A Plague of Heretics (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  If Julian Fulk’s exhortation was forceful, it was nothing compared with the dramatic version which Clement delivered. Starting in measured tones, he rapidly escalated his passion until he was almost manic in his condemnation of anyone who diverged more than a hair’s-breadth from the tenets and ceremonies of the Holy Roman Church. Displaying a wide knowledge of the various types of heresy, he castigated Cathars, Waldensians, Gnostics and Pelagians, working himself up into a frenzy of denunciation that drew cries of agreement from the listeners. Matilda was afraid that her neighbour, red in the face, wide-eyed and with a trace of spittle at the corners of his mouth, might drive himself into an apoplexy. Glancing sideways at Cecilia, who stood alongside her, she saw that the wife was tight-lipped and rigid. Assuming that the younger woman was afraid for her husband’s health, she laid a reassuring hand on her arm, but then realised that the expression on Cecilia’s face was not one of concern, but disapproval or even hatred.

  Surprised and concerned, Matilda took her hand away and turned back to watch Clement, who was coming to the crescendo of his diatribe, demanding that anyone suspected of heresy should be immediately arraigned before the bishop and subjected to the most rigorous penalties.

  ‘Excommunication, even anathema, is utterly insufficient!’ he thundered. ‘Those who undermine God’s holy institutions must be removed so that they can cause no more mischief! We all know and accept that if a lad steals a pot worth more than twelve pence, he is hanged! So is the price of a pot more important than preserving our beloved Church?’

  He raised clenched fists over his head and bellowed his final words. ‘They must be expunged from the earth! In the days of the prophets, those who worshipped false gods were stoned to death – surely we must rid ourselves of this contagion, which is more dangerous than the yellow plague itself, by the gallows or the stake! Not let them sail away on the first convenient ship!’

  To cheers and shouted support, he stepped down from the chancel, allowing the priest to return and hold up his hands for order.

  ‘Tomorrow, we will progress together down to the cathedral and stand outside the chapter house when chapter ends, so that we may respectfully approach the canons with our requests. We all know that there are many more blasphemers lurking in and around the city, and they must not be allowed to get away with their evil activities again!’

  He gave a rapid blessing in Latin, and immediately many of the crowd clustered around Clement, showering him with congratulations and promises of support. Matilda noticed that a sizeable minority did not do so and quietly made their way out of the little church, looking uneasy at some of what had been said. She turned to Cecilia, who had made no effort to push her way to the front to join her husband among his circle of admirers.

  ‘The doctor is certainly an accomplished and forceful speaker,’ she said to Cecilia. ‘Though he is a renowned physician, he told us that he had once wished to take holy orders. I feel his sermons would have been outstanding.’

  Clement’s wife turned a sombre face to Matilda. ‘And I feel that his passions and obsessions will one day be the death of him.’

  * * *

  In the early morning the little maid Alice stared at John coyly as she made them oat porridge and poached eggs, by now accepting that this menacing-looking man was entitled to sleep with her beloved mistress. Hilda walked him to the stable to watch his destrier being saddled, now becoming indifferent to any gossip that their affair might arouse among the neighbours.

  ‘I will go down to Stoke often, now that it seems likely that the plague has run its course,’ she promised. ‘I will try to help your mother and sister as much as I can, though I am no nurse.’

  The handsome blonde rested her hand on his as he prepared to leave. ‘Don’t worry about matters down here, John,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I’ll make sure that my father keeps closely in touch with the bailiff at Stoke to make sure that they get any help they need from Holcombe.’

  With a heavy heart at leaving behind all the people he loved, John hoisted himself on to Odin’s broad back and turned his head towards Exeter. He reached the city a few hours later, with some of the morning left, so he called at Martin’s Lane before going up to Rougemont. His main purpose was to prove to Matilda that he was back home, trusting that she would believe that he had made a swift journey from Stoke, rather than the shorter one from Dawlish. However, there was no sign of her, and Mary informed him that his wife had gone to the cathedral.

  ‘The mistress was full of this meeting at St Olave’s when she got home last evening,’ reported the cook-maid. ‘She even deigned to speak to me about it. It seems that Clement the physician was the leading figure. They have all gone off to petition the canons after the chapter meeting.’

  De Wolfe glowered at her as if it was her doing. ‘Why is this damned doctor sticking his nose into Church business?’ he growled. ‘Let him keep to his pills and potions. The bloody canons have got enough power and money to look after their own affairs, without him meddling!’

  ‘From what your wife said, he wants to hang all heretics,’ replied Mary. ‘I gather from gossip in the markets that you and the sheriff are not looked on with much favour for letting those men on the quayside get away.’

  John made a rude noise to indicate his indifference to public opinion. ‘Those rioters were just about to string them up from a tree when we rescued them! I only hope the one man that stayed behind is lying low, or his life won’t be worth a clipped ha’penny!’

  He marched out of the house bound for the castle, intending to call in to see Thomas on the way. As he passed the door of his neighbour’s house, it opened and Cecilia emerged so opportunely that he suspected that she had been looking out for him since he had come from the stables opposite.

  ‘Sir John, can I detain you for just a moment?’ she asked in a low voice, but with an urgent ring to it. He bowed his head politely to her and moved across to stand with her on the doorstep. She did not invite him inside, and from her quick, nervous glance back into the house, she seemed not to want to speak within the hearing of her handmaiden.

  ‘Can I be of some service to you, mistress?’ he enquired courteously, always glad to be close to an attractive woman, especially if he could gain her favour. She wore no cover-chief, and her dark hair was plaited into two long ropes, each hanging down her bosom, the ends encased in silver tubes.

  Standing in the cool autumn air, she wore a fur-edged blue velvet pelisse over a long gown of fine cream wool. John thought she looked delightful, and if he had not long left his lovely Hilda he might have been dangerously smitten.

  ‘It is a delicate matter, but I know you for a discreet and considerate man, with a well-deserved reputation in this county.’

  Her large eyes regarded him appealingly, but he saw that there was nothing of the coquette about her manner, for she looked genuinely worried.

  He waited expectantly for her to continue, but for a long moment she remained silent, as if summoning up courage.

  ‘I am concerned about my husband, sir,’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘Is he unwell – or in some kind of trouble?’ asked de Wolfe with a frown of concern.

  ‘His body is in good health, thank God. But my concern is for his mind and what trouble that may lead him into.’

  John was puzzled – though he disliked Clement for a being a supercilious snob, he did not see him as either a madman or an evildoer. He waited for her to explain further.

  ‘As you may know from your goodwife, Clement is very much concerned with this problem of heresy in the city,’ she began in a low voice. ‘He has always been of an unusually devout nature, passionately concerned for our religion. But I fear that it has become an obsession and I am deeply worried about where it may lead him.’

  He stood close to her and, though she was tall for a woman, he looked down into her upturned face, which was tight with suppressed emotion.

  ‘You are no doubt referring to this meeting last night in the church,’ he sai
d. ‘I understand it was held mainly at your husband’s instigation, but I have no knowledge of what transpired there, apart from a few words Matilda offered to our maid.’

  Cecilia sighed. ‘He virtually took over the meeting! After Father Fulk gave a strong, though reasoned condemnation of the heretics, Clement became an impassioned orator, designed to whip up the anger of the congregation against these misguided people. He even demanded that they should be killed, drawing on biblical images of stoning to death!’

  She shook her head and de Wolfe saw tears appearing in the corners of her eyes. ‘I sometimes fear for his sanity, Sir John! Though he can be cold and calculating, especially in his dealing with his patients – and with me, for that matter – once his religious zeal is aroused, he becomes a different man!’

  John resisted an impulse to put a reassuring arm around her shoulders, in case Matilda had chosen to appear at that moment. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked lamely.

  Cecilia dabbed her nose with a lacy kerchief which she pulled from her sleeve.

  ‘He is leading this delegation of parishioners to demand that the cathedral takes sterner action against the heretics. He is there at the moment and I think your wife is also attending.’ She sniffed back her tears. ‘He wanted me to go with him, both to the church last night and now to the chapter house, but I refused. I do not want to be associated with a persecution that might lead to the deaths of people who only wish to follow their own roads to God. Clement was very angry with me, for not sharing his outrageous views.’

  ‘He has not offered you any violence, I trust?’ snapped John, his chivalrous senses at once alerted, but Cecilia shook her head.

  ‘No, nothing like that. But I know you are of a like mind to myself over this issue, though I must warn you that many voices are being raised against you for it.’

  ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ he asked harshly. ‘This distresses me greatly, to know that you are in such an unhappy situation.’

  ‘You are a friend of the archdeacon, I know. He is also known to be moderate in his views, even though as a senior churchman his position is difficult. I thought perhaps you could warn him of my husband’s extreme views and his somewhat unstable mind.’

  John promised that he would use all the influence he had, though privately he was unsure whether John de Alençon was either willing or able to stand up against his fellow canons’ thirst for blood, which would be greatly reinforced by Clement’s obvious obsession and the groundswell he had whipped up among the public.

  They spoke for another few moments, but then several groups of people came from both directions in Martin’s Lane and it became difficult to continue this clandestine conversation. With a whispered ‘thank you’ and a quick press of his hand, Cecilia hurried back into her house and the door closed.

  John regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, then loped off towards the High Street.

  When he walked into the ward at St John’s Hospital, he saw a complete stranger on the pallet that Thomas had occupied and for a sickening moment thought that his clerk might have had a sudden relapse and died. Then Brother Saulf hurried towards him from a nearby patient, his smile telling John that all must be well.

  ‘He has gone home, Crowner! He insisted early this morning that he was restored to health, apart from his still-yellowed eyes.’

  ‘Was he really fit to go?’ asked de Wolfe, concerned for Thomas’s well-being.

  ‘To be honest, there was nothing more we could do here except try to make him rest – and we desperately need the space for other sufferers.’

  ‘I suppose he’s gone back to his lodgings?’

  ‘Yes, I impressed on him the need to rest and take regular meals to restore his strength. He claims the cleric who shares his room will keep him fed.’

  On his way up to the castle, John was determined to make sure than Thomas was looked after, so when he met Gwyn in the gatehouse chamber, he arranged with him for Martha or one of the serving maids at the Bush to go around to Priest Street twice a day with nutritious food. The Cornishman reassured him with a big grin of pleasure.

  ‘Don’t worry, Crowner, we’ll see the little fellow is well fed. God knows his scrawny body could do with some fattening up!’

  It was a great relief to both of them to know that their clerk seemed out of danger and likely to be back at work very shortly, in spite of the monk’s exhortations to rest for a while.

  They brought their minds back to the business of the day. In the absence of any new dead bodies, rapes or fires, Gwyn wanted to know what was to happen to the two instigators of the quayside riot.

  ‘The sheriff has had to bow to the demands of the cathedral and give them back to the bishop’s jurisdiction,’ said John bitterly. ‘Though, as usual, the bloody bishop is conspicuous by his absence and I doubt if he would be very interested in such mundane matters, when he has the politics of England to amuse him.’

  The coroner rose from his bench at the mention of the two renegades.

  ‘They were to be collected from the castle gaol yesterday. If they’re still there, I’d like a word with the bastards before they leave. I still wonder if they were the ones who killed our three heretics.’

  With Gwyn clumping behind him, he hurried down the stairs and out into the inner bailey, where a cold rain had begun to fall from a leaden sky. They strode across to the keep but, instead of climbing the wooden stairs to the hall above, went down a few stone steps to the undercroft, a crypt partly below ground which occupied the whole of the base of the keep. A gloomy, damp cavern with stone arches supporting the building above, it was part prison, part storehouse and part torture chamber. Ruled over by the sadistic Stigand, the gaol consisted of a few filthy cells locked behind a rusty iron grille that divided the undercroft into two halves.

  As they reached the bottom of the steps, Gwyn bellowed out in the near-darkness, lit only by a couple of guttering pitch-flares stuck into rings on the walls.

  ‘Stigand! Where are you, you fat evil swine?’ The gaoler was not one of Gwyn’s favourite people.

  There was some grunting and shuffling and the man appeared from an alcove formed by one of the supporting arches. This was where he lived, between stone walls slimy with green mould, the floor covered with dirty straw. He had a hay mattress and a brazier for cooking and heating branding irons and the torture devices used in Ordeals.

  The gaoler shuffled across to them, his flabby face appearing to join his gross body without the need for a neck. Two piggy eyes surveyed them and his loose lips quavered as he saw the coroner and his officer, as he had suffered from their tongue-lashings several times in the past.

  ‘Are those two men still here, the ones who are going down to the cathedral proctors?’ demanded de Wolfe.

  Stigand nodded, but said nothing, and plodded across towards the iron grille. This reached up to the low ceiling and had a gate in the centre, secured with a chain and padlock. They followed him, regarding with distaste the short and filthy tunic he wore over bare legs. His unshod feet were black with dirt, and his leather apron was spattered with dried stains, the nature of which John had no desire to contemplate.

  A ring of keys hung from his belt; he took one to unlock the gate. ‘They are in the first two cells,’ he said thickly, speaking as if his tongue was too big for his mouth.

  The two visitors went into the prison, where a short passage led between half a dozen crude cells, each with a door of rusty iron bars. Only the first on each side were in use and as soon as the coroner and his officer appeared, the occupants began shouting at them.

  ‘I thought you were the proctors’ men – where are they?’ demanded Alan de Bere arrogantly. ‘We don’t want you bastards. We want to be taken out of here!’

  Gwyn poked a brawny arm through the bars and hit the renegade monk in the chest, making him stagger backwards into the filthy alcove, where the only furnishings were a stone slab for a bed and a wooden bucket for slops.

  ‘Watch your tongu
e, brother, else Stigand here might feel inclined to cut it out,’ he said amiably.

  De Wolfe turned to the other side, where Reginald Rugge was glowering at them through the bars.

  ‘Talking of cutting out tongues,’ said John, ‘do you know anything about the death of Nicholas Budd? For if you do, your good bishop may be handing you back to us for hanging!’

  Blustering, but uneasy at the prospect the coroner had forecast, Rugge loudly denied any knowledge of the bizarre killing of the woodworker.

  De Wolfe swung around to Alan de Bere. ‘And you, monk, did you take a knife to his throat? Or was it Vincente d’Estcote you killed and left to be dropped into a plague pit?’

  Rapidly, he went back to the lay brother. ‘And was it you who took a trip to Wonford and stuffed a murdered man into a privy?’

  John knew full well that he was unlikely to get a sudden confession from these men, but he always felt that if you shake a tree hard enough something might fall out.

  When their loud protests of innocence had subsided, he changed the direction of his provocative questions.

  ‘Right, if you are as white as the driven snow over those killings, then tell me instead who put you up to inciting this riot on the quayside, eh?’

  Rugge grasped the bars of his cage and glowered at de Wolfe. He looked like some madman, with his tousled dark hair stiff with dirt from the cell, bits of straw sticking out at all angles.

  ‘Why should anyone put us up to it?’ he ranted. ‘It is a Christian duty to cleanse the world of such vermin, who are increasing like the rats they are, procreating new blasphemers!’

  Alan de Bere joined in from the other side, beating on the rusty iron barricade in his frenzy. ‘We need no one to encourage us in our God-given task!’ he brayed. ‘The good canons and proctors do their best, but they are frustrated by such as you unbelievers.’