The Grim Reaper

by Bernard Knight

  With Lucille and Mary – who detested each other – watching from the doorway, the couple set off on the short walk into the cathedral Close and around the west front to the palace entrance. De Wolfe sensed the conflict within his wife, as she tried to balance the pleasure and anticipation of such a welcome social event with the anger she felt at her brother’s foolishness.

  Other guests were converging on the gateway into Henry Marshal’s garden and John cynically observed the intensity with which each wife studied another’s raiment with a mixture of admiration, criticism and jealousy. Within the garden, along the paved way that led to the porch, two lines of cathedral choristers stood in cassock and surplice, singing the guests into the palace, with descanted chants, which to John’s totally tone-deaf ears, sounded like dirges.

  Inside, the dining hall was bright with candles, adding to the spring evening light coming through the high clerestory windows. Two rows of tables ran up the hall to join a cross table at the top, which had the Bishop’s chair in the centre. The chamber was not nearly as large as the hall in the castle keep so the much sought-after invitations had been limited. Though they were not awarded the honour of seats at the upper table, Matilda was mollified by being placed with her husband at the top of one of the long trestles, with her brother and the icy Lady Eleanor in equivalent places on the other spur. A manservant took her cloak and Matilda made sure that he hung it carefully in an alcove in the wall behind.

  When all the guests had filled the long tables, a door opened behind the Bishop’s chair and a cathedral proctor entered with his silver staff, which he banged peremptorily on the table. Everyone lumbered to their feet as the Lord Bishop of Devon and Cornwall entered and took his place before his high-backed chair. He wore a caped tunic of dark purple, with a silver cross hanging on his breast from a chain around his shoulders. His head was covered with a close-fitting black coif, tied under his chin. Behind him the important guests filed in, the four Justices, two of the four archdeacons in the diocese, then the Precentor and Treasurer.

  The proctor banged his staff again and the Precentor began a long grace in Latin, which to John, whose calves were being cut into by the edge of the bench behind him, seemed to go on for ever. Eventually they reached the muttered ‘Amen’ and with much scraping of stools and benches, the guests subsided with relief, ready to eat as much of the Bishop’s provisions as they could manage. A small army of servants appeared and trenchers of bread were placed on the scrubbed boards. As a modern luxury, there were also pewter platters, and wooden bowls and horn spoons were placed before each guest to supplement the daggers of the men, whose duty it was to serve the neighbouring ladies. As there were a considerable number of celibate priests, many of the pairs were male, but they still gave each other the courtesy of serving one another.

  Wine, ale and mead appeared, and then a succession of dishes, and de Wolfe, though no sycophantic admirer of the Church, had to admit that Henry Marshal had not stinted in his hospitality that evening. There was duck, goose, heron and pheasant in abundance, venison and other red meat, fish of all kinds, from salmon to herring, then capon, rabbit, hare and boar, with a wide variety of herbed and scented sauces. Afterwards, sweet puddings, cakes and bowls of raisins and nuts were accompanied by a second relay of wines from Anjou and Rouen and sweeter ones from the South of France. When most of the serious business of eating had been accomplished, there was time for chatter and the endless supply of wine jugs aided the flow of conversation.

  De Wolfe was opposite Walter de Ralegh, Peter Peverel, and his old friend, Archdeacon John de Alençon seated on the top trestle. They began an animated conversation about the cases of that day’s session, the successes and failures of King Richard against Philip of France and, inevitably, the mysterious killer of Exeter City.

  Matilda, now confident that her new gown and mantle were at least the equal of any other in the hall – and undoubtedly better than those of her arch-rival sister-in-law, Lady Eleanor de Revelle – sat back content. She had eaten twice as much as her husband, who had worked hard to keep their trencher filled. Now she drank Henry Marshal’s best wine with smug appreciation and looked about the chamber to make sure that her lady rivals were aware of her prime position in the table hierarchy.

  She was particularly pleased that John was relatively sociable tonight and glowed with reflected pride to see her own husband, a senior law officer, publicly engrossed in conversation with two of the King’s Justices, as well as senior churchmen. If only she could coax him to do this more often and curry favour with the top Guild-Masters and burgesses, then her life would be more tolerable.

  Then her gaze moved to the next table and fell upon her brother. Immediately her euphoria faded: the man who had been her idol since childhood, now the sheriff of the whole county, had recently proved he had feet of clay. She had no political preferences of her own – indeed, she was ignorant of much that went on in the rest of England – but it was humiliating to discover that he had not only allied himself to a traitor, but to a traitor who had failed. Now the fool had almost ruined himself again in lusting after a strumpet. Though she detested Eleanor, mainly because she came from a far higher-born family than the de Revelles, she almost felt a twinge of sympathy for her at being married to a man who picked losing causes and cavorted with whores in back-street brothels. Though she was well aware that her own husband was constantly unfaithful, at least to the best of her knowledge he never paid for his fornication – and he certainly never let himself be caught in such humiliating situations as the burning stew in Waterbeer Street.

  A sudden drop in the level of babble meant that the Bishop was rising to make his formal speech of welcome to the King’s Justices. As de Wolfe listened to the dry tones and humourless platitudes of the leader of God’s ministry in this part of England, he thought of Henry Marshal’s own political partialities. A supporter of Prince John, he had sailed close to the wind of treachery more than once – and de Wolfe suspected that, if the conditions were right, he might do so again, allying himself with other malcontents like de Revelle in an uprising against Richard the Lionheart. To stand there and welcome the King’s undoubtedly loyal judges, as if he himself was an equally dedicated champion of Coeur de Lion seemed the height of hypocrisy.

  Once he had sat down, Walter de Ralegh made a short and rather gruff reply of thanks for the Bishop’s remarks and for his lavish hospitality. When that was over, the Bishop rose to give a final blessing, then bowed in farewell to his special guests and glided out through the door, attended by his proctor and confessor.

  As soon as he had vanished, the hubbub of talk and laughter rose to new levels as the crowd made sure that all the Bishop’s wine jugs and ale pitchers would go back empty to the kitchens. Having exhausted politics, the talk around de Wolfe gravitated back to the series of killings and de Ralegh, made pugnacious by drink, became more critical of the city’s law enforcement.

  ‘That damn sheriff over there needs to get a better grip on things,’ he bellowed. ‘He seems to leave it all to you, de Wolfe – and you’ve not made much progress, by the look of it!’

  The Archdeacon attempted to come to his friend’s rescue. ‘This is not a village, Sir Walter, where everyone knows everyone else’s business and where the frankpledge system keeps a tight rein on all men.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ demanded de Ralegh.

  ‘In the countryside, the culprit is known instantly – he usually runs away or is caught within minutes. But in a city of almost five thousand souls like Exeter, there are hundreds of merchants, travellers, pilgrims, sailors and other itinerants. It’s a permanently shifting population. If someone hides around the corner of a lane at night and robs, kills or rapes the first person who passes, how can he be found if there are no witnesses?’

  Walter de Ralegh would have none of this. ‘We’re not talking about casual thuggery! Some mad priest is methodically acting as God, dispensing what he sees as justice where the law fails to act. That’s t
he work of a clever brain, not some footpad hiding around a corner.’

  John intervened to pay back de Alençon’s support. ‘But it makes it no easier to detect – the opposite, in fact, for, as you say, this person has a clever mind.’

  Serlo, the Chancery judge, leaned across from further along the top table. ‘I hear you’ve tried matching these messages against the writings of certain priests in the city, to see if their hand corresponds?’

  ‘We have indeed, but my clerk, who has a considerable facility with literary matters, assures us that the writing was deliberately disguised.’

  Serlo smiled his secret smile. ‘Well, perhaps it was in his own interests to say that, if he himself is the perpetrator.’

  The Archdeacon bristled at this further indictment of his nephew. ‘Not so, sir! The same opinion was given by our cathedral archivist, Canon Jordan de Brent, who spends his life with manuscripts and scribes.’

  The discussion went back and forth, getting nowhere, with the Justices sticking to their opinion that the coroner’s clerk was the most likely candidate for the killings. With the Bishop retired, the party gradually wound down, hastened by the servants who finally stopped replenishing the wine and ale. The guests began to drift away and de Wolfe signalled to a servant for Matilda’s cloak. He was thankful that this time there had been no sign of Gwyn signalling urgently from the doorway to tell him of some new death – and glad that, so far, the Gospel killer seemed to have taken a night’s rest.

  Matilda made the best of the remaining minutes to parade herself around her other matronly acquaintances, taking care to grip John’s arm to emphasise her ownership of the King’s coroner, even though everyone in the city was well aware of his identity and status. At last he prised her away from the final farewells to her friends and rivals and they passed under the pitch flares along the garden path.

  Matilda had studiously ignored her brother and his wife all evening, but at the gate they came across the de Revelles as they bade goodnight to Henry Rifford, one of the city’s Portreeves. Forced to acknowledge them, Matilda muttered a frosty greeting to Richard, and turned her back on him to falsely admire Lady Eleanor’s mantle. Then she jerked John onwards towards Martin’s Lane.

  Relieved that the night had gone without incident, de Wolfe loped silently alongside her, his weary body and tired mind welcoming the thought of even their loveless bed in the solar – but envying his clerk, sleeping in the loft of the Bush within a few feet of his beloved Nesta.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In which Crowner John suffers great distress

  When de Wolfe slid out of bed before dawn next day Matilda was still sound asleep. He dressed and had boiled bacon, eggs and bread in Mary’s kitchen-hut before setting off alone to the bottom of the town. He wanted to stir up the priests who were on the cathedral’s suspect list, to see if any allowed their guard to slip. He also hoped, rather forlornly, that he might find some clue as to who had sent the anonymous note to the sheriff. It must surely be one of the suspected priests, he thought. The court began at the eighth hour and he had to be back at Rougemont by then, so early morning was the only opportunity for him to make such visits.

  He hurried down to the West Gate, which was just opening to admit the flood of dawn traders, then turned towards All-Hallows and found that an early Mass, de Capra’s version of Prime, was just finishing. He waited for the dozen parishioners to leave, then walked into the barren church. A figure was on its knees before the altar, still wearing a creased surplice over his cassock, with a threadbare stole around his neck and a maniple over his arm.

  Ralph de Capra was muttering to himself, but as soon as he heard de Wolfe’s footsteps behind him, he jumped to his feet. ‘You again, Crowner! Why don’t you leave me be? I’ve nothing to tell you.’ His face was haggard and suffused, the defect in his upper lip looking like a white scar against the flushed face.

  ‘Did you write an unsigned letter to the sheriff, falsely accusing my clerk of being at the scene of a killing the other night?’

  De Wolfe had neither the time nor the inclination to be circumspect, and he wanted to provoke the priest as much as possible. Even as de Capra was hotly denying it, he followed up with a barrage of questions and accusations about his movements during the past few nights. Prodding the man in the chest with his forefinger, he drove him back down the nave, hoping that the confusion and resentment he was generating might cause him to drop some unguarded statement.

  However, the priest frustrated the coroner’s tactics by screaming suddenly and, dropping his surplice on the floor, turned to rush towards his simple altar. Throwing his arms across the cloth, each side of the Cross, he hung across its front and began to wail and gabble. He was largely incoherent, but de Wolfe picked out some words. He seemed to be making a desperate plea for forgiveness for ‘his great sin’.

  ‘What sin is that, Ralph?’ he asked loudly, as he came to stand behind the man. ‘Is it the sin of murder? Did you kill the Jew, the whore and the merchant?’

  The priest slid down the front of the altar and squatted in a crumpled heap on the floor below the Cross. ‘Let me be, Crowner,’ he whimpered. ‘My sin is greater than ten thousand murders. It is the sin of rejecting God Almighty, for which I will surely roast in hell.’

  De Wolfe failed to get any further response from him and, feeling compassion, embarrassment and frustration, abandoned the attempt and left the little church.

  He had even less satisfaction at his next call: at St Mary Steps there was no sign of Adam of Dol, either in the church or at his dwelling around the corner.

  At St Olave’s, further up on his route back to the castle, John found Julian Fulk on his knees at the chancel step, deep in silent prayer. On hearing someone enter, he crossed himself and rose to his feet, but his smile of welcome faded when he saw the coroner.

  John knew that shock tactics would be wasted on an urbane, calculating person like Fulk, so he asked his questions in measured terms. As he expected, the moon-faced priest answered him coldly but civilly, denying any knowledge of the note sent to de Revelle and flatly rejecting any notion that he had been skulking in the midnight streets of the city. ‘I realise that you have your obligations as a law officer, Sir John,’ he said levelly, ‘but it really is a waste of your time and mine for you to come here repeatedly asking me questions, the answers to which are self-evident. No, I am not the avenging killer of Exeter, I do not know who it might be, and I appear to have no information that could possibly help you. Now, is that sufficient for you to leave me in peace to attend to my own duties – which includes ministering to my congregation, among which your good wife and, indeed, yourself are numbered?’

  Though de Wolfe had a thick skin, he felt put in his place by this reasoned statement and, partly spurred by the fear that Fulk would complain to Matilda, he muttered some platitudes and left Julian Fulk to his prayers.

  In the Shire Hall that morning de Wolfe found the same mixture of cases, with the same organised confusion of milling people, harassed clerks and clumsy soldiers shunting prisoners in and out. At least the whole of that week would have to be devoted to the Eyre of Assize, dealing with a great backlog of civil cases, plus current criminal matters and ‘Gaol Delivery’, meant to flush out the chronically overcrowded jails in the city. Many of these long-term prisoners never made it to trial, as they had either escaped, bribed their way out, died of gaol fever or been fatally abused by their fellow evildoers in the stinking cells.

  The second part of the judges’ visit, the General Eyre, which looked into the administration of the county, was not due to begin until the following week, so Richard de Revelle had a few more days in which to cook his accounts, and to fret about the vigilance with which the four Justices would probe his management of Devon on behalf of the King.

  Meanwhile, de Wolfe was called frequently to present new matters, which came from the mass of parchment rolls that Thomas de Peyne produced from a wooden box at the back of the dais, with Walter de Ra
legh and Serlo de Vallibus officiating from their chairs at the front. John had a stool at the end of one of the clerk’s tables, to be near Thomas’s store of documents. When required, he grabbed a roll from his clerk and marched over to stand alongside the Justices and recite a summary of the case, with which Thomas had primed him a few minutes earlier. Being unable to read what was on the roll made it difficult, but if any clarification of the matter was needed, he thrust the parchment at Serlo and let him pick out what he wanted.

  At the other end of the court, his more literate brother-in-law was carrying out much the same function as himself with the other two judges, though their cases were slower and more complex, dealing with land, inheritance, marriage contracts and arguments about freemen and villeins. The morning wore on until a break was called at noon, when the four Justices went back to the New Inn for their meal. This was no more than a few hundred yards from Rougemont, and de Wolfe walked with them, flanked by Sergeant Gabriel and the four men-at-arms that Ralph Morin had assigned as an escort whenever the King’s men were abroad in the streets. He left them at the door of the inn and went on to Martin’s Lane to have his own meal with Matilda. She was still relatively benign after the previous night’s banquet – and with the prospect of another at the castle the following evening.

  He managed to hold her attention with an account of the more colourful of the morning’s cases, until near the end of the meal when there was a dramatic interruption. The outer door crashed open, then the inner one to the hall burst open and someone almost fell inside, behind the screens that kept the winter draughts at bay. A wild figure appeared and Matilda leapt to her feet to shriek her protests at such an unseemly intrusion, for it was the despised Gwyn, the usual harbinger of bad news. For once, he was not cowed by her outburst, as the news he had for his master was too urgent.