A Plague of Heretics (Crowner John Mysteries)

by Bernard Knight

  He looked at her dully and wordlessly waved a hand towards the hearth. His cook-maid came forward to stare at what was behind the chair. Typically of her, she neither screamed nor shouted but dropped to her knees and felt Matilda’s face with the back of her hand.

  ‘She’s still warm,’ she said harshly.

  ‘But dead, Mary! She’s been strangled by some bastard.’

  His voice was flat and desolate. The maid stood up, pulling the shawl from her dark hair and spreading it gently over the body of her mistress.

  ‘She must be covered up. It’s not seemly for her to be left like this,’ she said briskly. Not for a moment did she think that John was responsible. Her mind was on what needed to be done.

  ‘You sit down and I’ll get you some brandy-wine, then you can go for help, before her brother causes you more mischief. She hurried to the side table and brought him a cup of strong spirit, the same stuff that had been used to start the fire in Milk Lane. He swallowed it in a couple of gulps and then stood up again.

  ‘I must go to the castle to see if Henry de Furnellis is still there,’ he announced thickly. ‘Can you send old Simon down to the Bush to tell Gwyn what’s happened?’

  She nodded and went to the door, pushing Brutus out of the way, as he was peering in, wondering what was happening. ‘I’ll take him with me out of the way.’

  She disappeared, and with leaden feet he made for the street door. As he reached it, he collided with Richard de Revelle, who pushed him back inside before John could resist.

  ‘No, you don’t, you stay here!’ screeched Richard. ‘Help, he’s trying to make a run for it!’ he yelled at a higher pitch. Behind him came Clement the doctor and then two men John vaguely recognised as belonging to the house around the corner in the Close, some minor lay functionaries from the cathedral. They all crowded into the vestibule, almost filling it, before de Wolfe could retaliate.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘Get out of my house this minute!’

  Richard grabbed him by the arm. ‘We are the hue and cry, and you are under arrest!’ he yelled, an almost maniacal look of triumph on his face as he saw a chance of repaying all the indignities that de Wolfe had heaped on him over the past years.

  For answer, the coroner pulled his arm free and landed his brother-in-law a punch on the chest, then another on the jaw that sent him reeling backwards to hit the wall behind.

  ‘Don’t you dare handle me, you madman!’ he hissed and advanced on Richard, prepared to strike him again.

  Clement seized his arm and tried to calm him down. ‘Sir John, I beg you to behave like the gentleman you are. Just let us see what the situation is in your hall.’

  Breathing hard, de Wolfe pulled himself together and allowed the physician and the other men through the inner door. By now, two other men from the corner house on the High Street had been summoned, together with Andrew from his stables opposite. Cecilia and Lucille hovered behind them, the maid attracted from the yard, wide-eyed with apprehension. They all trooped into the high chamber, where the new logs were now burning brightly enough to give a good light. As John led the way across to the chairs standing before the hearth, Richard pushed his way forward, rubbing his chin with one hand and gesticulating with the other.

  ‘You are all witnesses to his assault upon me!’ he babbled. ‘He is a dangerous man. Be careful. He has already killed, he is violent and not to be trusted!’

  His protests were ignored, as the sight of Matilda’s body had transfixed them. Mary’s shawl covered her head, but Lucille gave a piercing scream and collapsed sobbing on to the floor, in spite of the fact that her mistress had made her life a misery. It was Cecilia who ran forward and crouched at Matilda’s side, gently pulling back the woollen cloth and feeling for a heartbeat in the woman’s neck.

  ‘Clement, come here quickly!’ she commanded. ‘See if anything can be done for her.’

  Her husband joined her on his knees and, pushing her out of the way, felt Matilda’s throat and then lifted up her eyelids one at a time. ‘She is dead – she cannot be revived.’ He crossed himself, as did several of the men standing around.

  ‘I told you, de Wolfe killed her,’ rasped de Revelle. ‘You can see the grip marks of his fingers on her throat!’

  Clement got up, while Cecilia reverently replaced the shawl over the dead woman’s face. Then she went across to where Lucille was crumpled on the floor making whimpering sounds.

  ‘Come on, my girl, I’ll take you next door away from all this trouble.’ She put an arm around the maid and led her sobbing to the door, leaving the men looking at each other in consternation, though the physician advanced on the coroner.

  ‘What do you say to all this, sir?’ asked Clement sternly.

  John glared at him. ‘I say that this is none of your damned business!’ he snapped. ‘But if you must know, I came home a short while ago from the Bush alehouse to find the street door open and my wife dead upon the floor!’

  ‘Ha! A likely story!’ brayed Richard. ‘I found him standing over my poor sister’s body, still warm after his murderous assault. He tried to silence me with his dagger. Look, there it is, still upon the floor!’

  He pointed dramatically at the knife which lay on the flagstones. Seven pairs of eyes stared at de Wolfe, as if waiting to hear his explanation, but they were disappointed.

  ‘I don’t have to answer your ravings, de Revelle,’ he snarled. ‘You are expert at causing trouble where none exists. I shall wait for the sheriff, who holds the office in which you were found so wanting in honesty.’

  One of the men from the Close, a lawyer in the bishop’s service, frowned at his response.

  ‘This is a difficult situation, Sir John. What is required is a coroner, as you well know. But you yourself are the coroner here, so what is to be done?’

  ‘Let the sheriff decide,’ snapped John. ‘He is the king’s representative in this county.’

  ‘And your bosom friend, of course!’ sneered Richard, still rubbing at his aching jaw to emphasise how badly he had been assaulted. ‘What chance is there of him going against your interests?’

  As if in answer to the question, there was a commotion outside and the doors were flung open as Henry de Furnellis and his chief clerk came in. He had had only a short distance to travel when summoned, as though he had a manor outside Exeter he also had a town house near the Guildhall.

  A gabble of explanations was hurled at him, but Henry ignored them and walked straight up to de Wolfe. His lined old face, resembling a tired bloodhound, looked calmly at the coroner.

  ‘What’s going on, John?’ he asked mildly.

  ‘I found my wife lying there on the floor, strangled,’ he replied. ‘And this idiot thinks I did it!’ He jerked his head at his brother-in-law.

  De Furnellis looked down at Matilda’s body for the first time. ‘Good God, John! I’m so sorry. Who could have done this awful thing?’

  This provoked another cacophony of chatter, above which Richard’s reedy voice rose in protest. ‘What did I say? We will get no justice here!’

  He thrust his way through the men thronging the chamber and vanished into the night. The sheriff scowled at those remaining.

  ‘Clear the room! This is now king’s business. My clerk will take your names in case you are needed as jurors or witnesses.’ He hustled them all outside, and when the last had gone he slammed the door. ‘Now, John, tell me what happened.’

  His down-to-earth manner cleared the turmoil in de Wolfe’s mind, and in a few succinct words he explained what had happened.

  ‘Of all things that I needed at that moment was that bloody fool de Revelle appearing on the scene,’ he said bitterly. ‘It was manna from heaven for him, of course, to catch me in what he imagined was a compromising situation!’

  The sheriff looked down at the still shape on the floor. ‘What are we to do with her, John? It’s not decent for her to be left lying there.’

  De Wolfe grabbed his hair in a g
esture of consternation. ‘In one thing, Richard is right. We need a coroner, for I am not above the law and that is what is demanded. They have raised their hue and cry and I am First Finder. There must be an inquest, and the coroner, whoever he is, should be able to view the corpse where it lies.’

  As he uttered the word ‘corpse’ he shivered, the realisation seeping over him that his wife was now just a dead body. Though he could generate no affection for her, she had been a part of his life for so long that he found it hard to believe that she was no more.

  Henry de Furnellis pulled at the jowls under his chin as he thought what to do next. ‘Can we get Nicholas de Arundell back just to deal with this?’

  This was the manor-lord from near Totnes who had temporarily taken on the coronership when John had been called to Westminster.

  John shrugged and gave a great sigh. ‘I suppose so. He’s the obvious answer. He must be sent for straight away, so that he may be here in the morning.’

  The sheriff looked down again at Matilda. ‘But can we leave the poor woman here until then?’

  ‘A sheriff and a coroner can hardly go against the rules laid down by the king’s justices,’ said John. ‘The body must be left undisturbed until the coroner has the opportunity to view it.’

  Eventually, they decided to leave her where she was, as in any case the alternatives were difficult. Taking her to lie in the usual mortuary in the castle cart-shed was not to be contemplated and putting her before an altar in either the cathedral or St Olave’s was too much of a departure from the legal process.

  ‘I will send down a soldier from Rougemont to stand guard over the door,’ declared the sheriff. ‘And another can ride at dawn to Hempston Arundell to fetch Sir Nicholas. With forced riding, he could be back here soon after noon.’

  With a last look at the shrouded body near the hearth, Henry firmly shepherded his friend from the hall and closed the door.

  ‘I didn’t do it, you know,’ said John suddenly as they stood in the vestibule.

  The sheriff gripped his arm in a gesture of friendship. ‘It never entered my mind that you did, John! But that bastard de Revelle is going to squeeze every ounce of trouble for you out of this.’

  He opened the door to the lane. ‘What are you going to do tonight? You can’t stay here.’

  ‘I’ll sleep down at the Bush – not that I’m likely to get much sleep,’ he answered. ‘Now I must see to Mary.’

  When de Furnellis had left, he went around to the yard, where Brutus was whimpering at Mary’s feet. Though he had been treated with disdain by Matilda, the hound knew that something was very wrong in the household.

  ‘What will you do tonight, Mary?’

  The cook-maid raised her hands. ‘What can I do but stay here, as usual? I’m not afraid of ghosts.’

  ‘I didn’t harm her, Mary,’ he said, repeating the assurance he had made to the sheriff. She reached up and kissed his bristly cheek.

  ‘Of course you didn’t, Sir John!’ she said vehemently. ‘But I fear for your safety now, all the same.’

  De Wolfe went back to the Bush and told his dreadful tale to the horrified Gwyn and Martha. Already patrons were coming into the tavern who had heard the news higher up in the town, spread by the men who had been turned out for the hue and cry. Some looked askance at the coroner, but others came across to offer their sympathy and support.

  ‘It must be those bloody ship-men that ravished that poor woman,’ said a carpenter he knew. ‘Flood Bretayne with soldiers, I say, to flush them out!’

  Gwyn sat John at his table and pressed a jug of ale upon him, as the only way he knew to express his feelings, while Martha tried to get him to eat again, which he declined.

  ‘De Revelle is out to make trouble for me over this, Gwyn,’ he said soberly. ‘He sees this as his big chance to even up old scores.’

  ‘It’s nonsense; no one will take him seriously,’ scoffed his officer.

  ‘I hope not, but I have a bad feeling about this. He found me standing over her still-warm corpse – and I pulled a knife on him, as I thought it was the killer returning.’

  Gwyn still dismissed his fears, and soon Martha persuaded him to go up to the loft and lie down on one of the better feather mattresses. In spite of his fears, John slept dreamlessly for a few hours before dawn, but as soon as he awoke all his troubles came tumbling down on him again.

  By the time he finished his morning oatmeal gruel, Thomas appeared in a highly agitated state, as by now everyone in Exeter knew of Matilda’s death. He was almost beside himself with concern and fear for his master’s welfare, as already rumours were circulating that the coroner himself was a suspect.

  ‘And I’ll wager I can guess who is promoting that notion,’ growled Gwyn. ‘I’ll wring the swine’s neck myself if he causes you serious trouble, Crowner!’

  Together, the three set off for Rougemont, after John had arranged with Andrew for one of his ostlers to ride to Stoke-in-Teignhead with a hasty note which Thomas had penned for him. His sister Evelyn could read fairly well, as she had spent time in a nunnery when young. In the note, John explained what had happened and expressed his sincere hope that William was improving. He also asked that a message be sent to Hilda, explaining his inability to visit any of them for the time being.

  Up at the castle, John went straight to see Henry de Furnellis, who confirmed that a soldier had already left on their swiftest horse to bring Nicholas de Arundell back to Exeter.

  ‘Is there any news of Richard de Revelle yet?’ demanded John. ‘No doubt he’ll be abroad soon to make as much trouble as he can.’

  The sheriff shook his head. ‘Not a sign of him here, but Sergeant Gabriel says the porter on the South Gate saw him riding out with a servant as soon as it was opened at dawn.’

  ‘He’s up to something,’ growled Gwyn. ‘He’ll not just ride away and lose an opportunity like this.’

  The sheriff agreed. ‘He can’t be going to his manor at Tiverton. He’d have used the East Gate for that.’

  It was afternoon before they discovered where the

  former sheriff had been.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In which Crowner John is in dire peril

  The sheriff was being too optimistic when he expected Sir Nicholas de Arundell to arrive by noon. Though the messenger he sent at dawn to the manor near Totnes went as fast as his good rounsey could take him, de Arundell was not at home. He was out supervising his men assarting the edge of the woodlands, and it took an hour to find him and to persuade him to come to Exeter to resume his former duties as a coroner. His reluctance was all the more stubborn when he discovered that he was expected to hold an inquest on the wife of the existing coroner, a man for whom he had the greatest respect, as well as gratitude for past help. Being told that John de Wolfe was also the prime suspect was even worse, but eventually, when his literate steward read out the letter penned by Henry de Furnellis’s clerk, he felt obliged to comply with what was essentially the king’s command, conveyed through the sheriff.

  By the time he reached Exeter, it was well past the middle of the afternoon. He met de Furnellis, and they went to the house in Martin’s Lane for his obligatory viewing of the scene and of Matilda’s body, a task for which he had the greatest distaste.

  His examination was cursory, just a glance to identify the deceased and a quick confirmation of the bruises on her throat, which by now had become more prominent, as commonly happened after death.

  ‘What about the viewing by the jury?’ he wanted to know. ‘Surely we cannot make the poor lady suffer the indignity of being pushed up to the castle on a handcart!’

  De Furnellis had already pondered on this, as Rougemont was the obvious place for the inquest. The Guildhall was the only other venue large enough, but he had no jurisdiction over the burgesses and portreeves, who jealously guarded their independence.

  ‘We must use Rougemont, and Matilda can be laid out decently there in the garrison chapel,’ announced Henry. ‘I�
��ll arrange for a closed wagon to take the body up there straight away.’

  To allow time for this and to provide Nicholas de Arundell with some food and drink after his hard ride from Totnes, the sheriff took him to the New Inn in the High Street for the better part of an hour.

  When they eventually reached the castle, a considerable crowd had gathered around the gatehouse and quite a number had already pushed their way inside. As an inquest was a public affair, they had every right to be there, but the sheriff drew the line at letting a mob into the hall. He had decided to use the inner ward and had soldiers bring out a chair for the coroner and some benches for the senior officials and clerks.

  Gwyn and Thomas de Peyne had come up from the Bush with John de Wolfe, but due to the late arrival of de Arundell they had been cooling their heels in John’s chamber, high in the gatehouse. De Wolfe was in an icy mood, tense and internally seething with anger at the mischief that Richard de Revelle was causing – but he acknowledged the need for an inquest and a proper disposal of his wife’s body. The fact that she was irrevocably dead and gone had still not fully sunk into his mind, and he seemed to be gliding along on some superficial plane of consciousness. However, he was still able to worry about the condition of his brother and whether his family and Hilda had had the message explaining his absence.

  When they went down to the inner ward for the impending inquest, Thomas flatly refused to act as clerk in a case where his master was being suggested as the culprit, but he hovered behind one of the sheriff’s clerks to make sure that he wrote down an accurate record.

  As the main players assembled, Nicholas de Arundell hastened to de Wolfe’s side, where he stood brooding at the edge of the twenty people marshalled as a jury.

  ‘Sir John, this is a terrible tragedy,’ he said solicitously. ‘When you aided me in my predicament last year, not only you showed me kindness, but your wife was also very supportive to mine.’

  Nicholas was a tall, fair man, an ex-Crusader like John, but some years younger. Now obviously embarrassed by the role he was being forced into playing, he tried to excuse himself to John, but de Wolfe set his mind at rest.