Figure of Hate (25 page)

'Keep this short, Crowner,' growled Ralph, his handsome face set in a stony glare. 'Our ladies are distressed and fatigued by these unhappy events.'

In fact, they looked anything but distressed. Avelina sat upright, alert and almost combative, while the newly widowed Beatrice had donned her best blue silken kirtle and snowy wimple. She looked radiant as she glanced covertly at Joel, who was clearly entranced by her interest in him. John wondered how they had comported themselves when Hugo was alive, as surely this amorous relationship could not have blossomed in the last day. With an effort, he brought his mind back to the present.

'Mesdames, I will not detain you for long,' he said politely. Their full attention swung to him and both women felt a tug of interest as they surveyed this tall, muscular man with the face of a black hawk.

They knew of his reputation as a Crusader, an adventurer and a ladies' man. Awareness of his relationship with the Welsh tavern-keeper was not confined to Exeter, and with women's expert eyes they saw that his otherwise saturnine features were relieved by a pair of lips that betrayed his potentially passionate nature. Though Beatrice was too enamoured of Joel, Avelina was almost the same age as the coroner and could not resist a moment of imagination centred on the possibility of an affair with this man she had heard referred to as Black John.

She pulled herself together as she heard those same lips addressing her.

'Lady Avelina, can I trouble you to tell me anything you know of the sad demise of your stepson?' Her story was in essence the same as the others' and equally unhelpful. Hugo had still been in the hall when she retired to the solar upstairs.

'Father Patrick accompanied me as usual, to say with me my evening prayers for the soul of my late husband, taken from me so cruelly earlier this year,' she said.

'Then I went to my chamber where Florence prepared me for bed.'

She tipped her head towards the tall, silent girl who stood beside her chair.

'And you know of no one who might have hated Hugo sufficiently to want him dead?'

A flush rose slowly in her elegant cheeks. 'I will make no bones about it, Coroner. He was not a popular man. His villagers were afraid of his intemperate nature and his lusting after their younger womenfolk was deeply resented.'

There was a shuffling of feet among the brothers and Ralph opened his mouth to protest, then it snapped shut as he thought better of it. Considering this a good opportunity to try to prise more from this fractious family, John said, 'It has been suggested that Hugo may have made enemies among the tourneying fraternity persons such as Reginald de Charterai were mentioned.' At this, Avelina was transformed in an instant. From being a calm regal figure, she suddenly blazed into a furious temper. Her eyes widened and her face flushed as she half rose from her seat and slapped her hand imperiously on the edge of the table.

'Who dared make such a suggestion?' she demanded hotly. 'Sir Reginald is a man of honour and integrity. I was ashamed to hear of the way that Hugo insulted him in Exeter!'

John raised his hand placatingly as the Peverels scowled at their stepmother and muttered under their breath.

'I merely gave that as an example, madam. I apologise if it gave offence.'

The handsome dowager glared at him, her transient interest in him vanishing like frost in the sun. 'I am well acquainted with Reginald de Charterai and know him for a man of impeccable character.' She swept her gaze around her stepsons and decided to shock them with some news. 'In fact, some time ago I invited him to visit this manor so that we might renew that acquaintance. He should arrive tomorrow, as he is lodging in Tiverton.'

The object of the meeting was forgotten as the three brothers jumped to their feet in angry consternation, all vying with each other to speak the loudest.

'For the sake of Christ, Avelina, what were you thinking of?' yelled Odo, his usual restraint thrown to the winds. 'Hugo's body is barely cold and you're inviting his worst enemy to his home!'

'He is coming to pay attendance on me, not Hugo,' she said icily. 'My invitation to him was sent long before that distasteful episode in Exeter - and even longer before his death.'

'Then thank God he is dead, though I be cursed for saying it!' bellowed Ralph. 'For if he had been alive, he would have beaten your new paramour to within an inch of his life!'

Now flushed with anger, Avelina pointed a quivering finger at the speaker.

'How dare you insult me so, damn you! To call him my paramour! Had I my husband still, he would have thrashed you for your impertinence, though you were his son!'
 

Joel, usually whimsical in his sneering, was moved to be deadly serious for once. 'Lady, you must be out of your mind! To associate with a man who was Hugo's sworn adversary is bad enough - but to actually invite him here is folly beyond my understanding.'
 

The older woman remained quite unbowed under the unanimous condemnation and John, an admirer of mature womanhood, was greatly impressed by her imperious disdain of this masculine disapproval.

'Until my husband died - or was killed,' she continued with a hint of ambiguity that was not lost on John, 'this was my home, and I still consider it to be such. I am quite entitled to invite here whom I please. I am a widow and there can be no impropriety in my choice of a friend, be it male or female!'

'I am the lord now, madam,' hissed Ralph. 'As such, I choose who comes here and who does not! This de Charterai is persona non grata in Sampford Peverel after the emnity between him and my brother.'

The formidable Avelina, now in a towering rage, began to vigorously contradict Ralph, but was drowned out by the booming voice of Odo, who directed his venom at Ralph, rather than his stepmother.

'Brother, you forget yourself! You have no right to take upon yourself the mantle of manor-lord. I am your senior now by two removes, Hugo having been your elder brother, yet still ranking below me.'

'You lost the inheritance by the ruling of the law, Odo!' shrieked Ralph. 'You cannot hope to retrieve it now. '

'Why not? The court found for Hugo against me, unjust though that decision was. They did not rule me out against a mere youth like you, so do not assume airs and graces that do not exist, either in equity or law!'

De Wolfe, though beginning to despair of getting any sense out of this discordant family, nevertheless allowed the dispute to flourish, as he felt that anger might lead to some incautious admissions. They were all shouting and declaiming in such confusion, however, that little sense could be made of anything.

The steward stood at one end of the table, his mouth drooping in astonishment, and the lesser servants in the background were enjoying the sight of the family in such undignified disarray. It would give them ample fuel for gossip in the kitchens for weeks to come.

When it became apparent to de Wolfe that he was going to gain nothing useful from this spiteful cacophony, he beat his fists upon the table and yelled at the top of his voice.

'God's guts, will you all be silent! Ladies, I apologise for my necessary intrusion upon your domestic disputes, but I have to attend to the King's business.' There was an immediate lull in the arguing, more from surprise at a stranger shouting at them in their own hall than from any desire to obey him.

'Lady Beatrice, let me ask you what I need, then I'll leave you all to your personal affairs,' de Wolfe continued.

The younger woman was the only one who had not joined in the general hubbub, sitting placidly through it all. John suspected that her virtues lay in her undoubted beauty rather than her brains or depth of character.

'I regret having to pester you in your bereavement, but is your recollection of last evening similar to the other sparse testimony that I have heard?' Beatrice raised her long-lashed eyes to meet his, and in spite of the circumstances he felt a frisson of desire as she smiled at him.

'You are most genteel, Sir John, but there is nothing I can add. I played draughts with Joel after the meal ended, then I went to my chamber, where my maid prepared me for bed. My husband did not return before I went to sleep - but that was not unusual,' she added rather petulantly.

'And as far as you recall, he did not return at any time during the night?'

She shook her head, a wisp of golden hair appearing from under her silken cover-chief. 'He was not there after I awoke some time after dawn. And my maid, who sleeps on a pallet outside my door, said that he had not returned at any time.'

The dark-haired girl, who stood behind her Chair, nodded but said nothing. All their stories were so similar that John suspected that they had agreed on them beforehand, but he philosophically accepted that this may have been because they were true.

'And being in the closest confidence of all, Hugo being your husband, have you any reason to suspect any person who might wish him evil?'

Beatrice glanced quickly around her brothers-in-law, then lowered her eyes.

'None at all, sir,' she replied in little more than a whisper.

'A complete waste of bloody time!' grumbled de Wolfe.

'The whole lot of them clammed up like limpets at low tide.'

It was late that night and the coroner was sitting with Gwyn and Thomas in the village alehouse near the green, only a stone's throw from the byre where Hugo had been found. Though the tavern was a miserable place, John found it preferable to the hostile atmosphere of the manor house.

When he had abandoned his attempt to squeeze more information from the Peverel family, he had sought out his assistants in the kitchens and walked them in the dusk around the village, to get a feel for the geography of the place. Then he had brought them to the hovel with the bare bush hanging from a bracket outside the door, and they stood in the only room, drinking an indifferent ale, which from the expression on their clerk's face was only slightly preferable to hemlock.

The taproom was but a shadow of the superior accommodation at the Bush at Exeter. A low room with crumbling cob walls between worm-eaten frames, it had damp, dirty rushes on the floor, which rustled ominously as various rodents burrowed through it for scraps of fallen food. Inside the once whitewashed stones that ringed the fire-pit in the centre, some logs smouldered on the ashes. There were a few three-legged stools scattered about but no tables, and the coroner's trio stood together by the only window-opening, where they used the rough sill to support their misshapen pottery mugs. Against the far wall, a slatternly ale-wife ladled her thin brew into the mugs from several tengallon crocks standing on the floor. A dozen men stood about drinking, ignoring the stools and staring suspiciously at the three strangers near the window.

'Did you learn anything from the kitchen maids?' John asked Gwyn, knowing of his roguish ways with servant girls.

His officer finished filtering ale through his luxuriant moustache before replying. 'It's an unhappy manor, that's for sure, but I heard nothing much of use. A little more digging will probably turn up more scandal, though whether it would have any bearing on this slaying is doubtful.'

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'That Hugo was unpopular with everyone, that's for sure, but they wouldn't tell me why.'

John took another mouthful of ale and winced at the taste, comparing it unfavourably with the fruits of Nesta's expertise. 'When I've finished this horse-piss, I'll find a pallet in a corner of the hall, as long as those damned brothers have cleared off. But I want you to stay here for a while, Gwyn. See what you can wheedle out of these villagers. Here's twopence to ply them with ale.'

As he fumbled in his scrip for some coins, he spoke to his clerk.

'And you, Thomas, you can do what you have done to good account several times before. Seek out that fat Irish priest and play your cleric's game with him. It will be more honest now that you must surely soon be on your way to reinstatement.'

Thomas de Peyne felt a glow of pleasure, both at the trust his master placed in him and the reminder that his time as an outcast from his beloved Church was coming to an end. The little clerk had a gift for wheedling information from parish priests, who usually accepted him as one of their own with his threadbare cassock, shaven head and wide command of Latin. They were more free with their confidences, especially when their tongues were loosened by drink, which was a common failing among those disillusioned priests dumped in some obscure parish with no hope of advancement.

As the coroner and Thomas prepared to leave the dismal inn, Gwyn gave a valedictory piece of news.

'There's something going on between Richard de Revelle and the Peverels. I saw them with their heads together as he was leaving and I'll wager they were plotting some mischief- though God knows what!'

Chapter
 
Eight
 

In which Crowner John attends a burial

After Tuesday morning's hangings, at which John had to be present to record the event and seize any goods and chattels of the felons, he went home to his noontide dinner. Here he received the expected frosty reception from Matilda, which was her usual reaction to him having been away overnight. Once again he reflected on the unfairness of her attitude, when it was she who had so eagerly supported his appointment as coroner a year earlier. Yet now she resented his absences from home carrying out the very duties that she had been so keen for him to accept. He knew she suspected him of taking the opportunity offered by these excursions to drink and womanise, though he thought wryly that, given the quality of the ale at Sampford and his current devotion to Nesta, neither of these allegations could possibly be true.