The Witch Hunter

by Bernard Knight

  ‘I’ll bring some food down for you, Gwyn,’ promised Thomas, worried out of his mind at the predicament of his big friend.

  ‘And I’ll fetch some ale,’ added Gabriel. ‘We can sit and play some dice until this nonsense is settled, eh?’

  John felt that the others were putting a brave face on the situation for his officer’s sake and although he gave Gwyn a reassuring slap on the back and bade him a confident farewell, he followed the constable out of the undercroft with heavy foreboding in his heart.

  As that particular drama was being played out in the undercroft of Rougemont, Cecilia de Pridias was meeting Canon Gilbert in his house in the Close. Although he was her cousin, she was chaperoned by her daughter Avise and her dull husband Roger Hamund. They sat in Gilbert’s study, furnished far more comfortably than the spartan room of John de Alençon, three doors away. Gilbert had several prebends, all serviced by under-paid vicars, so together with his perquisites from the cathedral and the rents from several properties he owned in Exeter and Crediton, he was relatively affluent and saw no reason to stint himself when it came to creature comforts. The room had an oak table and several chairs, two of which had padded seats and backs, a luxury indeed. There was a side locker with wine and Flemish glasses on top and several wall cupboards, between which hung tapestries to relieve the coldness of the stone walls. A small fireplace with a chimney rising to the ceiling was another modern innovation and the only token of an ecclesiastical establishment was a small gilt crucifix on one wall.

  Gilbert’s guests sat around the table and his steward entered to serve wine, then discreetly left, closing the door behind him – though he listened with his ear to the crack for some minutes.

  Cecilia had no particular reason for meeting with her cousin, other than to keep in touch over their campaign, making sure that the canon’s enthusiasm was not waning. She need not have worried, for once launched on this mission, Gilbert’s obsessive nature fed upon itself. Even though he kept his eye upon the long-term advantages to his progress in the hierarchy of the Church, the crusade itself had gripped him, and he felt that this was a mission that had been waiting for him for years. Although not particularly devout in terms of a desperate affection for the Holy Trinity, he had begun to believe that God had marked him out for this campaign and that ridding the area of heresy and apostasy in the shape of witches was now his life’s work.

  His widowed cousin was equally enthusiastic and again the excitement of the hunt was for her a self-fulfilling emotion bordering on hysteria. Although her original motive had been to find and punish the sorcerer who had brought about her husband’s death by putting a lethal spell upon him, this had broadened out into a pogrom against all cunning men and women. However, the death of her Robert was still to the fore of her mind and soon surfaced in their discussion.

  ‘Do you think any of these wicked dames was responsible, Gilbert?’ she asked.

  The canon heaved his well-covered shoulders. ‘There is no way of telling, cousin. The hanged one is now beyond any questioning and I doubt if the other pair will confess. Unfortunately, the proctors have no means of extracting the truth from them, and though the sheriff’s court will undoubtedly hang them for us, they will not administer the peine forte et dure to get a true account of their misdeeds.’

  ‘What about that strange episode some days ago, when that man in Fore Street was murdered?’ asked Avise. Although not nearly so keen on hunting witches as her obsessive mother, she was a great gossip and liked to keep abreast of all the news in the city.

  ‘They say that he was one of those cunning people, even though Elias was a man,’ added Roger, speaking for the first and only time.

  Gilbert poured some more wine. ‘I heard the same rumour and I am quite prepared to believe it. All I can think of is that our exhortations, especially those I delivered through the parish priests, moved someone who had suffered from his devilish acts to take the law into his own hands, as did that crowd in Bretayne.’ He took a sip of wine and added sententiously, ‘I cannot bring myself to condemn either them or him, if that is what some aggrieved souls did to avenge themselves and to prevent him doing further harm to other folk.’

  The quick mind of Cecilia saw a flaw in this explanation. ‘But what about the killing of our supporter, Walter the apothecary? I hear that the means by which he was killed was identical – and Walter was no magician.’

  ‘Neither was he much of a physician,’ added Avise cynically, which earned her an icy look from her mother.

  Gilbert’s big, ruddy face creased in doubt. ‘That is strange, I admit,’ he confessed. ‘But I doubt it is anything to do with our interests – though it is a pity that he was taken from us, as he was as keen as we to see these shameful people brought to justice.’

  Cecilia de Pridias was eager to look ahead. ‘Though four of these sorcerers have been dealt with, one way or another, there must surely be many more, both in the city and in the villages near by. How can these be flushed out, to rid decent Christian folk of their evil influence?’

  The burly priest was glad see how keen his kinswoman was to help, and his ego persuaded him to part with a little knowledge that he had intended to keep to himself. ‘Since they saw what happens to their loathsome kind, the rest are lying low, to save their own skins – and for that we must be thankful, for it helps us achieve our object of protecting the God-fearing from their satanic activities.’ He smirked and rubbed his hands together in anticipation of good news. ‘But I am about to come by some more information that should lead to the unmasking of another cunning woman. Our good friend and supporter Sir Richard de Revelle says that he knows of an unfortunate person who wishes to denounce someone who has wronged her. He is sending this informer down to see me this very evening.’

  Robert de Pridias’s widow looked at her cousin with admiration. ‘May I remain while you talk to this woman?’ she pleaded.

  Her daughter tugged at her arm, her face showing her disapproval. ‘Mother, these are not matters for a lady of your position to be mixed up with! Let the good canon deal with her.’

  Cecilia shook Avise off indignantly. ‘How can you say that, daughter? Your own dear father was done to death by one of these creatures. Does not the Bible say, as well as not allowing a witch to live, that revenge is sweet?’

  Privately, the quite clever Avise thought that the Lord had proclaimed that ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay’, but she prudently kept her lips together.

  Her mother turned back to her cousin. ‘Who is this person that the sheriff is sending to you?’

  Gilbert de Bosco shifted uneasily on his chair. De Revelle had impressed on him that his name must be kept out of this matter and Cecilia was known as an inveterate gossip, a family failing. ‘I won’t learn that until I speak to her. This is a delicate and confidential issue, I’m afraid. I must conduct it alone, dear cousin.’

  And with that, the disappointed Cecilia had to be content.

  Anger and frustration were overlaid with a nagging apprehension in John’s mind as he climbed out of the undercroft, leaving Gwyn incarcerated with the rats and lice in a dirty prison cell. Unlike the time a few months ago, when little Thomas de Peyne had been locked in the same dungeon under imminent sentence of death, John could not believe that his officer was in similar danger, but he couldn’t trust any of the machinations of the wily sheriff, who was as ruthless as he was dishonest. ‘So let’s have it out with the bastard!’ he muttered under his breath, as he ran up the steps to the door of the keep, oblivious to several startled servants and clerks whom he barged aside. He marched straight to the small door to Richard’s chambers, but to his intense annoyance found it locked, an unusual occurrence.

  ‘He went out just now, Crowner,’ said the nearby sentry. ‘In a devil of a hurry he was too.’

  Frustrated, John was at a loss as to what to do next, as Gwyn’s predicament overshadowed all other issues. He brusquely questioned a few people as to where the sheriff had gone, but got no satis
faction. Just then, Ralph Morin appeared through the entrance and for want of anything better to do until de Revelle showed up, they sat at a bench and called for jugs of cider from one of the castle servants. The hall, another bare chamber of reddish-grey sandstone, took up most of that floor of the keep, the quarters of the sheriff and constable occupying the remaining third, apart from a small buttery at the far end, where the drink was kept.

  After they had once more gone through a futile catalogue of de Revelle’s misdeeds and how he had managed to get the upper hand over them in this latest episode, they fell silent, wondering how Gwyn was coping with imprisonment below their very feet.

  ‘At least he’s got Thomas to tease and Gabriel to win money from at dice,’ said Ralph, trying to lighten the mood.

  John nodded abstractedly, looking around at the crowd that milled around this busy place, without really seeing them. Idle men-at-arms, anxious stewards clutching lists of stores, merchants hoping to bribe favours from officials, clerks scribbling on parchments and servants carrying pots of ale or trenchers of food from the kitchens in the inner bailey – all the familiar sights of a busy castle failed to displace Gwyn’s anxious face from his mind’s eye. ‘There must be something we can do to defeat this crafty swine!’ he grated angrily, banging his mug on the table.

  ‘He’s looking for a quid pro quo, a deal that will get him off the hook at Winchester,’ said the constable. ‘How was the situation left there, as far as his guilt was concerned?’

  ‘I’ve had chance only for a brief word with Thomas. He says that the Treasurer will want me swear to the truth of that inventory from Cadbury before they will indict anyone for the shortfall in the treasure, which it seems amounts to twenty bezants.’

  Ralph whistled through his remaining teeth. ‘Twenty of those big gold coins! That’s a lot of money to go missing.’

  ‘And I’ve got no means of proving that de Revelle took it,’ snarled John bitterly. ‘And if I can’t prove it, then I either drop the accusation or let a sheriff’s word stand against that of a mere servant.’

  The constable took a swig from his jar, then fixed John with his steady blue eyes. ‘I suppose there’s no possibility that …’

  ‘Don’t even think it, Ralph! I’ve known Gwyn for almost twenty years, there’s no way in which he would have taken that money. And anyway, what in hell would he do with twenty bezants – buy a new leather jerkin in place of that one he must have been born in?’

  They both grinned in spite of the seriousness of the situation, then buried their faces in their ale-pots.

  ‘Where in God’s teeth can the bloody sheriff have got to?’ demanded John, when he came up for air.

  ‘Here’s my steward passing, perhaps he will know,’ said Ralph. He called out to a prematurely bent grey-bearded man, who was mumbling to himself as he short-sightedly scanned a tattered roll of parchment held in his hands. ‘Deaf as a bloody mill-stone!’ growled the constable, jumping up and tugging at the man’s faded brown tunic as he passed the end of the table. ‘Samuel, do you know where the sheriff has gone?’ he shouted at him.

  The steward was not as deaf as Ralph made out, but his attention was always buried in his documents about soldier’s pay, garrison stores and duty rosters. He stopped and stared at his master as if he had never seen him before, until he managed to drag his mind away from the crabbed writing on his rolls. ‘The sheriff? Haven’t seen him these past few hours, sir. But I’ve been busy with these accounts. I’ll have to go through them with you tomorrow, just to check everything.’

  Ralph Morin groaned. As illiterate as de Wolfe, he found the thought of sitting for an hour while Samuel droned through every item mortifying. ‘When I die and go to hell, it will be this man who Satan will send as my torturer, by reading his accounts to me for eternity!’ he said mockingly. ‘But he’s the world’s best steward, nothing gets past him.’

  Samuel’s wrinkled, intelligent face creased into a smile at the compliment. ‘I do my best, Constable, I do my best.’ He cocked his head towards the main door. ‘What was all that commotion down below, may I ask?’ He was not only a meticulous record-keeper but another incorrigible nosy parker and a fount of information on everything that went on in Rougemont.

  Ralph was as relaxed with his steward as John was with his officer and he told him about the impasse that had landed Gwyn in Stigand’s cells.

  Samuel looked from one to the other with an expression of astonishment. ‘But why didn’t you ask me, master?’

  De Wolfe and Ralph Morin suddenly tensed at his words.

  ‘Ask you what, man?’ snapped the constable.

  ‘About what was in that box that you kept in your chamber until the sheriff took it away.’

  The coroner stared at Samuel, almost afraid to ask him the next question. ‘You mean you know what was in there?’

  ‘Of course I did – I’m the constable’s steward, it’s my duty to check everything,’ he answered impatiently. ‘I have access to all the keys and I naturally made a full inventory of the contents. What else would you expect?’

  De Wolfe leapt to his feet and threw a long arm around the startled clerk’s shoulders, much to the mystification of others in the hall. ‘Samuel, if you weren’t such an ugly old devil, I’d kiss you!’ he boomed. ‘Now tell me, please God, that you’ve still got that list.’

  The steward looked affronted. ‘Of course I have, Crowner! I never get rid of anything until I know it’s not needed. It’s in the constable’s chamber.’

  Morin was on his feet now, his granite face beaming with delight and pride at the quality of the man he relied on every day of his life. ‘Take us to it, Samuel! This might be your finest hour!’

  De Wolfe checked his impatience with a final word. ‘Wait, we need the original tally from Cadbury to check it against. Thomas should have a copy in that big bag of his. He’s down below now, with Gwyn.’

  Morin sent a servant running to fetch the coroner’s clerk and a few moments later, they were all hunched around Samuel’s writing desk in the cluttered room that the constable used for his official duties. An excited Thomas de Peyne fished out a piece of vellum from his hessian shoulder pouch and spread it on the table, alongside another palimpsest that the steward had produced. Although the written words meant nothing to Morin or de Wolfe, they stared down at the documents with mounting anticipation, waiting for the two clerks to pronounce on the result.

  Samuel ran his finger down the short column of writing on his parchment, murmuring under his breath, while Thomas did the same with the list from Cadbury. Then they looked at each other and nodded.

  ‘God’s blood, are you both struck dumb,’ exploded de Wolfe, unable to contain himself any longer.

  ‘They are the same, Crowner,’ said Thomas exultantly. ‘That which we certified in Cadbury is identical to what Samuel here recorded when the chest was in this chamber!’

  The meticulous steward insisted on itemising the contents. ‘Four hundred and eighty-six silver pennies, fifty-two gold bezants and one golden brooch. I remember them well.’

  John turned triumphantly to Ralph Morin. ‘We’ve got the whoreson thief! Let him try to wriggle his way out of this! I’ve put up with a great deal from that bastard, for his sister’s sake, but stealing from his own king is beyond any forgiveness.’

  He swung around to Samuel and gripped his arm. ‘My own clerk is a treasure himself, but you must be his equal!’

  Both scribes flushed with pleasure, the more so because the coroner was known to be a hard man who rarely paid any compliments.

  ‘What’s to be done now, Crowner?’ gabbled the excited Thomas. ‘Can we go down and get Gwyn out of that verminous place?’

  Ralph gave de Wolfe a questioning look. ‘Can we do that or should you confront de Revelle first?’

  ‘Set him free now,’ answered the coroner impatiently. ‘With this new evidence, there’s no reason whatever that he should be under any suspicion. Richard won’t get away with it this time
. But where the hell has he got to?’

  The sheriff was in fact, just pulling on his fine wool leggings as he sat inelegantly on the edge of a whore’s mattress. The red-headed strumpet sat with her back propped against the wall of her mean room in Rack Lane, down towards the Watergate, which was convenient for the seafaring customers who came to her from the quay-side. However, still being young enough not yet to have suffered the ravages of her profession, Esther’s good looks had attracted several of the leading citizens to purchase her services, including de Revelle.

  Tonight he was here with a double purpose, as although he wanted to slake his lust, which had not been satisfied since he had visited a stew in Winchester, he also wanted to make sure that Esther’s sister had embarked on the mission that he had commanded. Heloise, who lived in this mean room as well and who kept out of the way when her sister was conducting her trade, had been sent to complete the task that she had begun when she visited Nesta at the Bush tavern some time before. She had been carefully coached by Esther, who in turn had been instructed by the sheriff, who wanted to stay anonymous as far as Heloise was concerned. The girls were well paid for their collusion and their avaricious minds were too concerned with the money to ask any questions.

  ‘She has gone with that tale to the canon, then?’ he asked once again, as he threw down a few pennies on the rumpled and grubby blanket covering the hay palliasse on which they had coupled.

  ‘I told you three times now, yes!’ snapped the young harlot. ‘I did exactly what you told me and she is there in the Close now, telling that priest that pack of weird lies you wanted.’

  She climbed naked out of bed to get dressed and go to the Saracen to seek her next client, as de Revelle pulled on his boots and furtively left the house to return to Rougemont. His lust satisfied for the time being, he felt able to face going to Revelstoke on Thursday to endure a few days with his frigid wife Eleanor, whom he had not seen since before he went to Winchester. As he strode along the high street, loftily deigning to acknowledge the bobbed heads and pulled forelocks of the citizens, his agile mind turned to the close shave he had had with his damned brother-in-law. He cursed the day the previous autumn when Matilda had persuaded him to support de Wolfe’s election to the new coronership in the county court – although realistically, there was no way that John could fail to be nominated, given the virtual order that had come from Hubert Walter, with the personal recommendation from the King himself. Since his brother-in-law had taken office, he had been a constant thorn in his side and twice before, he had uncovered schemes of the sheriff’s which came perilously near to treason. Now he had done it again and the fact that the Chief Justiciar had revived the old Saxon post of coroner partly as a check on the rapacity of all sheriffs, was no comfort to a man who had his sister’s husband breathing down his neck all the time. If the damned fellow had been corruptible, like most public officials, it would not be so bad, thought Richard – but de Wolfe had this abnormal streak of honesty that made him impossible to deal with. Vindictively, he was determined to strike him where it hurt most, and tonight’s scheme was the first blow in this campaign. If he could turn this treasure fiasco into another strike, that would also be satisfying – he knew that John would not risk letting his old retainer Gwyn be hanged, and if he could then somehow expose the coroner’s inevitable retraction of that list of treasure trove as a falsification for personal reasons, maybe he could bring about his disgrace and even his downfall. However, doing so might risk exposing Richard’s own theft and he was pondering some devious way of getting round this problem when his feet delivered him to the castle gatehouse.