The Grim Reaper Read online

  He paused to glower around the half-circle of uneasy jurors.

  ‘So the verdict is yours, but I am sure you will find that her death was murder against the King’s peace, by person or persons as yet unknown.’

  There was no disputing de Wolfe’s direction, and minutes later, the jury was streaming through the gate, heading back to the Bush for a few reviving quarts of ale.

  Only a few yards away from the scene of the inquest, stood another of Exeter’s plethora of churches. Indeed, the thirsty jurors had to pass St Olave’s on their way back the Bush, though at that moment, praising the Lord was not on the minds of the few that happened to notice the incumbent standing at the door, which opened directly on to Fore Street.

  Julian Fulk was fleetingly curious about the group of men who emerged from the lane, but he had other things to concern him. He was chronically anxious about his future and this had generated a slow anger that burned constantly and never left him. Although on the surface, he appeared amiable to the point of obsequious affability, this was a façade over the seething discontent beneath. To the members of his congregation, like Matilda, he was an urbane, unctuous priest, full of the social graces that attracted many of the more prominent wives of burgesses and officials like Sir John de Wolfe. They came to St Olave’s even when their dwellings were distant from his church.

  Though formal parish boundaries were a thing of the future in Exeter, most people went to the nearest of about twenty-seven city churches, some only a few steps from their front doors. But Julian Fulk appealed to – and cultivated – those who, like himself, wanted social advancement. Though he was unaware of it, he had much in common with Adam of Dol of St Mary Steps, who also desired to be a canon and was as bitterly resentful that no such elevation seemed to be contemplated by the powers in the cathedral precinct.

  Fulk turned away as the men disappeared from Fore Street and went inside his little church. Another oblong stone box, it was the cleanest of them all and, though bare of any decoration, its floor had fresh rushes strewn about and the shutters on the high windows were freshly painted. The altar table was covered with a lace-edged linen cloth, personally worked by the wife of one of the guild masters. The cross was filigreed silver donated by another guild, and before it was a pot containing fresh flowers, an unusual sight in an urban church.

  But all of this was ashes in Father Julian’s mouth, though none of his gushing lady parishioners would have guessed it. He sat down on the unused bishop’s chair at the side of the altar to rest his bulk, for he was the shape of a barrel and perspired copiously at the slightest exertion. His moon-shaped face was pink, virtually the same colour as his almost bald head – he had only a rim of sandy hair from ear to ear. Nerves caused him to chew his flabby lower lip as he sat in his empty church, waiting for the few worshippers to arrive for his mid-morning Mass.

  When the ladies came, he would smile and bob his head, for there were seldom men on a week-day. Julian Fulk would appear the soul of affability, especially to those he thought had husbands who might have influence with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Fulk knew that it was the gossip around dining tables in Canon’s Row and the guildsmen’s houses that made or broke reputations, and where preferment was assisted or frustrated with a nudge and wink.

  As he pondered beside his altar, he once again cursed the fact that St Olave’s was different from all the other city churches, in that it belonged to St Nicholas Priory and its living was controlled by the Abbot of Battle, far away in Sussex. He had never even visited Battle and never met the Abbot, so he was at a double disadvantage in angling to be a canon-elect; the Bishop and Archdeacon here had no responsibility for his curacy of St Olave’s. Even that madman down at St Mary Steps had a better chance of promotion, for at least he was within the fold of Exeter.

  Julian Fulk had got the living here almost by accident and had regretted it ever since. He was the son of a canon of Winchester and had been educated at the school there, some years earlier than Thomas de Peyne but he had been in the cathedral as a vicar-choral when Thomas was teaching juniors. His father had died suddenly and any chance of paternal influence had died with him, given the intense competition in Winchester between an excess of senior vicars. At a guest-night dinner in the Bishop’s palace, he had chanced to sit next to a monk who was Precentor at Battle – and Fulk, disillusioned with Winchester, was offered the living of St Olave’s. Without appreciating the insignificance of the church and the grave disadvantage of being outside the pale of Exeter’s episcopal establishment, he had moved and stagnated ever since. The impasse had become like a cancer, eating away at his soul and monopolising his every thought, but unlike Adam of Dol, he masked his resentment with a falsely benign face. Yet he knew that, like a cooking pot with a jammed lid, the pressure inside him was building.

  De Wolfe had intended to go up to Rougemont after the hangings, to tell the sheriff about the second murder, but de Revelle spared him the trouble by attending the executions himself.

  To be more accurate, he came to attend one of them, for the frantic activity to get everything ready for the Justices was mortgaging his time, if he was to conceal every irregularity in the accounts and records. However, he could not deny himself the pleasure of seeing Gocius de Vado swing that morning, after all the trouble the damned man had caused.

  Gocius was a freeman who lived near de Revelle’s manor at Tiverton and had successfully fought the sheriff’s efforts to claim a hide of land from him through an attempted distortion of a land charter going back to the Domesday Commissioners. De Vado had even petitioned the King over the dispute and received a favourable judgement from Hubert Walter. De Revelle swore vindictively to get even with him and, using an agent provocateur and several bribed false witnesses, had his enemy convicted in his own shire court of receiving stolen property to a value of ten marks, far above the legal minimum of twelve pence for a felony and thus a capital offence. De Wolfe had not been involved, as no death, robbery or violence had taken place, but when he heard ale-house gossip on the matter, he strongly suspected some underhand dealing by his brother-in-law.

  On this Friday morning, the coroner, followed by his officer and clerk, went out of the South Gate and up Magdalen Street on foot – it was not worth the trouble of saddling up three steeds for a half-mile journey. Though it was called a street, the way to the gallows became a country road, once beyond the huts and ramshackle dwellings that had sprung up outside the walls. These were not villages, like St Sidwell’s beyond the East Gate where Gwyn lived, but the overflow of the city. Due to its burgeoning prosperity, Exeter had expanded rapidly and the old walls could no longer house all those who worked there.

  The coroner’s party walked with scores of others who were going to the hanging tree, either for entertainment or to see off a relative or acquaintance on their journey into eternity. Old men, too aged to work, and mothers with small children to entertain formed the bulk of the crowd, while hawkers with trays of pies and pasties, trinkets and lucky charms made up the rest. There were a few beggars too and even a hooded leper, forbidden to enter the city from the hospital outside the East Gate, but hoping for a few coins in his wooden bowl from those rash enough to brave the warning of his wooden rattle.

  Magdalene Street, where Aaron had just been buried in the tiny Jewish cemetery, became the King’s highway to Honiton, and thence far away to Salisbury, Southampton, Winchester and even London. But today four men would never get beyond the first half mile, as their journey through life was to end abruptly at the gallows at the road-side.

  Hanging was an accepted part of everyday life, preferred by many miscreants to mutilation, blinding or castration, which William the Bastard had favoured when he took over England. The Conqueror preferred these methods because the maimed victims remained in the community as a grim example to other potential wrongdoers. But conviction for a felony usually ended in a hanging, and all the executed person’s land and chattels were confiscated. It was not only the Crown that benefit
ed: the power of life and death also resided in the manor and burgess courts when forfeited goods went to the lord or the town council. At this time, England hanged a greater proportion of its inhabitants than any other country in Christendom.

  John de Wolfe had no quarrel with this state of affairs – in fact, it never crossed his mind. He was concerned with injustice, but if a man or woman had been sentenced to death in a legitimate court, then like almost every other man in the kingdom, he accepted that death was the proper remedy. His thoughts were on his own problems, not those of the condemned – how to manage the still-delicate relationship with Nesta and Matilda’s wrath when she became aware of it. The two latest murders nagged at his mind, with the knowledge that a warped killer was at large within the city.

  As he loped along, Gwyn broke into his reveries. ‘What’s going on up there, then?’

  De Wolfe lifted his head and saw a knot of people around a horseman, grouped at the edge of the road level with the gallows. Even at this distance, the angry gesticulations of the rider marked some extremely bad temper.

  ‘It’s the sheriff – and Ralph Morin and Gabriel,’ exclaimed the sharp-eyed Cornishman. ‘They seem to be arguing about the death cart.’

  Alongside the group, with a few men-at-arms as escort, was an open wagon with large solid wheels, a patient ox between its shafts. Standing inside, their wrists bound to the front rail, were two men and a woman, their heads drooping in terminal hopelessness.

  ‘There should have been four this morning,’ bleated Thomas, who was almost running to keep up with them.

  As they covered the last hundred paces, de Wolfe looked to his left at the hanging tree. It consisted of a massive beam twelve feet off the ground, supported at each end by stout posts buried in the earth. Today it indeed had four rope nooses dangling from it.

  ‘You’ll answer for this, you incompetent fools,’ de Revelle ranted, the objects of his rage being Osric, the constable, and another man who John recognised as one of the gaolers from the city prison in the towers of the South Gate.

  ‘Easy, Richard, you’ll give yourself apoplexy,’ he advised, as he came up to the sheriff’s big black horse. John looked across at Ralph Morin and Gabriel, the sergeant of the guard, but got only a deadpan look from the latter and a covert wink from Morin.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  The red-faced sheriff launched into a repetition of his tirade. ‘One of the felons has escaped, the very one I came to see dispatched! The fools – or, more likely, corrupt knaves – in the South Gate allowed him to vanish last night.’

  ‘Would that be de Vado, the one to whom you lost that land suit?’ asked John with straight-faced innocence.

  De Revelle’s colour heightened even more and he glared around the faces of the other men, daring them to show even the vestige of a grin.

  ‘It was de Vado, yes. The man who was found with God knows how much stolen loot in his house.’

  ‘Prisoners vanish all the time,’ said de Wolfe, reasonably. ‘The city couldn’t afford to keep all of them in food for months on end, even if there was room in that stinking tower.’ He almost added that Richard had never shown any interest in escapees before, but thought it best not to inflame him even more. Many prisoners, especially those in the town gaol, never came to trial or execution, almost always because their relatives or friends bribed the gaolers to let them run for sanctuary in the nearest church or melt away into the countryside to become outlaws. Others just slipped away to another part of England or even abroad, until they could slink back to their homes unobserved.

  It was only the sheriff’s chagrin at being done out of seeing Gocius de Vado perform the dance of death this morning, that had prompted his condemnation of gaol-breaking. He tried to include his men at the castle in the blame, but Ralph Morin was having none of it.

  ‘Nothing to do with us, sheriff,’ he snapped. ‘The city gaol belongs to the council and the Portreeves. I’m only responsible for Rougemont. Though we all know that Stigand is not above forgetting to lock a door, if the price is right!’

  De Revelle wheeled his horse around, still glowering at his disappointment … He was about to kick his stallion into a trot, to go back to the city gate, when John reached up to grip one of the reins.

  ‘Wait a moment, Richard. I have to talk to you.’

  ‘I’m in no mood for gossip, John. I have a legion of pestilent clerks clamouring for my attention before this damned Eyre.’

  ‘You’ll listen to this – for the Justices certainly will.’

  The mention of the royal visitors sharpened the sheriff’s attention. His sharp face stared down, the pointed beard bristled with impatience.

  ‘What is it now? Another dead moneylender?’

  ‘No, a dead whore – but slain by the same priestly hand.’

  De Revelle’s forehead creased in puzzlement. ‘How d’you know that? And who was she?’

  De Wolfe explained the circumstances quickly, knowing that it was difficult to hold the sheriff’s attention if he had more pressing affairs – especially ones which might affect his purse. But this time the sheriff was intrigued. ‘Joanna of London, you say? A handsome harlot with the striped clothing?’

  ‘That’s the one – and with flame-coloured hair.’

  ‘Her hair’s not flame-coloured all over!’ sneered Richard, unable to resist a cynical quip. John wondered how he knew so much about a tavern drab, though being aware of the sheriff’s nocturnal diversions, he could make a good guess.

  ‘We have to do something about this – and quickly,’ he said. ‘The Justices, especially Walter de Ralegh, are sharp men and they’ll be aware of the latest scandals in the city before they get their boots off. They’ll want some explanations, mainly from you.’

  For once de Revelle agreed with his sister’s husband. ‘What do you suggest? If it’s a damned cleric, then the Church should be involved. Your bosom friend the Archdeacon is responsible for parish priests, why not ask him?’

  ‘I’m seeing him today, but we must get a few more wise heads together to see if we can draw up a list of possible madmen.’

  De Revelle shook the rein free of John’s fingers, and as he rode off he jerked a thumb towards Thomas de Peyne, who was setting out his pen and ink on a nearby tree-stump. ‘There’s one for the top of your list,’ he called back over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In which Crowner John visits the Archdeacon

  The three routine hangings passed off without incident, and even the sobs and screams of the close relatives were relatively muted, compared with the hysterical scuffles that often occurred. The small crowd watched impassively, until the moment when the ropes tightened around the helpless necks, when a chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahhs’ and a few jeers were mingled with the wailing of the families. The woman, who had stabbed her husband when she could no longer stand his endless drunken assaults on her, was turned off first, as a measure of compassion so that she would not have to see the agonal jerks and spasms of the other felons.

  Sometimes, varying with the habits of the hangman, the felons were pushed off a ladder propped against the beam, but today the cart was in use. Three times it was driven under the gallows beam and a rope dropped over the victim’s neck by the executioner, a part-time butcher from the Shambles. The victim was stood on a board placed high across the back end of the side rails and the butcher smacked the ox’s rump. Well used to the procedure, the burly animal plodded forward sufficiently for the cart to move out from under the condemned, who fell into space and began the macabre jerking and twitching which was usually mercifully shortened by a distraught relative running out and dragging desperately on the legs.

  John de Wolfe watched all this impassively, then dictated the details of name and domicile to Thomas, who wrote them on his parchment roll, along with a record of the worldly goods, if any, that were forfeit to the Crown.

  When the show was over, the crowd set off for home, leaving the bodies to hang for t
he prescribed time until dusk. The distraught relatives waited beneath to claim them for burial, as none were to be gibbeted, an added disgrace for heinous crimes like treason, where the corpses were locked in an iron cage and hung up for weeks or months for the crows to pick the decaying remnants to pieces.

  De Wolfe and Gwyn walked back to the South Gate, Thomas following behind, muttering and crossing himself at frequent intervals. The coroner’s footsteps became slower as they entered the cathedral Close and the inevitable confrontation with Matilda became imminent. Thomas wandered off to his lodging in Canon’s Row and Gwyn, sensing John’s morbid preoccupation, murmured some excuse then peeled off outside St Martin’s Church and vanished up the back lane in search of the nearest ale-house.

  With leaden feet, de Wolfe walked on to the nemesis of his front door, not sparing a glance for the cleric who stood in the entrance of the little church opposite.

  Though de Wolfe did not notice him, Edwin of Frome took note of the coroner’s comings and goings. His church was rarely busy and he had plenty of time to lurk just inside the door and watch all who went by, speculating on their business.

  The parish priest of St Martin’s was unusual in that he was a Saxon. Though the distinction between Norman and Saxon was becoming blurred, many on both sides still took it seriously. The difference in appearance of some pure-bred men and women of either race was still striking and their names proclaimed the persisting schism.

  Edwin of Frome had the classic appearance of a Saxon. He was tall, fair-skinned, and his hair was almost yellow, though all that remained of it was a thick rim running around between his shaven crown and shaven neck. He had been born in Somerset thirty-five years ago, a great-grandson of one of the few Saxons to keep their land after the invasion.