The Witch Hunter

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Do it, John – and quickly! Though it will take at least another week to get a response from Winchester, if the justiciar is still there.’ He thought for a moment, his amiable face wreathed in a frown. ‘Look, I’ve got a fast messenger going to Southampton at dawn tomorrow, with an order for a ship’s master sailing for Flanders. He could easily ride on to Winchester in a few more hours. He reckons on riding forty miles a day, with changes of horses – far quicker than the usual carrier. If you get your clerk Thomas to write a full account of the situation, I could add my portreeve’s seal to it, to ensure that it gets proper attention.’

  John accepted the offer gladly and after some more words of wrath and commiseration, rode on to the castle gatehouse. Gwyn carried on through the East Gate to go home to his wife in St Sidwells, who saw less of him than Matilda saw of her husband.

  Inside the inner ward, he met both Gabriel and Brother Rufus, both of whom gave him the same news with long faces. Most people had never expected the convictions in the consistory court to end in the death sentence for two women – and certainly not with such unseemly haste, which John strongly suspected was due to the sheriff’s desire to act while the coroner was away. He was very unhappy about this, but felt no personal guilt. It was de Revelle who had hanged them, not John – and his first duty had been to ensure Nesta’s safety.

  His simmering anger was such that he did not trust himself to confront the sheriff just yet, until he had cooled down. He gave Odin to a groom in the castle stables, with orders to get him fed and watered, then climbed to his chamber, where he found the industrious Thomas laboriously scribing on his rolls. He too was saddened by the death of the cunning women, but happy to hear that Nesta now seemed to be well out of harm’s way.

  ‘Give that up for now, Thomas, I’ve got important work for you,’ commanded de Wolfe, and for the next hour the clerk wrote at John’s dictation, translating Norman French directly into perfect Latin. The coroner recorded everything that had transpired during the past weeks, especially the perfidy of the sheriff, the obsessive mania of Gilbert de Bosco and the intransigence of the bishop. When it was finished, Thomas read it back to him and, after a couple of additions, it was ready for delivery to Hubert Walter or one of the members of the Curia Regis, if the justiciar was absent.

  ‘Add a copy of that treasure inventory from the constable’s clerk,’ John instructed. When Thomas had rolled up the parchments and tied them securely with tape, he impressed his seal upon some wax melted across the knot. He did this with his signet ring, which carried the same snarling wolf’s-head device that was on the battered war shield hanging in his hall at Martin’s Lane.

  By the time he had sent Thomas off to Hugh de Relaga with the precious manuscript, he felt that he was ready to face his brother-in-law. As he stalked across the inner bailey with a face like thunder, people scurried out of his path even more readily than usual. However, when John clumped up the steps and marched to the sheriff’s door, once again he found it locked. He spotted one of de Revelle’s clerks trying to pass through the hall without being noticed, but yelled at him, demanding to know where his master was.

  ‘He’s gone to his manor at Revelstoke, Crowner,’ answered the man nervously. ‘Be away a few days, I reckon.’

  ‘Yellow-bellied son of a goat!’ muttered John. ‘Afraid to face me, the bloody coward. But he has to come back – unfortunately – then I’ll get him!’

  Frustrated on this front, he walked back down to his house, knowing that he now had to face Matilda, who would undoubtedly want to know why he had been away for two nights. He was in no mood for conciliatory excuses and walked into the hall prepared for a blazing row. To his surprise, he found her silent and subdued. She sat in her usual chair, staring at the pile of unlit logs in the cold hearth. Given her strong views on the biblical treatment of witches, he doubted that her depression was due to the hangings that morning. He had not seen her since she left the house two evening ago, after he had told her bluntly about her brother’s latest misdemeanour, so he had no means of knowing how she had reacted to the further fall of her idol.

  ‘I hear Richard has gone to Revelstoke for a few days,’ he muttered gruffly, for something to say to break the silence.

  ‘Gone to escape your persecution, no doubt,’ she answered in a dull voice.

  This was too much for her husband, who had been prepared to be conciliatory when he saw her low spirits. ‘My persecution, by God!’ he exploded. ‘What do you call his strangling of those two pathetic women this morning? No wonder he’s fled the city, he’s not man enough to face me, after doing that the moment my back is turned!’

  Matilda made no reply for a moment. Usually well dressed, with hair stiffly primped by Lucille, today she looked limp and bedraggled, her hair straying untidily from beneath her cover-chief. At forty-four, this evening she looked a decade older, but when she finally turned her head and looked up at her husband hovering over her, there was still fire in her eyes. ‘I cannot decide who I hate most, my brother for his determination to fall from grace – or you, who hound him at every turn!’

  De Wolfe jabbed his fists on his hips and bent lower to put his face closer to hers. ‘It was not I who dipped my hand into that treasure chest, woman! Nor did I plot against the king who appointed me to office. And who was it who paid his whore’s sister to give false testimony? And whose name has become a byword in this county for underhand dealings and embezzlement?’

  He paused to draw breath and pulled himself upright. ‘And it will not be me who sits in judgement on him, Matilda. As before, when he was removed from office in ’93, it will be the King’s ministers who decide his fate. So don’t say that I hound him. In fact, I should be ashamed of myself for avoiding my legal duty by not exposing him in the past – which I did at your pleading, may I remind you!’

  He stalked to the door, full of righteous indignation, but as he reached the screens he heard a stifled sob and, turning round, saw that her head had fallen forward on to her hands. Her back was heaving with suppressed grief and the sight of such a broken woman suddenly changed his simmering anger to guilty compassion. Walking softly back to the fireplace, he bent and placed his arm around her bowed shoulders.

  ‘Easy, wife, easy! You know that Richard can’t continue to act in this way. If it stops now, then he will probably be allowed to go back to his manors and live a quiet life. If he does not, then sooner or later he will surely hang. This is for the best, you will see!’

  The sobbing faded and for a brief moment one of her hands reached out to squeeze his wrist. ‘Leave me now, John. You should not see me in this state.’

  She said no more and, confused and embarrassed as he always was by strong emotion, he went slowly out into the lane. For the next hour he sat alone in the nearest tavern, the Golden Hind, and meditated deeply over a quart of cider.

  De Wolfe, tired after his previous day’s riding, rose well after dawn the next day. He left the solar quietly, not to awaken Matilda, who was snoring. He had heard her whimpering in the night as they lay back to back with the width of the wide mattress between them and now she slept the sleep of the exhausted.

  After breaking his fast in Mary’s kitchen, he had his customary Saturday wash in a bucket of lukewarm water and shaved with the little knife of Saracen steel that he kept specially honed for the purpose. Then he walked down to the cathedral and went into the huge, dim nave, which was completely empty, although a service was taking place in the choir beyond the screen. He stood waiting, listening both to the distant chanting and prayers and to the chirping of birds that flew in and out through the unglazed windows high up near the beamed roof.

  He could see figures indistinctly behind the carved woodwork, dressed in white surplices covered with long back cloaks, even in the summertime warmth.

  Soon, prime, the first of the daytime offices, was over, and John saw the participants begin to stream out through the passages on either side of the screen. There were few of the twenty-four cano
ns there, their place being taken by their vicars and John was relieved to see no sign of Gilbert de Bosco, as he would not trust his temper to let him pass unchallenged. The precentor, treasurer and succentor were followed by a couple of punctators, who kept a record of those present, as those absent without good cause were disciplined – and missing canons forfeited their daily ration of bread from the bread-house near the West Front. Behind them came a group of younger vicars, eager to get something to eat before the next service, followed by the even more youthful secondaries and the jostling, restless choirboys. Finally, with a slow gravity befitting their seniority, came a trio of archdeacons. One was an older man, Anselm Crassus, Archdeacon of Barnstaple, another John FitzJohn, Archdeacon of Totnes, and the third John de Alençon, for whom de Wolfe was waiting. When he saw the coroner standing in the nave, he made his apologies to his companions and came across, his ascetic face even more grave than usual. ‘You have undoubtedly heard what happened – I’m sorry, I did what I could, but to no avail.’

  ‘I’m sure you did, friend. I only wish I had been here myself, but you know what happened down at the Bush?’

  The archdeacon nodded sadly. ‘Everyone in Exeter knows of that murderous scandal – including the Lord Bishop, who seems to have taken fright at what he too readily condoned.’

  ‘Thank God some good has come of it, though it needed a martyr in that poor old hag to bring it about. Do you think this will see the end of this madness now?’

  The two men started to walk towards the brightness of the door in the West Front. ‘I sincerely hope so – I doubt that Henry Marshal will pursue this crusade as actively now, if at all. And the town seethes with rumours that Richard de Revelle is on the slippery slope, though no one yet seems to know why.’

  John explained to his friend what had happened, confident that his words would be as safe as if they were uttered in the confessional.

  ‘But what of this crazy colleague of yours, Gilbert de Bosco?’ he asked the priest. ‘If I read his nature right, he’ll stubbornly dig in his heels and try to carry on with his ill-conceived campaign.’

  De Alençon reluctantly agreed. ‘You may well be right, but he’ll have precious little support now. I have made it my business to go around the parishes in the city and make it clear to the priests that they have more important pastoral duties than inflaming people against a few cunning women.’

  Out in the early sunlight, they paced the few yards to Canons’ Row, where their ways parted. As they walked, de Wolfe told him of the uncompromising message he had dispatched that morning to Winchester.

  ‘That should see the matter of the sheriff settled,’ observed the archdeacon. ‘But as for our bishop, he is a powerful man with powerful friends, notably Prince John himself. It will take a lot to shake his foundations, especially as our king, God bless him, seems to have an unfortunate soft spot for his rebellious brother.’

  De Wolfe knew this to be true, as the Lionheart had repeatedly forgiven John’s treachery and even restored many of his forfeited possessions.

  The priest went off to his house before the meeting of chapter and then the next services of terce, sext and nones, while the coroner strode up to a house near St Catherine’s Gate, another exit from the Close up a lane beyond St Martin’s Church. Here lived Adam Kempe, one of the regular customers of the Bush, a master carpenter who employed several men. Adam was also shocked and angry at the burning of the inn, especially as, like so many other men, he was an admirer of Nesta and her brewing. He readily agreed to go with John to view the ruins and they spent an hour surveying the wreckage, which had now cooled down. There was no sign of any remains of Bearded Lucy, but John did not expect any until the charred timbers and ash were removed.

  The carpenter agreed to supervise the rebuilding, which would be at John’s expense, the first task being to get a team of labourers to clear the site and dump all the debris on the waste ground alongside. As John wanted to hold an inquest on Lucy, they would begin later today to try to recover any of the poor woman’s bones.

  Adam Kempe gave a rough estimate of how much new timber would be needed and John promised to contact his brother William to organise the felling and trimming of sufficient trees from their manor down near the Teign.

  ‘A month should see it roofed and after a couple more weeks the lady will again be selling the best ale in the city,’ promised the craftsman, optimistically.

  With that reassurance ringing in his ears, de Wolfe went back to his chamber in Rougemont, for the morning ritual of bread, cheese and cider with his officer and clerk. For once, all seemed quiet, as there were no outstanding deaths, rapes or assaults to be dealt with, though Thomas had a never-ending series of rolls to be completed, for presentation either to the regular county courts or to the next visitation of the Commissioners of Gaol Delivery, judges who came at irregular intervals to try criminal cases. The General Eyre, which was a much greater visitation to look into the whole administration of the county, as well as to try criminal and civil cases, came at even more infrequent intervals but the coroner’s cases had to be recorded for this as well, so the clerk had the endless job of making duplicate or triplicate copies on his sheets of parchment.

  ‘What happens next, Crowner?’ asked Gwyn, from his usual seat on the window ledge, where he could look down on anyone approaching the gatehouse from the outer ward.

  ‘I can do nothing until the sheriff sneaks back and I can roast him with my tongue,’ answered de Wolfe. ‘Though it may give me some satisfaction, it cannot bring those poor women back to life.’

  ‘Do you think that Winchester will take action over your message?’ said his officer, with doubt in his voice.

  ‘I bloody well trust so!’ snapped the coroner. ‘Hubert Walter is already well aware that de Revelle is a liability, from previous scandals. If he doesn’t act this time, then I’m going to give up this appointment in protest. We’ll find ourselves a war somewhere and clear off out of this rotten city!’

  These were empty words and they all knew it, as John was getting too old to go off roistering to France, leaving behind Nesta, his house and his wool business. For a while they continued to talk over the present problems and discuss the rebuilding of the Bush, until their peace was broken by the sound of feet clattering up the stone stairs of the tower. Osric’s ungainly figure pushed through the curtain, seemingly all arms and legs. ‘Crowner, this city’s getting beyond! Another attack, one that looks like turning into a murder, unless God wills otherwise!’

  De Wolfe’s stool grated on the floor as he stood up abruptly. Three faces stared at the constable in expectation, as he gabbled on.

  ‘Henry de Hocforde is bleeding in the house of Cecilia, Robert’s widow. Looks like she stabbed him!’

  The de Pridias family had a house in St Mary Arches which befitted a wealthy mill-owner. Built of stone, it was double fronted, with a room either side of the door and two rooms upstairs. In one of the downstairs chambers the coroner found Henry de Hocforde lying on the floor, with a folded blanket under his head and a bemused Roger Hamund squatting alongside him, looking as ineffectual as usual. From the other room came the sound of female voices, one wailing, the other trying to pacify. Several servants stood around, looking helpless.

  John and Gwyn crouched alongside the injured man, whose hands were clasped over his belly, blood oozing between the fingers. His blue tunic was soaked in blood over his lower chest and stomach. He was conscious, but rambling and muttering, his face deathly pale in contrast to his usual high colour. De Wolfe gently moved one of his hands and saw a small slit in the dark and sodden cloth above his belt. There was a pool of glistening blood-clot around it and John put two fingers into the rent in the tunic and gently ripped it wider, to get a view of his skin. Beneath, he had a fine cambric undershirt, equally saturated. When the coroner tore this apart in a similar way, he saw a narrow, oval wound in the skin, one end rounded, the other sharp. It was slowly welling blood, but de Wolfe knew from his years of exp
erience on the battlefield that what was leaking out was probably but a fraction of the internal bleeding. He looked up at Osric, who was hovering behind them.

  ‘Run to St James’s and get Brother Saul, quickly. If anyone can deal with this, he’s the man.’

  Saul was a monk in the tiny infirmary attached to St James’s Priory near the East Gate, the nearest Exeter had to a hospital. John felt sure that this was a futile gesture, as Henry looked likely to be dead before the monk arrived, but he felt he had to make every effort to save the rival miller and weaver. For the same reason, he now grabbed the right hand of the late Robert de Pridias’s son-in-law and pressed it over the wound, much to Roger’s horror.

  ‘Just keep some pressure there, until help comes,’ he grunted. He leaned his face over the victim’s and spoke to him, but got nothing but a few rambling words in response. He glared at Roger Hamund. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He came here an hour ago, demanding that Cecilia should begin arranging the sale of our mill to him. He claimed that my father-in-law had promised to sell, just before he died, which is a damned lie!’

  ‘Were you here then?’ snapped John.

  ‘No, my wife was with her mother, but I only arrived a few minutes ago, after this accident had happened.’

  ‘Accident? A knife in the belly is a strange accident!’

  ‘I know nothing of it except what the womenfolk told me. They say it was an accident.’

  De Wolfe climbed to his feet and beckoned to Thomas, who was lurking near the door, as he had no stomach for blood. ‘Stay with him and try to comfort him. I fear he is beyond anyone’s help,’ he added in a low voice. The clerk’s pastoral instincts overcame his squeamishness and he dropped to his knees alongside the injured man, making the sign of the Cross and murmuring a litany under his breath.