The Awful Secret

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Must you blaspheme every time you open your mouth?’ she retorted, still staring ahead of her. ‘It would be fitter if you went to church more often, instead of the tavern.’ Since the débâcle two months ago, she also avoided mentioning Nesta’s name, though Matilda, like most of Exeter, was well aware of the attraction the Bush Inn held for Sir John de Wolfe.

  ‘I’ve neglected the coroner’s tasks for too long, though Gwyn and Thomas have done their best these past few weeks. I can’t leave matters to them and the bailiffs much longer. I must get out and about as much as my leg will let me – it’s strengthening fast, better each day.’

  He paused, then added, almost reluctantly, ‘Due in large measure to you, Matilda, for which I’m truly grateful.’ He said this awkwardly, as even a hint of intimacy was foreign to their relationship.

  She swung round on her chair, the heavy skirt of her brocade kirtle swishing on the flagstones. ‘You have your duty as coroner and I have mine as your wife. I wasn’t going to allow some drab of a maid or a doxy from the lower town care for your injury. It was bad enough having that hairy Cornish creature or that pervert of an ex-priest hanging about the house most of the time.’

  De Wolfe sighed, sensing that things were rapidly getting back to normal between them after their relative truce of the past two months. But a developing quarrel was blunted by the appearance of Mary with a tray bearing a large wooden bowl of broth and bread trenchers covered in pork and cabbage. She was followed by the emaciated form of old Simon, their yard servant who chopped wood and tended the fires and the privy. He brought a pitcher of hot wine with two pewter mugs, and the business of eating and drinking diverted the ever-hungry Matilda from her nagging.

  After champing her way through a large meal, including the slab of bread that did service for a plate on the scrubbed boards of the table, and drinking the better part of a pint of mulled wine, Matilda abruptly broke her silence by announcing that she was going to the solar to have her hair brushed by Lucille, though de Wolfe suspected that she was going to sleep off the effects of her full belly.

  She stalked out without another word and, thankfully, he took his mug across to the hearth and sank into one of the monk’s chairs, which had wooden sides and a hood to keep off the draughts that came from the unglazed windows, covered in linen screens. Brutus came to lay his big brown head on his master’s knees, and John stared absently into the fire as he fondled the animal’s ears.

  Mary appeared to clear away the debris of the meal and scour the table. ‘Thomas called earlier. He said he would bring some work at about the second hour.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the nearby cathedral, whose bells for its many services told the city the time. ‘I gave him some food, too. The poor man looks half starved,’ she added, with a hint of accusation that de Wolfe underpaid his clerk. The little ex-priest received a penny a day from the coroner’s own pocket, which – as he enjoyed a free mattress laid in a servant’s hut in one of the canon’s houses in the Close – should have been ample to feed him. It was certainly far more than he had had until last September: he had been virtually destitute since he had been thrown out of Winchester, where he had had a teaching post in the cathedral school. One of the girl pupils had accused him of an indecent assault. After failing to scratch a living by writing letters for merchants, he had walked to Exeter and thrown himself on the mercy of his uncle, Archdeacon John de Alençon. A good friend of de Wolfe, the canon prevailed on the new coroner to take Thomas as his clerk, for the little ex-priest was highly proficient with quill and parchment.

  The coroner was almost dozing off, replete with food and warm wine, when the scrape of the door on the stones jerked him into wakefulness. He turned, expecting to see his clerk, but it was Gwyn of Polruan, named after his home village, a fishing hamlet on the Fowey river. The huge man poked his head inside first, wary in case Matilda was at home: she looked on anyone who was not a Norman as some sub-species of mankind, especially Celts. She hated the thought that her husband was half Welsh, from which stemmed much of her virulent dislike of her mother-in-law.

  ‘It’s safe, Gwyn, she’s up in the solar,’ said de Wolfe, guessing the reason for his officer’s hesitation. He kept his voice down as there was a narrow slit high in the hall that communicated with the upper room.

  The Cornishman padded in and stood by the coroner’s chair. De Wolfe was taller than average, but Gwyn more than equalled his height and had a massive body that made the coroner look thin by comparison. He had an unruly mop of wiry hair and a huge bushy moustache that drooped down each side of his mouth almost to his chest. Bright blue eyes shone out above a bulbous nose. ‘I’ve shifted our belongings down to that festering hole in the ground that the sheriff so generously gave us,’ he growled. ‘I hope to God your leg mends even faster so that we can go back up to our proper chamber.’

  ‘Anything new occurred today?’ asked John. ‘Any deaths or woundings?’

  Gwyn shook his shaggy head. ‘Nothing today. There are two hangings at the Magdalen tree tomorrow, which you should attend if you can.’

  One of the duties of the coroner was to seize for the king’s treasury, the chattels of condemned felons and to record the fact of execution and the profit – if any – on his rolls. This would be presented to the royal judges, along with every other legal aspect of life in Devon, when they eventually trundled to the county as the General Eyre. It was different from the Eyre of Assize, which was supposed to come each quarter to try serious cases, but which was often a year late.

  ‘I saw that fellow again today – twice, in fact,’ remarked de Wolfe. ‘I’m sure he’s following me, but with this leg I’ve no chance of catching him.’

  Gwyn frowned. Anything that threatened his master, even remotely, was something to be taken seriously. Although the city was a fairly safe place inside its stout walls, with its gates locked from dusk to dawn, he knew that Sir John had quite a few enemies, most of them antagonistic to his fierce loyalty to the king. ‘I must keep a sharper eye out for him,’ he rumbled. ‘I’ll follow you when you’re riding or walking the streets. If I see anyone, or if you give me the wink that he’s there, I’ll have the bastard, never fear!’

  With this grim promise, he lumbered out, but de Wolfe had no chance to slide into slumber as he heard his henchman’s voice in the vestibule and almost immediately the door opened again to admit Thomas de Peyne, who sidled through the wooden screens put up to reduce the draughts.

  His clerk was a poor specimen of a man, short and scrawny, with a slight hump on his back and a lame left leg, both due to childhood phthisis, which had carried away his mother. Thin, lank brown hair, a slight squint, a long, pointed nose and a weak chin all conspired to make him the least attractive of men, which was emphasized even more by his threadbare clothes – a grey tunic under a thin black cloak. Though expelled from the clergy almost two years ago, he still hankered passionately after his old vocation, and those who did not know his history often assumed that he was still a priest. Living in the servants’ quarters of a canon’s house and associating with clergy every day, he kept abreast of all the ecclesiastical gossip, which was often useful to John de Wolfe.

  However, for all his unprepossessing appearance, Thomas possessed an agile and cunning brain, and had a remarkable talent for penmanship. His knowledge of history, politics and the classic writers was remarkable, and though de Wolfe and Gwyn pretended to be contemptuous of his puny physique and timid nature, they were secretly quite fond of the little ex-cleric.

  Thomas came across the hall in his customary tentative manner, his writing materials slung in their usual place over his shoulder. ‘Are you up to date with your rolls?’ demanded his master. The clerk lifted the flap of his bag and produced two palimpsests – parchments that had been reused several times: the old writing was scraped off and the surface rubbed with chalk to make it ready for new ink.

  ‘These are the last two inquests, Crowner. And the names of the last two weeks’ hangings, with
a record of their chattels, such as they were.’ He handed the rolls to de Wolfe, who stared at the first few lines of each and silently mouthed the Latin words Thomas had been so laboriously teaching him these past weeks. ‘Will you read them aloud for practice?’ suggested Thomas hesitantly. Sometimes de Wolfe was in no mood for reading practice and today seemed one of those occasions.

  ‘Too damned tired, Thomas! Maybe my wife is right. Riding that horse this morning has taken it out of me.’ In truth, several quarts of ale at the Bush and the wine at his midday meal were more the reason for his torpor. ‘Anything else happening?’ he asked. His clerk was the nosiest man in Exeter and often provided gossip that kept him informed of many of the city’s intrigues.

  Thomas shook his head glumly. He liked nothing better than to feel part of the coroner’s team, and to have no titbit of scandal to pass on made him feel as if he had shirked his duty.

  ‘Have you seen this damned fellow peering after me around corners these past few days?’ de Wolfe demanded.

  Thomas’s bright, bird-like eyes flicked to the shuttered window. ‘The man in the street Gwyn told me about? No, I’ve been up in the gatehouse writing these rolls. But I’ll keep a look-out now, with Gwyn. Have you any idea who it might be?’

  ‘Indeed not. I thought you might have heard of some new arrival in the city that might match this knave. About thirty-five, strong-looking, his face shaved and his clothing an unremarkable dun brown, with a wide-brimmed pilgrim’s hat that shades his eyes.’

  The little clerk looked worried, as if his inability to know of every transient passing through Exeter was a personal failing. ‘Perhaps he is a pilgrim, then – or masquerading as one. Have a care, Crowner, you have enemies in this county.’

  At that moment, the door grated open and Matilda marched in, refreshed from her nap in the solar. She was dressed in a heavy green mantle over her kirtle and a white linen coverchief was wrapped decorously around her temples and neck, secured at her forehead by a silk band. Behind her followed Lucille, her sallow face framed by a brown woollen shawl.

  As soon as Matilda saw Thomas, the expression on her face changed as if she had just trodden in something left by Brutus. Without a word, the clerk scooped up his rolls and scuttled from the hall. ‘You shouldn’t let that little pervert bring his work here to tire you out, John,’ she snapped.

  ‘It’s not his work, woman, it’s my work!’ retorted de Wolfe. ‘Thank God I can get back to something approaching my duties.’

  His wife ignored this and dropped heavily on to one of the settles near the hearth. ‘Let’s see that leg of yours, husband. Brother Saulf warned you to make sure it doesn’t swell again by putting too much strain on it.’

  ‘Damn it, woman, there’s nothing to see now! It’s almost as good as new.’

  ‘Do as you’re told, John. I’ve not cared for you all these weeks for my work to be undone now by your neglect.’

  Reluctantly, he sat on the chair opposite her and, with the rabbit-toothed Lucille staring from across the room, he hauled up the skirt of his long tunic and pushed down his grey woollen hose to the ankle. ‘There, I told you. You’d not know anything had been amiss with it.’

  The leg certainly looked well, the last traces of redness on the shin having faded and the slight deformity almost gone. Matilda reached out a ringed finger and prodded it, but could feel no puffiness. There was nothing but a smooth ridge under the skin where the broken ends of the shinbone had knitted together.

  ‘I told you, I’m back to normal again. You don’t have to complain about me riding a horse. God knows, I’ve had worse injuries than this in my campaigning days.’

  He hauled up his stocking again and stood up. ‘Now that I’ve prised a makeshift chamber from your brother, I can get back to business.’

  The mention of Richard de Revelle silenced her, as usual now since he had so narrowly escaped disgrace. After a moment, she abruptly changed the subject. ‘It’s high time the Justiciar, or someone in Winchester or London, filled these vacant coronerships,’ she said. ‘Walter Fitzrogo fell from his horse more than six months ago and has never been replaced. Even before that, the county was one crowner short – and then you go acting the fool and break a leg. Is that any way to run a country?’ She might have added that it would be better for England if the king stayed at home and paid more attention to the affairs of his realm, but she knew that criticism of the Lionheart would stir her husband into a passionate diatribe of loyalty to his sovereign.

  ‘Well, no one wants the job, so I’ve got to make the best of it,’ he growled, tired of the same old complaints from his wife. He sensed that she was leading up to another tirade about his being away from home so much, neglecting her and failing especially to pander to the social life of the county aristocracy, which meant so much to her.

  ‘You’ll be forcing yourself on to that great horse every hour of the day just to defy me! You’ll regret it – that leg is not yet fit for riding. You’ll fall from the saddle like Fitzrogo, or get a purulent fever in the bone. I suppose you’d like to make me a widow, just for spite!’

  Exasperated at the accuracy of his predictions, John moved towards the door. ‘No fear of that, wife! I’ve not been outside the walls of Exeter these past two months. It’s high time I began getting around more. And that’s just what I’m going to do now. I’ve not been through one of the city gates since they carried me home on a cart from Bull Mead.’

  He banged the heavy door behind him, and as he sat on the bench in the vestibule to pull on his riding boots, Mary appeared from the passageway. ‘Did I hear raised voices in there?’ she asked. A dark-eyed, attractive woman, she was the bastard daughter of a Norman man-at-arms whose name neither she nor her Saxon mother had ever known.

  ‘Same old story, that I’m always away and neglecting her – she’s getting back to normal, more’s the pity,’ he muttered. ‘I’m going for a ride around the outside of the walls, if anyone wants me.’

  As she handed him his mottled grey wolfskin cloak from a peg on the wall, Mary virtually repeated Matilda’s caution. ‘Watch that leg of yours, Sir Crowner! You’re not as young as you think, remember.’

  As he threw the cloak around his shoulders, he gave her a quick kiss. ‘I’m still young enough to creep under your blanket tonight, if you’d let me!’ She pushed him away with mock annoyance, fearful that Matilda or her maid might appear, but de Wolfe pulled open the iron-banded front door and stepped into the narrow street.

  A few minutes later, he was riding Odin sedately through the Close around the cathedral, picking his way along the criss-crossing paths between the piles of rubbish and earth from new graves that made such an unsightly contrast to the soaring church with its two great towers. Urchins ran around yelling or playing ball and hawkers touted shrivelled apples and meat pies to the loungers and gossipers who stood or squatted around the untidy precinct. He came out through Bear Gate into Southgate Street and pushed his way past the throng around the butcher’s stalls, where more hawkers squatted behind their baskets of produce. With almost a sense of adventure, he passed under the arch of the South Gate, with its prison cells in the towers on each side, and emerged from the city for the first time in many weeks. Ahead of him, past the small houses, huts and shacks that had sprung up outside the walls, the road forked into Holloway and Magdalen Street, leading to Honiton, Yeovil and, eventually, distant Winchester and London, which to most residents of Exeter were as remote as the moon.

  De Wolfe turned right and followed the city wall steeply down towards the river, where a number of small vessels were beached on the muddy banks. A stone quay and some thatched storehouses lay at the corner of the walls, where the line of the ancient Roman defences turned towards the West Gate and the road to South Devon and Cornwall. He plodded along slowly, taking in the familiar sight of the broad, shallow river, which meandered through the swampy islands that carried the mean shacks of the workers from the fulling mills which processed the wool that was the prime
wealth of England.

  Reining in Odin at the edge of one of the broad reens of muddy water that separated Exe Island from the bank, he watched the traffic coming out of the West Gate. Those on foot or with small handcarts, even some on a donkey or pony, used the rickety wooden footbridge that spanned the river and the grassy mud to reach the further bank. Large vehicles, like the ox-carts with their huge wooden wheels, and anyone on horseback had to ford the river, which here was just at the upper limit of the tidal reach.

  His gaze travelled to the stone bridge, the huge project still less than half finished. The builders, Nicholas Gervase and his son Walter, had completed seven of the eighteen arches needed to span the marshy river, but even though they were wealthy mill-owners, their funds had run out. Until they could raise more from the burgesses and churchmen of Devon, travellers would still have to clamber or wade across the Exe. Even though it was incomplete, the city end of the bridge already had a chapel built on it, with a resident priest, a token of Nicholas’s beholdenment to his ecclesiastical paymasters.

  As John de Wolfe sat taking his ease on the broad back of his stallion, watching life go by with almost lazy contentment, he became aware of another horse coming up behind him at a trot. Without needing to turn, he knew from the clip of the hoofs that it was Gwyn’s big brown mare and a twinge of annoyance came over him at the idea that he needed a nursemaid on such a short jaunt as this.

  Then he wondered whether the Cornishman had managed to seize his mysterious stalker, but as his officer stopped alongside, he found that he was wrong on both counts.

  ‘Mary told me you’d be somewhere outside the walls,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘I thought I’d best find you now, in case you wanted to make some arrangements for the morning.’

  De Wolfe’s black eyebrows rose up his forehead. ‘What arrangements?’

  ‘A rider has just come to Rougemont from Oliver de Tracey’s bailiff at Barnstaple to report a murdered man on a wrecked ship at Ilfracombe.’