Figure of Hate Read online

  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.

  But as he looked around, he was surprised to see another face, someone who, unlike de Revelle, seemed sufficiently immune to recent scandal to present himself at the feast. At the farther end of the right-hand line of trestles, his back to the aisle where de Charterai sat, was Hugo Peverel, alongside a younger man whose strong facial resemblance suggested that he was one of his brothers, presumably the same one who had had the successful bout this afternoon, though then the helmet and chain mail around the face had made identification difficult. John remembered that the deceased William Peverel had four sons, but he could not recall their names. Like many of his neighbours along the table, Peverel was well advanced in his cups, but he seemed in no danger of either passing out, retching or sleeping. In fact, the reverse seemed true, as he was loudly declaiming about something and banging a fist on the table as he ranted, though over the general clamour in the hall, de Wolfe Could hear nothing of what he was saying.

  A few moments later, the observant coroner saw that the French knight had risen from his seat and was pushing his way between the rows of revellers to reach the front of the hall, presumably on his way to relieve himself either in the street or the yard behind. As he came level with Hugo's broad back, the coroner fancied that he deliberately turned his head away to avoid any chance of eye contact, but fate was against him. Just as he was passing, a man seated at his own row of tables decided to lurch to his feet, his shoulder jostling Reginald and making him stumble against Hugo Peverel. It was a trivial incident which in any other circumstances would have gone unnoticed, but it distracted Hugo from his harangue to his cronies and he glanced back truculently. When he saw who was standing there, he gave a roar of anger and leapt unsteadily to his feet, knocking over his stool with a crash.

  'Haven't you already caused me enough trouble today, you bloody foreigner!' he yelled, giving de Charterai an open-handed shove in the chest which sent him staggering back in the confined space between the tables. In spite of the noise in the hall, there was an immediate hush around the two men, which rapidly spread like the ripples around a stone thrown into a pond.

  The Frenchman stared stonily at his former opponent and made to pass on without responding, but the belligerent Hugo moved into the narrow aisle to prevent him.

  'Lost your tongue, foreigner? Or are you too high and m
ighty to speak to the likes of me?' he rasped, in a voice that carried around the now expectant hall.

  De Wolfe was already out of his own seat and squeezing down the congested space between the end table and the wall, heading for what he knew was going to be a trouble spot. As he did so, Reginald lifted a hand against Hugo's shoulder to push him out of the way.

  'I seek no trouble with you, Peverel! Our business was completed on the tourney field today.' For answer, the Devon man gave his enemy another push, this time so hard that de Charterai staggered back and fell across the very man whose unintended action had triggered the crisis. Hugo drew back his fist to punch the Frenchman while he was still off balance, but two of his companions, one of them his brother, were still sober enough to restrain him, though they failed to still his tongue.

  'By God's bowels, it was far from completed!' he yelled thickly. 'If those yellow-bellied judges hadn't interfered, we could have finished it properly - and I'd have bloody well won and saved my horse and armour, damn you!'

  By now de Wolfe had reached the far end of the table and was coming around into the aisle, joined by Peter de Cunitone, the other adjudicator, who was hurrying along with a pair of stewards. Guy Ferrars and several other members of the tournament council were struggling to push through from the top table, but John was nearest to the rapidly developing altercation.

  De Charterai was doing his best to avoid inflaming the situation, and when he found his feet again, he took a pace backward, his long, aristocratic face white with suppressed anger.

  'You are a disgrace to your knighthood, Peverel!' he hissed, his voice vibrant with emotion. 'What you did today was against all the chivalry of the tournament. You have dishonoured yourself - and well you know it!'

  'Ah, shut your ugly mouth, you damned French spy!' roared Hugo, his heavy, reddened features stuck forward pugnaciously as he stood swaying slightly on his feet. 'You're a craven coward as well as being a lousy fighter. I knew you in Palestine - your lot buggered off home early with that chicken-hearted simpleton you call your king and left us to do the fighting without you!'

  De Wolfe reached the pair and tried to thrust himself between them, but too late to stop Reginald, insulted beyond measure, from giving Hugo Peverel a resounding slap across the face. With another angry roar, the befuddled manor-lord scrabbled for the hilt of his sword. Confused to find it missing, for guests could not come fully armed to a banquet, he reached around his belt for his dagger, but the coroner was too quick for him. Seizing his wrist in an iron grip, he forced him down on to a bench, where his brother Ralph and another friend grabbed him by the shoulders to keep him still.

  'Now behave yourself, Peverel!' snapped de Wolfe, in a voice that could bend iron. He turned to the haughty de Charterai, who was quivering with rage at the public insult that he had suffered, and softened his tone somewhat.

  'I apologise for this, sir knight. But this fellow is far gone in his cups, so perhaps you could make some allowance for the intemperance of a drunken man's tongue? All here know you for an honourable man and a worthy fighter.'

  Reginald inclined his head stiffly, mollified by the coroner's conciliatory words.

  'Thank you, Sir John. I appreciate your concern. I think it would be best if I absented myself now, to avoid making a bad situation worse.' He gave Hugo a look that he might use on seeing a dog turd on his shoe.

  'The man is certainly drunk now - but he was sober this afternoon. I will meet him again some time - and then I will kill him!'

  With that, he pushed his way to the end of the hall, ignoring the more senior men who attempted to add their apologies. There was a breath-holding silence as a hundred pairs of eyes watched him flick a mantle across his shoulders and stride out of the Guildhall into the darkness.

  With Matilda on his arm, John walked slowly back to his house in a sombre mood. A stickler for correct behaviour in the knightly class, it exasperated him to see the codes of conduct flouted so flagrantly by an oaf such as Hugo Peverel, who was brought up to know better. He was a manor-lord of the line of William the Conqueror, even if it had come from the wrong side of the blanket more than a century ago.

  Like most sons of a lord, other than the youngest, who were often pushed into the clergy, he would have been sent first as a page or a varlet to another knight, then climbed to the status of squire, before eventually getting his own spurs in his late teens. Even the many landless knights, awaiting an inheritance that might never materialise, as well as those who had to carve out a living by hiring their swords or joining a campaign where booty was to be accumulated, all had to abide by the codes of honour that regulated relations between them. Since the old Queen Eleanor had introduced the fashion for courtly behaviour from Aquitaine, with this modern nonsense about fighting for a lady's favours and writing poetry and singing love songs, John felt that the former strict rules of combat and the comradely codes of honour between fellow warriors were being watered down by this namby-pamby romantic chivalry, but maybe that was a sign of him getting too old to be a campaigner any longer.

  Matilda tugged his arm to jerk him out of this silent reverie. 'That was a sorry spectacle this evening, John,' she said. Secretly, she-was pleased that it was her husband who had so publicly broken up the developing quarrel. It had been witnessed by all the people who mattered in the city, and some of the kudos must rub off on her when she next met her matronly cronies at " their devotions. For the moment, the fact that she had been on the top table next to the archdeacon and the sheriff, as well as having her husband demonstrating his authority to half the county, allowed her to temporarily forget her shame at her brother's disgrace - and John's part in bringing it about.

  As they reached their home, she was almost benign as she prompted him to sit by the fire and have a cup of wine, while she summoned Lucille out of her kennel under the stairs and hauled her up to the solar to undress her and prepare her for bed.

  John contemplated taking Brutus down to the Bush, but it was quite late now and he had consumed so much food and drink that for once the thought of his mattress overcame even the attractions of Nesta. He sat in one of the monk's chairs by his great hearth, the cowled top keeping the draughts away from his head.

  Mary came in with a small wineskin and a pewter cup, and as she poured for him he told her of the drama in the Guildhall that evening. They kept their voices low, as high on the wall to the side of the chimney there was a Judas slit that communicated with the solar, but close to the fireplace they were out of sight of Matilda's prying eyes. Mary was always avid for titbits of scandal, and this time she was even able to tell him something about the Peverel ménage.

  'My cousin is a seamstress at Sampford Peverel,' she volunteered. 'She calls to see my mother a couple of times a year, when the steward's wife brings her to buy at the cloth fair.'

  Mary's mother was also a seamstress, in Rack Lane - her father had been a passing soldier who stayed only for the conception. 'She says that it's an unhappy manor, especially since the last lord died in that tourney. The family always seem to be fighting among themselves, and this Hugo is hated by almost everyone, even by his wife and his stepmother!'

  John knew that servants' gossip was often exaggerated but usually had a grain of truth in it somewhere.

  'What's the problem there, did your cousin say?'

  Mary shrugged. 'I wasn't all that interested at the time. I wish I had taken more notice now. It seems that the old man took a much younger wife a few years ago and they were far from happy. But the main trouble when he died was that the eldest son was barred from the inheritance and it went to the second son, which was Hugo.'

  John's black eyebrows rose. It was a serious matter if the heir to a large manor like Sampford had to forfeit his birthright. 'Did she say what brought that about?' he asked.

  'My cousin said the eider son had some disability of his body, though she didn't say what. I know the matter was hotly disputed and they went to law in London over it.'

  Mary knew no
more, but when she left with the empty jug, John remained in his chair, pondering over what she had said. To have such a boorish, overbearing man as Hugo Peverel as the lord of a manor torn by family squabbles sounded like a recipe for a very unhappy village.

  Early the next morning, Gwyn called at the house in Martin's Lane, keeping a wary eye out for the coroner's wife, who disapproved of the hairy Cornishman almost as much as she despised Thomas, the unfrocked clerk who was a sexual pervert, as far as she was concerned.

  Gwyn was safe enough-today, as she was still in bed after her over-indulgence at the feast the previous evening, but John was already dressed, fed and watered by the faithful Mary. He buckled a short sword on to his baldric, stepped out of the vestibule into the lane and stalked alongside his officer into the main thoroughfare of the city.

  'These men are lodging in Curre Street, you say?'

  'Yes, they're dossing in a cheap room behind a brothel. I've arranged the inquest in the Shire Hall for the tenth hour. Gabriel is sending a couple of men down to the Watergate to fetch the corpse up on a barrow.'

  'What about a jury?'

  For all that he looked like a huge ginger Barbary ape, Gwyn of Polruan was an efficient organiser. 'All fixed, Crowner. The porters and stevedores from the wharf make up most of them, but I've got a few stallholders from the fair as well, men who were near the silversmith's booth.'

  This Thursday was the third and last day of the fair and the last chance John had of spotting the men who had killed August Scrope, if they were still around.

  They collected the two craftsmen from a squalid room in the narrow street that ran from High Street towards the north wall and marched them down to Southernhay, giving Terrus of Totnes strict orders to keep his eyes peeled as they went. He had recovered well, and the previous day's weakness seemed to have passed, though he still had livid bruising and crusted scratches on his face.