Figure of Hate (14 page)

In which Crowner John intervenes in a fight

The last few jousts following the Peverel debacle were something of an anti-climax, and less than an hour later everyone was streaming away from Bull Mead, heading for either home or the alehouses. They had plenty to talk about, and the Bush Inn was one of the places where the gossip was most rife. At his table near the hearth, John de Wolfe was relating the story to Nesta and Gwyn, with Edwin the potman and a few regular patrons standing behind them, their ears flapping to hear the details from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

'I've always heard that Hugo was a nasty piece of work,' growled Gwyn, over the rim of his pottery jug of ale. 'Terrible temper, they say. He was suspected of beating some poor sod of a groom near to death iast year, for some trifling fault.'

The coroner's officer-had not long arrived back from st James' Priory, though John had expected him much earlier. It seemed that the silversmith's assistant had suffered a dizzy attack after rising from his sickbed and the monks had insisted on his resting for a few more hours before leaving on the hired horse.

'How well do you know this Hugo?' asked Nesta, sitting close to John, her arm linked comfortably with his.

'I know little about him, except to recognise him by sight. After today, I don't want to acknowledge him at all, unless I have to in the line of duty.'

'He was in Outremer with us, wasn't he?' asked Gwyn, vigorously scratching his unruly mop of red hair where the lice were irritating his scalp.

'I recall that he was there briefly, but never in our formation, thank God. I believe he arrived at Acre at the same time as the King, but on a different ship from us. I never saw him in the Holy Land, but we have to give him the credit of being a Crusader, I suppose.'

'I heard a rumour that he left within a couple of months and went back to Cyprus,' persisted Gwyn.

'The other fellow, the Frenchman, he was there as well,' piped up Edwin, who, as an old soldier, was keen on any gossip that had a military flavour. 'He was with Philip's army at Acre, so they say.'

Gwyn scowled into his pot. 'They soon went home with their tails between their legs,' he said with unusual spite. The Church and the French were the Cornishman's two pet hates. De Wolfe could understand his aversion to their French enemies, but he had never discovered the cause of his anethema to all things ecclesiastical.

'What happened after the joust?' asked Nesta. 'This Reginald could hardly have been happy about the outcome.'

'Well, he won twice over - unhorsing Peverel and then striking his sword from his grasp. It was a fair fight until Hugo lost his temper and threw a lance at him.'

'And at his bloody head, too, by your account,' growled Gwyn, disgusted at this breach of knightly etiquette.

'So they just walked off together?' persisted Nesta, always curious about people's behaviour.

'Hardly together, the Frenchman couldn't bring himself even to look at Peverel. He stalked away, white around the gills, and left Hugo glowering around like a baited bull. I presume their squires had to get together to arrange the hand-over of the winnings.'

'De Charterai will get his armour, his sword and his horse and harness, the usual loot for a winner,' added Gwyn, with evident satisfaction.

The landlady shook her head in wonder at the strange things that the aristocracy got up to. She had never heard tell of such goings-on in Wales, though it was true that some of the princes and heads of household were starting to ape the Normans in many of their ways.

Eventually, the group exhausted the talk about the tournament and the fair, moving on to other matters.

Nesta pressed John to take some food, but he excused himself on the grounds that he had to attend a feast that evening in the Guildhall, given by the tournament council in celebration of the day's jousting. All the participating knights would be there, as well as the organising officials and the adjudicators -John was intrigued and a little apprehensive as to whether Hugo Peverel and Reginald de Charterai would be present.

Though he had seen little of Matilda these past few days, he knew full well that she would insist on attending, as any event where the great and the good of the county were present was a magnet to her ambitions of social advancement. The dismissal of her brother from the shrievalty had certainly dampened her aggressive social climbing, but he knew she would turn out for an event such as this.

The tavern was even busier than usual this evening and the big taproom was crammed to capacity, with drinkers standing shoulder to shoulder, jostling those sitting at the few tables and benches set on the rush, covered earth floor. With the fire going and a full house, the atmosphere could almost be cut like a cheese, redolent with wood smoke, spilt ale, sweat and unwashed bodies. When Nesta and the potman had been called away to settle some domestic crisis, John turned to Gwyn to "talk business.

'You took this Terrus fellow to his lodging, you say?' His officer nodded, wiping ale from his luxuriant moustache. 'He was a bit weak after his ride, though it was no great distance. I left him with the silversmith who stayed behind on your orders.'

'We'll see him in the morning. I'll have to hold this inquest later, as the body won't keep much longer, even though the weather's fairly cool. And the family will be up from Totnes, wanting to take it for burial.' Gwyn nodded. 'I'll round up those men from the quay-side and a few others for a jury - though I can't see us getting very far towards any conclusion. The bastards that killed the merchant could be in the next county by now.'

De Wolfe swallowed the last of his ale and stood up.

'I'm hoping they may still be hanging about at this fair, so maybe we'll get lucky tomorrow. We need that Terrus fellow to be out and about with his eyes open, to see if he can spot them. Now I'm off home to get ready for this damned feast.'

He waved a goodbye to Nesta, who was standing across the room with arms akimbo, watching Edwin and one of her regular customers drag a vomiting drunk out through the back door to pitch him into the yard to sober up. John smiled at the thought of such a pretty, affectionate and passionate woman having such an indomitable strength of spirit after all the troubles she had suffered these past few years, and he turned his steps homeward with a glow of pride at having her still love him.

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The Guildhall was a single large chamber with a high beamed ceiling, entered directly from High Street through an arched doorway. The new stone building had replaced a previous smaller wooden one, needed as Exeter developed its commerce and wealth, mainly due to the wool, cloth and tin industries that were rapidly making it a rich city. But there were many more merchants and crafts than these staple industries, and most had their own guilds to protect the interests of their owners and workers, the Guildhall providing a centre for these organisations. The burgesses elected a pair of portreeves to lead the city council - though there was now talk of having a 'mayor', as in London and a few other cities. These two worthies were already sitting in the centre of the high table as John de Wolfe escorted his wife into the hall. As he had anticipated, Matilda had swiftly raised herself from her depression over her brother's fall from grace. The prospect of an evening among the upper class of the county was too great an attraction for her to miss, especially as she had to put on a good face before her matronly friends from St Olave's, who were the wives of burgesses and some manor-lords who had houses in the city. For Matilda not to lose face and to ride out the gossip and sniggers about her brother, she had to continue to appear in public as before - apparently unconcerned and proud to be the wife of the coroner, the second-most important law officer in the county.

Tonight she had tormented her maid Lucille into dressing her with special care, wrestling her lacklustre hair into two coiled plaits, trapped above each ear in a crespine of gilded mesh. She wore a new kirtle of deep red velvet, held at the waist by a gilt cord, the tassels of which swept the floor, as did the tippets on the cuffs of her ridiculously wide sleeves. Her best mantle of black wool was secured at the left shoulder by a large circular buckle, but she made sure that she pulled the corner of the cloak free from the silver ring as soon they entered the hall, so that her friends could get a good view of her new gown.

By contrast - and to his wife's eternal annoyance John was dressed as usual in a dull grey tunic under his worn wolfskin cloak. His only gesture to sartorial elegance was the fact that the tunic was brand new and he had had an extra shave before coming, though he was not due for one until the following Saturday. He was the despair of Matilda in many ways, but in her eyes one of his major faults was that he refused to wear even the more restrained fashions, let alone the bright variety of colours sported by many of his acquaintances.

She accepted that he would never become a strutting peacock like many other men, especially Hugo de Relaga, but she suspected that John stuck to his funereal garb just to annoy her.

Tonight, as they entered the already crowded hall, they were met by one of the guild servants, and Matilda was overjoyed when he led them to the upper end of the hall. As one of the tournament judges, as well as being coroner, John was awarded a place at the top table, albeit towards one end. His wife was delighted to be able to sit on the slightly raised dais and look down at the three long tables set at right angles below, where all her church cronies were seated, mild envy and a little jealousy evident in their eyes.

The feast was the usual noisy, boisterous occasion with plenty of food and too much drink. As soon as one of the cathedral canons had said grace, there followed a couple of hours of frantic eating, with servants hurrying a continuous succession of courses from the large kitchen hut behind the hall. The hall was crowded and, when laden with dishes, trays and jugs, the servants had to push and shove with ill grace through the narrow spaces between the rows of tables.

Their work was made more difficult by uncaring diners getting up and moving around to chat and drink with friends elsewhere in the hall. Many were slightly the worse for drink even before they arrived, and drunken squabbles were to be expected where a crowd of lusty men were gathered, many of them young and full of arrogance. Tonight's assembly was even more volatile, with almost all the knights from the tournament present, half of them flushed with success and winnings, the other half resentful at the loss of both their pride and their accoutrements.

Martha had John de Alençon on her left, the archdeacon being a considerate and intelligent companion, for all his priestly asceticism. Beyond him was Henry de Furnellis, the new sheriff, not a great purveyor of conversation, but an amiable enough fellow on social occasions.

De Wolfe, last but one on the table, had the warden of the guild of tanners on the end next to him, but thankfully he was too devoted to eating and drinking to spend time boring John about the problems of the leather industry. He owned the largest tannery in the city, so was not himself a worker, but he still gave off the distinctive odour of his profession, contributed to by the pits of dog droppings that were used to deflesh the cow hides.

As the meal progressed and the autumn evening faded towards twilight outside, candles and tapers were lit around the room. The level of noise increased steadily as the wine, ale and cider flowed from the casks and wineskins stacked behind the top table. Hugo de Relaga and Guy Ferrars made thankfully short speeches of welcome and commendation for all who had worked hard to make the fair and tournament a success. Wisely, they did this early in the meal, before things got too rowdy and when there was still a chance of some of their audience bothering to listen.

The early courses had been devoured and much of the debris cleared away, the capons, geese, swans, ducks, mutton, fish and part-eaten trenchers all having been reduced to scraps, which were taken out to the street, where a small crowd of beggars were waiting expectantly to scrabble for the leftovers, chasing away the mangy dogs that had the same idea in mind. Now the sweets and puddings were served, together with fruit - mainly apples, pears and some more exotic imports from France, such as figs and oranges. A trio of musicians attempted to entertain the diners, but though they persisted valiantly, they could hardly be heard over the hubbub, and those who could hear them took little notice. The festivities had reached the stage where a few men were staggering out to be sick in the central gutter of High Street, and several more had fallen down senseless with drink, little notice being taken of them by anyone, except their indignant wives.

John's tanner eventually went to sleep across the table, his head on his arms as he snored. The coroner, who had eaten well himself, had little to do except study the crowd below, as Matilda was deep in conversation with his friend the archdeacon, no doubt discussing Church matters, which fascinated his wife even more than the social hierarchy of Devonshire.

As his eyes roved around, he picked out many of the contestants from Bull Mead upon whom he had adjudicated that day. The Frenchman, Reginald de Charterai, was just below him, near the top of the central spur table, talking animatedly with a fat merchant who had a thriving trade in woollen cloth, exporting it to Flanders and Cologne. De Wolfe's observations had long ago confirmed that his brother-in-law, the former sheriff, was not present. Although Richard de Revelle had a thick skin, John thought it unlikely that he would show himself at public functions in Exeter for some time yet, until the immediate memory of his disgrace began to fade.