The Witch Hunter

CHAPTER EIGHT

Like Alphington, the village of Ide was within sight of Exeter, across the river to the west. Belonging to a manor owned by the bishop, it was a rather obscure hamlet with no claims to any fame, other than having a cunning woman with a wide reputation for her healing powers. Her name was Jolenta and she was no old crone, but a handsome woman of about thirty years. Her mother and her grandmother had both the same name and a similar reputation for their gifts, being consulted not only by supplicants from neighbouring villages, but even from the city itself.

Jolenta was unmarried, an unusual state for a good-looking woman, preferring to keep house for her father, who was the village cobbler and harness-maker. Her mother had died five years earlier and she was content to live quietly, adding the few pennies she made from her potions and liniments to the wage her father earned from his leather-work.

On the morning that Thomas de Peyne was rejoicing about the news from Winchester, a cart drawn by two sturdy oxen rumbled slowly into the village and followed the only street until it reached a small wooden bridge over a stream. Here, where the road bent to the left, it stopped outside the only alehouse to let off a man and a woman who had hitched a ride on the back. The cart was empty, having returned from taking a load of vegetables into Exeter at dawn, for sale in the markets. Having thanked the driver, the man vanished into the tavern, leaving his wife standing uncertainly at the edge of the dusty road. A moment later, he reappeared, having received directions, and, grabbing her arm, he pointed to a shack almost opposite, which had head-collars and girths for oxen hanging alongside the door.

‘Now do exactly what I told you!’ hissed Edward Bigge into her ear and, with a quick push to set her on her way, he vanished back into the doorway to fortify himself with ale.

Reluctantly, Emelota Bigge crossed the road and rapped on the panels of the open door. A strong smell of tanned leather wafted out at her as the tapping of a hammer ceased and a man came from the depths of the workshop. He was in late middle age and had a lined face surmounted by an almost bald head. Rubbing his calloused hands on the long leather apron that was hung around his neck, he asked what she wanted.

‘I was told that a wise woman called Jolenta lived here,’ she said, with partly feigned trepidation. The older man stared at her, taking in her worn kirtle of faded brown wool and the Saxon-style head-rail of frayed white linen that came down low on her forehead. Sometimes, rich women came here from the city, but he calculated that this one would be good for only a couple of pennies. He jerked a thumb along the front of the whitewashed building. ‘There’s a door on the other end. She’s in there cooking my dinner.’

He turned back to his hammering and Emelota walked past the blank face of the cottage to the end. Her husband had promised her five pence for a new dress if she did what she was told, as the apothecary had told him that for the fee he had paid for Edward to implicate Theophania Lawrence, he also expected the participation of Edward’s wife. Around the corner, she found a garden with a goat and a milk cow tethered and some rows of vegetables growing in the croft behind. It was something of a luxury for a dwelling to have two doors, but she reasoned that Jolenta wanted to keep her sorcerer’s business separate from her father’s cobbling.

This time her knocking on the door was answered by a good-looking dark woman about her own age, with her hair hanging in two braids down the yellow kirtle that accentuated her full bosom and narrow waist. Jolenta looked almost too well groomed for an obscure village like Ide, and Emelota guessed that she must have a healthy trade in customers for her magical talents. Following the story with which Edward had primed her, his wife explained that she was from Exeter and that she had heard that Jolenta was expert in retrieving missing valuables.

‘What is it you have lost?’ Jolenta asked, inviting Emelota into the relative gloom of the cottage. It seemed clean and tidy, although barely furnished with a couple of stools, a bench and a table, at which Jolenta had been preparing some food.

‘I fear it has been stolen by one of my neighbours — but I need to know which one, so that my husband can confront him with the theft.’

Jolenta took in the shabby clothes of her visitor and wondered what she could have possessed of any value. ‘So what is it that has vanished?’

‘A silver belt buckle that was left me by my mother, God rest her soul,’ said Emelota piously, although in fact her mother was hale and hearty and lived next door to her. ‘My father was a miner on the moor and over the years collected enough silver from among the lead to fashion a good heavy buckle. It is the only thing of value I possess and must be worth several shillings, but it disappeared last week from the place in my dwelling where I hide it. Only a few neighbours knew anything of it.’

Jolenta nodded her understanding, as this was a common enough request, the finding of missing objects or even persons. She went to a shelf above the table and took down a ragged book, the parchment pages fraying at the edges between the battered leather covers. She could not read it, but that was no bar to its usefulness. Coming over to the woman who stood alongside the dead fire-pit in the middle of the room, she opened the book, revealing a rusty key in the middle.

‘Take this psalter, shut your eyes and place the key between any of the pages, then close the covers.’

Emelota did as she was told and waited for the next instructions.

‘Now we will pray together to St James and St Jerome that they will help us reveal the truth.’

With her eyes still closed, Emelota repeated some doggerel chanted in a mechanical voice by Jolenta, calling on a variety of holy persons to assist them in their quest.

‘Now, hold the holy book at arm’s length and say out loud the names of those neighbours who you think may be guilty of this theft.’

Emelota mumbled at random the names of half a dozen of her neighbours in Exeter, careless of what result there might be. Nothing happened and Jolenta commanded her to hold the psalter higher, level with her forehead, which made her grip upon it less secure. Halfway through the second recitation of the names, there was a dull clink as the heavy iron key fell to the hard-packed earth of the floor.

‘There, that fell as you said the name of William Hog. He is the one who stole your buckle.’

Her voice was so definite and matter-of-fact that the impostor almost believed her, until she reminded herself that the theft of the buckle — and even its very existence — was completely fictitious.

‘Is there anything else?’ asked Jolenta, as she retrieved the key and put the book back on the shelf. Like Nesta, she was well aware that clients often used one request as an excuse for introducing something more personal, once they had got themselves inside.

‘I suffer from heavy courses each month,’ murmured Emelota. ‘It weakens me and they are getting worse as time goes by.’

For the first time she was telling the truth and this was an opportunistic addition that her husband had not schooled her to use. If she was to pay this woman a couple of pence, she might as well get Edward’s money’s worth — or rather, the apothecary’s money’s worth.

Jolenta nodded, as this was yet another common complaint. She went to a box on the floor and lifted the lid to reveal a number of bags and pouches of various sizes. Taking one, she opened the draw-strings at its neck and took out a few pieces of dried stick, each a few inches long.

‘These are blackthorn. Scrape off the outer bark with a knife and discard it. It is the white pith of the under-bark you need. Pound it in the milk of a one-coloured cow and drink some every morning. When it’s gone, you can easily find more blackthorn in the hedges. In a month or two, you will be relieved of your problem.’

Emelota placed the twigs in the purse dangling from her girdle and offered some pennies from the same pouch. Jolenta took two.

‘That’s for the theft of your buckle. The blackthorn and my advice are free.’

Feeling somewhat guilty, Edward Bigge’s wife left the cottage and walked back to the alehouse to join her husband.

Several days passed in relative peace, with little to disturb the normal rhythm of life in the city, although the undercurrent of dispute concerning cunning women continued unabated in the taverns, the workshops and in the gossip along the streets. On Sunday, more of the parish priests preached sermons condemning all forms of heresy, apostasy and sacrilege, as Canon Gilbert had been around as many as he could to remind them forcibly of the bishop’s concern on the matter.

Most of this passed over John de Wolfe’s head, as he had a number of deaths to deal with, one drowning in a mill-race taking him away for the night, as he had to ride to a village near Totnes. As usual, this earned him more scowls and sarcasm at home, Matilda insinuating that it was an excuse for him to spend the night whoring and drinking. He would not have minded so much if it had been true, but in fact he and Gwyn had spent an uncomfortable night huddled in their riding cloaks in a barn, as there was no inn in the village.

The other days were taken up with an alleged rape in Clyst St Mary, another village to the east of Exeter, and a near-fatal assault in the Saracen alehouse in the city. This tavern, run by Willem the Fleming, was the most notorious inn in Exeter, being a rendezvous for thieves and harlots, providing a regular supply of knifings and head injuries for the attention of the city constables and coroner.

To assuage Matilda’s bad mood, that Sunday John allowed her to drag him to Mass at St Olave’s. He succumbed to this about once a month, although he flatly refused to attend confession, especially as Julian Fulk, the fat, oily priest of St Olave’s, had been one of his murder suspects not long before. De Wolfe found it bad enough having to endure Fulk’s sermon, full of exaggerations about witches and wizards and their supposed communion with the Devil as they went about their business of eating infants and flying through the air. Although John disliked the priest, he knew he was a well-read, intelligent man, unlike many of his colleagues, so he failed to see how he could have been persuaded to peddle such fanciful nonsense, unless it was to curry favour with his ecclesiastical superiors.

However, Matilda seemed impressed by his diatribe, as she had always favoured Julian Fulk with her admiration, rating him a potential archbishop, if not a pope. On the short walk back to their house in Martin’s Lane, she ranted on about the iniquities of the cunning women in their community, putting herself firmly in the camp of Canon Gilbert, Cecilia de Pridias and all the witch-hunters of the city. Her husband wisely kept his mouth firmly closed, letting the tirade flow over him, as any contradiction of her bigoted views would serve only to start them up afresh, at an even higher level of vituperation.

That evening, he escaped to the Bush and spent a pleasant and passionate few hours with Nesta. As they lay in bed in the languid glow that followed their lovemaking, she idly mentioned that she had used the room to counsel the strange woman Heloise, who had such a peculiar affliction of her neck. Although her account of the meeting seemed innocuous, something about the incident started a little niggle of anxiety within de Wolfe’s mind.

‘Nesta, my love, with all this present unrest about sorcerers and folk healers, it would be best if you kept well away from such matters for the time being,’ he advised sternly. ‘This business with Alice Ailward shows that this crazy man de Bosco is quite willing to use false testimony to trap unwary women.’

Nesta, always an independent spirit, argued against him for a while, but his obvious sincerity and concern for her eventually caused her to promise to avoid employing her gifts again, until the present hysteria had died down.

The matter worried away at him during the night and, the next morning, at their habitual second breakfast in his chamber, the coroner mentioned Nesta’s client to Gwyn and Thomas.

‘I’ve seen that woman with the twisted neck about the town,’ rumbled his officer. ‘She’s from some hovel in Bretayne. I know nothing of her, except that her sister is a whore who works out of the Saracen.’

Although this did nothing to lessen John’s unease, the fact that the woman was a relative of a harlot seemed to have no real relevance to his concerns until he noticed Thomas looking rather uneasily at him.

‘Do you know anything of this woman?’ he barked.

The clerk shifted uncomfortably on his stool. ‘I’m sure it’s of no importance, but I have seen that woman with the wry neck walking in the town with a painted strumpet, who Gwyn says is her sister. It’s just that I remember our friend Sergeant Gabriel pointing her out to me in the castle bailey one day, saying that she was one of the sheriff’s whores.’

It was no particular secret that Richard de Revelle was fond of low company in his bed, as his glacial wife Eleanor almost never came to Rougemont, preferring to live at their manor near Tiverton. In fact, the coroner had once caught his brother-in-law in bed with a harlot and on another occasion, had rescued him from a burning brothel.

‘Can’t see the connection,’ growled Gwyn. He was aware that something was bothering his master and tried to put his mind at ease.

De Wolfe chewed the matter over in his mind for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I expect you’re right. I’m getting unreasonably anxious with all this nonsense about witches in the air.’

‘I hear that the consistory court sits tomorrow on this poor woman Alice Ailward,’ said Thomas, who knew everything that went on within the confines of the cathedral Close. As well as eavesdropping on the gossip of the canons’ servants in the house where he lodged, he knew most of the vicars and secondaries, many of them accepting him as if he were still in holy orders himself.

‘Are you sure that this bishop’s court has the power to try such women?’ demanded de Wolfe, mindful of his discussion with the archdeacon.

The ever-knowledgable Thomas was only too happy to air the fruits of his recent researches among the books in the cathedral library and conversations with his priestly aquaintances. ‘Generally, the Church shows little interest in the transgressions of cunning women,’ he said. ‘Though there have been various pronoucements on the issue for centuries.’ He warmed to his theme, the latent scholar in him bubbling to the surface. ‘The Synod of Elvira in 336 punished apostasy by refusing to offer communion. Then the Frankish bishops at Worms in 829 stated that it was the Devil who aided witches to prepare love potions and poisons and to raise storms. The Synod of Reisbach in 799 demanded penance for withcraft, but no actual punishment …’

‘For Christ’s sake, clerk, will you stop lecturing us,’ boomed Gwyn. ‘We’re not pupils in your cathedral school!’

John was more sympathetic and motioned for Thomas to continue. He poked his tongue out at the Cornishman and carried on.

‘When the issue is forced upon its attention, the Church prefers to divert it to the manorial courts — or presumably, here in Exeter, to the burgesses’ courts. Only if some conspiracy to cause criminal damage is evident will the consistory courts intervene — and even then, they always hand over persons they convict to the other courts for sentencing.’

‘You should have been a bloody lawyer, not a priest, Thomas!’ growled Gwyn with mock sarcasm, as he was really quite proud of the little man’s erudition.

‘What do you mean by criminal damage?’ demanded the coroner.

‘Well, in the villages, if a mare drops a foal or the chickens stop laying, then the owner may claim he has lost profit because a witch cast a spell on them, at the instigation of some neighbour who holds a grudge.’

‘Where I come from in Cornwall, the folk don’t bother with all that nonsense,’ boomed Gwyn. ‘They just form a lynch-mob and hang the suspected culprit from the nearest tree!’

‘We all know what tribe of savages you hail from!’ squeaked the clerk, dodging a playful swing from Gwyn, which would have knocked him from his stool if it had connected.

‘Calm down, you childish pair!’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Where and when is this court being held tomorrow, Thomas?’

‘It will be in the chapter house, after terce, sext and nones. But it is a closed hearing, Crowner, only churchmen will be admitted.’

‘I am the coroner for this county, damn it!’ roared John.

Thomas shook his head. ‘No matter, sir. The secular powers have no jurisdiction there. Not even the sheriff could attend.’

‘Can you worm your way in, Thomas?’ asked Gwyn.

The clerk managed to look both sly and sheepish. ‘I had thought of slipping into the back row. My usual garb and my tonsure often make me inconspicuous in such company.’

‘Do that, then let me know straight away what transpires there,’ commanded his master. ‘It’s a damned scandal, having a secret inquisition. Even our sheriff’s court, for all his corruption, is at least open to the people.’

Walter Winstone’s intention was to use Edward Bigge to fabricate a story to incriminate Theophania Lawrence and to make similar accusations against Jolenta of Ide through the false testimony supplied by Edward’s wife, Emelota. Both these were to be fed through to the obsessively receptive ears of Gilbert de Bosco, so that as with Alice Ailward proceedings could be taken against them in the bishop’s court. Unfortunately, the apothecary had unwisely paid half Edward Bigge’s fee in advance, the other part to be given once he had given his lying evidence to the canon. On Monday morning, with twenty pence in his purse, Bigge decided to celebrate and went drinking, first in the Anchor Inn on the quay-side, then at the Saracen on Stepcote Hill, so that by noon he was uproariously drunk.

A surfeit of ale and cider always made Edward Bigge loquacious, usually at the top of his bull-like voice and he reeled out of the Saracen shouting to the world at large that he had had a narrow escape from the Devil. The inhabitants of the area around that disreputable alehouse were all too familiar with noisy drunks and normally no one would have taken any notice of the slurred ranting of yet another inebriate. However, as Edward weaved his way up to Smythen Street, the continuation of Stepcote Hill, he came across an unfortunate old fellow who was looking into the open front of one of the blacksmiths’ forges that gave the street its name. Pinning the man against the door-post, he leaned towards him and uttered a confidential whisper that could be heard twenty paces away. ‘I saw Satan, as plain as I see you now,’ he hissed. ‘Huge and black he was, with horns on his head and red fire coming from his nostrils!’ His voice rose as got into his drunken stride and three men and a woman coming down the street stared at him with curiosity. ‘She conjured up Beelzebub as plain as the nose on your face,’ he roared at the disconcerted old man. ‘This cunning woman over in Bretayne can kill cattle ten miles away and put a spell on husbands so that they leave their wives and cleave to another woman! I saw her bewitch someone myself, with the bats flying out of a great book she had there!’

One of the men passing by stopped at this, then turned to the woman and yelled at her. ‘I told you it was a curse, you damned fool! I was bewitched when I took up with that girl!’

The woman gave him a shove in disgust, but he was already moving towards Edward Bigge, shouting as he went. ‘What cunning woman is this? They should be struck from the earth for the evil they wreak.’

The drunk turned and looked blearily at the newcomer, giving the terrified old man the chance to slip away. Two smiths and three of their customers came out from the interior of the forge to see what all the commotion was about.

‘I said, who was it?’ demanded the passer-by. ‘I live in Bretayne and similar magic has been worked on me, I swear!’

Even though his wits were slowed by ale, Bigge preened his new self-importance. ‘I went to her just for a potion for stomach-ache — but she raised the Devil and frightened the life out of me, so I ran!’

‘What was her name, damn you?’ yelled the exasperated questioner.

‘Theophania, she was. Theophania Lawrence.’

One of the smiths lumbered up closer to the pair. ‘I went to her some months back, with a flux of my bowels. Two pence she took from me, but nothing did she do for my guts.’

Almost as if by another sort of magic, a small crowd began gathering, like iron filings to a lodestone. People came out of the adjacent forges and from some vegetable stalls opposite, to listen to what was going on. Inside a minute, three more people began telling of their good and bad experiences with cunning women and Edward Bigge, encouraged by the attention, spiralled into more and more fanciful accounts of his session with Theophania.

‘The room went dark and there was a smell of brimstone. She grew twice as tall and green lights came from her eyes like rays!’ he ranted, his imagination fuelled by the Saracen’s strong cider.

The man who had demanded the witch’s name became caught up in the excitement and turning to his sceptical wife, took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘See, I told you it was not my doing with that girl. I was bewitched! She should be stopped, that bloody hag.’

By now more than a dozen people had congregated in the street, many primed by the sermons they had heard in the city’s churches the previous day. With the priests’ exhortations fresh in their ears, they were easy prey for the infectious hysteria that started to ripple through the crowd. Now everyone was gabbling about their experiences with sorcerers and memories of mere cough medicines and poultices for ulcers were magnified into spectres of goblins and huge black cats. Every ill that had befallen them in the past few years was suddenly attributed to the curses of wizards — and those who had lost silver coins, had miscarriages, watched their pigs die of a fever or had their thatch catch fire, attributed it all to the evil works of cunning women in general and Theophania Lawrence in particular.

Within ten minutes, idle gossip had passed through rumbling discontent into open hostility, a mood that fed upon itself and turned uglier by the minute. Edward Bigge, who knew that his purse had become appreciably lighter since spending the weekend drinking the apothecary’s money, had enough sense left within his fuddled brain to see an opportunity to recover his funds if he aided Walter Winstone’s scheme even more.

‘I know where she lives, this scandalous bitch who summons up spirits from Hades,’ he yelled thickly. ‘We should confront her with her evil deeds and get her to repent!’

He pushed himself from the wall against which he had been leaning and stalked unsteadily up Smythen Street, shoving his way through the now fevered crowd.

‘You needn’t tell me where she lives,’ screamed a toothless woman. ‘I live in the next lane. She put a curse on my son so that he was born with one leg shorter than the other!’

‘Ay, ask her what she has to say for herself!’ shouted another.

‘Don’t ask her, just hang her!’ screamed another, who had drunk almost as much as Edward Bigge.

Almost as if it were a living entity in itself, the crowd flowed behind Edward, who was closely followed by the man alleging that his infidelity was due to Theophania’s curse. As it moved along, more people attached themselves to its margins. Most had no idea what was going on until they were sucked into the hysteria by the exaggerated explanations of the inner core. By the time the mass of people had wheeled left through a lane and emerged into Fore Street, there were more than half a hundred shouting and gesticulating citizens, with a penumbra of excited urchins and barking dogs. Crossing the main street, several horsemen and two ox-carts were forced to stop, until the mob flowed into another lane on the opposite side, below St Olave’s Church, and slithered into the stinking lanes of Bretayne.

One of the town constables heard the tumult from as far away as Carfoix in the centre of the city. It was Osric, the skinny Saxon, and he hurried after the tail of the crowd as it vanished into Bretayne. Grabbing a boy who was capering along behind them, he yelled at him to discover what was going on, but got little sense from the lad.

‘They’ve found the Devil down here, they say! They’re going to hang him!’ he gabbled and twisted free from Osric’s hand to run after the mob.

Having unsuccessfully tried to stop Alice Ailward from being arrested a few days before, the constable had a sudden foreboding that even worse trouble was going to come of this and that again he would be powerless to prevent it on his own. He turned around and ran as fast as his long thin legs would carry him, back towards Rougemont Castle.

The crowd flowed inexorably on through the mean lanes, oblivious of the debris underfoot and the filth that ran in the gutters. Many of the locals appeared from hovels and alleys to discover what was going on and while some joined the mob, others violently defended their neighbour Theophania. Scuffles broke out on the periphery but had no effect on slowing down the shouting and chanting vigilantes.

As they reached the house where she lived, Edward Bigge threw up a hand dramatically and pointed at her front door. ‘In there it was!’ he yelled. ‘That’s where she conjured up Satan and, for spite, put a spell on me. Since then, I’ve not been able to satisfy my poor wife. This witch took all the manhood out of me!’

This new accusation had been suggested to Bigge by the other man’s claim that Theophania was the cause of him cuckolding his wife. The clamour increased and a burly youth, who had not the slightest interest in witchcraft but who enjoyed a good fight, dashed forward and with a mighty kick, smashed open the flimsy door.

There was a scream from inside and, as several men fought to get through the door, Theophania was seen cowering at the back of the room. As if it were not enough that fate already seemed set against her, it so happened that she was in the process of changing her kirtle to put it in the wash. She stood cringeing in her thin chemise, her long grey hair unbound and uncovered, hanging down lankly over her shoulders. To cap it all, at that moment a black cat jumped from a chair alongside her and with a squeal of fright, wisely took off through the door and vanished behind the house.

‘A witch, a naked witch! With a coal-black cat!’ screamed the mob, in transports of delight at this confirmation of their hysterical suspicions. A surge of bodies pressed against the doorway, with Edward Bigge yelling, ‘Beware of Beelzebub — she’ll set the Devil upon you!’

In spite of several of Theophania’s neighbours punching out ineffectually at the edge of the rabble, the leading men and several wild-eyed women burst into the room and seized the screaming old dame, who had collapsed into a corner.

With frothy spittle at the corners of his mouth, a fat man who was the sexton at St Petroc’s Church, frenziedly waved his arms in the air and repeatedly howled at the top of his voice, ‘The testaments demand that thou shalt not suffer a witch to live! Obey the word of the Lord thy God!’

Osric the constable nearly burst his heart in his haste to get help from the castle and the last few yards up the hill to the gatehouse had reduced him to a gasping wreck by the time Sergeant Gabriel came out of the guardroom to meet him. When his laboured breathing allowed him to speak, he gasped out his news and the leader of the garrison’s men-at-arms wasted no time in getting a posse together. Turning out the four men playing dice in the gatehouse, he yelled at another three, who were passing across the inner ward. After sending the man on sentry duty at the gate to alert the coroner upstairs, he set off with his men at a fast trot down towards the town, leaving Osric to recover his breath. By the time his heart had slowed sufficiently, John de Wolfe and Gwyn had clumped down from their chamber and the burgesses’ constable was able to tell them what he had seen.

It was pointless going for their horses for such a short distance, so they all loped after Gabriel’s detachment and caught up with them outside Theophania Lawrence’s cottage.

‘No mob here, Crowner,’ panted Gabriel. ‘But this man says they’ve dragged her off somewhere.’

Several of her neighbours were looked apprehensively through the shattered door into her dwelling, where the sparse furniture had been overturned and all her pots of lotions and bundles of herbs had been stamped into a mess on the floor. The neighbour, a rough-looking man with a fresh black eye and bloody nose, had obviously been one of those who had tried to defend the old dame.

‘They took her that way, Crowner, towards the city wall!’ He waved his arm vaguely downhill, towards the western corner of the city.

De Wolfe wasted no more time on questions, but set off in that direction, leading Gwyn and Gabriel at a lope through the twisting, narrow alleys between a motley collection of small houses, huts and semi-derelict shacks. Faces peered fearfully from doorways and around corners, although the ubiquitous urchins danced around in their rags, hugely enjoying this diversion from their normally sordid existence. Lean, mangy dogs barked excitedly at the running men, who slopped and slipped through the running sewage as the lanes became steeper when they approached the slope down to the river. The top of the town wall was in sight over the roofs of the huts when they came upon a bedraggled figure climbing towards them. He wore a black monk’s habit, although his loud cursing would have done credit to a Breton fisherman.

He held up his staff as they ran towards him, and now John could see that one entire side of the monk’s clothing was sopping wet with stinking fluid and that the side of his face was grazed and bleeding.

‘Those bastards pushed me over when I tried to stop them,’ he wailed. ‘They had some poor woman and seemed intent on doing her harm!’

‘Which way did they go, brother?’ shouted Gwyn.

The monk, who must have been from the small Bendictine priory of St Nicholas higher up in the town, pointed his stick behind him.

‘Last I saw of the swine, they were clustering around the Snail Tower, yelling and screaming like a pack of Barbary apes. That was a good few minutes ago, so you’d best make haste.’

Again, the coroner pounded on at the head of his small posse, making for the round tower that stood at the junction of the north and west walls of the city, just above the upper part of Exe Island. It was only a few hundred paces away and as they came past the last row of dwellings before the lane that ran inside the high walls, they saw the remnants of the mob melting away into the numerous alleys and paths that ran back up into Bretayne. The noisy approach of half a score of vengeful custodians of the law had scared away the rioters, but they left behind a chilling legacy of their activities.

Turning slowly, with her feet a yard above the ground, was the body of Theophania Lawrence, hanging by a rope around her neck from an old iron bracket sticking out of the Snail Tower, which had once carried a sconce for a lighted pitch-brand.

Her head lolled sideways on to her shoulder, her face purple as a token of her slow death from strangulation, rather than a broken neck. As a final indignity, her pathetically thin chemise was ripped down from the neck, exposing her sagging breasts, between which some at least partially literate rioter had crudely inscribed with a charcoal stick a large ‘W’ for ‘Witch’.

Whilst Edward Bigge was drunkenly involved in the riotous events in Bretayne, his wife was pursuing the other part of her husband’s contract with the apothecary. Acting on the instructions that Edward had laboriously dinned into her head, she dressed as neatly as she could and went to seek an audience with Gilbert de Bosco at his house in Canons’ Row. She waited until after the last of the morning offices to make sure that he would be at home seeking his midday dinner — although in fact Gilbert had deputed today’s attendance at the cathedral to his vicar, as he kept his hours of worship close to the minimum allowed by the rules laid down by the chapter.

When his steward came to his well-appointed study to tell him that a common woman urgently wished to see him, he was dismissive, especially as he could hear the clatter of pewter plates and the clink of a wineglass from his adjacent dining room, where his meal was almost ready to be served. But his servant’s next words caught his attention.

‘She says she has a complaint about a witch, Reverence. Something about being assaulted by an incubus, raised from hell.’

As the steward had expected his master to instruct him to throw the madwoman out into the street, he was surprised when the burly priest slapped down the book he was reading and curtly told him to bring the dame in to see him. When she appeared, Emelota avoided giving her husband’s name, in case the fact of two members of the Bigge family giving testimony against cunning women might look suspicious. She was not to know that the precaution was unnecessary, as at that very moment the drunken Edward was precipitating the lynching of Theophania, in which the canon was not to be involved.

Gilbert remained seated as she stood before him, hands clasped demurely in front of her. His plethoric face glared at her expectantly. ‘So what have you to tell me, woman?’

‘I have been grievously wronged, sir. I went to a woman who I was told was a respectable healer, but found her to be in league with imps and devils, spurning the Christian ways which are so dear to me.’

The words were music to Gilbert’s ears and he had a momentary vision of himself with mitre and crozier if this campaign went as planned.

‘In what way were you wronged?’

Emelota launched into the story that Walter Winstone had concocted. She told how she had visited Jolenta of Ide in order to get help in ridding herself of the barrenness that had afflicted her womb these past three years, as her husband was becoming impatient at the lack of further sons. The bizarre imagination of the apothecary led her to describe how Jolenta had caused the room to be plunged into darkness, with rolls of thunder and flickering red lights, accompanied by a smell of burning sulphur. Then wicked imps appeared, climbing up her legs and tearing at her clothing, as the witch screamed invocations to Satan and all the fallen angels. Then, after Jolenta had demanded payment of five pence, she promised Emelota that she would be with child within two months. Since then, she had been visited several times at midnight by a horned incubus, who had ravished her during her sleep — and now she was afraid that if she did fall pregnant, the child would be the by-blow of the Devil.

Incredible as this story was, the eager canon welcomed it gladly, uncaring of whether it was true or not, as long as it gave him further ammunition for his chosen crusade. It seemed that his campaign to stir up the population was bearing fruit, especially his exhortations to the parish priests to whip up animosity through their sermons.

‘Can you take me to this evil woman?’ he demanded, thrusting his big, florid face towards the obsequious complainant.

‘Indeed I can, sir. The village is but a mile or two beyond the West Gate.’

Even the prospect of a new denunciation of a sorcerer was insufficient to keep Gilbert from his dinner, as the prospect of salmon poached in butter and boiled bacon with new beans easily overcame his crusading enthusiasm.

‘We will go there in two hours, good-wife. Be back here then and when we return from Ide I will exorcise these unclean spirits from your poor abused body.’

As he sat down to his meal, he sent servants to fetch two of the proctor’s men and a brace of horses, so that when they set out for Ide, Emelota was perched side-saddle upon a pony led on a halter by one of the other riders.

After splashing through the ford over the Exe and making a short ride through country lanes, they reached the hamlet of Ide. De Bosco recalled with satisfaction that it belonged to Bishop Henry Marshal, which made things much easier for him, not having to deal with some possibly obstinate manor-lord. His first action when he reined up in the small village was to send for the reeve, who quickly arrived in company with the bailiff, who was doing his rounds of the manor that day.

Gilbert quickly established his authority over the men. ‘I am Canon Gilbert de Bosco, here on behalf of the Lord Bishop, who has appointed me chancellor of his consistory court.’

The two men were unsure as to what all this meant, but they were not prepared to challenge anything the canon might say, if he was the spokesman for their lord, who had the power of life and death over them.

‘I am here to deal with a sorcerer in your midst, a woman called Jolenta,’ bellowed de Bosco, sliding from his horse.

The jaws of the bailiff and reeve sagged in dismay and several villagers who had drifted in to eavesdrop on the group began muttering among themselves.

‘Jolenta, Your Reverence? But she is a good woman, one of the most useful in the manor,’ protested the bailiff.

‘That’s no concern of yours, fellow. Just tell me where she lives.’

His tone reminded the local officials again that they had no power to obstruct this emissary of their lord and master and, reluctantly, the reeve pointed to a cottage just along the tiny street.

‘That’s the one, sir,’ called Emelota, climbing down from her unaccustomed perch on her steed, an experience with which she would be able to regale her envious neighbours when she got home. With the locals looking anxiously on, the two proctor’s men and a pair of Gilbert’s own servants marched ahead of him towards the dwelling, with Emelota trailing along behind. They were followed by a sullen and apprehensive score of villagers, who had been attracted by the unusual activity in the sleepy hamlet.

The pattern of the assault on Theophania’s house was followed again, as the proctors rudely pushed open the front door and thrust themselves inside. As Gilbert followed, they found Jolenta at a table, pounding herbs in a mortar, a small cauldron of scented water bubbling on a trivet over the fire-pit beside her. She swung round, her handsome face indignant at this rude intrusion. As she protested, the canon swung his saddle-crop along a shelf of pots, bringing them crashing to the floor. ‘Miserable witch, your den is full of the signs of corruption!’ he bellowed. ‘We know of the pacts you make with the spirits of evil. You should be ashamed of your denunciation of the true God!’

Jolenta’s face paled, but her spirit remained strong as she loudly denied his charges and challenged the priest to prove anything against her.

‘Here’s proof, you miserable hag!’ he yelled, spittle appearing at the corners of his mouth as he gestured at Emelota. ‘I doubt you recall this woman, amongst all the poor souls you have defiled — she is but one of those whose mind and body you have fouled with your evil spirits. She will testify as to your pacts with Satan and all your other evil works!’

He pushed his informant forward and shook her by the shoulder. ‘Is this the witch you told me of, eh?’

Emelota avoided the eyes of the other woman, but nodded her head.

Jolenta looked at her treacherous client and sighed resignedly. ‘You too, poor woman? Now I know how Jesus Christ felt when he met Judas Iscariot.’

The canon was ablaze with wrath. ‘How do your dare utter the name of the Blessed Christ with those same fornicating lips that called up Beelzebub from the Pit?’

He motioned to the proctor’s thugs with his crop. They moved forward, seized Jolenta’s arms and hustled her to the door, where her cobbler father had joined the reeve, bailiff and a crowd of neighbours in growling at these intruders from the city.

Confident in his righteous indignation, Canon Gilbert thrust past the crowd, his bulk and clerical robe dissuading anyone from resisting him. But there were guarded snarls and murmurings of discontent as the woman was hauled out into the road to where the horses were being held by another of the canon’s servants.

‘What’s happening, sir?’ asked the bailiff, the one whose relative seniority gave him the nerve to question the priest. ‘Our Jolenta is a good woman, we need her in the village.’

Gilbert, even redder in the face than usual with all the excitement, put a large foot in a stirrup and swung himself up on to his mare. ‘If she is innocent, then the law will find her so.’

‘But she should be brought before the manor court here, sir, not dragged away like this,’ objected the bailiff mulishly.

In his anger, Gilbert almost swung his crop against the man’s face, but managed to restrain himself. ‘You forget this is the bishop’s manor — and you are his servant. I am taking her to another of his courts in the cathedral, so mind your own business or there will be ill times for you!’

With this manipulation of the law, and with silent thanks that Jolenta had not been in another vill with an independent lord, the canon pulled his horse’s head around and set off down the track. Slowly, the cavalcade moved off behind him, with Emelota once more perched sideways on her palfrey and poor Jolenta walking behind one of the proctor’s horses, her wrists tied and roped to its saddle.