A Plague of Heretics (17 page)

‘Those canons undoubtedly hate us, but I doubt they would stoop to murder,’ muttered the other man. ‘His proctors are bullies but are just paid servants, so why would they care?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I cannot guess who may have done this terrible thing. Perhaps some mad parish priest? We have sympathisers all over the county. Any village parson with an unhinged mind could have taken the law into his own hands.’

The coroner decided to change his approach. ‘Where can we find the other men on this list?’ he asked. ‘We know of this Hengist of Wonford, but maybe the others can help us to track down this killer.’

He motioned to Thomas, who took out his piece of parchment and started to read out the remaining ten names. However, Adam took it from them and scanned it himself, much to the astonishment of the others.

‘How is it that an Exeter fish-man can read and be so knowledgeable of Church history?’ asked Thomas, slightly affronted that his monopoly of such knowledge was being displaced by a mere tradesman.

Adam smiled wanly. ‘It goes to prove that priests are not indispensable in man’s dealings with the Almighty,’ he answered. ‘My father put me as a child into St Nicholas’s Priory, intending me to enter holy orders – but he died and I had to leave to support my mother and sisters. In the few years I was there, I learned a great deal, especially how to hate priests, begging your pardon!’

The fishmonger went back to studying the list and nodded at several of them. ‘Those three belong to our way of thinking,’ he said cautiously, repeating their names. ‘I am not sure where they live, but they attend most of our meetings.’

‘Are those the meetings you hold in a barn near Ide?’ snapped John.

A look of surprise spread over Adam’s face. ‘How did you know that? It’s supposed to be a secret.’

‘Fine bloody secret, if you can hear it bandied about in every alehouse!’ said Gwyn sarcastically.

‘When is your next meeting?’ asked the coroner. ‘I wish to speak to your fellows there, to see if they know anything useful.’

‘Monday, at the end of the afternoon. Those of us from the city have to get back in before the gates close at dusk.’

John took directions to the barn and reassured Adam that he was not coming to spy on them for the bishop or his clergy. Thomas looked a little uncomfortable at this and, when they left the fishmonger’s stall, he asked if he could be excused from Monday’s venture.

‘I could be censured by the bishop if I attended such a meeting and failed to report it, which is my duty as an ordained priest, master,’ he said miserably. ‘In fact, even knowing what we have just learned is very difficult for me to reconcile with my conscience. These are people whose philosophy is directly in opposition to the Church I serve. I should be doing my utmost to confound them.’

De Wolfe laid a hand on his clerk’s shoulder as they walked back up Fore Street. ‘I understand, Thomas, believe me! I am only concerned with catching and hanging a cruel killer. What the Church does about its rivals is none of my business. So you stay at home on Monday. No doubt Gwyn will be protection enough for me when I penetrate this den of blasphemers!’

Suiting his actions to his words, he sent Thomas off to his duties at the cathedral and carried on with Gwyn to the livery stables, where they saddled up and set off for Wonford, a village just a mile or so south-east of the city.

They rode through the straggle of dwellings that was spilling out around the thriving city and travelled through a mixture of woodland and strip-fields to reach the hamlet. It was part of a royal manor but rented out to an aged knight who left its running to a bailiff. They overtook a man pushing a barrow of manure and Gwyn reined up to ask directions.

‘Where can we find a man called Hengist?’

The villein raised a lined face, with a couple of blackened teeth protruding from under his upper lip. ‘Hengist? You may well ask, sir, for he’s vanished!’

De Wolfe leaned forward from the other side of Gwyn. ‘Vanished? What the hell d’you mean?’

‘Just that, sir, he’s disappeared. We’ve been searching for him since yesterday.’

The man picked up the handles of his barrow ready to walk on. ‘You’d best speak to the bailiff, sir, he knows most about it. Ask for him in the alehouse.’

He marched away and the coroner and his officer jerked their horses into motion and went on into the little village, where the squat church and the alehouse opposite were the only substantial buildings.

Gwyn slid from his saddle outside the tavern, marked by a bedraggled bush hanging over the door. He stuck his head under the low lintel of the doorway and a moment later came out, followed by a young man with sandy hair and a long brown tunic.

‘I’m Robert the bailiff, sir. I understand you are also seeking Hengist?’

‘I am indeed, but what’s happened to him?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘He’s our harness-maker and he was in his workshop the night before last, but no one has seen him since,’ replied Robert, who John thought seemed an intelligent-looking fellow.

‘Does his family not know where he is?’

‘He is a widower, sir. His two sons live elsewhere in the vill. One came to visit the next afternoon, but there was no sign of him. We have looked all through the crofts and tofts and the fields – nothing!’

‘How can he vanish in such a small place?’ grunted Gwyn.

‘His sons are now out searching further afield, but beyond our strips, the forest starts. He could be anywhere in there, maybe having lost his wits or had a palsy.’

‘We need to find him. Can you show us where he lives, bailiff?’

A lad came out of the alehouse to hold their horses and, with a couple of curious villagers trailing behind them, the bailiff led them on foot across the rutted road and past the church. Here there was a small cottage of whitewashed cob, with a grass-infested thatch. A large open lean-to at the side was his workshop, filled with oddments of leather, ox-harness and a variety of tools.

‘Can I ask why you are seeking him, coroner?’ said Robert respectfully, as they stood looking around at the crudely equipped workplace.

‘I wanted to question him, but now I fear he may be in danger – or worse!’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Tell me more about him. What sort of a man was he?’ Unconsciously, he had already spoken in the past tense.

For the first time the bailiff looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, he was an odd fellow. A good worker, but he fell out with the parish priest some years ago and refused to attend church or take part in any of the village festivities. He was a freeman, so we let him go his own way.’

There seemed nothing to find outside, so the bailiff led them into the one-roomed cottage through a shaky wooden door secured by leather hinges and simple hasp and staple, with a piece of twig jammed through to keep it closed.

‘No fear of thieves in this village,’ said Robert, in an attempt to lighten the mood. Inside, there was again little to see, just a mattress on the straw-covered floor of beaten earth, a small table and two stools, a few shelves with pots and pans, and some food.

Gwyn bent to feel the ashes in the central firepit, which were as cold as the rest of the room. John saw no signs of a struggle or any bloodstains, but, as they were leaving, Gwyn touched his arm and pointed down at the floor just inside the threshold. In the dusty straw were two tracks, each a couple of inches wide and a foot-length apart. They passed out of the doorway and vanished on the harder earth outside.

‘They look like heel-marks from someone being dragged,’ murmured Gwyn.

John and the bailiff looked at them for a long moment. ‘I can’t think of a better explanation,’ agreed John. He turned to Robert.

‘Has anyone visited him lately? Any strangers been in the village?’

‘Only the usual folk, a chapman and, a few days back, a man with a cart trying to sell pots and bowls. Oh, and, of course, those men from the bishop, who came to see the priest last week.’

John was instantly alert. ‘What did they want?’ he snapped.

‘I don’t know exactly. Father Patrick told us to mind our own business.’

‘Were they priests?’ asked de Wolfe.

Robert shook his head. ‘No, though they wore black tunics. They weren’t clerks, for they carried clubs on their saddle-bows, as well as wearing long daggers.’

‘The proctors’ men,’ muttered Gwyn.

‘But Hengist has been seen since then?’ demanded John.

‘Yes, that was more than a week ago. He was seen about his usual business until Thursday.’

The bailiff had nothing else to tell them, and de Wolfe decided to talk to the parish priest. Robert took them to the gate in the churchyard wall and pointed to a small house in the far corner.

‘You’ll find him there, sir. He’s a forthright sort of man, Crowner,’ he added, a hint of warning in his voice.

De Wolfe and Gwyn walked between the low grave-mounds, set among a wide ring of ancient yews, to reach the parsonage. The warped boards of the door opened to repeated knocking, and the sleepy face of a rotund priest appeared, having been awakened from sleep, even though the morning was by now well advanced. He was a fat man, with jowls hanging below a bad-tempered face. His tonsure had not been shaved for some time, a grey stubble sprouting over it, matching his unshaven cheeks.

‘What do you want with me?’ he muttered, staring at his two tall visitors through bleary eyes.

De Wolfe, holding his short temper in check with difficulty, explained who he was and that he wanted to talk about Hengist the leather-worker.

‘You know he’s missing?’ snapped John irritably.

‘Of course I do. Wasn’t I out half the day and night looking for him with the rest of the village?’ responded the priest testily. He spoke English with an Irish accent, reminding the coroner of his campaigning days in that green isle.

Grudgingly, he invited them in to his one-roomed abode, though a back door led into a cubbyhole that was his kitchen. The main feature of his living room was a large box-bed at one side, with sliding doors to keep out the draughts. John suspected that he spent a large part of his time snoring inside it. There were a few books and some writing materials on a table, so Patrick was not illiterate, a failing not uncommon in the incumbents of rural parishes.

‘What can you tell us about this Hengist?’ he asked as they stood around the near-dead firepit. ‘We were told that he had a disagreement with you, some time ago.’

Father Patrick snorted. ‘Disagreement! The man was a damned pagan, with his blasphemous ideas. I would have banned him from my church, except that he refused to come anyway!’

‘Is that why the proctors’ men called on you last week?’

The priest glared at the coroner as if to condemn his prying into his business. ‘It was indeed! I had several times reported this Hengist to the bishop, after many months of his refusing to come to Mass or make his confession.’

‘So you think he was a heretic?’

Patrick’s paunchy face reddened with annoyance. ‘Think? I knew! He would argue with me when I remonstrated with him. Gave me a lot of seditious nonsense about free will and the freedom to choose his own path to salvation. To damnation, more like!’

De Wolfe considered this for a moment. ‘You said you told the bishop more than once about this. What happened on the first occasions?’

‘Absolutely nothing!’ ranted the priest. ‘They ignored me in Exeter. I heard when I visited there later that the bishop and his staff thought that it was not serious and that in any event they had no time to deal with it.’

‘So what did you do?’ asked Gwyn, speaking for the first time.

‘As no one in the bishop’s palace seemed interested, I sought out my archdeacon, John de Alençon, who is also vicar-general, having the bishop’s ear. But he, too, said that there was little he could do about it, but he sent me to one of the other canons, who he said had an interest in heresy.’

Now John wondered whether this lone man in Wonford had been the one who had sparked off this witch-hunt. ‘Which canon was that?’ he asked.

‘Robert de Baggetor. He was the first one who listened to me with any concern. He said he and several other members of the chapter would look into the matter.’

‘When was this?’

‘About a month ago, before the outbreaks of plague started to occur.’ He beat a fist into the palm of his hand, animated at last.

‘I am not surprised that the Lord has sent this curse. It is punishment for the rise of apostasy in the land!’

John was not clear what ‘apostasy’ meant and resolved to ask Thomas when he next saw him.

‘So why did these proctors’ bailiffs visit you?’ he asked.

‘The canons had eventually persuaded the bishop to investigate Hengist and came to tell me to be in Exeter next week, when he would be brought before his chancellor for interrogation. They also wanted to know if I knew of any others with such heretics’ beliefs.’

‘And do you?’ demanded the coroner.

The priest clutched his shabby bed-robe closer about him. It was cold in here with the fire just a heap of ashes with a faint glow in the centre. ‘I know there are more, but not in Wonford. Hengist used to walk out somewhere every week or so, and I suspect he met other blasphemers, but he refused to tell me about them.’