A Plague of Heretics (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Any idea where this soldier saw him?’ asked John, looking at the rickety footbridge across the river and the ford just below it.

  ‘He said not far from the new bridge,’ answered Gwyn, pointing to where a number of spans of a long stone bridge ended abruptly at the edge of the river. It was an ambitious project of Nicholas Gervase, but the money had given out before it was finished.

  There were a few huts dotted about in that area, where some sheep and goats were cropping the sparse grass. The coroner and his officer made their way towards them, jumping across ditches filled with brown mud and turbid water. Some of the shacks were empty, but a few had forlorn families living in them, though none of the occupants admitted to knowing Alan de Bere. A few of the shanties had collapsed and others teetered on the edge of deep leats, ready to fall in at the next flood.

  ‘That one’s nearest the bridge,’ said Gwyn, pointing at a wooden hut with a roof of grassy turfs, which was almost under one of the stone arches of the unfinished bridge. They walked towards it and were within a dozen paces when the sacking that covered the door-hole was suddenly thrown aside and a thin figure shot out, obviously intent on making his escape.

  ‘That’s the swine!’ yelled Gwyn and set off in pursuit, with John close on his heels.

  The more nimble fugitive, his monk’s habit tucked up between his legs and secured by a belt giving his long legs the freedom to go fast, might well have escaped had he not gone in the wrong direction. The doorway of the hut faced the river and de Bere had run straight ahead, being cut off by the deep main channel of the Exe. John and Gwyn fanned out on each side of him as he stood at bay on the bank and, converging, grabbed him almost simultaneously. He wriggled violently, but Gwyn threw him to the grass and planted a large foot on his chest.

  ‘You were released from the king’s gaol to be confined in the bishop’s cells,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘So how is it that you are lurking on Exe Island?’

  The skinny man in his tattered habit glared up at the coroner, his pale blue eyes having a glint of madness. ‘You have no authority over me. I am a servant of God!’ he screeched.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ answered John grimly. ‘You are a miserable little toad, and I want to know where you were on Sunday night.’

  ‘I was in this hut here, minding my own business.’

  Gwyn slid the toe of his boot up until it was pressed against Alan’s throat.

  ‘You’re a liar. You were in Milk Lane setting a fire. Was Reginald Rugge with you, eh?’

  ‘I was not, I swear it!’ gurgled the man. ‘I had nothing to do with that.’

  Gwyn pressed down harder and the renegade monk began to go blue in the face as he could not breathe.

  ‘You tried to hang those men last week – and the one who didn’t sail away was Algar the fuller,’ snarled de Wolfe, half-convinced that this was the man they wanted.

  ‘So you decided to get rid of him in another way, blast you!’ boomed Gwyn, screwing his heel into Alan’s chest.

  ‘I didn’t, I swear by God and the Virgin!’ gasped the monk. ‘It may have been Rugge for all I know. I’ve not seen him since we were let out by the proctors’ men. Father Julian wouldn’t let me go back to my hut at St Olave’s, so I came here.’

  John sighed, as without proof his sense of justice prevailed over his revulsion for the man. He motioned to Gwyn to let the man get to his feet.

  ‘If I get any evidence that you were responsible for this mortal sin, I’ll see you on your way to hell personally!’ he threatened.

  De Bere staggered to his feet, his face contorted in hate. ‘You have no right to hound me like this. The bishop will hear of this.’

  ‘That’s what your accomplice in crime said – and much good it will do you both,’ snapped John.

  ‘Can we take him back to Rougemont and let Stigand get some practice on him with his branding irons?’ suggested Gwyn, holding Alan’s arm in a grip of steel.

  ‘I wish we could, but some of us still keep to the letter of the law, thank God,’ answered de Wolfe. ‘You’d better let him go for now. We know we can always find him in some pigsty or under a flat stone!’

  They were standing on the edge of a deep leat that ran under the bridge. As Gwyn released the man, John sent him on his way with a shove, which overbalanced him into the ditch. He fell face down into the glutinous mud and struggled up covered in filth.

  ‘That’s for trying to hang those men on the quayside last week!’ declared de Wolfe. ‘Now clear off, you evil bastard!’

  De Bere scrambled up the opposite side of the leat, wiping mud from his face and spitting dirty water from his mouth. When he had moved a safe distance away, he turned and screamed back at the coroner. ‘You’ll pay for this, de Wolfe – I’ll get even with you yet!’

  Back in Rougemont, John and his officer went into the hall to warm themselves at the firepit and to get something to eat and drink. They found a heated discussion going on between the sheriff and Sergeant Gabriel and came nearer to discover what the trouble might be.

  ‘I’ll have those two idiots in chains for a week,’ fumed Gabriel. ‘This is what comes of having milksops as soldiers, boys who have never seen a sword raised in anger!’

  ‘What’s the problem, sergeant?’ asked the coroner, but it was Henry de Furnellis who answered.

  ‘Those two bastards you saw at Polsloe, the rapists,’ he said bitterly. ‘They’ve bloody well escaped!’

  ‘And committed another crime already,’ added Gabriel, fuming with anger at the incompetence of his men-at-arms. ‘We sent two men to drag them back here to await trial in the gaol and what happens? Those two fools I thought were proper soldiers were overpowered and lost them!’

  When the story was told in full, it appeared that Martin of Nailsea and David the Welshman while in the cowshed had managed to free themselves from the ropes that bound their wrists and ankles. They had armed themselves with baulks of timber prised from the stalls and, as soon as the two soldiers opened the door to take them away, had beaten them to the ground and ran away into the nearby woods.

  ‘Where they’ll no doubt remain as outlaws!’ glowered de Wolfe.

  Gabriel shook his head. ‘No such luck! The swine came back into the city within the hour, for they attacked a merchant in an alley off North Gate Street, choking him near to death before stealing his purse and making off into the lanes of Bretayne!’

  The coroner sighed at the futility of arresting people only to let them escape. ‘Are you looking for them now?’ he barked.

  The sheriff nodded irritably. ‘It’s like a bloody rabbit warren, that Bretayne! Half the folk there are thieves themselves and they’ll readily give shelter to any evil brethren. But we’ll get them in the end, though it may take a day two, knowing that place.’

  Though he shook his head in disgust, John was preoccupied with his other problems. The sergeant marched away, ready to give another roasting to his incompetent soldiery, while the sheriff joined Gwyn and the coroner in another pot of ale as they bemoaned the way the world seemed to be going to the dogs.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In which the coroner is in dire trouble

  Heavy cloud banks and a cold drizzle combined with the advancing days of November to bring an early dusk, and when John came down from the castle into the town it was already twilight. After the particularly virulent quarrel with Matilda at dinner-time, he decided to miss his supper at home and instead went down to the Bush, where Martha would be happy to feed him. On the way to Idle Lane he called on Thomas and found his clerk in good spirits. The yellow tinge had virtually vanished from his eyes, and he declared himself eager to resume his duties.

  ‘I have already spent a few hours today in the scriptorium,’ he said proudly, referring to his work cataloguing the manuscripts in the cathedral archives on the upper floor of the chapter house. ‘So I see no reason why I cannot return to scribing for you, Crowner.’

  He seemed so keen that John agreed to let him come each mo
rning that week, provided he sat quietly at his table. When Thomas asked after the coroner’s brother, John had to tell him how concerned he was that William seemed to make no progress – at least, he had not improved the last time John had seen him.

  ‘I must visit him again very soon,’ he said. ‘I hope to go down to Stoke tomorrow, depending on what duties await us in the morning.’

  As always, the little priest was very solicitous about his master’s problems and promised to continue praying earnestly for William’s recovery. He also passed on some encouraging information.

  ‘When I was in St John’s, Brother Saulf explained to me that sometimes even when the poison of the plague has left the body, it can have already damaged some of the entrails, so that they cannot function properly. Maybe that is what has happened to your brother – and hopefully those functions will slowly return.’

  John hoped he was right and told Gwyn and Martha about it when he got to the tavern.

  ‘Both that Saulf and our dear Thomas are clever, learned people,’ said Martha. ‘Perhaps when you get to Stoke tomorrow, you will find William much improved.’

  John sat at his usual table, glad of the warmth of the firepit as a cold, wet wind had arisen outside. While he waited for Martha to chivvy her cook-maid into making him a meal, he sat over a quart of Gwyn’s latest brew, talking to the Cornishman and several other acquaintances. Old Edwin hovered nearby, clutching empty pots and eavesdropping on the conversation. His religious fervour seemed to have diminished markedly since the quayside riot and especially since the outrage in Milk Lane. When John mentioned finding Alan de Bere down on Exe Island, the ancient potboy’s indignation overflowed.

  ‘An evil lunatic, that man!’ he croaked. ‘I’d not put it past him to have set that fire. I hear that he’s found another three so-called heretics in the city since last week and reported them to the proctors.’

  Another man, a florid baker and pie-maker from the High Street, chipped in with similar news. ‘One of my customers told me today that Herbert Gale, that miserable proctors’ bailiff, had heard from his spies of two more from Alphington, just outside the town.’

  There was a rumble of discontent from those sitting nearby.

  ‘I reckon that folk in the city have lost their appetite for hounding heretics, since that awful business on Sunday night,’ said a brawny smith from Smythen Street. ‘Time we let the bishop sort out his problems in his own way, not by taking affairs into our own hands.’

  John was glad to hear that common sense was reestablishing itself in Exeter, but then he was diverted by the arrival of Martha with a wooden bowl of steaming potage, smelling deliciously of thyme and mint. She was closely followed by a young maid with a platter bearing a shank of mutton with beans and boiled leeks.

  ‘Get that down you, Crowner!’ she said cheerily. ‘It will raise your spirits in these dark days.’

  He found that he was ravenously hungry, having left part of his dinner behind in his fight with Matilda and now gone well beyond his usual supper-time. He attacked the food heartily and soon finished it all. When he ended with a bare mutton bone, he realised that he had no Brutus beneath the table, as he had left him with Mary, where the dog spent most of his time when John was away from the house. He recalled that she was going to visit her cousin in Curre Street that evening and would probably have taken the dog with her, as Matilda had no time for the old hound and was probably at St Olave’s anyway.

  The evening passed pleasantly in drinking and gossiping, but after a couple of hours John decided that he had better go home to bed, as tomorrow would be another hard day, if he was to ride to Stoke-in-Teignhead and back. He bade goodnight to his friends and trudged back along the familiar route to Martin’s Lane, a path he had taken a thousand times before, so the darkness was no hindrance.

  In the cathedral Close he passed the guttering pitch-flare at Bear Gate and aimed for the next one stuck in a ring on the wall of St Martin’s Church, fifty paces from his house. As he reached the front door, he frowned because it was ajar. Though they rarely locked it, it was normally closed against the draughts that blew through the lane. He pushed it open and went into the small vestibule that connected the inner door to the hall with the passage to the backyard. A tallow dip in a wall niche gave him light enough to hang up his cloak, before he went into the hall.

  The fire was burning low, but two more tallow lamps on each side wall dimly illuminated the high, gloomy chamber. No one was sitting near the hearth, so he assumed that his wife was still at her devotions. Going to the fire to throw on a couple of the logs stacked at the side, he suddenly saw a pair of feet sticking out beyond the further monks’ settle. Aghast, he thrust the seat out of the way and saw that his wife was lying motionless on the flagstones.

  ‘Matilda! Matilda, what’s wrong?’ He dropped to his knees alongside her, fearful that she had had a stroke or a seizure. She was lying on her side, and he tugged at her substantial body to turn her on to her back. Then, even in that poor light, he could see the bruises on her throat. She was dead – stone dead.

  De Wolfe had seen too many corpses in his time to even attempt to revive her, and he rocked back on his heels, stunned by the realisation that his wife was dead. To his credit, the thought that he was now free of her never entered his head. Though he had made many empty threats in the past, these were just an angry retaliation to her jibes and he had never contemplated her demise as the answer to his marital problems. Now he felt confused, as if this was all happening to someone else.

  ‘Matilda, what the hell happened to you?’ he croaked, then berated himself for being such a fool. A practical man of action, he pulled himself together and stood up, a cold fury slowly overtaking him at whoever had robbed him of his wife, however undesirable to him she might have been.

  He stared almost maniacally around the chamber, as if he might see some murderer skulking in a corner. Was this anything to do with the heretic hunt or was it some random robbery with violence? What about those two evil bastards from Polsloe? They had already attacked someone inside the city – and that was also an attempted throttling.

  Or could it be someone getting back at him for his actions against those who wished to exterminate heretics? Perhaps that madman Alan de Bere? Or the lay brother Reginald Rugge – he knew Matilda well, as he was always lurking around St Olave’s. The possibilities swirled around in his head, confusing him, making him yell out in anguished frustration.

  But he was the coroner, he told himself sternly … For God’s sake, pull yourself together, man!

  He suddenly realised that he was now the First Finder. It was different being on the other side of the fence that usually divided a law officer from the people in the street or the village. What was he to do? Should he raise the hue and cry?

  He stood indecisively, looking down at the inert body of the woman he had been married to for over seventeen years. For once unsure of what to do next, he stood transfixed, trying to get his thoughts in order.

  There was a click behind him as the hall door opened and he swung around in a crouch, automatically whipping out his dagger to confront the return of the killer.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, what are you doing, John?’ came a familiar voice. ‘Put that damned knife away.’

  It was Richard de Revelle, his detested brother-in-law, who came cautiously towards him, as John’s knife hand slowly subsided.

  ‘I came to visit my sister. Is this the welcome I get?’ he brayed in his high-pitched voice. Suspecting from John’s manner that something was amiss, he hurried forward, keeping his brother-in-law at arm’s length until he reached the chairs near the hearth. Finding them empty, he dropped his gaze and saw his sister lying motionless on the floor. With a cry of horror, he dropped to one knee and, like John, instantly recognised that she was beyond any mortal help.

  ‘What have you done, you bastard?’ he shrieked, looking up fearfully at de Wolfe, as if he expected him to jump murderously upon him. ‘You’ve killed her, yo
u swine!’ He struggled to his feet and backed away from the coroner.

  ‘I knew this would happen! I’ve heard the many threats you’ve made against the poor woman!’ He stumbled backwards a few more steps. ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later, but you’ll not get away with it, damn you! I’ll see you hang for this!’

  His hysteria seemed to jerk John back into rational thought. ‘Don’t be so bloody silly, Richard!’ he said dully, dropping his knife carelessly on to the flagstones. ‘I found her like this when I came in, not three minutes ago. It must have been those two swine who attacked that woman in Polsloe. I must send for the sheriff. He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Damned right he will!’ shrilled de Revelle. ‘He’ll arrest you for murder if he knows what’s good for him!’ He moved warily towards the door, half-afraid that de Wolfe was going to jump on him.

  ‘Where are you going?’ snapped John. ‘You must help me get her decently laid out, not left crumpled on the cold floor.’

  ‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ shouted de Revelle. ‘You’ve done enough damage already. And nothing must be moved until the sheriff and his men get here – you should know that, as so-called coroner!’

  He sidled to the door. As he vanished, he shouted, ‘I’m off to raise the hue and cry – though they’ll not have far to search for the killer!’

  John slumped into his chair and stared across the room at where his wife’s feet pointed at him accusingly. The fire had livened up and he could see her more clearly, lying there murdered before her own hearth. The feeling of unreality began to creep over him again and he leaped up to dispel it, but again hovered indecisively over her still form.

  Then the door opened again and Mary entered, straight from the street with a woollen shawl draped over her head and shoulders.

  ‘What’s going on, Sir John?’ she asked briskly. ‘Your brother-in-law is hammering on the door of the next house.’