The Witch Hunter (20 page)

With John ambling behind him, trying to suppress his glee, the sheriff stalked into the hall, pushing aside the clerks, men-at-arms and merchants who were in his way as he made straight for the constable’s door. Morin’s chamber was more an armoury than an office, as unlike the sheriff, he was as illiterate as the coroner. When the door crashed open, he looked up from his conversation with Sergeant Gabriel to see de Revelle, resplendent in a bright green tunic, searching the room with his eyes.

‘Where is it? Is it in that chest?’ De Revelle focused on a large battered trunk under the window slit, made of oaken boards and secured with a massive padlock. It was twice the size of the aumbry in Cadbury church and was used by Ralph for keeping the pay for the men-at-arms. Exeter had always been a royal castle, not the fief of a baron, which was why it was administered by a constable appointed directly by the King’s Council, who sent the coin for the soldiers’ wages down from Winchester. But the sheriff, often jealous of Morin’s relative autonomy, was not interested today in politics, but in beautiful, shiny money.

‘Open it up, it must be given into my safe-keeping!’ he barked.

The constable threw a questioning glance at de Wolfe, who shrugged and then nodded. Ralph had no reason to refuse, though knowing de Revelle only too well he felt a certain reluctance to let him get his hands on anything valuable. Grudgingly, he took a small key from the scrip on his belt and handed it to the grizzled sergeant, who went to a locked cupboard on the wall and took out a much larger key, with which he opened the padlock. Thrusting Gabriel aside almost before he had lifted the heavy lid, the sheriff peered inside, then hauled out the old box by the cords that bound it and dropped it on the floor. Watched silently by the others, his fingers scrabbled at the knots and he pulled off the remains of the lid with shaking hands. The sight of a mass of glinting silver and gold seemed to hypnotise de Revelle and he let coins slide through his fingers as he dipped into the treasure. As he held up the golden brooch, John heard his breath whistling out in a hiss of admiration. Then abruptly, he slapped the top back on the box and hoisted it up into his arms, uncaring of the considerable weight.

‘This must be lodged in my chamber, where I can keep an eye on it!’

‘Don’t get any hopeful notions about it, Richard,’ warned de Wolfe. ‘That box and all its contents will have to be accounted for to the King or one of his ministers.’

‘This was found on my land! The fact that I temporarily sub-let to someone else makes no difference. I am the owner of that ground, held in fee simple.’

De Wolfe shrugged. ‘Makes no odds who owns the land. Even if you can maintain your claim against Robert Hereward, you are still a tenant-in-chief of the King. It’s by that right that all treasure trove belongs to the crown.’

‘It’s mine, I tell you!’ howled the sheriff, clasping the box to his chest as if it were his first-born child. ‘It must have been lost on my property, it’s not treasure trove, damn you!’

He scuttled out of the room and hurried back to his own chamber, slamming the door behind him. The three military men looked at each other and sighed.

Although Sergeant Gabriel was not of their rank, he was an old and trusted servant. Their common bond of loyalty to the Lionheart and their mutual distrust of the sheriff gave him a privileged status in private. ‘I see trouble ahead over this, Crowner,’ he grunted.

Ralph Morin dropped on to a bench and pulled at his beard. ‘I trust you’ve got a detailed list of what’s in that bloody box? Just in case some of it takes a walk before it gets to Winchester.’

De Wolfe nodded. ‘I’ve got a written list, with witnesses. If any goes missing, we’ll know who to blame.’

Again that was something he later wished he had never said.

On that Tuesday morning, a woman walked out of the lanes behind St Mary Arches church into Fore Street and stopped while a large two-wheeled cart pulled by a pair of patient oxen lumbered past her. She was painfully thin and had a severe wry neck, her chin being pulled down and across almost to her opposite collar-bone. To look straight ahead, the poor soul had to swivel her eyes right up, giving her an expression of permanent questioning. Crossing the main thoroughfare, she made her way down through the lower town until she reached Idle Lane. With a couple of hours to go before noon, the Bush was quiet and Nesta was supervising her potman and maids as they changed the rushes on the floor. The Welsh woman prided herself on running the cleanest inn in Exeter, as well as the one with the best ale and food and insisted on changing the floor coverings every couple of weeks. The visitor stood at the door and watched as one of the maids dragged the old rushes into a pile, using a hay-rake made of wooden pegs fixed into a long cross-piece at the end of a handle. Old Edwin was using a pitchfork to load it on to a barrow, which was tipped on to the midden on the waste ground at the side of the tavern.

The woman, who looked about thirty, tapped on the panels of the open door and twisted her head to look across at the landlady. Nesta had seen her about the streets, but did not know her name. Coming across the taproom, she asked what she wanted, sympathy in her voice as she acknowledged the good-wife’s disability. Accustomed to using her deformity to the best advantage, the caller rolled her eyeballs even farther than necessary and managed to look piteously at the tavern-keeper.

‘My name is Heloise, wife of Will Giffard, a porter. I have several grave problems, good lady,’ she croaked. ‘But could we talk about them privately?’

Nesta already had a good idea what one of these problems might be and, having had the same dire trouble recently, was even more sympathetic than usual. ‘You’d better come up to the loft, away from these ruffians!’ Edwin and the maids had started an acrimonious shouting-match over who should push the barrow out to the midden and Nesta beckoned to the woman to follow her up the broad ladder to the upper floor. Here she led the way to a corner partitioned off from the rest of the spacious attic, where a dozen straw pallets were scattered around to accommodate lodgers.

Opening the door of the small room, she waved Heloise to a stool, while she sat on the edge of a wide bed. This was raised on legs, a rarity in Devon, where most folk slept on a pallet on the floor. The porter’s wife introduced herself in a sad and downcast manner, wringing the loose end of her shabby belt between her thin fingers.

‘I have heard that you have the gift of healing, mistress. I have three problems which ail me,’ she began, rolling her eyes upwards and sideways to keep Nesta in view. ‘Firstly, I have had this affliction of my neck since I was a child. Is there anything you can do to help me?’

Nesta smiled wanly at the woman, but shook her head sadly. ‘Much as my heart aches for you, Heloise, that is beyond me – and, I suspect, beyond even the most skilled physicians in the land. I have no special powers, you know – only what my mother and her sisters passed on to me when I was younger. They were just wise women in our village in Wales, we made no pretence at having anything more than a knowledge of common cures, passed down through the generations.’

The other woman tried to nod, though she could manage little more than a slight bobbing of her deflected head. ‘Then maybe you can do something about these?’

She held out her hands, palms down, and Nesta saw that on the backs of her fingers and knuckles were a dozen small but unsightly warts.

The Welsh woman smiled. This was one of the most frequent requests and there were literally dozens of recipes for curing warts, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. She got up from her bed and reached up to a shelf on the wall, where a dozen small pots were arranged.

‘Take this, there’s enough left in the bottom. I must make some more, as warts seem rife in Exeter this year.’ She handed a pot to the bemused Heloise, who asked how to use it. ‘Rub some on the warts morning and night. It’s only willow bark pounded in vinegar, but it will rid you of those lumps in a fortnight. Better than some cures, like rubbing them with the blood of a beheaded eel, then burying the head in the churchyard!’

Nesta suspected that the first two requests were really excuses leading up to the real reason for her visit, although at the time she was unaware of the true nature of this deception. ‘And your third problem? Is it what I suspect?’

Her sister’s promise of a reward had improved Heloise’s acting ability. She dropped her twisted gaze in a parody of chagrin. ‘Yes, mistress, I am with child again. My poor body will not stand yet another carrying. It will kill me this time, as it almost did last year.’

This was a bare-faced lie, as she was totally barren, in spite of her husband’s incessant attempts to father a child on her. Nesta, mindful of her own very recent crisis, was full of sympathy, but this was one thing that she would never contemplate.

‘I cannot help you there either, good woman,’ she said softly. ‘I can help with warts and fevers and croup, but I have neither the skill nor the courage to rid you of that burden.’

Heloise offered no argument, but stood up and fingered the small purse that dangled by its draw-string from her belt. ‘What do I owe you for the ointment?’ she asked woodenly.

Nesta shook her head. ‘Nothing at all, I can make plenty more. Use it and rid your fingers of those abominations. I am only sorry I cannot do more for you on those other serious matters.’

Moments later, the porter’s wife had gone and Nesta went back to haranguing her servants, forgetting the woman’s visit almost immediately. But Heloise smirked as she threw away the pot of ointment as soon as she was around the corner of Idle Lane – the silver pennies she would get from her sister for acting out this charade could buy better medicine than willow in vinegar, even after she had bought her new shawl.

That evening, Matilda was in a neutral mood during supper, seeming to have exhausted her grumbling about his failure to further investigate the death of Robert de Pridias. However, she had heard about the unusual arrest of Alice Ailward by the cathedral proctors and scathingly remarked that it was good to hear that someone in the city was taking the menace of witchcraft seriously. Her husband rode out her criticism in silence, and when Mary had cleared away the debris of the meal, which tonight had been a rather tough boiled fowl, he announced that he was going down to visit the archdeacon.

As it was the truth – although he intended going on to the Bush afterwards – she could hardly complain about his attending upon such a senior man of God and as soon as she had lumbered up to her solar and the attentions of Lucille, he called Brutus and walked the few yards down Canons’ Row to the house of John de Alençon.

Leaving the dog to lie in the evening sun outside the door, he went inside to share a flask of wine with his friend. In the archdeacon’s spartan room they sat for a while, savouring the latest product of the Loire valley. This evening the coroner seemed to sense a certain excitement in his friend, as if he had good news which he was keeping in check. When he asked de Alençon whether he had something new to tell him, the canon’s lean face broke into a smile, but he tapped the side of his nose and told John to divulge his own business first.

‘Nothing pleasant, I’m afraid. I want to pick your ecclesiastical brain about this poor woman who was captured by your proctors.’

The archdeacon’s smile faded. ‘Ah, Gilbert de Bosco! I knew that man would cause more trouble.’

‘Does he have the right and the authority to arrest a woman and cast her into a cell?’

The priest sipped his wine and replaced the pewter cup carefully on the table between them. ‘You should really ask, who is there to stop him? It seems your brother-in-law didn’t object. I presume the bishop could intervene, but he also seems happy to sit on the same wagon which is rolling on this matter.’

‘Can you do nothing about it yourself?’

De Alençon shook his head slowly. ‘Gilbert de Bosco is a canon of this cathedral, just like myself. My post as Archdeacon of Exeter involves administering the priests of the churches in this part of the diocese – it gives me no authority over my fellow-canons.’

‘What about the authority of the chapter?’

‘It’s none of their business, as it does not concern the running of the cathedral. Gilbert de Bosco has done this in his own capacity as a priest, not as a canon. Chapter has no say in diocesan affairs, they are solely the prerogative of the bishop.’

There was a silence as each man pondered over his wine.

‘So what is the attitude of the Church to allegations of witchcraft?’ asked John, still worrying at the problem.

The other John shrugged his narrow shoulders within his cassock. ‘Until now, I was not aware it had one! Though it condemns heresy and generally frowns upon anything which is ungodly, the question of witchcraft has never formally arisen here, until this interfering Gilbert made it an issue.’

‘What will happen to this unfortunate woman, now that de Bosco has her in his clutches?’

‘I presume he will cause her to be brought before the consistory court, as I fail to see what other measures can be taken.’

He refilled his friend’s cup and then his own.

‘Tell me about this court of yours – how does it operate?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘The Holy Church is jealous of its independence from earthly princes and misses no chance to assert that autonomy,’ began the archdeacon, making his guest wonder whether he was to launch into a sermon.

‘Thomas Becket went too far down that road!’ grunted de Wolfe.

‘Yes, and remember how Rome made old King Henry pay for that! In fact, he had to reconfirm the right of the Church to keep all its clerics from the secular courts and try them itself in the consistory courts. William the Bastard himself established those with a charter at the time of the Conquest.’

‘Your lot keep these bishop’s courts very close to your chest! We laymen never get to know what goes on in them,’ complained the coroner.

‘There’s no secret about them, John. We just don’t like washing our dirty linen too publicly. They are convened as required in every diocese on the order of its bishop.’