The Grim Reaper

by Bernard Knight

  De Revelle, sitting slumped behind his table in his peacock-blue robe, capitulated. ‘Very well, but we’ll get that canon, Jordan de Brent, up to look at it in the morning. He’s the expert on writing.’

  ‘That will tell you nothing, but if it pleases you, do it. At the same time, you can get him to look at that ridiculous note you read to me about my clerk, to see if that was a forgery. Now I’m going below to the undercroft to tell my much-abused clerk the good news.’

  The sheriff leapt up, his surcoat falling open to reveal a hairy chest and a white belly. ‘He’s not being released tonight, whatever you say! Not until this is put to the Justices and they agree, understand? I’ve suffered some of your damned tricks before, John, so keep away from him tonight, d’you hear!’

  De Wolfe was not disposed to fight him for the sake of a few more hours in a cell and, gathering up his precious bag and parchment, left the sheriff to fume over yet another humiliation at the hands of his brother-in-law.

  Feeling decidedly shaky now that the rush of excitement and exultation was fading, de Wolfe headed for home, Osric shepherding him as far as his front door. As he headed for the steps up to the solar, Mary came out of the kitchen-hut and almost fainted when she saw his bandaged head in the moonlight, for the silver orb had risen since the events of a few hours ago.

  He turned down her offer to make him something to eat and drink, but told her of Thomas’s deliverance, at which she was as overjoyed as Nesta had been, for the little clerk was an object of sympathy and affection to all the women – except Matilda. The thought of his wife sent his eyes up to the solar door.

  ‘She’s been in bed these many hours,’ Mary reassured him. ‘So get yourself there as well. You’ll have no trouble until the morning.’

  Next morning Matilda was surprisingly concerned about his head, though she cooled a little when she discovered that he had suffered the injury only a few yards from the Bush Inn. Even so, she made him promise to attend her favourite apothecary’s shop in the high street that day to have the dressing changed. When he told her of Thomas’s reprieve, she showed none of the scorn he expected – in fact, he sensed that she was grudgingly pleased that his obvious distress over his little clerk had been lifted.

  After breaking his fast early, he hurried up to Rougemont, his legs, if not his head, back to normal. Gabriel had already told Gwyn of the night’s dramatic happening and the big Cornishman was half drunk with delight and celebratory ale. He had wanted to rush over to the undercroft and drag Thomas out there and then, until the sergeant had cooled him down. ‘Best wait until the crowner has sorted things out with the sheriff and the Justices,’ he warned. ‘We don’t want to mess things up by being too hasty.’

  De Wolfe was about to do this now, and all his witnesses had been gathered in the Shire Hall well before the time when the court session was due to start. They were waiting for the Justices and the sheriff to come across from the keep.

  Richard de Revelle had reluctantly told them the story, and they sat down at one of the clerks’ tables on the platform with solemn faces, a suspicion of a scowl on those of Sir Peter Peverel and Walter de Ralegh.

  De Wolfe stood over them, told them the facts again and produced the leather bag and the parchment note. His own injury was obvious, especially as some blood had seeped through the linen, which made it look all the more impressive. A few of the witnesses from Smythen Street were called to confirm the attack, and Osric nervously added the names of others who could support the story. The judges listened in stony silence, though the Archdeacon from Gloucester looked relieved that one of his brethren looked certain to be declared innocent.

  By this time the cathedral archivist, Canon Jordan de Brent, had appeared, summoned from the dusty Exchequer above the Chapter House. He sat at the table and looked at the most recent message from the Gospel killer, together with the others and the disc of hard candle-wax from the steps of St Mary Arches. He looked intently at them and then shook his head. ‘The writing is deliberately disguised,’ he pronounced. ‘All the notes are different in style and slope and are irregular, so it was not a normal freehand.’ He peered more closely at two of the notes for a moment. ‘Yet I would suggest that these two notes were by the same hand,’ He held up the first, found at the scene of Aaron’s death, and the one from last night. ‘Each of these has a strange hook on the letter T. The writer, though he has successfully varied all his other letters, must have forgotten this one quirk, perhaps in haste or panic. I think it confirms that last night’s message was written by whoever killed the Jew.’

  When he was shown the letter that had been delivered to the sheriff, accusing Thomas of being at the scene of the cordwainer’s death, the old canon declared that the handwriting was unlike that in any other of the notes.

  Though the sheriff and two of the judges argued for several minutes against Thomas’s lack of guilt, they knew they were making bricks without straw and grudgingly, they had to admit that there was no reason to hold him in custody any longer. This was all de Wolfe needed and he bobbed his head in grudging deference to the Justices, gave the sheriff a look of cold disdain and hurried away, leaving them to begin a shortened session, as they had to witness half a dozen hangings at noon – thankfully without Thomas as one of the participants.

  The castle constable came across with the coroner and his officer to deliver Thomas from his cell. Stigand would probably not have accepted de Wolfe’s word alone that his clerk was to be released, even at the risk of Gwyn’s threat to tear off his head. When they entered the cell to tell him the news, the clerk was sitting on the edge of his bed, his book open in his hands. Though the foetid chamber was tiny, he still appeared small within it, looking up at them pathetically. His lank hair hung down like a curtain from his shaven crown and his long, sharp nose seemed to dominate his receding chin even more than usual. When de Wolfe gave him the news of his acquittal and release, he seemed less exultant than they had expected and the coroner wondered fleetingly if Thomas had seen hanging as God’s offering of an alternative to the mortal sin of suicide.

  Yet Gwyn had more than enough enthusiasm for them all. The ginger giant grabbed the puny man in his arms and danced out through the iron gate, yelling in triumph. With his free arm, he shoved the odious gaoler in the chest, sending him sprawling into the stinking straw, then ran out with the clerk into the sunlight of the inner ward.

  A few moments later, they gathered in Gabriel’s guardroom in the gatehouse for a celebratory drink, where even the abstemious Thomas was cajoled into taking a cup of cider. He still had his precious Vulgate clutched in his hand and John suspected that if he had been hanged, it would have been tucked under his arm as he fell from the gibbet.

  The coroner explained in detail what had happened the previous night and the clerk nodded at intervals, seemingly dazed by the speed of events. ‘We’ll get you back to the Bush now. Nesta can feed you and give you a bucket of warm water in the yard to wash off the filth and the lice from that damned cell,’ promised his master.

  ‘Can I start work again today?’ asked Thomas. ‘And go back to the canon’s house to live?’

  Gwyn roared with laughter, but the little clerk was serious.

  ‘Tomorrow, certainly,’ answered de Wolfe gravely. ‘The court session finishes early today.’ There was silence as they realised why this was so and how close Thomas had come to being part of the reason for it.

  Soon Gwyn left to take Thomas to the Bush for the promised food and wash, leaving Ralph Morin and Gabriel sitting with the coroner to finish their ale.

  ‘I’m damned if I’ll attend the hangings today,’ growled John. ‘Let one of the court clerks take the details – we can copy them on to the rolls later.’

  Later, as they walked across the inner ward, they were joined by Brother Rufus coming from the keep. He was intrigued by de Wolfe’s Moorish headgear. When he heard the whole story, he congratulated John on Thomas’s salvation, then listened as Ralph again broached the subject of
the killer: ‘He’s still out there, John. Why do you think he attacked you last night? He must have been following you, to know that you would be leaving the tavern after dark.’

  De Wolfe ran his hands through his thick hair, bunching it back on to his neck. ‘According to the sense of that text he wrote, it seems he was warning me not to investigate so persistently. Some chance he’s got of that – I’m not one to take heed of such threats!’

  ‘Three times he’s failed to kill,’ mused the constable. ‘Is he getting careless – or was it deliberate?’

  De Wolfe snorted. ‘Not much doubt about him being serious when he tied a bag over my head! That’s how he killed the moneylender.’ His hawk-like face, with the downturned lines at each side of his mouth, was a grim mask as he vowed to catch the maniac who still stalked the city. ‘I don’t know how and I don’t know when, Ralph, but one way or another, this bastard has to be stopped,’ he declared.

  The Viking-like constable pulled at his forked beard, his favourite mannerism when perturbed. ‘Where can you start, though?’

  ‘My guts tell me that there’s something very odd about three of the priests on the cathedral list. I’ve spoken to all of them more than once, right up to yesterday – and last night someone tried to put a permanent end to my probing.’

  ‘Which three?’ persisted Morin.

  ‘Y our namesake, Ralph, the madman from All-Hallows-on-the-Wall. Then there’s his neighbour, Adam of Dol, who wants to save us all from hell-fire – he seems to have appointed himself as protector to Ralph and gets into a great fury when I question him. And lastly Julian Fulk, who is obsessed with his own importance, through somehow I don’t see him as a killer.’

  ‘Many of my ecclesiastical and monastic friends are more than a little strange,’ objected Rufus of Bristol, ‘but I doubt that any is a multiple murderer.’

  John shrugged. ‘I agree with you, Brother. But the fact remains that someone is killing or attacking our citizens and all the circumstances point firmly to it being a cleric.’

  Ralph Morin stuck doggedly to practicalities. ‘So what can you do about it? The bloody sheriff seems remarkably uninterested in the matter, though I suspect that the Justices, aggrieved at losing your Thomas, will soon be kicking his arse.’

  De Wolfe winced as a ripple of pain shot through his head from the wound but it soon passed. ‘I’m going down to aggravate those parish priests again,’ he said, with stubborn determination. ‘Especially Ralph de Capra and Adam of Dol. If I tweak their tails hard enough, in their anger they might let something drop. It’s worth a try, for I’ve no other ideas to follow up.’

  The castle constable and his sergeant went off about their business, but the persistent Brother Rufus asked if he could accompany John on his visits to the parish priests. As castle chaplain, he seemed to have plenty of spare time, the coroner thought – but his tiny chapel of St Mary near the gatehouse provided only two services a day, except on Sundays so his duties were far from onerous.

  ‘We’ll wait for Gwyn and Thomas to come back, then walk down towards the West Gate to twist a couple of arms.’

  Outside that same West Gate, the river Exe bulged out over an area of marsh and mud, cut through by leats that filled at high tide and during floods. This was Exe Island, covered in reeds and coarse grass, with some huts, a few small houses and several fulling mills. Every year when the river was in flood, some shacks were washed away and people were drowned, but during this particularly dry month, the Exe was behaving itself. Just upstream of the West Gate, the old wooden footbridge was still the only way to cross with dry feet. Below this was the ford, where all carts, cattle and horsemen had to cross, for the new bridge downstream was still incomplete. Its many long arches spanned dry ground on the city side, allowing for floodwater at spring tides and after storms on Exmoor. There was even a small chapel on this part, though the bridge was nowhere near complete, as the construction of the western part had stopped a year ago when the builder, Nicholas Gervase, ran out of funds.

  Soon after Thomas de Peyne had washed himself down in the yard behind the Bush, another priest was slipping furtively into this tiny church. It was little more than a simple room poised on the upstream edge of one of the piers, projecting out on a buttress fifteen feet above the grassy mud of Exe Island. The interior was virtually bare, except for a stone shelf around the walls and a stone altar covered with a cloth, on which stood a wooden cross. The place was intended for travellers wishing to give thanks for their safe arrival at Exeter or to pray to St Christopher for a safe journey into the wild West Country. A chaplain had been appointed by the diocese, but he visited rarely.

  The priest was carrying a large pottery flask and, incongruously in broad daylight, a small lantern. He produced a flint and tinder and, with some difficulty, his shaking hands managed to light the candle in the lantern, which he placed alongside the cross on the altar. Then he sank to his knees in front of it and, head bowed, began to gabble in a monotone that soon rose to become a frenzied supplication in a mixture of Latin, English and Norman French. This went on for half an hour, the man rocking back and forth on his knees, beating his breast. Finally, he collapsed on the floor and lay flat on his face, his arms and legs spreadeagled on the cool slabs.

  He lay immobile like this for some moments, then silently got up and walked stiffly to the altar, picked up the lantern and the flask and moved like a sleepwalker to the open doorway. Outside in the sunlight, he walked down the unfinished bridge to where the empty roadway came to an abrupt end over the final pier that stood at the edge of the Exe’s main channel. The water flowed smooth and deep below him, as he stood with his feet near the edge.

  Setting down the flask and the lamp, he pulled his long black tunic over his head and threw it on to the ground. When he kicked off his scuffed sandals, he was as naked as the moment he was born.

  Picking up the pitcher, he upturned it over his head and let about a gallon of turpentine mixed with strong Irish spirits gush over his body, holding it until the last drops of the oily liquid had coursed over his shoulders, chest, belly and legs. He threw the pot aside then picked up the lantern. He moved until his toes were curled over the very edge of the masonry, and looked down at the water, moving almost silently below. Then he opened the door of the lantern and, with a cry of exultation and despair, clasped it to his chest so that the flame almost touched his skin. The light spirits ignited into an almost invisible blue flame and flashed across his body. The heat caught the heavier turpentine alight and in seconds, the man was a human torch. With another scream, this time of mortal agony, he threw up his arms and his back arched in unbearable pain.

  Just outside the West Gate, two porters with great packs of raw wool were sitting for a rest, when they saw what seemed to be a flaming crucifix in the distance. With yells of alarm, they sprang up and ran down the bridge towards it, followed by one of the gatekeepers and a few passers-by. Until they reached halfway, the astonished men could still see the writing, contorting figure, from which flame and smoke swirled into the still air. But suddenly and with a final despairing cry, the living cremation pitched forwards and fell into the river below, a last hissing and bubbling marking where the body sank beneath the uncaring surface.

  De Wolfe had just crossed Carfoix when shouts and the sound of running feet coming up Fore Street told him that yet another emergency was in the offing. Gwyn and Brother Rufus were with him, one on each side of Thomas, who seemed to have recovered rapidly from his ordeal.

  As they neared St Olave’s church, people in the street were turning to look at three men jogging up the slope from the West Gate, shouting and waving their arms to attract his attention.

  The leading man panted to a stop in front of him. It was Theobald, the town constable. ‘Crowner, there’s a body just dragged from the river. Can you come quickly?’

  De Wolfe scowled. Drowned bodies were one of the most common type of case he had to deal with. There was usually no great urgency about viewing the
m, especially as now he had other things on his mind.

  ‘Can’t it wait a little? Or get a barrow and take it to the dead-house on the quayside.’

  Theobald shook his head. ‘It happened not half an hour ago. He set fire to himself on the new bridge and then jumped in. It’s a priest, by the clothes he left behind.’

  The word ‘priest’ instantly grabbed John’s attention, but the ever-inquisitive monk got in first. ‘Priest? Who was it?’

  ‘We’re not sure, his face was badly scorched, but it looks like the priest of All-Hallows.’

  ‘Ralph de Capra?’ snapped de Wolfe.

  Theobald nodded. ‘About his height and build. His hair’s burnt off and most of his skin’s gone, but it’s most likely him, especially after that caper he had on the city wall yesterday.’

  They all hurried down towards the river and Theobald led them across the mud of Exe Island below the new bridge, followed by a crowd of onlookers. The corpse had not drifted far: a hundred paces away from where the man had jumped into the river a dead tree had trapped his body in its branches. The two porters who had seen the conflagration on the bridge had rushed down and dragged it ashore, where it now lay on its back on the rough grass. Even in the open air, the smell of cooked flesh was distinct.

  As they stood over it, Thomas and Brother Rufus competed with each other in crossing themselves repeatedly, but John and his officer dropped beside the body into their usual crouch.

  ‘Bit of a mess, but I reckon it’s de Capra right enough,’ said Gwyn. The face was bright red with blackened patches, and was completely skinned, as were much of the shoulders, chest and thighs. All the hair had gone and the scalp was scorched. The burning and swelling of the eyelids and lips made the features grotesque, but there was no doubt that it was the mad priest of All-Hallows-on-the-Wall.

  ‘He’d have been a damned sight worse if he hadn’t jumped in the river,’ offered one of the porters, with morbid satisfaction.