Figure of Hate (26 page)

As he sat silently chewing poached salmon and cabbage, he threw covert looks at his wife, wondering what was going on in her mind. He had noticed lately that in addition to her devotion to religious observance - she went at least twice a day to services at either the cathedral or St Olave's - Matilda was becoming increasingly obsessed with her Norman ancestry, tenuous though it was. The de Revelles had left St-Lô in the early years of the century and those now remaining in Normandy were but distant cousins. Several years before, Matilda had spent a month visiting them and had come home with the firm conviction that she was a scion of a noble house, exiled among English barbarians. The fact that she, together with two previous generations of ancestors, had been born in Devon could not shake her belief in her exalted heredity. Even though John's late father was of pure Norman stock, she had despised him for taking a Cornish-Welsh wife, and she looked on her husband as something of a Celtic mongrel. Of late, when she deigned to hold a conversation with him, the subject reverted increasingly to her noble family across the Channel and how she yearned to see them and the fair orchards of Normandy once again. Secretly, John wished she would take ship for Caen and never return, but so far she seemed to have no plans to repeat her pilgrimage.

After the meal, they sat on either side of the hearth in the monk's chairs whose side-wings kept out some of the draughts. Mary brought them each a pewter cup of red wine poured from a small skin on a side table and left them to their silent vigil.

After a few minutes, John felt that he should make an effort to converse with his wife to bring her out of her latest sulk. Knowing of her snobbish fascination with the local aristocracy, he thought the current drama in Sampford Peverel might catch her attention, and he related the events of the past day. If there was one group of people that Matilda knew almost as well as the ecclesiastical establishment, it was the Devon gentry, among whom she was always prodding her husband to advance himself. Her small eyes lit up with interest as she scented a prime topic for gossip with which to regale her friends at church.

'You know the scandal there was at Sampford earlier in the year?' she demanded. 'After Lord William was killed at Salisbury.'

John shook his head in false innocence, hoping that he might glean something useful from this fount of rumour that was his wife.

'Well, with four sons, the manor should naturally have gone to the eldest, which was Odo. But the second son Hugo disputed the claim and it became a great issue, which had to be settled by the King's justices and even by the chancery in Winchester.'

'So what was the problem?' asked John. He had heard the bones of the story elsewhere, but maybe Matilda had the meat.

'The second son, this Hugo, contested the succession on the grounds that his brother was not a fit person to rule the manor. He claimed that Odo suffered so badly from the "falling disease" that he would be unable to attend properly to the duties of a manor-lord.'

What little de Wolfe had seen of Odo gave no cause for thinking that the man was incapable in any way, but he waited for his wife to add some detail.

'It was claimed, so I've heard from Martha, the goldsmith's wife, that this Peverel had sudden convulsions and strange aberrations of behaviour. Several times, he had fallen from his horse and damaged himself.'

'How would this lady know of that?' demanded John.

'Her husband is Wilfred, the master of the goldsmiths' guild. It seems he was in Winchester when the case was being heard, as he happened to be in some civil dispute in the courts over the quality of a necklace.'

Trust Matilda to be connected to the grapevine when some tasty scandal was being aired, thought John cynically.

'And obviously Hugo won the day,' he observed.

Matilda sniffed contemptuously. 'Huh, it was to be expected! Like his father, Hugo was well known on-the tournament circuit, rubbing shoulders with barons and powerful knights who either jousted themselves or took a great interest in the wagering. This Odo was a dull stay-at-home, never so much as lifting a lance. That was probably on account of his affliction, but still, he had no powerful friends like Hugo, so he lost the decision.'

'Well, now the battle begins again,' grunted John.

'For though this Ralph has assumed he is next in line, Odo seems willing to dispute his claim on the grounds that the chancery decision related to him and Hugo, not Ralph.'

Matilda shrugged dismissively. 'Then he'll lose again, for I hear this Ralph is also devoted to the tourney field, so will know the same influential men who swayed the decision for his brother last May.'

With some careful probing, John discovered that his wife knew nothing more of any use, and soon the effects of a large meal and the wine sent her upstairs with Lucille to seek the solace of her bed.

De Wolfe, free from any tasks that afternoon, decided to seek his mistress, both for the pleasure of her company and possibly as another source of information from her fund of tavern gossip. With Brutus as a feeble alibi, he walked through the bustling city down to Idle Lane, where he had told his two assistants to meet him.

He had ridden on ahead of his officer and clerk when they had left Sampford Peverel early that morning, as he had to hear two appealers before the hangings.

These were persons who were accusing others of offences against them, one a theft of money, the other a wounding. The plaintiffs had to decide how they were going to seek justice - either by battle, by ordeal or through the courts. John's task was to try to sweep their dispute into the royal courts, which would benefit the exchequer as well as offer a more sensible solution than the old superstitious and barbaric practices. Having had no time the previous night to discover whether Gwyn and Thomas had learned anything useful in Sampford, he was keen to hear what they had to say.

When he entered the main room of the inn, he found his men sitting at his favourite table. Inevitably Gwyn was eating, demolishing a meat pasty supplied by Nesta.

Brutus, who adored the dog-loving Cornishman, made straight for him and sat under the table, waiting for the titbits from the pie that he knew would come his way. John sat himself down on one of the benches alongside the scrawny clerk and waited for Edwin to limp across with a quart pot of ale. Gwyn had cider and Thomas a cup of watered wine, given in pity by Nesta, as she knew how much he disliked ale, even her superior brew.

'The mistress will be with you directly, Cap'n!' croaked the ancient potman, rolling the white of his blind eye horribly at the coroner. 'She's stirring the mash in the brew shed.'

While Gwyn finished chewing and then picking bits of mutton, onion and pastry from his whiskers, John asked his clerk whether he had heard any more from his uncle concerning his readmission to holy orders.

Thomas was the nephew of the Archdeacon of Exeter, best placed to hear news of an ecclesiastical nature.

'Nothing at all for weeks, master,' replied Thomas dolefully, his weak face displaying his chronic concern that his long-awaited reinstatement might never materialise. 'I fear they have conveniently forgotten me in Winchester.'

'How do they reinstall you as a priest, Thomas?' asked Gwyn, after a massive belch. 'Do you have to be dipped in holy water - or maybe they circumcise you!' He could never resist teasing the poor fellow.

'I don't need to be made a priest again,' snapped the clerk huffily. 'Ordination is for life, nothing can remove it, not even the Pope himself.'

'So what happens?' asked John, genuinely interested.

'As I told this great oaf, ordination is indelible.The grace, once bestowed, is ex machina, it cannot be repeated, nor can it be removed.'

'So what happened when you were thrown out?' persisted Gwyn.

'The Church's authority for me to exercise my ministry was revoked and any sacramental acts carried out by me would thereafter be void. Though still nominally a priest, I have been falsely condemned to ecclesiastical impotence!'

As the Cornishman cackled at this, John spoke more seriously.

'Then how will you be restored?'

'There is no great ceremony. The bishop, during a celebration of the Mass at which I am present, needs only to publicly read the Chancellor's document, which cleared my name. Then hopefully he will add a personal blessing and restore me to my lost functions.'

'And that's all that's required?' queried the coroner.

'The bishop would need an assurance that I could sustain myself by employment appropriate to the status of a priest and also have a designated place in a consecrated building to celebrate Mass.'

'How are you going" to manage that?' asked John.

'Does it mean you will need to find a living in some church?'

Thomas shook his head. 'There is no need - I will remain your clerk for as long as you wish. And my uncle has promised to intercede with the cathedral chapter to grant me a share in the stipendary service at one of the altars in the cathedral.'

He had brightened up during this talk about his beloved Church, but now relapsed into a doleful depression. 'But none of this matters, if Winchester has forgotten my very existence.'

He looked so miserable that John was moved to encourage him.

'I'll do what I can for you, Thomas, though I have no influence in matters concerning the Church. When I next see the archdeacon, I'll raise the issue yet again.

Meanwhile, tell me if you learned anything from that disciple of St Patrick you were with last night.' Just as Thomas was about to speak, Nesta bustled up, wiping her hands on a white cloth, which she dumped on the end of the table.

'There's a splendid mash bubbling away,' she said cheerfully. 'A few more days and it'll be the best I've ever brewed, though I say it myself. A new recipe, with some young nettle leaves added, ones I dried last spring.'

John moved up the bench for her to slide alongside him and he slipped an arm around her waist to give her a squeeze.

'Damn the ale, just let me have the ale-wife!' he said, with a gaiety that momentarily transformed the normally dour coroner into a roguish lover.

Gwyn looked fondly at him across the table, seeing de Wolfe for an instant as he had been twenty years before, when they would both dash off uncaring into battles and brothels alike. Now it was only in Nesta's company that he saw John relax, cast off the cares and concerns that his doggedly conscientious nature insisted on bearing.

When they had settled down again, the patient Thomas began his story.

'As you guessed, Crowner, Father Patrick is quite fond of his drink. When I called on him, he had already got through half a jar of mead. By the time I left, he had soaked up most of the other half, as I managed to avoid all but a few mouthfuls.'

'But did you learn anything of use?' demanded de Wolfe, beginning to feel that his officer's gift for endlessly spinning out a story was rubbing off on his clerk.

'Some useful gossip, I think..He confirmed that the family is at loggerheads most of the time, especially since William was killed. He seems to have been a very strong character and kept the rest firmly in their places.

Without him, they are all fighting like cats' in a barn.'

'His widow seems a tough old bird as well,' observed Gwyn.

John felt this was a poor description of a handsome woman in her prime, but he agreed that she had a formidable personality.

Thomas tapped the side of his long, thin nose. 'It seems she has a suspicion that her husband's death was not altogether accidental,' said the clerk, in a dramatic whisper.

'How could it not be?' objected Nesta. 'I recall the chatter about it in here at the time. He fell from his horse in full view of hundreds of people.'

'I hope that the priest wasn't breaking the confessional when he told me...' Thomas stopped to cross himself. 'But he claimed that Avelina has several times accused Hugo of somehow contriving the death, so that he could inherit the manor.'

'That seems nothing but a widow's bitterness to me,' said Nesta stubbornly. 'First, how could he do it - and why was it not detected by those at the tourney who went to William's aid? Also, it was this Odo, the eldest son, who was to be the heir, not Hugo.'
 

'Did you discover any more details concerning why Odo lost the inheritance?' demanded de Wolfe.

'It was solely on the grounds that he has this falling sickness. Patrick said that he has had this affliction since he was a youth. It isn't getting any worse, but Hugo seized upon it as an excuse to have him disinherited.'

'What happens in this condition?' asked Nesta. 'Does it occur often?'

Thomas lifted his humped shoulder in a shrug, 'I didn't go into that, but the priest said it can come on at any time, especially if Odo gets excited or harassed. Usually he just falls senseless to the ground, but sometimes he has a slight fit, with spasms of his limbs.'

'Did any other scandal drip from this fat Irishman's lips?' asked Gwyn sarcastically.

'Only about Hugo's wife - or rather widow now.'
 

'Beatrice? She was certainly making cow's eyes at young Joel,' grunted John.

Nesta's interest was raised another notch, as any romance intrigued her greatly. 'Was she unfaithful to her husband with his brother?' she asked eagerly.