The Witch Hunter (30 page)

‘You’ll do little business dangling at the end of a rope, so come on, damn you!’ he said desperately, as he saw some of the truculent crowd staring at them, some even breaking off their wrestling and shoving to see what was going on at the cart. Theobald had seen it too and he clambered up on to the wagon and grabbed the bearded hag by the arm. ‘Lucy, they’ll kill you if you stay here. Come away now, for pity’s sake!’

The little tableau on the back of the dray and the sudden cessation of her strident voice began to attract attention and more faces were being turned towards them. ‘There’s the root of the trouble!’ yelled a florid-faced pie-man from Butcher Row, shaking his fist at Lucy.

Others took up the cry and part of the crowd began moving towards the wagon, abandoning most of their scuffles with the other faction.

‘Pull the old fool off, Theobald!’ hissed Osric, fearful of a repetition of the awful event down in Bretayne. The other constable grabbed Lucy’s other arm and with some ripping of the rotten fabric of her cape pulled her protesting to the tailboard. Another missile, this time a small turnip, caught her on the side of the head and this decided Lucy that it was best to run and fight another day, if she could. She half fell from the cart, being caught by Osric, and with the two constables dragging her, she hobbled across to the mouth of High Street. Her two protectors shouldered their way through a gathering crowd whose hostility was increasing, and hands stretched out to try to grab her, as insults and curses were thrown at the old crone. One wild-eyed young woman, who seemed already to be in some sort of hysterical frenzy, screamed abuse at her and grabbed a handful of her hair, until Theobald roughly pushed her away.

Barging their way forward, the constables forced a way through the main ring of protesters and hurried as best they could up the street, pulling the old woman by brute force, as her legs would not support her at that speed, especially as she had lost her stick.

‘This is the wrong way to get me home to Exe Island,’ she gasped. ‘Where are you taking me? To gaol?’

Theobald shot a sideways glance at Osric. ‘Just where the hell are we going, anyway?’

The other man had not really thought about it; all he had wanted to do was to get her off the cart and away from the angry crowd, who were now trailing after them, resentful at having their prey snatched away from them so abruptly.

‘What about our shack? Can we put her in there until we get help from the castle?’ suggested Theobald.

‘This mob would kick it to pieces in minutes, the mood they’re in now,’ grunted Osric, panting with the effort of half carrying the smelly old woman.

‘The crowner!’ she said suddenly. ‘Take me to the crowner’s house. He promised to help me.’

Theobald began to protest at this liberty, but Osric, mindful of the angry mob almost on their heels, was in no mood to argue, especially as Martin’s Lane was now only a few yards away. As a few more old cabbages, turnips and a stone or two were hurled at their backs, together with a rising clamour of indignant abuse, he stumbled along with the other pair, pushing aside more curious onlookers in the main street, who were not yet aware of the cause of the disturbance.

When they came to the narrow entrance to the lane, he dragged Lucy around to the right and dived down the alley towards the second tall, narrow house. As they reached the blackened oak door, the horde of witch-haters appeared in the throat of Martin’s Lane, but slowed down as they saw that the constables were beating on the door of Sir John de Wolfe. Most of the citizens of Exeter were somewhat in awe of the coroner, not only out of respect for his office and his reputation as a soldier, but because he was also a tall, grim authoritarian, who did not suffer foolish or impudent behaviour gladly and was likely to respond with a heavy cuff from his large fist.

As they hesitated, the door was opened by Mary and before she could open her mouth Osric had bundled Lucy across the threshold into the vestibule. ‘Call the crowner. This old woman is in danger from that rabble!’ he snapped, then pulled the door shut and stood outside it alongside Theobald, their staves at the ready to defend the house.

The crowd advanced cautiously, the red-faced verger and the pie-man in front, the rest pressing behind, uttering threats and recriminations against the evil women who, with the aid of Satan, rode broomsticks and roasted babies.

‘Get away from here, you’ll not repeat what happened at the Snail Tower,’ yelled Osric.

‘That was none of our doing, though it was well intentioned,’ retorted the pie-man, brandishing a large knife. There was no way of telling whether he had been with the lynch-mob down in Bretayne or whether this was a spontaneous demonstration, fanned into activity by the parish priests and possibly other agents of the witch-hunting canon.

‘Get her out of there, we want to teach her a lesson or two about curses and spells, the evil old hag!’ bellowed a massive black-bearded fellow, who worked in the tannery and smelt far worse than Lucy.

Others took up the cry, some of the worst insults and foulest language coming from women, both young and old, who formed a rearguard to the men in the front.

As the clamour increased, the door was suddenly thrown open again and the forbidding figure of the coroner stood in the opening. He wore his long grey tunic and a ferocious scowl on his lean face, framed by the jet-black hair that fell to his shoulders. Hanging from a wide belt, supported by a baldric strap over his right shoulder, was a lethal-looking sword that had seen action across half the known world. With a hand on its hilt, he glared around the crowd clustered around his door.

‘Get away from here, all of you – or I’ll attach you all for riot and conspiracy to murder!’ There was a growl of angry protest and he slid his blade a few inches out its scabbard, as the two constables waved their staves and used them to prod the nearest malefactors in the chest. ‘Come to your senses, for God’s sake!’ he roared. ‘There’ll be no repetition of the lawlessness down in Bretayne the other day! I know many of you, so be warned.’ His long head swung from side to side as he scanned the crowd and called out names of those he recognised. ‘Arthur of Lyme, is it? And you, Rupert Blacklock from Butchers’ Row – and you, James the miller! I know you all, and I’ll see you suffer if you persist in this madness. Who’s behind it, I want to know?’

His gaze darted around the mob, looking for any agitators, but there was no sign of Cecilia de Pridias or any of her family. He did not expect to see Gilbert de Bosco, but thought that perhaps he had sent some proctor’s servants or a servile priest to egg on the protesters.

‘We have the right to punish evil witches, Crowner!’ called the verger, bolder than the others.

‘You have no such right at all, damn you!’ bellowed de Wolfe. ‘The only right to punish is vested in the courts of this land, all of which ultimately answer to King Richard. Now clear off, all of you. Osric, get yourself up to Rougemont and call on the castle constable to send down a posse of men-at-arms with whips and staves to clear this rabble from my doorstep!’

With that, he stepped back inside and slammed the door.

John de Wolfe could hardly have left Bearded Lucy in the lane, with an increasingly angry mob at her heels, but allowing her into the house brought down almost as much trouble on his head as if he had laid about the rabble with his sword. As soon as the stout wooden latch on the front door had clacked down into place, the smaller one on the door to the hall jerked up and Matilda stood framed in the gap. For a brief moment, she stared at the little tableau in the vestibule, with Mary hovering uneasily in the background. Then a roar burst from her thin-lipped mouth as she pointed a quavering finger at the old woman.

‘What is she doing in my house? Get her out of here at once!’

Sadly, Lucy turned to the door and reached for the latch, but John laid a restraining hand on her arm as he scowled ferociously at his wife.

‘Wait. Matilda, there is a mob outside pursuing this poor old woman. Do you want another Theophania Lawrence on your conscience?’

‘That’s none of my concern – nor is it yours!’ she spat in reply. ‘I’ll not have that foul witch in my house. Canon Gilbert was right when he quoted the Old Testament. They are evil unbelievers and should be dealt with accordingly – besides which, she stinks!’ she added inconsequentially.

John’s relationship with his wife habitually swung wildly from one extreme to the other and sometimes he even had a grudging respect for her. But at that moment his feelings for her reached an all-time low as her religious prejudices seemed to have overcome any trace of compassion. He stepped forward and confronted her, almost nose to nose as she stood above him on the step into the hall.

‘You are a hard-hearted, intolerant bitch!’ he yelled at her. ‘It may have escaped your notice, but “your house”, as you call it, was paid for by me out of my booty from the second Irish war. And I fully intend to invite anyone I wish into it. Is that understood?’

Matilda shook both her clenched fists in his face, her square face red with anger, though she knew that John in this mood was not to be provoked too far.

‘Then drive the dirty old cow around to the yard, where she belongs! She’ll set foot in the hall only over my dead body!’

‘That can be arranged, too!’ yelled her husband, sliding his sword up and down in its scabbard with an ominous metallic rasp – though they both knew full well that his threat of violence was an empty gesture, as, unlike many other men, he had never so much as laid a finger on his wife.

‘Go on then, kill me, you great coward,’ she screamed, playing along with the charade that was being fuelled by their mutual anger. ‘Go on, skewer me on that sword that has murdered so many others!’

With a gesture of disgust, he slammed the hilt fully back into its sheath and turned away. ‘Don’t be so bloody foolish, woman! All I’m doing is trying to keep the King’s peace in the streets of the city – a task your brother is supposed to fulfil, but he’s always too busy filling his own purse at the expense of the county!’

Before she could start a new tirade in answer to this insult to the sheriff, he grabbed Lucy’s arm and steered her to the opening of the covered passage that ran down the side of the house to the yard behind. Mary, who had listened open mouthed to this shouting match, scuttled ahead and was in her kitchen-shed by the time the old woman had shuffled through. Brutus took one look at the visitor, then slunk away to lie behind the privy. Even the maid Lucille stuck her projecting nose and teeth out of her box under the stairs to the solar to see what was going on, but withdrew them rapidly when she saw the apparition that the master was guiding into the yard.

Mary, who knew Lucy by sight and reputation, soon took pity on the old woman when John explained what had happened in the lane. She sat her down on a stool outside the cook-shed and found her a pot of ale and a piece of bread smeared with beef dripping.

‘What are we to do with you, Lucy?’ asked the coroner. ‘I doubt that you can go home to your hut. They’ll look for you there, now that they’ve been cheated of you here.’

The cunning woman stopped munching with her toothless gums. ‘Even my talents cannot help me now,’ she mumbled. ‘I care little what happens to me, but I wanted to do something to help those two poor souls who will surely hang – as will others not yet persecuted, unless this madness stops.’ She looked up at de Wolfe with her bleary yet riveting eyes. ‘And as I have told you, sir, one of those might be very close to your own heart.’

She made him feel very uneasy with these cryptic warnings, but he still tried to reassure her. ‘It will pass, Lucy. People enjoy novelty, but they soon tire of it,’ he said, though he was not sure that he believed his own words. ‘We need to hide you in a place of safety until this storm blows over.’ He scratched his black stubble ruefully. ‘But I’m afraid it can’t be here. You saw what my good wife is like!’

Mary had been listening to this exchange and now spoke up. ‘What about the Bush? There’s plenty of room up in that loft – or better still, in one of the sheds at the back.’

This seemed the only practical solution, thought John, especially as Nesta had had dealings with Lucy before, as well as seeming to possess some of the healing talents in common with her. After the old woman had finished her food and recovered a little from her ordeal, Mary went to the front of the house and returned to report that the mistress was shut in the hall with a jug of wine and that the lane was now empty of vindictive townsfolk.

John took Lucy out into the cathedral Close and headed for Idle Lane, keeping a sharp lookout and a hand on his sword. He wished that Gwyn was here to help protect them, but his two assistants were unlikely to get back to Exeter until the evening, or perhaps the next day – when another problem concerning the sheriff’s threat to arrest Gwyn would have to be faced.

They reached the Bush without incident, other than suffering curious and sometimes hostile looks from passers-by when they saw the old hag shambling past – but the presence of the menacing figure of the coroner loping alongside her prevented anything more serious than muttered imprecations.

At the Bush, de Wolfe left Lucy in the yard while he went in to explain the emergency to Nesta, whose sympathetic nature made her instantly agree to shelter the old woman until, hopefully, the danger had died down. When the Welsh woman had had her own acute personal problems a few months before, the bearded crone had done her best to help her, and now here was a chance to pay her back.

‘She can stay in the brewing-house for now. I’ll get a palliasse from the loft and hide it behind a row of casks. I’ll tell the maids and old Edwin to be sure to keep their mouths shut about her.’

John walked back to the Close in a better state of mind, feeling that yet another crisis had been overcome – and hoping that there would be a respite before the next one. Somewhat to his surprise, as he was a solitary man, he found that he greatly missed the company of Thomas and Gwyn, who though they often irritated him with their bickering, had become such a part of his daily routine that he felt almost lonely without them.