The Witch Hunter

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Get her out of there, we want to teach her a lesson or two about curses and spells, the evil old hag!’ bellowed a massive black-bearded fellow, who worked in the tannery and smelt far worse than Lucy.

  Others took up the cry, some of the worst insults and foulest language coming from women, both young and old, who formed a rearguard to the men in the front.

  As the clamour increased, the door was suddenly thrown open again and the forbidding figure of the coroner stood in the opening. He wore his long grey tunic and a ferocious scowl on his lean face, framed by the jet-black hair that fell to his shoulders. Hanging from a wide belt, supported by a baldric strap over his right shoulder, was a lethal-looking sword that had seen action across half the known world. With a hand on its hilt, he glared around the crowd clustered around his door.

  ‘Get away from here, all of you – or I’ll attach you all for riot and conspiracy to murder!’ There was a growl of angry protest and he slid his blade a few inches out its scabbard, as the two constables waved their staves and used them to prod the nearest malefactors in the chest. ‘Come to your senses, for God’s sake!’ he roared. ‘There’ll be no repetition of the lawlessness down in Bretayne the other day! I know many of you, so be warned.’ His long head swung from side to side as he scanned the crowd and called out names of those he recognised. ‘Arthur of Lyme, is it? And you, Rupert Blacklock from Butchers’ Row – and you, James the miller! I know you all, and I’ll see you suffer if you persist in this madness. Who’s behind it, I want to know?’

  His gaze darted around the mob, looking for any agitators, but there was no sign of Cecilia de Pridias or any of her family. He did not expect to see Gilbert de Bosco, but thought that perhaps he had sent some proctor’s servants or a servile priest to egg on the protesters.

  ‘We have the right to punish evil witches, Crowner!’ called the verger, bolder than the others.

  ‘You have no such right at all, damn you!’ bellowed de Wolfe. ‘The only right to punish is vested in the courts of this land, all of which ultimately answer to King Richard. Now clear off, all of you. Osric, get yourself up to Rougemont and call on the castle constable to send down a posse of men-at-arms with whips and staves to clear this rabble from my doorstep!’

  With that, he stepped back inside and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In which Crowner John confronts the sheriff

  John de Wolfe could hardly have left Bearded Lucy in the lane, with an increasingly angry mob at her heels, but allowing her into the house brought down almost as much trouble on his head as if he had laid about the rabble with his sword. As soon as the stout wooden latch on the front door had clacked down into place, the smaller one on the door to the hall jerked up and Matilda stood framed in the gap. For a brief moment, she stared at the little tableau in the vestibule, with Mary hovering uneasily in the background. Then a roar burst from her thin-lipped mouth as she pointed a quavering finger at the old woman.

  ‘What is she doing in my house? Get her out of here at once!’

  Sadly, Lucy turned to the door and reached for the latch, but John laid a restraining hand on her arm as he scowled ferociously at his wife.

  ‘Wait. Matilda, there is a mob outside pursuing this poor old woman. Do you want another Theophania Lawrence on your conscience?’

  ‘That’s none of my concern – nor is it yours!’ she spat in reply. ‘I’ll not have that foul witch in my house. Canon Gilbert was right when he quoted the Old Testament. They are evil unbelievers and should be dealt with accordingly – besides which, she stinks!’ she added inconsequentially.

  John’s relationship with his wife habitually swung wildly from one extreme to the other and sometimes he even had a grudging respect for her. But at that moment his feelings for her reached an all-time low as her religious prejudices seemed to have overcome any trace of compassion. He stepped forward and confronted her, almost nose to nose as she stood above him on the step into the hall.

  ‘You are a hard-hearted, intolerant bitch!’ he yelled at her. ‘It may have escaped your notice, but “your house”, as you call it, was paid for by me out of my booty from the second Irish war. And I fully intend to invite anyone I wish into it. Is that understood?’

  Matilda shook both her clenched fists in his face, her square face red with anger, though she knew that John in this mood was not to be provoked too far.

  ‘Then drive the dirty old cow around to the yard, where she belongs! She’ll set foot in the hall only over my dead body!’

  ‘That can be arranged, too!’ yelled her husband, sliding his sword up and down in its scabbard with an ominous metallic rasp – though they both knew full well that his threat of violence was an empty gesture, as, unlike many other men, he had never so much as laid a finger on his wife.

  ‘Go on then, kill me, you great coward,’ she screamed, playing along with the charade that was being fuelled by their mutual anger. ‘Go on, skewer me on that sword that has murdered so many others!’

  With a gesture of disgust, he slammed the hilt fully back into its sheath and turned away. ‘Don’t be so bloody foolish, woman! All I’m doing is trying to keep the King’s peace in the streets of the city – a task your brother is supposed to fulfil, but he’s always too busy filling his own purse at the expense of the county!’

  Before she could start a new tirade in answer to this insult to the sheriff, he grabbed Lucy’s arm and steered her to the opening of the covered passage that ran down the side of the house to the yard behind. Mary, who had listened open mouthed to this shouting match, scuttled ahead and was in her kitchen-shed by the time the old woman had shuffled through. Brutus took one look at the visitor, then slunk away to lie behind the privy. Even the maid Lucille stuck her projecting nose and teeth out of her box under the stairs to the solar to see what was going on, but withdrew them rapidly when she saw the apparition that the master was guiding into the yard.

  Mary, who knew Lucy by sight and reputation, soon took pity on the old woman when John explained what had happened in the lane. She sat her down on a stool outside the cook-shed and found her a pot of ale and a piece of bread smeared with beef dripping.

  ‘What are we to do with you, Lucy?’ asked the coroner. ‘I doubt that you can go home to your hut. They’ll look for you there, now that they’ve been cheated of you here.’

  The cunning woman stopped munching with her toothless gums. ‘Even my talents cannot help me now,’ she mumbled. ‘I care little what happens to me, but I wanted to do something to help those two poor souls who will surely hang – as will others not yet persecuted, unless this madness stops.’ She looked up at de Wolfe with her bleary yet riveting eyes. ‘And as I have told you, sir, one of those might be very close to your own heart.’

  She made him feel very uneasy with these cryptic warnings, but he still tried to reassure her. ‘It will pass, Lucy. People enjoy novelty, but they soon tire of it,’ he said, though he was not sure that he believed his own words. ‘We need to hide you in a place of safety until this storm blows over.’ He scratched his black stubble ruefully. ‘But I’m afraid it can’t be here. You saw what my good wife is like!’

  Mary had been listening to this exchange and now spoke up. ‘What about the Bush? There’s plenty of room up in that loft – or better still, in one of the sheds at the back.’

  This seemed the only practical solution, thought John, especially as Nesta had had dealings with Lucy before, as well as seeming to possess some of the healing talents in common with her. After the old woman had finished her food and recovered a little from her ordeal, Mary went to the front of the house and returned to report that the mistress was shut in the hall with a jug of wine and that the lane was now empty of vindictive townsfolk.

  John took Lucy out into the cathedral Close and headed for Idle Lane, keeping a sharp lookout and a hand on his sword. He wished that Gwyn was here to help protect them, but his two assistants were unlikely to get back to Exeter until the evening, or per
haps the next day – when another problem concerning the sheriff’s threat to arrest Gwyn would have to be faced.

  They reached the Bush without incident, other than suffering curious and sometimes hostile looks from passers-by when they saw the old hag shambling past – but the presence of the menacing figure of the coroner loping alongside her prevented anything more serious than muttered imprecations.

  At the Bush, de Wolfe left Lucy in the yard while he went in to explain the emergency to Nesta, whose sympathetic nature made her instantly agree to shelter the old woman until, hopefully, the danger had died down. When the Welsh woman had had her own acute personal problems a few months before, the bearded crone had done her best to help her, and now here was a chance to pay her back.

  ‘She can stay in the brewing-house for now. I’ll get a palliasse from the loft and hide it behind a row of casks. I’ll tell the maids and old Edwin to be sure to keep their mouths shut about her.’

  John walked back to the Close in a better state of mind, feeling that yet another crisis had been overcome – and hoping that there would be a respite before the next one. Somewhat to his surprise, as he was a solitary man, he found that he greatly missed the company of Thomas and Gwyn, who though they often irritated him with their bickering, had become such a part of his daily routine that he felt almost lonely without them.

  The thought of some companionship, as opposed to the frosty atmosphere that would undoubtedly reign in his house for the rest of the day, persuaded him to visit his friend the archdeacon. Late afternoon was the quietest period for the cathedral clergy, after all the many services had ended, until the cycle started again at midnight.

  He spent a calming hour drinking wine and talking over the problems, though no new solutions presented themselves.

  ‘Those two women will surely hang later this week, John,’ said de Alençon sadly. ‘I tried to talk some sense into Gilbert de Bosco yesterday – and I had an audience with the bishop this morning – but both showed no interest whatsoever in softening their attitude.’

  ‘Even the bishop is against them, then?’ asked de Wolfe.

  ‘He professes a neutral attitude, saying that it is entirely a matter for the consistory court – not mentioning the fact that it was he who set it up, with Gilbert as chancellor! He also mouthed the expected platitudes that the Church must be ever vigilant against heresy and sacrilege and would listen to no argument of mine that those sins were not remotely involved in the matter of these poor good-wives.’ He sipped his wine abstractedly. ‘This has become a political affair, my friend. The bishop sees himself attracting merit from Canterbury and even Rome by putting himself forward as a guardian of Christian doctrine – and the proud canon sees advancement for himself as a champion against the works of the Devil. Both have little concern for the actual substance of the matter, but they have a cynical self-interest in promoting their own careers. I suspect that the same goes for the sheriff, though his eyes are turned more to the Count of Mortain than towards archbishops.’

  Reluctantly accepting that there was nothing more that either he or John de Alençon could do for the unfortunate Jolenta of Ide and Alice Ailward, the coroner took himself off to his chamber in the castle, rather than endure Matilda’s wrath and sulks until supper-time.

  He strode up to Rougemont in the early evening sunshine, for the weather had improved and manor-reeves and freemen were crossing their fingers and touching wood that there might be a reasonable harvest after all, if the rain held off for a few weeks. As he walked across the drawbridge and under the gatehouse arch, a worried-looking sentry banged his pike on the ground and stepped forward to mutter under his breath. ‘Crowner, if I was you, I’d go straight across to the keep. There’s a bit of trouble going on over there!’

  John’s head jerked up and when he looked across the inner ward, he saw a few saddled horses near the steps up to the high entrance of the keep. One he instantly recognised as the big brown mare belonging to Gwyn of Polruan and knew that his officer and clerk had now returned from Winchester. With a groan, he realised too that his hour of respite from the recent crises was over and that his bloody brother-in-law was undoubtedly intent on making more trouble for him.

  He hurried across and soon heard raised voices, indicating that the problem was not up in the keep but in the undercroft, its semi-subterranean basement. Part of this was used as the gaol serving the county court and for remanding prisoners for the Commissioners of Gaol Delivery and the Eyre of Assize, when they paid their infrequent visits to Exeter. For offenders taken to the burgesses’ court, there was another foul prison in one of the towers of the South Gate – and of course, the cathedral proctors had their own cells, where the two helpless women were presently awaiting their fate.

  De Wolfe clattered down the few steps and ducked under a low lintel into the gloomy cavern that was the undercroft, roofed by arched vaults of damp, slimy stone that supported the keep above. A barricade of rusty bars on the left marked off the half of the chamber that contained the prison cells. The rest was partly a store and partly a torture chamber where the repulsively fat gaoler, Stigand, extracted confessions and applied the painful and mutilating tests of the ordeal.

  Today, however, the main function of the place seemed to be as a forum for a heated argument between a group of men standing in the centre of the soggy earthen floor. As John marched up to them, he saw Gwyn confronting the gaoler, with Ralph Morin, Sergeant Gabriel and two men-at-arms clustered around them. Thomas de Peyne, looking like an agitated sparrow, pattered around the group, flapping his arms and crossing himself repeatedly. When he saw de Wolfe approaching, he ran to him, his peaky face distraught with concern.

  ‘Master, do something! They want to put Gwyn behind bars!’

  Ralph Morin swung round when he heard de Wolfe coming. ‘No, we don’t want to, John. It’s the last damned thing we want. But that bloody man upstairs has ordered it and I am in a difficult position, to say the least!’

  ‘I’m not going to force my best friend into the lock-up,’ wailed Gabriel. ‘I’ll leave the garrison and go back to being a shepherd first!’

  ‘But that’s the rub, dammit,’ snapped the castle constable. ‘You’re still one of his men-at-arms and if you refuse you can be hanged for disobeying orders. So what the hell are we going to do, John?’

  Before de Wolfe could assemble his thoughts to reply, Gwyn suddenly gave a roar and shook off Stigand, who was trying to pull him towards the gate in the iron fence that led to the cells. ‘You touch me again, you slimy bastard and I’ll knock your bloody head off!’ He raised his massive fist to the man, who cowered back, his slug-like features twisted in fear.

  Thomas began squeaking in terror, Gabriel was yelling at the gaoler and the two soldiers were looking uncertainly at Gwyn, mutttering to each other about what they ought to do. John found his voice, a deep bellow that brought momentary silence. ‘All right, all right! Let’s deal with this calmly, shall we? First of all, what exactly has happened?’

  Gwyn, his normally amiable face creased in concern, lowered his threatening arm. ‘Thomas and I got back not more than a few minutes ago and as soon as I dismounted in the bailey, these two soldiers grabbed me and said that I was wanted down here. The god-damned sheriff came and said I was under arrest for stealing part of the Cadbury treasure, but walked out before I had a chance to get my wits back. Then the constable and the sergeant here appeared and we have been arguing until you came. I’m damned if I’m going to be locked up, it’s the bastard sheriff who should be jailed!’

  John turned to Ralph Morin, who looked more unhappy than he had ever seen him before. ‘De Revelle threatened me with this, as I told you. I didn’t think he’d go through with it, though.’

  The castellan turned up his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘He’s desperate, John. I think he wants to use Gwyn as a hostage, something to bargain with for you withdrawing your claim that he dipped his hand into that box of gold and silver. I’ve the feeling that he’s
got something else nasty up his sleeve too, but I don’t know what it is.’ He paused and tugged at one of the points of his forked beard in an angry gesture of concern. ‘Anyway, he gave me orders – point-blank orders – to clap Gwyn in a cell. As the sheriff represents the King in this county and I’m a royal appointee in a royal castle, I don’t see any way of disobeying such a direct order, if I want to keep my own neck from being stretched!’

  ‘The King, God bless him, would never sanction this,’ cut in the sergeant, outraged at the whole affair.

  ‘Nor would Hubert Walter, if he knew about it,’ grunted Ralph. ‘But it would take a couple of weeks to get a message to him and a reply, for he’s in London.’

  The mention of the Chief Justiciar, virtually the regent of England now that King Richard had gone back permanently to France, decided de Wolfe that this was probably the only course. ‘De Revelle has gone too far this time. I must get word to Hubert Walter as soon as I can, but that’s not going to solve our present problem.’ He sighed and looked across at Gwyn, whose whiskered face showed both anger and apprehension. ‘I’ll have to go up and talk to that mad brother-in-law of mine and try to do some kind of a deal with him.’

  Ralph Morin nodded his big head – he was as tall as de Wolfe and almost as burly as the Cornishman. ‘But what about Gwyn? We can’t stand here undecided all night.’

  The coroner’s officer solved the problem himself. ‘Duty is duty, I know that very well,’ he said with a sad air of resignation. ‘I don’t want to get my friends into trouble that could end on the gallows-tree. I’ll go and sit in a cell to satisfy that swine upstairs, until the crowner sorts out this mess.’ He swung around to Stigand, who was still standing a little way off, his slack mouth half open and his piggy eyes darting from one to the other. ‘But only if this slobbering idiot goes and cleans out a cell of its filth and puts some clean straw in there!’ He made a sudden mock leap towards the gaoler, who squeaked in fear and waddled off towards the iron gate.