years older than her forty-five summers. He had Cecilia’s forceful manner which bordered on arrogance, probably inherited from their mutual grandfather, who had been a knight in the service of the first King Henry, before becoming embroiled in the civil war between Stephen and Matilda.

Gilbert was a large man and could have been a soldier like his ancestor, rather than a priest, as he was powerful and muscular, though good living was making him run to fat. A thick neck and a red face were topped by bristly hair of a sandy colour with still no grey to be seen. His fair colouring had made him prey to the recent scorching sun and his bald tonsure glowed like a brazier.

He was stalking along oblivious to his surroundings, his mind on a leisurely breakfast, as his vicar was standing in for him at all the later offices until the evening compline. The sudden touch on his arm jerked him into awareness and a scowl was hastily converted to a sympathetic smile when he saw it was his cousin Cecilia. Although they were by no means close, he had approved of his cousin marrying into money and kept on good terms with her and her husband, in case one day some useful legacy might come his way. He had heard of her husband’s death only that morning and hastened to express his sympathy, clasping her hand and managing to look mournful.

‘I was going to seek you out later today, dear cousin, to offer my deepest sympathy and to pray together for the repose of poor Robert’s soul.’

His deep, booming voice managed to sound totally sincere, as if his mind had been filled with sorrow, rather than the anticipation of breakfast.

The widow brusquely acknowledged his concern, then cut straight to the point. ‘There are matters concerning his death which I must urgently discuss with you, Gilbert.’

His big face bent towards her and his rather watery blue eyes sought hers to exude commiserations. ‘Of course, Cecilia, the funeral arrangements. Be assured that I will see to it that a requiem Mass will be conducted with all due dignity …’

She cut him off with an impatient shake of her head. ‘I thank you, Gilbert, but my parish priest at St Olave’s is seeing to that aspect. I need to talk to you of the manner of his death. Is there somewhere more fitting that we can go?’

Mystified and somewhat reluctant to get involved in something which might divert him from more lucrative pursuits, the benign smile on the priest’s ruddy face faded somewhat.

‘Manner of his death? What help could I possibly give you there?’ he rumbled, lowering his voice as some of his colleagues were passing. They were looking curiously at the sight of their fellow canon with his head together with that of a well-dressed woman.

‘I cannot speak of it in public, Gilbert,’ said his cousin sharply.

He looked around the wide, cold nave and sighed. He had no wish to take her to his comfortable house in the Close, as it might interfere with his breakfast. In any event, women, apart from the odd washerwoman or skivvy, were banned from priests’ lodgings — though this was a rule that was regularly ignored by some of his fellows.

‘Very well, cousin, let us go back into the robing room. It will be empty now.’

For the first time, he seemed to become aware of the daughter and her husband, who stood indecisively behind Cecilia. With a grunted acknowledgement, he turned and led them back past the end of the choir-screen, where the last columns of the nave gave way to the massive buttress of the north tower. The high, square chamber at its base had a small altar at one side, dedicated to St Radegund, a sixth-century queen of the Franks, but opposite was a curtained-off area used by the clergy and their acolytes for changing vestments. Canon de Bosco stuck his head through a gap in the drapery to confirm that everyone had departed, then held it aside for the other three to enter. They stood in the centre and with the two younger persons hovering awkwardly behind her, Cecilia de Pridias fixed her cousin with a gimlet eye.

‘My husband was done to death, Gilbert! I know how and I know by whom, but that stubborn coroner will not take me seriously.’

Initially reluctant to get involved, the canon’s well-developed sense of self-advancement stirred within his brain. Although in late middle age, he was still ambitious and so far had climbed from being a lowly parish priest near Tavistock to attaining a coveted prebend near Crediton and thus becoming a canon of the cathedral. He still wanted to go farther and though he was realistic enough to know that a bishop’s crozier was forever beyond his reach, he had his eye on one of the more senior posts in the chapter, preferably that of an archdeacon or treasurer, when one should fall vacant. His ears had pricked up at the mention of the coroner, as de Wolfe was well known as a zealous supporter of the King, whereas the bishop was well disposed towards Prince John. In fact, Henry Marshal, though brother to William, the Marshal of England, was well known to have been actively sympathetic to John’s abortive rebellion when Richard Coeur-de-Lion was imprisoned in Germany. Gilbert de Bosco had no political leanings either way, but being associated with anything that confounded or discredited the coroner might improve his own standing with the bishop, which could do his hopes of advancement no harm at all. All this passed rapidly through the mind of the devious priest as he waited for his cousin to enlarge on de Wolfe’s failings.

‘He refused to investigate the death or even hold an inquest,’ complained Cecilia. ‘He treated my accusations with contempt, even in the face of the evidence!’

‘And what was that, cousin?’ Gilbert was now attentive and solicitous, the oil of self-interest lubricating his manner.

‘You will have heard of the feud between my poor Robert and Henry de Hocforde, over Henry’s desire to acquire our mill?’

The priest had heard no such thing, but he nodded sagely. He could soon catch up on the gossip, if needs be.

‘Well, failing to persuade Robert to sell by legal means, he arranged for his assassination! But that fool coroner will have none of it.’

Gilbert’s interest began to waver. If this silly woman had some obsession about a murder conspiracy that would lead nowhere, he wanted to keep well clear of it. But her next words reclaimed his attention immediately.

‘He was done to death by witchcraft. An effigy was hidden under his saddle, with a spike through its heart!’

Ecclestiastical politics apart, Gilbert de Bosco had a deep, unshakeable devotion to Christianity and the doctrines of Rome, free from some of the doubts and crises of faith that were admitted to by some of his colleagues. One manifestation of this dedication to the Church was a fierce hatred of any competitor to Holy Writ. This included the manifold remnants of paganism and pantheism which pervaded the countryside, in spite of many centuries of Christian influence in the islands of Britain. In the years when he had been a village priest, his sermons had often contained vehement condemnations of the everyday practice of superstition and rural magic, with demands to his flock to abandon the ancient customs of folk medicine, spell-casting and sooth-saying. The fact that his exhortations fell on the deaf ears of folk who had no alternative but to turn to their cunning men and women, did little to dampen his crusading efforts. Since he had moved to the city with its slightly more sophisticated community, his ardour had subsided, but now Cecilia’s words ignited the slumbering embers into sudden flame.

‘Witchcraft! Tell me more of this,’ he commanded.

His cousin had little more to tell, but she repeated and embellished the few facts, then called her daughter and the abashed Roger forward to confirm her story, especially the discovery of the corn-dolly under her husband’s saddlebag.

‘Leave this with me, cousin,’ he snapped, after some very quick thinking. ‘I will look into this matter at once. The archdeacon should be told and perhaps even the bishop himself. When is the funeral to be held?’

Cecilia, gratified that her relative was taking this seriously, told him that Julian Fulk, the priest of St Olave’s, was holding a service the next morning and after that, the burial would take place in the afternoon, following a Mass in the cathedral. As the family was relatively rich, they had bought the right to bury Robert under the flagstones at the back of the nave, rather than out in the chaos of the Close outside, where most of Exeter’s dead had to be deposited. In spite of the multitude of churches in the city, none had the right to bury their parishioners; this was jealously guarded by the cathedral, which collected all the fees for the funeral formalities.

Gilbert de Bosco noded sagely. ‘As this is a family matter, I will deliver an oration at the requiem — and I will make sure that your concerns are voiced in the strongest terms.’

As well as his own genuine crusade against necromancy, he saw an opportunity to bring himself to prominence over this issue. It was a timely move, as one of the archdeacons was in poor health and there were rumours of his post soon falling vacant. Becoming a champion for the Church against what he considered the powers of darkness, should help to persuade the bishop and chapter to consider him more energetic and enthusiastic than the other twenty-three canons. The fact that he had not the slightest evidence that Robert de Pridias had died from anything other than a seizure or stroke hardly occurred to him, for he had the single-mindedness of an obsessive personality.

‘I must go now, I have important business,’ he said solemnly, thinking of his breakfast cooling on the table. ‘I will take action this very day and see you at the sad occasion here tomorrow.’

He ushered them back into the nave and then hurried away importantly, leaving Cecilia well pleased with her morning’s work.

For very different reasons, the apothecary Walter Winstone was even more opposed to the activities of cunning folk than was Canon Gilbert de Bosco. Still smarting from the pain of giving back the money to Henry de Hocforde, he marched around his shop that morning in a foul temper. The apprentice had already felt the rough edge of his tongue and the palm of his hand across his head. Sitting low over his pill-board, the lad was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as Walter finally tore off his apron and went to the door.

‘I’m off to Northgate Street to speak with Richard Lustcote,’ he snarled. ‘Behave yourself whilst I’m away or it’ll be the worse for you.’

With this happy valediction he hurried away down Waterbeer Street, muttering curses under his breath at the idlers who got in his way. His oaths worsened as he dodged the contents of a chamber pot thrown from the window of a brothel, while he headed for the shop of his nearest colleague. It was a man he disliked, but at the moment he had need of him. There were four other apothecaries in Exeter, too few to have a proper guild, though they paid a small fee once each year to a visitor from London, who kept their names on the register of the Company of Apothecaries and brought any news concerning their craft. Walter was not an enthusiastic member and grudgingly attended their ‘feast’ each Easter, which, owing to their small number, was held in one room of the New Inn.

As the small man pattered testily towards the North Gate, he reflected on the reasons for his dislike of Richard Lustcote. They were mainly based on jealousy of the older man — his seniority in the craft, his long-established and more successful business and his popularity with the townsfolk, mainly because of his pleasant nature. Although their rudimentary guild had no warden, Lustcote was looked on by the other apothecaries — and by the populace — as the father figure of the healing art in Exeter. There was no secular physician nearer than Winchester, and as monks and nuns provided all that was available in the way of hospital care, the apothecaries dispensed medicines and visited the paying sick in their homes. This function they jealously guarded, as it was their livelihood. Now Walter felt threatened — cunning women not only competed with his healing herbals, but were usurping his illegal trade in surreptitious poisonings and abortions.

His hurrying feet had taken him around the corner and on towards the North Gate in the city walls, where the road went out towards Crediton. The buildings lining the narrow street were the usual mixture of styles in this thriving city. New houses were being squeezed between the old, taking over garden plots and progressively replacing the ancient timbered structures with stone. There was a whole range of roofing, from mouldering thatch through wooden shingles to thick tiles. The height and width of every dwelling were different and some projected over the road as new-fangled solars became the fashion. One thing that did not change was the smell — the packed-earth street had a central gutter of crude stones, down which a stream of filth oozed towards a conduit alongside the gate, which was downhill from Carfoix, the central crossroads of the city. As Walter walked along, he unthinkingly avoided the stinking trench, keeping away from both the middle of the road and the edges, where the perils of waste water — and worse — thrown from doorways and windows were another hazard. However, he reached Lustcote’s shop without undue soiling and pushed aside the thick leather flap that hung over the doorway. The establishment was twice the size of his own, with display shutters lowered from windows on either side of the central door. The interior was roomy and no fewer than three apprentices sat working behind counters, one of them dealing with a pair of matrons who were seeking relief for their aching joints. Apart from its size and tidier appearance, the place was very similar to Walter’s — and almost every other apothecary’s shop in England — but he still felt envy creeping over him as he asked one of the young men for his master.

‘In the store behind, sir,’ was the reply. The lad knew Walter by sight and reputation, though he was an infrequent visitor.

The room behind the shop was again similar to his own, but much larger. Here he found Richard Lustcote hunched over a small charcoal stove, boiling a copper pan containing a quart of some liquid that smelled strongly of vinegar. He was a round, chubby man with white hair that hung down to the collar of his green tunic, over which was a tabard of thin leather, stained with several years’ worth of splashed medicines. His amiable face smiled a greeting, which was not something that the miserable Walter Winstone often received. After a guarded conversation, mainly about the novel brew that Richard was preparing as a treatment for dropsy of the legs, Walter came to the substance of his visit.

‘This is a guild matter, Richard and you are the acknowledged leader of our small band here in Devon. We need to be united on this, as it affects our trade and our purses.’

The old apothecary moved his pan from the trivet over the glowing embers and looked quizzically at his visitor. ‘Do you wish us all to raise our prices?’

Walter shook his head irritably. ‘Nothing like that. I am talking about competition — and unqualified competition at that. It’s not only against the interests of our guild, but dangerous to the public.’

Richard looked uncomprehendingly at Winstone. Not for the first time, he considered him to be a strange man — resentful, ungrateful and envious. He had never heard anything against his ability as an apothecary, but he was certainly not a personable character. No wonder he was unmarried and lived in rather squalid loneliness over his shop, even though he could obviously afford better. He had arrived in Exeter about seven years ago, from Southampton, so it was said, but no one knew anything about him before that. The guild-man from London said that he had not previously been registered with the Company of Apothecaries in Southampton and had told him some vague story about having served his apprenticeship in Brittany. The older apothecary waited for some fuller explanation, which tumbled from Walter’s lips as bitter as the vinegar that simmered on the stove.

‘These self-appointed healers are meddling more and more in our business,’ he complained. ‘Most are what we know as “cunning women”, though there are some men as well. I have lost customers to them and that means money lost. They charge far less, but provide nothing but ridiculous charms and spells, which are nothing more than attempts at magic.’

Richard Lustcote smiled indulgently. ‘Many of the things that we sell are little more than attempts at magic, brother! We rely heavily on the faith our customers have in us, so that they feel we are doing them good. In reality, we keep them occupied while we wait in hope that God and time will alleviate their sicknesses.’

Walter Winstone looked shocked at this cynical, if realistic view of their noble craft. ‘You cannot really believe that, Richard!’ he brayed. ‘We have been trained and have studied the precepts of others learned in the art, from Galen onwards. These interfering impostors are charlatans, casting their spells and gibberish, little better than witches!’

His indignation made him gabble and flecks of spittle appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Lustcote tried to soothe him a little. ‘Come now, Walter, there is room for all in trying to do good for the sick and distressed. We have no quarrel with the monks at St John’s Hospital and St Nicholas — nor with the good sisters at Polsloe Priory. Beyond a few miles from our city walls, we have no patients — and they have no apothecaries, so they must fend as best they can. Name me a hamlet between here and Totnes or Tiverton that boasts an apothecary’s shop?’

Winstone would have none of this argument. ‘I give not a fig for those peasants in far-flung villages. I am concerned with this city and the few miles around it, where we are increasingly losing business to what is little better than irreligious witchcraft! It is a danger not only to us, but to the sufferers, who are exposed not only to God knows what harmful potions, but to forces of the Devil, which is what some of these harridans rely upon.’

His eloquence deafened the sound of his own hypocrisy, considering that he had been feeding Robert de Pridias the poisonous sugar-of-lead for weeks on the pretext of treating the ache in his chest.

They argued the matter for some minutes, although Robert turned back to his copper dish, which had gone off the boil, while they spoke. He was a mild-mannered man and played down Walter’s fears, saying that he had not noticed any falling-off of his trade. Furthermore, he thought that the clientele that could afford the services of an apothecary, was generally unlikely to seek the more dubious offerings of cunning women.

However, his colleague from Waterbeer Street continued to rant about the iniquities of common good-wives interfering in their noble profession. ‘It should be a matter for the law!’ he snapped. ‘The guilds were strengthened by old King Henry and they should be looked on as a monopoly, exclusive to those trained in the art. Think what would happen if some damned peasant masquerading as a mason came and offered to build a cathedral on the cheap! Or a goldsmith or draper usurping the established companies. There would be a riot and the guilds would drag such an impostor away and hang him! So why should we be different, just because we purvey medicinal knowledge, rather than stones or gold rings?’

The even-minded Richard had to admit to some logic in this and finally he reluctantly agreed to bring the matter up at the meeting of their tiny guild to be held the following week — and also to discuss it with one of the portreeves. These were the two prominent burgesses who ran the city council, though there was talk of replacing them with a mayor, a new idea imported from the Continent, which had already been adopted in London four years earlier. Both of them were wardens of their own guilds and were knowledgeable about such matters.

With that Winstone had to be satisfied and he eventually left, still muttering under his breath about unfair competition.

Later that morning, a pale-faced young woman turned off Fore Street, just down the hill from the Carfoix crossing. She entered a short lane called Milk Street, which crossed the head of Smythen Street, noisy with the banging and hammering of the smiths’ forges. There was no mystery about the name of Milk Street, as the dozen huts and cottages were almost all occupied by dairiers, purveyors of milk and cream. Halfway along, she hesitantly approached a lopsided hut of wattle and daub, crowned with a tattered thatch roof. In the dozen square yards of dung-strewn earth that formed the front yard, she saw a patient donkey chewing on a pile of cut grass, with two large churns slung across its back, formed of dented and tarnished copper. They were empty now, but the handles of two ladles stuck out of each container.

The young woman, dressed simply in a patched linen kirtle bleached by innumerable washings, had her hair swathed in the usual linen head-rail, tucked closely around her face and under her chin. She appeared nervous as she went up to the open door in front of the windowless shack and tapped on the scarred boards, the bottom few inches of which were frayed with dry rot.

There was no response from the dark interior and after a few moments she plucked up enough courage to walk around the back of the dwelling. Here she found a larger yard backing on to the buildings at the upper end of Southgate Street. Although in the centre of one of England’s major cities, it seemed full of cows, bony dun-coloured beasts with great udders. There were at least eight of them filling the small area, tethered by ropes to a ramshackle fence, munching away like the donkey at piles of freshly cut green grass. Beyond the side fences, the visitor could see similar groups of cows in the adjacent properties.

In the middle of the yard, squatting on a tiny stool, was an elderly woman, pumping away at a cow’s teats as she directed a stream of warm milk into a leather bucket gripped between her knees, her head jammed against the beast’s flanks. Alongside, a small calf cowered against its mother’s legs.

The new arrival watched for a few moments, fascinated in spite of her own troubles by the almost artistic flourish of the milker’s hands, as the little fingers spread upwards and outwards at every stroke.

The jets from the udder gradually diminished and with a grunt, the old lady pushed back her stool and stood up, becoming aware of the spectator.

‘Looking for me, dear?’ Her sharp eyes peered out from beneath the grimy helmet of felt that covered her head, its front soiled from rubbing against her cows.

‘If you be Avelina Sprot,’ answered the woman, diffidently.

The good-wife nodded, then pointed to the bucket half full of milk that she had in her other hand. ‘Let me just give this to the orphan first.’

She waddled bent-backed across the yard and poured the milk into a trough made from a hollowed-out log, placed in front of another, larger calf tied to the fence.

‘Primrose has too much milk, she needs some taking off her that her own babe can’t drink. This one needs it more, since its mother died.’

She came back towards the hut and dropped the bucket, motioning the woman to come to the back door of the cottage. As they went into the dark interior, Avelina asked what had brought her visitor here. ‘Is it the usual, my girl?’

The meaning was clear, but Gertrude shook her head, two spots of colour appearing on her pale face. ‘It is quite the opposite, good dame.’

When her eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness after the bright summer sun outside, she saw that there was just one room beneath the thatched roof. A wicker screen partitioned off one end, where straw mattresses lay on the floor. The other part was occupied by a circular fire-pit in the centre, ringed with stones embedded in dried clay. Beyond this was a wide wooden tray on legs, filled with milk which was settling so that the cream could be skimmed off.

‘Sit down there, girl, you look fragile. Your blood is obviously thin.’

Avelina pointed to a low bench near the fire-pit and when Gertrude was seated, she squatted on her haunches opposite. ‘So you don’t need to bring on your monthly courses?’ she said bluntly.

The younger woman, who looked about twenty years old, shrugged. ‘Yes, I do — but not because I’m with child.’

Avelina frowned as she scratched at her left armpit, where a flea was biting her. ‘You wish to have a child, is that it?’

Gertrude hesitantly explained her problem. ‘I have three children already — and have lost two more by miscarriage. But all of them were girls — and my husband is becoming impatient for a son to carry on his business, as he is a master carpenter. He has a workshop near St Nicholas’ Priory.’

Avelina began to understand. ‘You wish to conceive a boy? Well, maybe the next one will be.’

Gertrude shook her head. ‘I was married at fourteen and have been pregnant every year until last year. Now I have seen no monthly flow since last Advent, yet I am not with child. My courses have dried up and I cannot conceive.’

‘Do you wish to become gravid again?’ asked Mistress Sprot, almost aggressively. These poor girls were like her cows outside, never free from either pregnancy or lactation.

‘Only if it would be a male child,’ Gertrude said softly. ‘Else my husband would be very angry. And he is a big, strong man.’

The older woman took her meaning and looked covertly at Gertrude’s face for signs of bruising.

‘I was told that you were a wise woman, expert in these matters, so I have come to you. I have very little money, but can give you what I have.’

Avelina shrugged as if to dismiss the idea of a fee, then leaned forward and, with a dirty finger, pulled down one of Gertrude’s lower eyelids. ‘You are as pale as death, girl!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you eat well — or give it all to your big husband?’

‘We have three hungry girls as well and this year has been a very bad one, for carpenters as well as those who live off the land.’

The cunning woman wagged a finger at Gertrude. ‘Tell your man that if he wants a son, he must stop eating all the meat himself. You need blood to start your courses, you have drained yourself with five pregnancies.’

‘I need a son, not just another child,’ countered the woman, with a trace of desperation in her voice.

Avelina hauled herself to her feet and went over to a wall, where several crude shelves were fixed above a table that carried a pestle and mortar, together with a couple of pewter dishes. Now that her eyes could see better, Gertrude noticed that many bunches of dried vegetation hung from the roof beams and that the shelves were filled with pots and packets of all shapes and sizes.

‘Take one of these every morning with a mug of small ale,’ Avelina commanded, offering a small packet wrapped in a scrap of parchment, tied with twine.

‘Will they induce a boy-child?

‘Not at all, but they may persuade your courses to return, without which you’ll not give birth to as much as a mouse, let alone a boy-child. They are for thickening the blood.’

Gertrude’s face fell. ‘Is there nothing else you can do for me?’ she asked plaintively.

Avelina clucked her tongue. ‘Patience, girl, patience! Listen while I tell you what to do.’

Ten minutes later, Gertrude came out of the cottage with a smile on her face, one hand clutching the cloth purse which hung from her girdle, making sure that the collection of herbs and oddments it contained were safe. The three pence that she had saved from her housekeeping were now in a stone jar on Avelina’s shelf, but the young woman considered that it had been money well spent.

Up at the top end of the city, the county court was in session within the walls of Rougemont Castle. Often known as either the Shire Court or the Sheriff’s Court, it was held once a fortnight and usually lasted at least a whole day. However, this August session was quieter than usual, which John de Wolfe attributed to the previous weeks of bad weather, which had slowed down most outside activities and reduced the number of people travelling, giving less opportunity for robberies and assaults.

He sat in his usual place on the low dais at the end of the bare hall, which lay inside the inner ward of the castle. The coroner was obliged to attend every session, to record any matters which had a bearing on cases that might go to the royal courts — and to present various matters to the sheriff, who now sat in the only decent chair in the middle of the platform. To either side were a few benches and stools, on which sat a representative of the Church and one of the more prominent burgesses of the city. A couple of trestle tables gave writing space for the clerks and, at one of these, Thomas de Peyne was perched. His parchments were spread out before him and his quill waggled furiously as he inscribed them with his impeccable Latin. Farther back, Gwyn of Polruan stood gossiping in a low voice with his friend Gabriel, the sergeant of the garrison’s soldiers.

Today’s token priest was Brother Rufus, the portly monk who was the castle’s chaplain, who now seemed be dozing on his stool in the heat of late morning. On the other side of the sheriff from the coroner was Ralph Morin, the Viking-like constable of Rougemont — another friend of de Wolfe and a covert antagonist of Sheriff Richard de Revelle.

The latter was posturing in his chair, showing off his latest costume, which he had bought on his last visit to Winchester. The dapper guardian of Devonshire wore a long tunic of bright green linen, with gold embroidery around the neck and hem, which was slit back and front for riding a horse. A loose surcoat of fawn silk was kept open to display his splendid new tunic and a wide leather belt, secured by a large burnished buckle. His feet were encased in soft calf-length boots with ridiculously long, curled toes, padded inside with teased wool — and at the other end of his slim body, a pointed beard had been freshly trimmed and perfumed. Above it, his narrow, foxy face sneered out at the world, especially despising the accused and supplicant folk that were paraded in front of the judgement seat.

‘How many more this morning?’ he snapped in an aside to his senior clerk, who hovered just behind him.

‘Just a few, sire. We should finish by dinner-time today, no more this afternoon.’

Richard sighed with relief. It was hot and he was looking forward to a jug of Anjou wine and the dishes of grilled fish and cold pork that awaited him in his chambers in the keep. He dragged his attention back to the next case, as two men-at-arms thrust forward a sullen youth to stand before him on the beaten earth below the dais. He was dressed in filthy rags and had blue and yellow bruises all down one side of his face, a legacy of two weeks in the burgesses’ prison in one of the towers of the South Gate. Of those confined there awaiting trial or execution, a sizeable proportion died of disease or from assault by other prisoners — though quite a few managed to bribe the warders and escape.

The chief clerk stepped forward with the ends of a parchment roll grasped in each hand. He read out the details of the youth’s case, as a shifting audience of a score of citizens and peasants listened from where they stood at the back of the barren chamber.

‘This is Stephen Aethelard, an outlaw. He was recognised as such in the vill of Dunstone, and captured by the men of that place.’

The man glowered up at the sheriff, who turned languidly to his brother-in-law.

‘John, have you details of the exigent?’

The coroner stood, unwinding his tall body from his stool and reaching back to take a roll from Thomas, who had it ready to hand to him. He opened it, but did not look at it, as he was unable to read more than a few simple words, laboriously learned from his tutor in the cathedral. However, Thomas had primed him beforehand about the essential facts.

‘This man lived in the said Dunstone and was appealed by John de Witefeld for breaking into his house, stealing fifteen shillings and assaulting his daughter Edith on the eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels last September. Attached by two sureties to attend this court, he made himself scarce and did not answer. His name was called at the four subsequent sittings of this court, but he still did not answer and was declared exigent on the fifth day of November last.’

He sat down and handed the roll back to Thomas. The sheriff sighed to express his boredom and looked down at the bedraggled figure below him. ‘Have you anything to say for yourself, fellow?’

The bruised face rose briefly. ‘Whatever I say will be of no account. But I did not harm that girl.’

‘Did you steal that money?’ asked John, more out of curiosity than for anything relevant.

‘That’s never been proved,’ said Aethelard sullenly.

‘Because you never showed up in court to plead your innocence,’ observed the coroner.

‘Stop wasting my time!’ cut in the sheriff irritably. ‘It’s of no interest to me whether you were guilty or not. You were legally declared outlaw and now you have been recaptured. The only penalty for that is death! It would have saved the time of the court — and my patience — if someone had seen fit to cut off your head at the roadside!’ His stomach rumbled to remind him of dinner-time. ‘Take him away and hang him tomorrow. Bring in the next case.’

Half an hour later, John de Wolfe sat down at his own table, having forgotten all about Stephen Aethelard, although he would see him again briefly the next day, when he was pushed off a ladder at the gallows, with a rope around his neck — one of six hangings scheduled for the Thursday executions. Even then, the outlaw would be of little concern to the coroner, as he had no land nor chattels for him to confiscate for the royal treasury, which was the main purpose of the coroner’s attendance at the gallows-beam on Magdalen Street, out of the city towards Heavitree.

De Wolfe had dismissed the youth from his mind and was concentrating on the mutton stew that Mary had set before them. It was too liquid to be served on trenchers of bread, so they had wooden bowls and horn spoons, with small loaves alongside. A large jug of ale stood between John and his wife, who sat at either end of the oaken table and Mary bustled in frequently to ladle more stew into their bowls and to refill their pottery mugs from the jug. As usual, the meal was a silent occasion, apart from the slurping of the stew, especially from Matilda’s end, as she was a voracious eater. When they had eaten their fill, Mary appeared with a slab of hard yellow cheese to accompany the remainder of the bread. John hacked some slices off with his dagger and Mary carried the platter up to her mistress. When she left, de Wolfe tried to start up some conversation to break the strained silence.

‘I hear that the funeral Mass of Robert de Pridias will take place tomorrow afternoon.’ He chose something to do with the Church to catch her attention.

Her face lifted towards him and he waited until her jaws had finished champing the hard bread. Though she still had most of her front teeth, albeit yellowed, most of her molars had either crumbled or had been wrenched out by the itinerant tooth-puller.

‘I know that. I shall be there to support poor Cecilia. But we also have a private memorial service in St Olave’s beforehand — the widow was a faithful attender there, though like you, Robert himself came but seldom.’

She managed to squeeze a reprimand even out of a stranger’s death, thought John sourly. He waited for the expected complaint about his failure to hold an inquest and was not disappointed.

‘My poor friend tells me that you were less than helpful yesterday, when she called you, John.’ Her eyes were like gimlets and her lips like a rat-trap, he thought, as she glowered at him down the length of the table.

‘There was no call to do otherwise! The man was seen to clutch his chest and fall dead across his horse.’

‘You know of the feud between de Hocforde and Robert. Could you not take it more seriously?’

‘I didn’t know then. But it would have made no difference, the law is not for giving credence to old wives’ tales.’

As the words left his lips, he knew he had said the wrong thing.

‘Old wives, are we? I’m glad I know what you think of me. No wonder you go chasing young whores, Welsh or otherwise.’

Her chair grated on the flagstones as she stood up. With a glare that should have turned him to a pillar of salt, she swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

The old hound, lying near the empty hearth, showed the whites of his eyes as he looked mournfully up at his master. John got up and took his mug of ale to his favourite seat alongside the fireplace, bending to fondle the dog’s soft ears. ‘She’ll be in a foul mood until tomorrow, Brutus. But a good requiem Mass will cheer her up again, never fear.’

The coroner dozed for an hour, seduced by the oppressive heat and humidity that penetrated even the dank hall of his gloomy house. Although the sun still beat down from a pale blue sky, a bank of cloud was building up on the western horizon and a distant rumble of thunder threatened the return of the rain that had plagued the country all summer. Mary let him sleep as she quietly removed the debris of the meal, but by the middle of the afternoon he roused himself and stretched his arms above his head, feeling his undershirt sticking to his back with sweat. Although all he wore over it was his usual drab grey tunic with no surcoat, it was still uncomfortably hot. He had even forsaken his long hose in favour of knee-length stockings and, like everyone else, wore no undergarments on the lower part of his body, yet still felt as uncomfortable as he had been in the heat of Palestine.

He walked around to the back yard and relieved himself against the fence, as in this hot weather the privy stank so much that even his insensitive nose baulked at going inside.

‘When is the night-soil man due to shovel this place out?’ he called across to Mary, who was washing a pan in a bucket of murky water hauled from the well in the middle of the yard.

‘He’s two days late — everyone is having their privies and middens cleared more often in this heat.’ She tipped the dirty water on to the ground and dropped the leather bucket back down the well. ‘We need some rain again soon to bring the water level up, there’s little better than mud in it now.’

They stood together to look down the narrow shaft and John, after a quick look up at the stairs to Matilda’s solar, slid an arm around the maid’s waist. They had had many a tumble in the past, but the handsome woman, a by-blow of an unknown Norman soldier and her Saxon mother, had recently refused him, being wary of Matilda’s suspicions, strengthened since the nosy body-maid Lucille had arrived to spy on them.

Now Mary smiled and twisted away from him. ‘What would your mistress Nesta do, sir, if she saw you? To say nothing of your wife — and the pretty woman from Dawlish?’

The mention of John’s other paramour down at the coast was enough to make him grin sheepishly. His childhood sweetheart Hilda was now married, but that had not stopped them from an occasional bout of passion when it could be managed. As Mary went back to her kitchen-shed, where she not only cooked, but slept on a pallet in the corner, John was aware of a distant crash as his front door slammed shut. Heavy footsteps followed and Gwyn hurried out of the narrow passage at the side of the house. His dishevelled ginger hair was wilder than usual and the armpits of his short worsted tunic were dark with sweat, as he had been trotting across the city in the sultry heat.

‘Crowner, d’you recall that outlaw in the court this morning — the one the sheriff sent to be hanged?’

John stared at his perspiring officer — it was unlike the normally imperturbable Gwyn to exert himself, unless there was a fight on offer.

‘What about him? Has he cut his own throat to cheat the gallows?’

‘No, he’s done better than that. He’s escaped from the South Gate and he’s gained sanctuary. He’s calling for the coroner to take his confession so that he can abjure the realm.’

De Wolfe’s hawkish face creased in doubt. ‘I’m not sure an outlaw can do that,’ he growled.

‘Don’t see why not. Convicted felons can seek sanctuary,’ objected the Cornishman.

John rubbed his black stubble, a mannerism he had as an aid to thought, just as Gwyn scratched his crotch and Thomas made the sign of the Cross. ‘True. I know nothing against it, though I’ve never heard of it being done before.’

‘The sheriff will be against it, so soon after sentencing the fellow to death!’ observed Gwyn, craftily.

His master took the bait immediately. ‘Then that’s a good reason for me to grant it! Where has he taken refuge?’

Gwyn grinned impishly. ‘You’ll like this, Crowner. He ran straight to St Olave’s!’

John burst out laughing, a rare phenomenon for the dour knight. ‘God’s guts, man, my wife will have a fit!’ Then he quickly sobered up, giving another anxious glance up the steep stairs to Matilda’s solar, as a new thought occurred to him. ‘There’s to be a special service there tomorrow, for Robert de Pridias. My wife will be in a frenzy if she finds some ruffian clinging on to the altar cloth — or if we have to lay siege to the building to keep him inside. And it’ll be all my fault, no doubt!’

‘If we hurry, maybe we can get rid of him before then,’ suggested the ever-practical Gwyn. It was a faint hope, considering all the legalistic ritual that went with abjuration of the realm, but the sooner they started, the better.

The pair hurried out into Martin’s Lane and down the high street towards the tiny church dedicated to St Olave, the first Christian king of Norway, where Gwyn said that he had told their clerk Thomas to meet them. De Wolfe had recently had some acrimonious dealings with its priest, Julian Fulk, which had not endeared him to his wife, who revered the man only slightly less than the Pope or Bishop Henry Marshal.

Outside the door, which opened directly on to Fore Street, they found a small crowd gawping at the unexpected drama that had enlivened their afternoon.

Blocking the door was one of the two city constables, a bean-pole of a Saxon named Osric. Alongside him was Thomas de Peyne, Gabriel, the grizzled sergeant of the castle guard and two of the gaolers from the burgesses’ prison, from where the outlaw had escaped.

The crowd, a score of old men, grandmothers, urchins and cripples who had little else to divert them, parted to let the coroner and his officer through.

‘It’s that fellow Stephen Aethelard,’ grunted Gabriel. ‘I’ll wager he had the gaolers bribed, though these fellows deny it.’ He jerked his head at the two warders, brutish men with short necks and glowering expressions.

‘Weren’t us, Crowner,’ grunted one of them. ‘We only came on duty an hour ago and when we checked on who was being hanged tomorrow, this bastard was missing.’

‘And as usual, nobody knew nothing about it!’ added the other.

John ignored them and went through the small door into the church, Gwyn close behind. Thomas bobbed his knee and crossed himself repeatedly as soon as he entered this diminutive house of God. St Olave’s was little more than a large room, with a tiny chancel at the far end. This contained an altar, covered in an embroidered white cloth on which were a metal cross and candlesticks.

It now also contained a sanctuary-seeker, who looked even more scruffy that he had in the Shire Court that morning. Stephen Aethelard was sitting dejectedly on the step below the altar, staring at the floor and scratching at some sores on the side of his neck. Halfway down the nave, the resident priest, Julian Fulk, was standing with his back to the door, glaring at the intruder with a marked lack of Christian compassion.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ snapped John, after taking in the scene.

‘Be a damned sight easier just to let the fellow run back to his forest where he came from, to save all this rigmarole of abjuring,’ growled Gwyn.

Though privately he may have agreed, the coroner was a stickler for the law and shook his head. ‘It must be done properly — the quicker the better.’

He moved into the body of the church, which had the luxury of a paved floor and the sound of his footsteps caused Fulk to swing around. He was a short, rotund man in early middle age, without a clerk’s tonsure, for he was as bald as an egg. His round face with its waxy complexion usually bore a fixed smile, but today he looked anything but pleased. ‘Ah, Sir John, I’m very pleased to see you. This fellow has lodged himself in my chancel at a most inconvenient time.’

Julian was nominally the coroner’s own parish priest, as it was to St Olave’s that Matilda dragged him about once a month. He was a reluctant worshipper, to say the least, as although actual atheism had never occurred to him, he found the rituals of the Church dull and meaningless.

‘I have heard that you have a service for Robert de Pridias here tomorrow,’ he responded. ‘I will do my best to get the fellow out of here before then, but it cannot be earlier than the morning — assuming that he collaborates.’

Leaving Fulk standing forlornly in his bulging black cassock, the coroner loped down towards the chancel, Gwyn and Gabriel following behind.

The fugitive had by now clambered to his feet and groped behind him to put one dirty hand on the altar, causing the priest to cluck with annoyance at the soiling of the fine lace cloth worked by one of the richer ladies in his congregation. Fulk assiduously cultivated the wives of burgesses and knights with his obsequious manner and false smiles, which was the main attraction of the place for Matilda de Wolfe.

‘You needn’t grab the altar, fellow,’ snapped John. ‘The whole church is a sanctuary — the churchyard would be equally safe, if there was one.’ St Olave’s, like many of more than two dozen city churches in Exeter, was built directly on to the street and had no land around it all.

‘You were in the court this morning,’ said the outlaw, in a coarsely aggressive voice. ‘But you can’t throw me out, I know my rights!’

John gave him a twisted smile. ‘As an outlaw, you don’t have any rights! That’s what the name means, you don’t exist in the eyes of the law. I’m not even sure you can claim sanctuary. I could probably drag you out now and get my officer to cut off your miserable head!’

Gwyn leered happily at this, and rattled his huge sword ominously in its scabbard. ‘Right, Crowner, I could use the five shillings’ bounty!’

Both of them knew that they were play-acting, but felt that this man should suffer some grief for the nuisance he was causing.

‘If you want to abjure — assuming I agree — then you will have to confess your guilt,’ grated de Wolfe.

‘How can I confess to something I didn’t do?’ objected Stephen, running thick fingers through his matted hair.

The coroner shrugged. ‘Please yourself, man. Either confess or stay in here for the allotted forty days and then be slain.’

There was a howl of protest from Julian Fulk, who had padded up to the chancel step. ‘I’m not having this creature sitting before my altar for forty days! Do something, Crowner — get rid of him!’

John looked down his big hooked nose at the indignant priest. ‘What happened to your Christian charity, Father? It was the Church that invented sanctuary, not the King’s justices.’

He turned back to the ragged prisoner, who was now squatting on his haunches. ‘For forty days from today, you can stay in here, with guards on the door. You will have bread and water at the burgess’s expense and be provided with a bucket. If you so much as put your head outside the door, it will be cut off! If you fail to confess to me in that time, the church will be boarded up and you will be starved to death. Is that clear?’

Stephen Aethelard gave a surly nod, but Julian Fulk uttered another squeal of protest at the prospect of his beloved church being boarded up for a long period. ‘Confess, you evil man and get yourself away from here!’

After a moment’s cogitation, the fugitive decided to cooperate. ‘What do I have to do, then?’ he muttered.

‘First of all, we need a jury,’ replied John. He told Gwyn and Gabriel to go outside and call in all the men over twelve years of age from the crowd outside. More must have drifted to the church since John had arrived, as within a few moments a dozen men and boys sidled into the nave, driven by the two officers like sheep before a dog.

They were marshalled into a semicircle around the chancel step and the tall, brooding figure of de Wolfe gave them their orders. ‘You are here to witness the confession of this man, who has sought sanctuary and wishes to abjure the realm — so pay attention!’

He turned back to Aethelard, grabbed him by the shoulder of his soiled tunic and pushed him to his knees on the flagstones. ‘This is supposed to be done at the gate or stile of the churchyard, but as we don’t have one, this will have to do.’ He looked across at the priest. ‘We need the use of a holy book, Father.’

Only too pleased to help in getting rid of the unwelcome intruder, Fulk hurried across to his aumbry, a carved wooden chest against the north wall of the chancel, and took out a heavy book bound in leather-covered boards. ‘Here is my copy of the Vulgate. Be careful with it, I beg you.’

De Wolfe took the testament, laboriously handwritten on leaves of parchment, and handed it to Thomas, who, after crossing himself once again, held it out to Stephen.

‘Place your hand on that and repeat my words,’ commanded the coroner.

Haltingly, the outlaw muttered a confession to having broken into the dwelling of John de Witefeld in the vill of Dunstone on the eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels and stealing fifteen shillings. He stubbornly refused to confess to having assaulted his daughter Edith, but the coroner decided that a longer confession would make not the slightest difference to the process, so did not pursue the matter.

‘Now repeat the oath of abjuration after me,’ boomed de Wolfe and Stephen stumbled through the ritualistic words.

‘I do swear on this holy book that I will leave and abjure the realm of England and never return without the express permission of our lord King Richard or his heirs. I will hasten by the direct road to the port allotted to me and I will not leave the King’s highway under pain of arrest or execution. I will not stay at one place more than one night and I will diligently seek a passage across the sea as soon as I arrive, delaying only one tide if that is possible. If I cannot secure such passage, then I will go every day into the sea up to my knees, as a token of my desire to cross. And if I cannot secure a passage within forty days, then I will put myself again within a church. And if I fail in all this, then may peril be my lot.’

At the end of this, Thomas handed the vulgate back to the priest, who with obvious relief locked it back in his aumbry.

Now John had to issue instructions to the abjurer. ‘Tomorrow, you will leave this place, casting off your own clothing.’ Looking at the man, who had spent months in the forest and weeks in a filthy gaol, John felt that the loss of his rags would be a blessing. Legally, they should have been confiscated and sold for the benefit of the Crown, but it was doubtful that a beggar would have bothered to pick them from a midden. ‘You will wear a garment of sackcloth and walk bare headed, carrying a cross of sticks which you will make yourself. You will tell passers-by what you are and you will not stray by so much as a foot from the highway. I charge you to go to Topsham to seek a ship and you will be given sufficient coins to pay for a passage to France. If you ever set foot in England again, your life will be forfeit.’

Thomas thought that his master was being too magnanimous in nominating Topsham as the port of exit, as it was only a few miles down the river. He knew that many coroners acted perversely in sending their abjurers vast distances — some from the North Country had been sent all the way to Dover, for example. But John himself knew that it was irrelevant which harbour he nominated, as he had a shrewd suspicion that as soon as Aethelard was out of sight of the city, he would throw away his cross and vanish back into the trees to make his way back to his outlaw comrades, which probably happened to more abjurers than actually reached their ports. As Gwyn had suggested earlier, it would have saved all this trouble if the fellow had been allowed to run out through the city gates and vanish into the forest.

While Thomas fumbled pen, ink and parchment from his shoulder bag to record the event and get the names of the ad hoc jurors, Julian Fulk approached him. ‘So how soon can we get rid of this fellow?’ he asked peevishly.

‘As soon as you can find him a length of hessian and two sticks for him to make his robe and his cross. I’ll leave that to you, as you’re so keen to see the back of him.’

‘And who is going to give him his passage money to Cherbourg or St Malo?’ huffed the priest, suspicious that the burden might fall on him.

John winked, keeping a straight face. ‘I should forget about that. I’ll wager that Topsham will not see hide nor hair of him. But once he’s out of the city, our duty is done.’