A Plague of Heretics (44 page)

But to kill his own sister? It was unthinkable – yet he had turned up at the very moment that John had discovered her body. A coincidence or clever planning? Could de Revelle have been so devious, cunning and evil as to arrange this as a means of at last getting even with his hated brother-in-law, who had so shamed him before all their peers?

He shook his head in bewilderment, unable to focus any longer on the problem. Walking to the door, he looked out into the twilight, where the first stars were appearing in the clear, cold and windy sky. A lone sentry stood a few yards away, a token posted there by Ralph Morin, though as there were two more in the guard-room of the gatehouse, the only exit to the inner ward, it seemed unnecessary. If John had ideas of escape, he would have to think of a better plan than just walking out under the portcullis.

A figure was striding over the drawbridge across the dry moat, and from its rolling gait, a legacy of his fisherman youth, John recognised Gwyn, clutching a basket no doubt containing Martha’s supper. He suddenly realised that he was hungry, in spite of the vicissitudes of the day, and soon he was sitting with his officer at the back of the chapel, devouring a meat pie and a couple of capon’s thighs, washed down with a wineskin of Anjou red.

‘No doubt you’ll hear from Stoke and Dawlish tomorrow,’ said Gwyn consolingly. ‘I saw Andrew at the stables and he said he sent his most reliable man down on a good horse.’

After he had gone, Rufus the chaplain held a late service for half a dozen men-at-arms and several of their wives, but John stayed discreetly at the back of the nave, virtually invisible in the dim light from half a dozen rushlights placed around the chancel. Rufus wished him goodnight after a simple prayer, then John lay down on the floor, wrapped in his cloak and two blankets that Gwyn had brought. Used to far worse sleeping places on many a campaign, he was quite comfortable, and even the knowledge that Matilda’s cold body was only twenty paces away did not deter him from sleeping dreamlessly until dawn.

True to his word, Archdeacon John de Alençon came soon after dawn with his nephew Thomas and a covered wagon drawn by a black mare. They all said prayers over Matilda’s body, Thomas being very concerned that she had not received the last rites before her dying breath. Then several lay brothers from the cathedral carried the bier out to the wagon and John was left alone again.

During the morning, all his usual friends came in to talk to him and keep him company for a while, but he was fretting to get news of his family in Stoke-in-Teignhead and of Hilda in Dawlish. He expected either the bailiff or reeve from Stoke to come and possibly the reeve from Holcombe, Hilda’s father, whom he had known for almost all his life.

Around noon, he was waiting for the dinner that Gwyn had promised to bring him, spending the time in anguished thought about how he could possibly track down his wife’s killer. If no other means offered itself, he decided he would somehow break out of the castle and go into hiding in the city, though with his distinctive appearance that would be very difficult. Even his height alone, apart from his black hair and great hooked nose, made him stand out in a city where virtually everyone knew him by sight. He was morosely contemplating these problems when a voice hailed him from the doorway.

‘John, I’ve brought you your dinner!’

His head jerked up and delight filled his face when he saw Hilda coming across the nave, with his mother close behind. Lurking near the door were Gwyn and Thomas, holding back from this family meeting.

Hilda, grasping a basket in her hands, stood aside while Enyd de Wolfe rushed forward and hugged her son to her breast. Though a tough, resolute woman, there were tears in her eyes, as there were in Hilda’s, when she in turn fell into John’s arms.

When the emotion of the moment had passed, they sat on the stone ledge, with John between the two women.

‘Gwyn and Thomas have told us all the details of this ridiculous arrest,’ began Enyd, but her son cut her short.

‘First, I must know about William. I am almost afraid to ask!’

His mother’s face broke into a smile, though tears appeared again in her eyes. ‘Dear Thomas’s fervent prayers, added to ours, have been answered, John!’ she said. ‘You brother is recovering, though slowly. His wits returned yesterday and his bladder functions again for the first time in weeks.’

Overjoyed, John grasped Enyd around the waist and kissed her fervently, then turned to give several more kisses to Hilda.

‘That news puts all my troubles in the shade,’ he boomed. ‘Hear that, Gwyn and Thomas? William is on the road to recovery!’

‘It will take some time,’ warned his mother. ‘On Saturday a White Canon came from the new Torre Abbey, learned in physic. He confirmed what Thomas had said, that with the yellow plague, many die, some recover quickly and others take weeks or months to get back to health.’

Immensely relieved by the news, John allowed them to pass on to Matilda’s death and all the drama that had followed, which again reduced the two women to tears of concern over his present precarious position.

‘What can you do to destroy this vile accusation?’ sobbed his mother. ‘That evil man de Revelle – I would like to tear his heart out!’

‘Maybe I will, if you can’t get out of here to do it yourself, John,’ said Hilda, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve. De Wolfe recalled that this was the stalwart woman who the previous year had gone looking for her husband’s assassins and had actually killed one of them with her own hand.
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His mother soon insisted that he begin eating the game pie and grilled trout that the good Martha had sent for him.

‘She is a wonderful woman. You are lucky to have her for a wife, Gwyn!’ she said. ‘We are staying at the Bush until this nonsense is settled.’

John soon learned that the two women had ridden all the way on horseback, shunning any form of cart or litter. With a bailiff and a reeve as escort, his mother had travelled from Stoke across the Teign on the Shaldon ferry and stayed with Hilda the previous night, coming on to Exeter that morning.

When the food had been eaten and every detail of the story recounted, John made them tell him again of the way in which William had showed signs of recovery and the degree to which he was improving.

‘He is now quite rational in his speech, thank God, though very weak,’ said his mother, crossing herself in unison with Thomas, who stood behind, smiling benignly. ‘He recalls almost nothing of the many days that he was delirious and without speech, but already he is planning the crops he wants planted in the spring! Evelyn has stayed behind to care for him; otherwise she would have been with us.’

After an hour Enyd pleaded fatigue, though she looked as energetic as ever, but she made Gwyn and Thomas escort her back to the Bush for food and rest – an obvious ploy to leave Hilda alone with her son.

The two sat side by side on the cold stone, holding hands, the most they felt able to do in this consecrated place.

‘What will become of us, John?’ she asked quietly. ‘I know you can hang for this unless the real killer can be unmasked.’

‘That will never happen, Hilda my love,’ he said with a confidence that he did not fully believe. ‘I have forty days’ grace, but I shall not stay in here for long. Henry de Furnellis is in a difficult position and I would not wish to get him into deep trouble by allowing him to connive at my escape. But I will manage it, never fear. I have given no promise not to try.’

Neither of them wished to mention the obvious consequence of Matilda’s death, that he was now a free man. With her body as yet unburied and John committed to trial for murder, it was a forbidden subject, yet both of them knew that the possible outcome hovered unbidden over them.

Eventually, he reluctantly sent her away to join his mother at the Bush, with her promise that she and Enyd would come again that evening. All his friends came one by one during the rest of the day, including Mary, who brought Brutus up to see him at the door of the chapel. His first news for every visitor was the recovery of his brother, not a discussion of his own predicament. He even joined Brother Rufus on his knees at the altar in solemn and genuine thanksgiving for William’s escape from death.

Henry de Furnellis came to see him late in the afternoon and again pleaded for John’s understanding of the difficult position in which he had been placed by Aubrey de Courtenay.

‘He is strongly under the influence of Richard de Revelle, who detests me for replacing him as sheriff,’ he said bitterly. ‘Though God knows I did not seek the bloody job! All I want is a quiet life down at my manor, but if I put a foot wrong over this affair he will see that I am dishonoured and ruined.’

Once again, John tried to assure his friend that he knew the problem and he forbade Henry to take any risks with his honour and reputation. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I will miss any opportunity to find a way out of this damned place!’ he added vehemently.

They went over the same old ground again, trying to think of possible suspects and ways to flush them out, but made no progress.

‘I suppose I could re-arrest those two swine we had here in the undercroft, if they poke their noses outside the cathedral Close,’ suggested the sheriff. ‘Then I could set Stigand on to them and see what he can wring out of them with his persuasive instruments!’

‘That will get you into trouble with the bishop, Henry,’ warned John. ‘Best let things lie for the moment. I’ll think of something. I still have Gwyn and clever little Thomas to work for me on the outside.’

When Henry had gone, John sat slumped on his flinty ledge as yet another dusk began to creep over the city. He rubbed his chin, where a black stubble was forming, as he had missed his weekly wash and shave on Saturday. His black hair, worn long at the back, was greasy and tangled, and he felt generally grubby and unkempt. ‘Forty days of this and I’ll be looking like some wild hermit from a cave on Dartmoor!’ he muttered to himself.

In desperation he began plotting how to escape from Rougemont, the fortress on the hill. John had noticed an old Benedictine habit belonging to Rufus hanging in an alcove at the back of the chapel. He thought he might pass himself off as the chaplain, if he padded his belly with a blanket to imitate the fat monk’s figure and pulled the hood well over his face. Getting past the sentry at the gate was the problem, but maybe Gwyn could cause some sort of diversion to distract him, such as a fire at the other end of the inner ward. He decided to broach the subject when the Cornishman brought up his supper that evening. But once again Fate had other plans.

Mary was seated in her kitchen-hut at the back of John’s house, thinking what she might take up to him tomorrow for his dinner. When she had visited him earlier, she demanded to be allowed to feed him, as well as the supply from the Bush.

‘I am your cook, Sir Coroner!’ she claimed, using the title she employed when she was annoyed or sarcastic. ‘You house me and pay for the food we eat, so I am going to feed you.’ Her mild impertinence was a cover for her deep concern for him, as well as for her own future if he ended up swinging at the end of a rope. She sat fondling the old hound’s ears and trying to decide between another meat pie, which was easier to eat at the back of a church, or a grilled fowl in a basket.

As she sat in the fading evening light, she gradually became aware of a moaning sound nearby. Brutus pricked up his ears and padded out of the shed, his head cocked on one side as he listened.

‘What is it, lad?’ she asked him, as he stared at the high wooden fence that separated their yard from the one next door. The dog gave a deep woof and went to the bottom of the fence and scratched at the rough boards. Mary put her eye to one of the narrow cracks but could see nothing in the poor light. Then the sound came again, a gasping croak, followed by more soft moaning.

Unable to see over the fence, the cook-maid turned and ran up the wooden steps that led to the solar, the room that projected high up from the back of the house. Halfway up, she peered over into the next-door yard and saw someone lying on the ground, moving feebly. Mary shouted down, but there was no response. As she hurried back down the steps, Lucille emerged from her cubicle underneath, disturbed by the footsteps and the shouting.

‘What’s happening, Mary?’ she said fearfully, her nervous nature already stretched to its limit by all the recent troubles. The two women were not good friends, as Mary knew she had often carried tales to Matilda, but the present upheaval in the household had submerged their differences.

‘It looks as if Mistress Cecilia has been taken ill. I hope by every saint in the calendar that it’s not the plague!’

The dark-haired cook jogged around the side passage to the vestibule and went out into Martin’s Lane, Lucille following timidly in her wake. Mention of the plague had abruptly dampened her willingness to help, but she felt obliged to see what was happening.

Mary ran to the front door of the doctor’s house and saw that it was wide open. At the threshold, she called out, as a servant had no right to barge in to someone else’s dwelling, but there was no response. With Lucille close behind, she stepped straight into the darkened hall, as there was no vestibule as in the de Wolfe house.

The door to the yard was at the back of the large chamber, and a faint rectangle of light showed that it, too, was open. Mary made towards it but was pulled up by a piercing shriek from the French woman behind her, who had veered off slightly to her left and tripped over the legs of a body on the floor.