Crowner's Quest

by Bernard Knight

  Briefly, de Wolfe wondered if Richard de Revelle had galloped away into the sunset to escape his problems, but it seemed improbable. Now he might have the chance to redeem himself once again, and with two manors and a wife in the county he was hardly likely to become an outlaw or abjure the realm.

  As for Matilda, the transfer of her beloved clothes and finery on a handcart meant that she was not far away – and the only alternative to Martin’s Lane was her cousin’s house in North Street, unless she’d gone to live in sin with the fat priest at St Olave’s, he thought cynically.

  There was no way that he was going to brave his wife in her cousin’s house, as that woman was far more objectionable even than Matilda. He made his way back to his own dwelling, feeling strangely incomplete, with an uneasy sensation of being cast adrift even if it was from the exasperating but familiar presence of his spouse.

  In the vestibule, he threw off his mantle and boots and strode into the hall, determined to get a pint of red wine inside himself before Mary brought him his dinner. Inside the door he was brought up sharply, amazed to see Matilda standing stiffly at the end of the long table. She wore her outdoor clothes, even to a thin leather hood, which was still damp with rain, over her cover-chief. He hurried across to her, hands outstretched, but she stiffened and stepped back from him. He saw that her face was wet beneath the eyes and that it was not due to the rain. ‘I wanted to thank you for what you did this morning,’ he said humbly. ‘You may have saved my life.’

  Matilda lifted a hand in a gesture of dismissal. ‘I must talk to you, John,’ she said jerkily. ‘I have come to plead with you.’

  Her husband felt momentarily bemused. Surely he was the one at fault, and should be pleading her forgiveness for philandering, especially in the light of her public support for him? Why should she plead with him? He tried to get her to sit by the fire, but she refused and continued to stand like a granite statue in the centre of the hall. ‘I did what I did today because of my brother. It was not right that you should suffer for his sake.’

  Light began to dawn on de Wolfe. He knew that Matilda had always looked up to Richard, not so much because of their blood tie but because he was ambitious, literate, the holder of the highest post in the county and an even more rabid social climber than she. Now his sister had discovered that he had feet of clay, and was little better than a traitor to the King he represented. She had never accepted that his temporary fall from grace a year ago was anything but some jealous conspiracy against him – but this time, she must have heard something with her own ears that had demolished her idol. In a leaden voice, she soon confirmed his reasoning.

  ‘Last night, I returned with Lucille to collect the rest of my clothes. The housemaid was not here, and you were fast asleep, so we went to the solar to pack my possessions.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I did not wake you, as I did not want to see you, John. Then that woman came in and I heard all that transpired, how she tricked you and falsely feigned a ravishment. Those evil men entered, having obviously been waiting outside for her signal.’

  She swayed slightly and John took her insistently by the arm. This time she did not resist as he led her to her usual chair by the fire. He sat opposite and waited.

  ‘All that was bad enough, but that Jocelin’s sneers about my brother were far worse. Though I have tried to shut it from my mind, it is useless! I have to admit to myself that Richard has again allied himself with the King’s enemies. I am mortified, John, I hate him for it, yet I fear for him. He is a fool. The ambition that I admired in him is so overweening that it will destroy him, unless he can somehow be protected.’

  Her voice became stronger and more agitated as emotion seized her, and she reached across and grasped his arm. ‘My pride pulls me another way after what was revealed about you and those women. Not that I was ever ignorant of it, as with most wives. But to be told about it by my brother and to have his servant sent like an errand-boy to flaunt it in the face of your tavern-keeper was too cruel of Richard. I know now that it was a feeble attempt to force your mouth shut over his treachery, but it cut me to the quick.’

  She sobbed and passed her dangling sleeve across her eyes. ‘Then to conspire to have you convicted of rape, just to try to buy your silence, was ten times worse and I hate him for it – but I fear for his life, John!’ Matilda sniffed loudly and clutched his wrist more tightly. ‘Help us, I plead with you! Do what you can to save the fool from himself!’

  De Wolfe wished the ground would open to swallow him up. Always embarrassed by any show of emotion, the sight of his normally hard-bitten wife in tears, pleading with him for her kinsman’s life, made him cringe – yet another part of him softened into a genuine sympathy for her anguish. Burgeoning affection was too strong a description for his feelings – she had been too flinty an adversary for too long for that to be so – yet, almost against his will, his hand fell on hers and he squeezed it awkwardly. ‘Of course, I’ll do what I can, Matilda. The man’s weak, he turns with whatever wind blows strongest. I never trusted him and I’ll never trust him again – but, for your sake, I’ll do what I can. There may be a way to save him, if the idiot will do as he’s told.’

  Her face lit up through her tears, which now cut rivulets through the white powder on her pudgy cheeks. ‘He’ll do it, John, I’ll see to that. When I’ve finished talking to him,’ she went on grimly, ‘he’ll do anything that’s asked of him!’

  She stood up abruptly, returning to the old Matilda he knew, with a look on her face that spoke of a hard time ahead for her brother. ‘Lucille!’ she yelled, lifting her face towards the narrow slit of the solar high above their heads. ‘Lucille, we’re going at once.’

  As he followed her to the door, de Wolfe sighed. The veil that had been lifted to give a moment’s glimpse of her inner self had fallen again, and the wife he knew and suffered was back.

  At the street door, John asked his wife to return home, but she refused. ‘Not yet, John, it is too soon. I need to see this crisis through and set my mind in order first. I detest all men at the moment, you and my brother. I will stay with my cousin for the time being.’

  She sailed off with the smirking French maid in tow and de Wolfe hoped for her sake that her new-found confidence about her brother’s fate was not too optimistic. Personally, he was unconcerned as to whether or not de Revelle swung from a gibbet, which was no less than he deserved – but somehow he wished no further misery for his wife, whose brightest star had just been dislodged from the heavens.

  He watched them vanish round the corner, heads bent against the icy wind that blew a mixture of rain and sleet down the narrow passageway that joined the high street to the Cathedral Close. When he went back inside, he saw Mary peering from the passageway to the yard. ‘Has the mistress gone?’ she asked. ‘I kept out the way. The look on her face when she arrived would have turned an angel to stone.’

  De Wolfe smiled wryly. ‘For the first time in years I felt sorry for the woman.’ He sighed. ‘Now get me my dinner, girl!’ he boomed, and with a return of his usual spirits, he gave Mary a kiss and a smack on the bottom.

  The cathedral bells continued to mark the hours, with the coroner becoming more and more impatient for Gwyn’s return. He ate his meal, typical winter food of salt fish and boiled pork, but it was after the second hour of the afternoon before hoofs and neighing outside told of the arrival of horses at the farrier’s stable opposite.

  Soon the hall was bustling with large men, all wet, hungry and thirsty. Mary bustled about with ale and wine, and brought in all the food she could lay her hands on. The arrivals were Gwyn, Lord Guy Ferrars, his son Hugh, Reginald de Courcy, Walter Ralegh and Alan de Furnellis, the last two being landowners from the south of the county. De Wolfe’s woodman, Simon, was dispatched into the Close and soon returned with the Archdeacon.

  A groom from the farrier’s ran all the way to Rougemont and came back with the constable, as Ralph Morin was a direct appointee of the King.

  After they had all warm
ed up and refreshed themselves, they sat around the refectory table for a council-of-war. First of all de Wolfe related all that had gone on, especially the devious plot to prevent him going to the Chief Justiciar with news of the embryo rebellion. Mindful of Matilda and his promise, he played down the involvement of the sheriff and made it sound as if Richard de Revelle had been manoeuvred and manipulated by the arch-plotters into a situation from which he could not escape. From the looks on some of the listeners’ faces, it was plain that they had doubts on this score, but other matters were more urgent.

  ‘How ready to move are these traitors?’ snapped Guy Ferrars, the most powerful of the barons present. He was a large-boned mass of a man with a florid face half hidden by a brown moustache and beard. Though he was utterly loyal to King Richard, he was an arrogant, intolerant man, a Norman to his fingertips, who should have been born more than a century before so that he could have carved out his own empire as a Marcher lord. His son was cast in the same mould, though he was too fond of drink and women ever to be the man his father was.

  ‘They have a force of mercenaries – and seem to have employed many outlaws as foot-soldiers,’ replied John. ‘There is no way of telling how many men they have, without spying on their camps, but at least we have their commander in gaol, this Jocelin de Braose.’

  ‘We need to nip this in the bud as soon as possible,’ said de Courcy, another powerful figure in Devon. Older than the others, he was completely bald, with his hair on his face, where a narrow grey rim of beard was joined by a wispy moustache. He and Ferrars had fallen out badly over the recent death of de Courcy’s daughter, who had been going to marry Hugh Ferrars, but to the coroner’s relief, they seemed now to be the best of friends.

  ‘We must catch the leaders unawares, if possible,’ grunted Ferrars. ‘Use the same dirty tricks on them as they tried on you, de Wolfe. We don’t need a pitched battle between armies, if we can help it.’

  There were murmurs of agreement from Ralegh and Alan de Furnellis who, after years without strife in the region, had no wish to disrupt their comfortable life if they could avoid it.

  This was the opening the coroner was seeking. ‘I think we have the opportunity to do that. Richard de Revelle, as we know from his past history, is at least well known to them, and until the news of today gets widely abroad he is still persona grata with them.’

  ‘How does that help?’ objected the elder Ferrars.

  ‘We need Henry de la Pomeroy and Henride Nonant out of their castles. They have set this plan in motion to silence me. It has failed miserably, but they don’t yet know that. If the sheriff sends them a message demanding an urgent meeting about the coroner, at some point well away from their refuges, then we may ambush them and cut the serpents off at the head.’

  They discussed this for some time, and found no fault with it, as long as it could be pulled off.

  ‘But is it legal?’ queried Ralegh, a black-browed man rather like a watered-down version of John de Wolfe.

  ‘To hell with it being legal!’ shouted the short-tempered Hugh Ferrars. ‘Is treason legal? These swine should be pulled apart by horses – hanging’s too good for them.’

  ‘Well, let’s catch them first,’ cut in the mellow voice of reason, coming from Alan de Furnellis, a younger manorial lord from near Brixham. ‘It should be put into action tonight. Once they learn that this de Braose is in prison, they’ll not trust the sheriff, who was supposed to protect the plotters. You know how fast bad news travels around these parts.’

  De Courcy looked over at John de Alencon. ‘How does the Church stand in this, Archdeacon? The Bishop is well known not to be impartial in this affair.’

  ‘I think he has dreams of Canterbury if Prince John succeeds. Certainly Hubert Walter would not last five minutes under a new king and would be lucky to keep his head on his shoulders. But at this stage, I doubt Henry Marshal wishes to cross the Rubicon of treason – not until there is a clear signal that he would be on the winning side.’

  After further discussion they decided that they would immediately approach the sheriff and put an ultimatum to him: help us or else!

  With the prospect of armed conflict the next day, the visitors decided to stay in Exeter overnight. Ferrars and de Courcy had houses in the city, and while the other two went off to find quarters in a tavern, the remainder set off for Rougemont and a show-down with Richard de Revelle.

  They found him in his chamber, sitting behind his table, his rolls and parchments lying neglected in front of him. When they marched in unannounced, the sheriff jumped up in alarm, white-faced and convinced that this deputation of Lionheart’s supporters had come to arrest him.

  This was the first time that de Wolfe had seen him since the débâcle in the Shire Hall and Richard had difficulty in looking him in the eye. He began a half-hearted explanation of how he had been misled by de Braose and the woman, but the coroner cut him short and, without directly accusing him of complicity in the plot, set out their proposals for ambushing the leaders.

  The sheriff tried to evade the issue and claimed that he had no knowledge of Pomeroy’s or de Nonant’s involvement and that he would have no influence upon them. Exasperated, as time was passing, de Wolfe turned to Ferrars and de Courcy.

  ‘I think I should explain the situation to my brother-in-law in private,’ he said acidly. ‘As you might guess, there are family considerations in this, relating to my wife.’ Then he almost dragged his brother-in-law into the adjacent bedchamber and shut the door firmly.

  ‘Understand this and understand it quickly, Richard!’ he grated. ‘If you want to keep your life – and possibly your sheriffdom – you will do exactly as we ask, without question.’ Richard tried a last-ditch attempt at indignation. ‘A few hours ago, John, you were in danger of your own life. After all, I have only Matilda’s word on this and she may be inventing the whole scene to protect you, as de Braose suggested.’

  De Wolfe restrained himself from punching the idiot on the nose. ‘Your sister is distraught, not so much at the peril I was in – she cares little for me – but for your betrayal of her. Love turns quickly to hate, Richard, and you hang by a slender thread held by Matilda. She heard de Braose implicate you as a rebel. She has pleaded with me to give you a chance to save yourself. If you fail to grasp it in both hands, she will add her denunciation to mine. The end of the track has come for you, man. You have no choice, if you want to keep your eyes, your testicles and your head. So choose now!’

  He ground out the words with brutal urgency and the sheriff nodded miserably, his spirit broken. They went back into the outer chamber and began to make practical arrangements. Within the hour, Sergeant Gabriel galloped off alone for Berry Pomeroy on the best horse available, hoping to cover most of the journey before nightfall.

  Whatever the next day might bring, John de Wolfe had a very good evening and night. Shaking off the concern, tinged with guilt, that he had for Matilda, he went down to the Bush to eat, and did not return home until after breakfast. In the tavern, he was again besieged by well-wishers and was bought enough ale and cider to fill the famous horse trough outside. Eventually, he was able to settle down by the fire with Nesta at his side and enjoy a whole duckling fried in lard, followed by bread and honeycomb. After he had told his mistress all the events of that eventful day, she snuggled up against him, the terrors of seeing him accused of a felony and facing execution gradually receding.

  ‘Would you have been in any danger if Matilda hadn’t spoken for you?’ she asked.

  ‘It would have been a damned sight more dangerous,’ he grunted. ‘I had only Gwyn’s pilgrimage to other supporters of the King to rely on – and they didn’t get here until this afternoon. I’d certainly have been convicted by that slippery charlatan in the castle. Whether they’d have got me to Magdalen Street by the end of the week is another matter.’ One of the roads out of the city to the east, Magdalen Street was where the gallows tree was planted.

  The Welsh woman was quiet for a m
oment, trying to crush the image of her pinioned lover twitching at the end of a rope, as the oxcart tumbril was driven from under his feet. She shuddered, though she had seen it many times because the twice-weekly hangings were a source of public entertainment in every town.

  He dipped his fingers in a bowl of water that Edwin had placed on the table and wiped the duck fat from them with a cloth. Then he slid a hand under the table and ran it up her thigh, feeling the warm flesh through her linen kirtle. She prodded him playfully with her elbow. ‘You’ve had quite a week for women, you old rake,’ she murmured. ‘First Hilda, damn you, then fair Rosamunde of Rye!’ She leaned nearer and whispered in his ear, ‘You didn’t do it, did you?’

  His caressing hand gave her a hearty pinch. ‘No, madam, I did not! Though I’ll admit she’s a very bedworthy girl. But I like my women to be co-operative. I don’t think rape would be to my liking.’

  An hour later, he gave her a demonstration of what he meant in her little room upstairs, from which they could hear the paying guests snoring and muttering on their straw pallets.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In which Crowner John congratulates his clerk

  The message that Gabriel took to Henry de la Pomeroy was for an urgent meeting with Richard de Revelle at noon next day. The spot chosen was the ford across the river Teign near the village of Kingsteignton, about half-way between Exeter and Totnes. The sergeant was deliberately vague about the reason for the meeting, claiming that the sheriff told him nothing more. However, he let it drop that it concerned the coroner, whom he said had been convicted of rape and thrown back into gaol to await sentence. Pomeroy, with ill-grace, agreed to send a message to Henri de Nonant at Totnes and to Bernard Cheever early next morning and to bring them to Kingsteignton at the appointed time.