A Plague of Heretics (37 page)

As he waited, with only chirping sparrows for company, he looked up at the screen and recalled that it was exactly a year since he had had to climb up it, to retrieve the severed head of a murdered manor-lord, impaled on one of the spikes at the top. It seemed as if violence and religion were never far apart, even in Devon.

The distant chanting eventually ceased and a final benediction allowed the black-robed celebrants to file out of the chancel and disperse themselves in the crossing, where the two great towers flanked the axis of the cruciform building. John walked around the side of the enclosed quire and saw the archdeacon in conversation with several other canons and vicars, some young secondaries hanging around the outside of the group. He waited, and in a moment John de Alençon noticed him and broke away to come to speak to his friend.

‘I suspect I know what brings you here, John,’ he said.

His voice was subdued, and he looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was in earshot, as Canon Robert de Baggetor and William de Swindon were among those to whom he had been talking.

‘Yes, this abominable tragedy in Milk Lane,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘There can be little doubt that it was a deliberate assassination – and equally certain that it was because Algar was the only one of those heretics who stayed behind in the city.’

The grizzled-haired priest nodded sadly. ‘I only wish I could contradict you, John, but any other explanation seems unlikely. My heart is saddened by the thought that differences in faith could lead to such suffering.’

‘Not even differences of faith, for surely everyone concerned professes to be a Christian,’ replied the coroner bitterly. ‘It is over differences in how to pursue that faith which makes it all the more tragic’

‘I cannot believe that anyone connected with the cathedral could stoop so low as to commit this outrage,’ murmured the archdeacon. ‘But no doubt it is your duty to investigate the possibility.’

‘Where else would I look for candidates, other than those who have already plainly exhibited their hatred of these people?’ asked John with suppressed ferocity. ‘It is but a few days since a mob, egged on by the dictates of some of your colleagues, tried to kill a few harmless folk down on the quayside. Only the intercession of your ecclesiastical rules saved two of them from facing trial for murder. Can you wonder that I now come looking at these same people?’

De Alençon’s shoulders slumped and he gave a great sigh.

‘I appreciate your position, John. But what can I do to help? I am in an even more difficult position here, as you know. I am supposed to give a lead in defending the Church in this matter, though you know my heart is not in this particular persecution.’ He looked behind again and saw that the other priests and clerics were moving away. ‘I must go to chapter, John. There is no time now, but come to see me later.’

De Wolfe nodded, but then held up a restraining hand. ‘One question, John. If the perpetrator of this foul crime confessed to a priest, are there any circumstances where that confidence could be broken, given the outrageous nature of the crime?’

De Alençon laid a hand his friend’s shoulder. ‘The eternal question, John! The answer is “no”, as that confession is made to God. The priest is but a passive channel to the Almighty, then conveying back God’s absolution to the one confessing.’

‘Even if by allowing that man to stay free, it might permit him to repeat his crimes?’

The archdeacon groaned. ‘It would be a personal decision by the priest. I have heard of only one such instance and then the priest left his vocation, becoming a hermit, as he felt that he could no longer continue in office after breaking his vow of silence.’ He backed away and lifted a hand in farewell. ‘I must go to chapter, John. I will see you soon.’

The coroner made his way slowly out of the cathedral, unsure of what to do next. The illness of his brother hung over him all the time, like some dark cloud under which he had to go through the motions of daily life. Even thoughts of Hilda rarely entered his mind these past few days, it being filled with the horror of this multiple crime, as well as concern over his deteriorating relations with Matilda and her odd behaviour since the deaths of those children. He thanked God that at least the added worry about Thomas seemed to have receded and that faithful Gwyn, his rock in this turbulent life, seemed as stable and reliable as ever.

On the way out of the nave and again as he crossed the Close, he enquired of several clerks and lay brothers if they knew where Alan de Bere might be found. He went again to the proctors’ office, partly to annoy them with his persistence, but neither bailiff was there. He thought of trying St Nicholas Priory, in the backstreets near Bretayne, but decided it was a futile quest to seek Alan there, as he had been ejected by them a long time before. The only other people who might know of him were in the constables’ hut at the back of the Guildhall; though Osric and Theobald were there when he called, neither had anything useful to tell him.

‘Not a sign of that crazy bloody monk,’ growled Theobald, the fat constable. ‘No one seems to have laid eyes on him since he was taken from the castle gaol.’

De Wolfe turned to Osric, the Saxon with an emaciated body and a thin face to match. ‘Were there any sightings of a stranger in Milk Lane that night?’ he demanded.

‘I’ve asked everyone in the lane and up and down nearby Fore Street,’ he said nervously, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his scrawny neck. ‘Everyone is keen to help, but the trouble is they invent things in their urge to be useful. I’ve had reports of all manner of folk being seen there, from the portreeves to the bishop himself!’

John sighed. He had come across this warped imagination of witnesses before. ‘But nothing definite? The same person being seen by two different people, for instance?’

Osric shook his head. ‘As that neighbour told us, they go to their beds early there, with the morning milking to do. It’s a side street; not many people use it unless they come to buy butter, cheese or milk, and that’s in the daytime.’

Theobald put in a sensible question. ‘Where would anyone get this naphtha stuff, Crowner? I’d only heard of it as something used in warfare. Would it have to be a soldier of some sort?’

The coroner shrugged. ‘I know little about it myself. I heard of it being used at the siege of Constantinople, as an ingredient in this Greek Fire they shot from catapults. But who in Devon would possess it, God alone knows.’

‘We’ll keep asking around for this Alan de Bere, sir,’ promised Osric. ‘He must be hiding somewhere, unless he’s already left the city.’

‘I’ll question all the gatekeepers,’ offered Theobald. ‘But most are so blind or so stupid that they’d not notice if an elephant passed through!’

On this pessimistic note, John left and went back to his chamber at Rougemont, where Gwyn had news of a serious assault in Polsloe, a mile north-east of the city.

‘The Serjeant of the Hundred rode in to say that a woman there had been robbed, ravished and beaten. She’s been taken into the priory in danger of her life.’

‘Have they caught the assailant?’ demanded de Wolfe, already sickened by the increase in violence lately.

‘The hue and cry was raised and they seized two men. They’re locked in a cowshed waiting for you, with half the men of the village eager to hang them from the nearest tree.’

‘People are too damned ready to hang anyone they dislike,’ grumbled the coroner. ‘What do they think the king’s courts are for?’

Gwyn had his own opinion on that, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

An hour later they rode into Polsloe, a village which had a small house of Benedictine nuns nearby. John knew it well, not least because it was where Matilda had taken refuge twice, though she never stayed long enough to take her vows. They were met at the edge of the hamlet by the Serjeant of Cliston Hundred and the manor-reeve, who took them to the small barn where a couple of angry villagers were guarding two men locked inside.

‘Who are they?’ asked John, peering through a crack in the rough planking at the pair of ruffians sitting disconsolately on the floor, already feeling the gallows rope around their necks.

‘Strangers, passing through,’ answered the serjeant, a tall, muscular man named Thomas Sanguin, who was responsible for upholding the law in his Hundred, a subdivision of the county. ‘One claims his name is Martin of Nailsea, the other just David the Welshman. Both say they are ship-men, stranded at Exmouth and walking back to Bristol.’

‘Have they confessed?’ asked Gwyn.

‘No, have they hell! They deny everything, though they were seen running away from the woman’s house.’

‘Any stolen goods on them?’

Sanguin shook his head. ‘She had nothing to steal. A young widow, living on the parish, so they beat her and ravished her for spite, the swine!’

‘Will she die?’ asked John.

‘Best ask the nuns at the priory; they are caring for her. But the poor woman is beaten badly.’

John scratched his head as an aid to thought. Where victims were badly injured, they could be given into the care of the assailant, who would usually do all he could to keep them alive, for if they died within a year and a day of the assault, he would be tried for murder. However, a couple of rascally sailors were unlikely to be of much use to the poor woman, compared with the care she was getting at the nunnery, which was well known for its expertise in dealing with childbirth and women’s ailments.

‘Get them sent into the city. They can be housed at the South Gate gaol. The sheriff can decide what to do about them, depending on whether the woman lives or dies. I’d better go down to the priory to make enquiries.’

He and Gwyn went to the woman’s cottage on the way, a desperately poor place, where he was told that the woman eked out an existence after her husband died of poisoning of the blood caught from an injury in the fields with a hayfork that stabbed his foot. The single room was so barely furnished that it was hard to tell if an assault had taken place there, apart from the bloodstains on the pile of rags that was her bed.

‘Better keep those to show at the court, if it ever gets that far,’ said John to the serjeant. ‘Now I’ll go to see the woman – or at least talk to the nuns about her.’

The nunnery was in a compound behind a stone wall, with a gatehouse guarded by a porter. John knew the place well, not only from visits concerning his wife, but from several cases concerning women, where Dame Madge, a formidable nun who acted as the sub-prioress, had been of great help to him in matters of rape and abortion.

Leaving Gwyn at the gatehouse with the horses, he sought out Dame Madge and she came to the steps of the main range of buildings to meet him.

‘The woman is too ill to talk to you, Sir John,’ she announced firmly. A tall, stooped woman with a gaunt face, she was almost a female version of John himself, a humourless, no-nonsense person who spoke her mind and whose honesty was beyond question. He did not even attempt to persuade her to let him see the victim, but accepted her word.

‘Has she been ravished?’ he asked.

‘Undoubtedly and repeatedly,’ replied the grim-featured nun. ‘She has been damaged in her woman’s parts, as well as beaten sorely about the head and face. Her wits are disordered at the moment, but no doubt they will return.’

‘She will recover, then?’

Dame Madge nodded. ‘She is young and strong and her body will heal up. I am not so sure about her mind, after such an ordeal from those swine.’

‘They will pay for it, never fear, lady. I will see to it myself He sighed and shook his head at the amount of evil in the world.

Though sequestered in a priory, the nuns were always avid for news of the outside world, and he told the old sister of the evil calamity in the city two nights earlier. She crossed herself and murmured a prayer for the dead children and their mother.

‘There are sinful people about, Sir John. Though I cannot condone heresy, which eats at the fabric of our Mother Church, no one can approve of such random and vicious cruelty.’

‘It seems to have affected my wife very much,’ said John. ‘Though she was very active in a campaign to rid the city of these heretics, since these deaths she seems to have turned in on herself and has become silent and morose.’

Dame Madge gave him a sudden sweet smile. ‘Your wife is a strange woman, Crowner! We have had ample opportunity here to get to know her, from her two fruitless attempts to take the veil. I think she despairs of life, since her brother fell from grace – and you have not helped at all, sir, with your absences and your amorous adventures!’

De Wolfe nodded sadly. ‘We should never have married, sister. It was not of our doing – we were pushed together by our parents.’

The dame nodded but was unforgiving. ‘What the Lord has joined together, let no man break asunder, even until death itself.’

With this uncompromising finale, de Wolfe left the priory, with an assurance that the nuns would let him know when the woman was fit enough to be questioned. He rode back to the East Gate in silence, Gwyn knowing him well enough not to intrude on his bleak mood. At Rougemont, they returned the horses they had borrowed from the castle stables, and John went to bring the sheriff up to date on events. When he had told him of the latest crime in Polsloe and of the failure to make any headway with the Milk Lane fire, he went back to Martin’s Lane and waited for his dinner. Matilda was up in her solar at the back of the house, so John went to sit in Mary’s kitchen-hut in the yard, drinking ale and watching her gut some fish that she was going to spit-roast over the fire that burned red in its pit in the middle of the floor. She was a brisk, competent woman, and John was always impressed by the variety of good food that she managed to produce with such primitive facilities.