‘Who lives in there?’ demanded John.
‘Richard de Beltona and his wife,’ called the first neighbour. ‘He is a cloth merchant and a most respectable man!’
Suddenly the screams began again and de Wolfe hesitated no longer, but launched himself at the front door, beating on it with his fist. ‘Open the door! Are you in trouble?’ There was no response and he went to the lower shutters to try to pull them open.
‘Try around the back,’ advised the next-door neighbour, coming into the road. He recognized John as someone with authority and was content to see him take the initiative.
John wore no sword whilst in the city, but pulled his dagger from his belt as he loped around the corner of the house. With Brutus at his heels, he went down the narrow gap between it and the next building. By now, half a dozen locals were gathering in the pale moonlight, one shouting that he had sent his son for the city watch. At the rear, John found himself in a yard with the usual outbuildings in a patch of rutted mud enclosed by a high fence. As he approached the back door, it was suddenly wrenched open and he was confronted by the figure of a man, swathed in a hooded cloak that shadowed his face. Before he could react, the man struck him a heavy blow on the forehead with a short cudgel, which sent de Wolfe staggering, blood pouring down into one eye. He tripped over a boot scraper set alongside the door and fell back full length on to the ground.
Dazed, but conscious, he crawled to his hands and knees in time to see the man racing across the yard to a lane behind, with Brutus snarling after him. As the fugitive reached the gate in the fence, the dog sank his teeth into his leg and with a howl of pain and rage, aimed a kick at his tormentor. Brutus dodged away with a howl, having ripped a piece from the man’s breeches, but swearing viciously, the intruder slipped through the gate and slammed it behind him.
By now, John had staggered to his feet, holding on to the wall of the house until his head cleared, though he could only see through one eye because of the blood. However it was enough to see his dog dancing around excitedly by the gate, barking furiously. It was too high for him to jump and by the time John reached him, the man had vanished into Rack Lane, which ran parallel to Sun Lane.
He thought of letting the enthusiastic hound pursue the fellow, but then decided that it was not worth the risk of having his beloved Brutus clubbed to death for the sake of some family fight. As he patted the dog’s head, he took a piece of cloth from his jaws and stowed in a pocket in his cloak.
By now, several of the timorous neighbours had congregated in the yard and John stalked back to them. ‘Is there still a commotion in the house?’ he demanded.
‘Just some sobbing, Sir John,’ said one, who recognized him. ‘Had we better see what’s wrong?’
De Wolfe, telling the dog to stay where he was, pushed past the nervous burghers and, still feeling hazy from the blow he had taken, went through a kitchen to a storeroom filled with bales of cloth. In the corner was a flight of open steps, dimly lit by a rush light on a shelf. Following the feeble moans from above, he climbed up and went into a room which occupied half of the upper floor. There was a large bed raised just off the floor, covered with tumbled pelts and blankets. Amongst these on one side of the mattress was the inert shape of a man – and on the other, the huddled shape of a woman, from whom came the heartbreaking sobs.
He went a little nearer, until in the semi-darkness he could see what was amiss. Going back to the head of the steps, he called down to the upturned faces below.
‘Two of you, fetch your wives here at once! And get lights and some stretchers on which to carry these poor folk.’
Half an hour later, the house in Sun Lane was buzzing with activity like a wasp’s nest that had been stirred with a stick. Two goodwives from across the road were attending to Clarice, wife of Richard de Beltona, whose husband still lay comatose on the bed, a spreading blue bruise covering one side of his head.
Clarice, a small woman of about thirty-five, was slumped on the floor with her back against the bed, alternately sobbing and groaning. The two neighbourly women were kneeling each side of her, making soothing noises as one wiped her forehead with a perfumed kerchief and the other gave her sips of brandy wine from a cup. Her night shift had been decorously pulled across her legs and a blanket draped around her, but John knew from his first sight of her, that the nether garments had been ripped and that an ominous leakage of blood stained them over the thighs.
‘She needs Dame Madge, as soon as possible!’ declared another wife, the one from next door.
‘Who’s Dame Madge?’ growled John, totally lost in matters of women’s problems.
‘The old nun from Polsloe Priory,’ answered her husband. ‘She is a miracle worker when it comes to treating ladies.’
‘How would we get this poor woman there?’ demanded the wife. ‘She can’t be taken on a horse! It must be near midnight and the city gates are shut until dawn.’
‘Then this nun must be brought down here,’ said John. decisively. ‘The gate will open for me, I assure you.’
‘You need that head attended to, Sir John, if only for you to see where you are going!’ said a voice from behind him. ‘I’ll send to Polsloe straight away.’
The speaker was Osric, a very tall, thin man with a shock of fair hair. Dressed in a short tunic and breeches, he carried a long brass-topped staff, the insignia of a town constable. A Saxon, he was one of the two men employed by the city council to keep the peace in the city – a hopeless task, but it was the only token of law and order in Exeter.
‘Are men coming to take her husband up to St John’s Infirmary?’ demanded de Wolfe, rubbing at the dried blood on his forehead.
Osric nodded in the improved light of three horn lanterns and a couple of candles. ‘They are fetching the bier that hangs in Holy Trinity near the South Gate.’
Having done all he could at the scene of the crime, John collected Brutus from outside and trudged through the chill night back down to the inn, still feeling dizzy and sick after the bang on the head. It was very late when he arrived and Nesta had taken herself to bed, but Gwyn and couple of men were still gambling downstairs.
Gwyn leaped up in alarm when he saw John’s bloodied head and guided him to a bench and brought him ale, while one of his cronies went out to the wash-shed for a cloth and water to clean up the dried blood and clot, so that they could look at the wound.
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Gwyn judicially, staring at the one-inch cut just inside the hairline. ‘What’s the other fellow look like?’
‘The bastard got away, but not before Brutus sank his teeth into his leg. I hope the swine dies of gangrene!’
As he was telling them the story, Nesta appeared on the steps from the loft, her night shift covered with a blanket. Wide-eyed, she saw Gwyn cleaning up his master with a bloodied cloth and with a squeal of concern she hurried across and took the rag from the Cornishman to finish the job with a woman’s gentler touch. More explanations followed for Nesta’s benefit and she joined in the general condemnation of lawlessness in the city.
‘That poor woman, to see her husband struck down before her very eyes, then be ravished by that monster!’ she exclaimed, then bustled away to get clean linen to bind around his injured scalp. She held this in place with a close-fitting coif laced under the chin, then sat close to him and chafed his icy hands with her own.
It was cold in the taproom, as the fire had died down to glowing embers. Gwyn was concerned about John’s condition after such a violent knock on the head, as he began shivering as he sat on the bench, leaning on the table.
‘He should be lying down, cariad, and kept warmer for few hours,’ he murmured to her. ‘I don’t see how we can get him all the way back to St Martin’s Lane like this.’
‘Get him to his bed upstairs, then,’ she said in a worried voice, afraid that he might have sustained some serious injury inside his skull.
‘I should be going back up to that house to see how things have gone,’ muttered J
ohn.
Nesta scolded him gently. ‘You’re in no fit state for that, it’s not your responsibility, anyway. You’ve already done more than anyone else.’
De Wolfe was too cold and tired to argue and when Gwyn and one of his carpenter friends hoisted him to his feet and carefully eased him up the stairs, he made no protest. No one else was lodging in the loft that night and they took him across to his cubicle and laid him down, Nesta fussing over them like a hen with chicks. She brought a blanket and a large sheepskin from her own room and laid it over him, then told Gwyn to revive the fire and put more logs on it, to try to waft some warmth up to the dormitory.
‘I’ll sit with him for a while until he sleeps,’ she told Gwyn, who had decided to go up to Sun Lane. He wanted to make sure that a ‘hue and cry’ had been started, before going up to the castle to alert Ralph Morin that the violence had spread into the town itself. Though drunken fights and some deaths occurred within the city walls, an outright assault and rape in a dwelling was out of the usual run of crimes.
When he left, the other men went with him and Nesta was left alone in the loft, though Molly and the serving girl were not far away, sleeping in the kitchen shed and the wash house as usual. Sitting on a small milking stool near his bed, she could see that he was still awake, huddled under the covers.
‘This is a fine affair, John,’ she said softly. ‘Your first night in your new house and you spend it elsewhere, alone with a young lady!’
‘I expect that Matilda will have something to say about it,’ he murmured.
‘In fact I’m bloody sure she will!’
A few minutes later, she could tell from his breathing that he was asleep and after a while, she went quietly back to her box-like room and got into bed, pulling extra blankets from a chest to cover her. She lay for a while looking up into the darkness, thinking of what might have been that night.
NINETEEN
When John awoke soon after dawn, he felt virtually back to normal, apart from a burning itch around his wound. He had suffered far worse many times before and now no longer sick and giddy, he got up and went down the steps, where he found Gwyn eating at a table. Nesta bustled in with oat gruel, bread and cheese, to enquire solicitously after his condition.
‘I’m fine, good lady! I just need to track down the swine that gave me this cut and pull his head off!’
Gwyn, who had slept on the floor near the fire, poured some honey over his porridge and passed the jug to John. ‘I went back up to the house after we put you to bed. The injured man had been taken up to St John’s and Brother Saulf said that he was showing signs of recovering his wits, so it looks as if he’ll live.’
‘What about the wife?’ asked de Wolfe.
‘That old nun from Polsloe was brought down by the other town constable, the fat one they call Theobald. She examined the lady and said she had certainly been sorely ravished, but was in no danger, except to her mind. She is sending a litter down this morning, to take her up to the priory.’
John attacked the gruel with a wooden spoon with a ferocity that suggested he wished it were the assailant’s guts. ‘So all we have to do now is find him! No luck with the hue and cry last night?’
Gwyn shook his hairy head. ‘No, Osric and a few men-at-arms joined the neighbours in scouring the streets, but it was the middle of the night, with no hope of finding anyone.’
‘We’ll get the bastard somehow,’ growled John. ‘But first I’d better go home and face my wife.’
Though not usually an early riser, the unfamiliarity of a new bed had woken Matilda early and the realization that her husband had not slept in it, got her up and dressed before he arrived. She had brusquely demanded her breakfast and Mary was serving it to her in the hall when John walked in.
Ignoring the unusual padded coif on his head, she glared at him. ‘And where did you spend the night, might I ask?’ she snapped. ‘The first one in our new dwelling and you spurn my company, probably for a drunken revel or the arms of some strumpet!’
His face darkened, as although he expected some complaint, he did not relish yet another unfair accusation even before he had the chance to open his mouth. ‘I spent it much of it in the Bush Inn, if you must know!’ he snarled. ‘That was after fighting with a rapist and being treated for this injury!’ He pointed at the bulge under his linen helmet.
‘The Bush!’ she yelled. ‘I might have guessed it was that Welsh whore again! How far will you go to shame me, husband?’ She began a tirade, but he brought her up short by kicking a stool across her new flagstones, making a clatter that stopped even Matilda in mid-speech.
‘Quiet, woman! Do you know a lady called Clarice, wife to a merchant, Richard de Beltona?’ he demanded stridently.
She gaped at him open-mouthed at this sudden twist in their dispute. Deflated, she answered in a flat tone of voice. ‘Of course, she is a friend of mine. I see her often at the cathedral.’
‘Then I regret to tell you that she has been raped in her own bed – and her husband beaten senseless alongside her!’
Matilda’s pug face rapidly changed from anger to genuine concern. She hauled herself to her feet, leaving half her meal left untouched, a sure sign of her agitation. ‘I must go to her at once, poor woman!’
‘You can’t, she’s on her way to Polsloe, to be cared for by Dame Madge and her nuns. The husband is lying unconscious in St John’s, up near the East Gate.’
Matilda sank back in to her chair. ‘And you have been involved in this, John?’
‘I went to their aid, yes. And got a hole knocked in my head by the assailant as he escaped. So keep the door locked when I’m not here!’
He doubted that any sane man would want to ravish Matilda, but he felt he should pay her the compliment.
Her anger evaporated, though she did not go so far as enquire about his injury. ‘Richard de Beltona is a cloth merchant in a good way of business, though Clarice complains that he is mean, as he could afford a better house than the one in Sun Lane.’
Again, her interest seemed more about affluence and social status than about the actual outrage.
They were interrupted by Mary putting her head around the screens near the door. ‘A servant just came from the house of the Archdeacon, Sir John. He brought a message from his master to say that he would be obliged if you would call upon him as soon as is convenient.’
Mary’s head vanished and Matilda looked at her husband with a tinge of respect, as any mention of a senior churchman wishing to consult him went some way to rehabilitate him in her eyes. ‘What can he want? De Alencon is the most senior of the canons.’
‘I expect it’s to talk about a priest getting murdered and two nuns being frightened out of their wits!’ replied John gruffly.
He was quite right in his forecast, as he discovered as soon as he arrived at John de Alencon’s house. Many of the canons lived in the houses that lined the north side of the Cathedral Close. Exeter was a secular cathedral in that it was not part of a monastic establishment, such as an abbey and had no monks. It was governed by a Chapter of twenty-four canons, who derived their incomes from the livings of various churches. Some of them were independently affluent and lived in luxury in large houses, both in the cathedral precinct and in estates elsewhere. John de Alencon was not one of those who indulged in ostentatious comfort, but preferred a modest, ascetic life. His house in Canon’s Row was plainly, almost sparsely furnished and he had the minimum number of servants to keep his household functioning.
John de Wolfe was no great admirer of the senior clergy, who he considered generally to be a lazy, avaricious lot who farmed out many of their duties to their subservient vicars. But he admired his namesake for his simple lifestyle and his devotion to King Richard, especially as many of the other canons leaned towards Prince John.
Though generally spartan in his tastes, de Alencon had a weakness for fine wines, so even at that early time of day, a cup of good Anjou red was set before de Wolfe when he called upon his friend.
They sat in the study, a bare room with only a table, a few hard chairs and a large wooden cross on the wall. The archdeacon, his lined face looking even more worried than usual, got straight to the point.
‘This lawlessness is getting too much to bear, John. I know you have no official standing in the matter, but you seem the only man in Exeter who seems to be involved in combating it! The city is full of praise for you in finding the killer of that unfortunate king’s messenger that I put to rest in the cathedral yard not long ago.’
‘Pure chance, I’m afraid,’ said John. ‘I just seem to have the knack of being around when there is some violence!’
De Alencon raised a hand in deprecation. ‘You are too modest, as always. You also saved the lives of those two nuns on the road, where our brother priest was so foully murdered. Now today I hear of your involvement in these dreadful crimes last night, not a few hundred paces from the cathedral itself.’
John took a sip of the wine and shrugged. ‘I hate seeing evil go unpunished – and these days, it seems to be not only unpunished, but ignored!’
The priest nodded his agreement. ‘Exactly, which is why I wanted your advice. We have discussed this in Chapter several times, especially since the killing of the priest from Tavistock and the disgraceful treatment of the nuns. At our Chapter meeting early today it was resolved that something must be done.’
‘Easy to say, but much harder to achieve,’ observed John.
‘Chapter wants a proper sheriff appointed, one who would enforce law and order.’
‘That’s rich! A sheriff is the king’s representative in every county, yet Devon was given to the Count of Mortain to rule outwith the royal authority. As you don’t need telling, many of your canons favour Prince John, so they can’t have it both ways.’
‘But that’s exactly what they do want,’ said the archdeacon gently. ‘They are going to ask Prince John to install a sheriff – and are suggesting Richard de Revelle as the appointee.’
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