The Noble Outlaw Page 13

  In the great nave, she pushed her way as far as possible to the front of the crowd standing on the bare flagged floor, so that she could get a good view of the great wooden screen that separated the common people from the quire and chancel, where the priests and their acolytes performed their mysteries. The cathedral was not intended to cater for the devotional needs of the general population, being a place where God could be praised endlessly by the clergy in the nine religious offices that punctuated every day and night. The twenty-seven parish churches and their priests were deemed sufficient to cater for the pastoral needs of Exeter folk, but the feast of Christ's birthday was an exception, when a show was put on by the cathedral chapter, partly for the benefit of the public. The usual time for Matins was brought forward from after midnight to the tenth hour, so that devotions could lead up to the vital first minutes of the new day, when Mass was celebrated, the only occasion in the year when it was so timed.

  Matilda genuflected and crossed herself, then peered around in the dim light afforded by pitch-brands burning in iron rings on the main pillars, as well as by some soft candlelight percolating from the quire through the fenestrated carvings of the screen. In the distance, she could just glimpse the presbytery and the High Altar, but her gaze was mainly directed to identifying some of her friends from St Olave's, who had promised to be present this evening. As the bells in the great towers began to ring out, she shuffled across to where she saw some familiar figures and soon was with a group of her cronies, enjoying a subdued gossip while they waited for the service to begin. All around her, the crowd murmured, stamped their feet and rubbed their hands against the biting cold. High above, a few birds that had flown in through the unglazed clerestory windows chirruped as they squabbled for places on the roof beams - and occasionally, members of the congregation cursed as the sparrows fouled their best clothes.

  Matilda was pleased to find that her new friend Joan de Whiteford had come to partake of the Mass, along with her cousin Mistress le Bret. For some reason, John's wife seemed attracted to the younger woman with an almost maternal urge to take her under her wing.

  Perhaps it was the misfortune of her early widowhood, as well as the undoubted cachet of her knightly status, that made Matilda warm to her. The coroner's wife preferred the company of women to men, because in general she disliked men. Being married to John was a burden she had suffered for years - she had once even entered a local nunnery, but found the life too spartan for her liking.

  She chatted amiably with Joan for a few moments and was glad to find that the pretty woman was also devoutly religious, which made her even more to be cherished.

  They avidly shared the atmosphere of this special evening and eagerly anticipated the ceremony that was about to begin.

  At about the tenth hour, sweet chanting from the choristers began in the distance and a solemn procession entered the quire and chancel. Held high, a gilded cross led in a cortege of splendidly robed priests and their followers, who all peeled off to take their appointed places. Bishop Henry Marshal, for once giving up his political journeying to be present in his diocese, took himself with his mitre and golden crook to his throne near the altar, while his four archdeacons, the other twenty canons and a multitude of vicars-choral, secondaries and choristers distributed themselves around the quire and presbytery.

  Chanting, responses, psalms and prayers echoed through the vaulted building and though the proceedings were conducted entirely in Latin, of which no one below the screen could understand a word, the ethereal effect, combined with the cloying thin smoke of incense, created a mystical mind-state so far removed from the rigors of everyday life, that all present felt that they could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in that great building. Matilda felt her new friend clutch her arm as the melodious chanting of the choir wafted over them and she patted her hand in mutual companionship.

  Soon, a canon inside the quire began reading the first lesson, again in Latin, but as the words were being intoned, a young chorister in a white gown appeared on the steps of the distant altar, holding aloft a flaming torch. Then he turned and with the audience breathlessly entranced, he began singing the Hodie natus celorum rex in a high, sweet voice, proclaiming that 'the King of Heaven on this day consented to be born for us of a virgin'. Then the boy pointed with his fight hand at the statue of the Virgin beside the altar and went down on one knee, at which the assembled clergy responded with Ut hominen perditem - 'that he should call home outcast man to the kingdom of heaven'.

  Matilda felt Joan quiver with almost ecstatic emotion and her own eyes misted when three choristers from each side of the choir, again dressed all in white albs, came to the altar steps and, with the first lad, turned to sing the Gloria in excelsis deo as they walked slowly down through the quire and out through the great carved screen to face the congregation.

  When Matins was finished, the midnight Mass was celebrated, and when at last all the clergy and their acolytes had processed out of the cathedral, the spellbound congregation began to make their way home in the biting cold. Matilda stood with her friends just inside the west door, making final conversation and exchanging seasonal goodwill greetings. Rather reluctantly, she said farewell to Joan who, with her cousin for company, left to walk back to Raden Lane. As everyone drifted off, muffling themselves against the keen east wind that had sprung up, Matilda found herself almost alone in the cavernous nave, where most of the torches had now burnt themselves out and the remainder were guttering to a feeble light.

  Reluctant to have the almost divine atmosphere come to an end, she told Lucille to wait on the steps and made her way back towards the intricately carved screen which carried the huge central crucifix almost to the apex of the chancel arch high above. The many candles in the choir beyond were still burning, throwing a pale light for a few yards into the nave. Gripped in an aura of religious awe, Matilda went down on her knees on the cold slabs, for once careless of her best raiment, and prayed fervently for herself and almost everyone she knew. She even included her wayward husband and her brother, the idol who had turned out to have feet of clay.

  Especially she prayed for her new friend Joan, pleading that she should obtain solace and peace of mind after her widowhood. Eventually, as a sexton began snuffing out the candles inside the quire, the ritual-induced state of grace faded and as she could think of no one else for her prayers, she rose and made her way through the empty nave towards the doors.

  Out on the steps, she beckoned impatiently to the shivering Lucille, pulled her hood forwards and tugged her cloak more closely to her neck, then set off along the path that led diagonally towards St Martin's Church and the entrance of the lane that led to her house. The icy weather had driven even the beggars out of the Close to seek better shelter, and the tumbled, rubbish-strewn area, with its untidy grave mounds, was completely deserted. The only light came from a waning quarter-moon, often obscured by clouds, together with the distant flickering of a few torches set at the various entrances to the Close, but Matilda had walked this way a thousand times and knew every rut in the path. Halfway to Martin's Lane, she commanded her maid to run ahead and tell Mary to prepare a hot possett of wine for her as a nightcap. Urged on by the snap in her mistress's voice, Lucille hurried away, leaving Matilda to cover the last few hundred paces to her front door.

  Still abstracted by the aura of the Mass, Matilda failed to notice soft footsteps coming up behind her. Suddenly a violent push against her shoulders sent her flying to the ground. Her forehead struck a lump of frozen earth thrown from a gravepit and the scream that had formed in her throat turned to a croak, as she almost lost consciousness.

  A moment later, she was rolled on to her back and a menacing figure straddled her, his hands groping for her neck. As her wits returned, her first thought was that she was about to be ravished, and she struggled violently. Matilda was a solidly built woman, and desperation gave her the will to buck and twist under her assailant, but he was too strong for her. Again she drew in a deep b
reath to scream, but now his fingers scrabbled aside her mantle to grab her neck and squeeze, her shriek for help dying in her mouth. The fingers tightened and now she feared for her life, rather than her honour, as the strong hands continued to throttle her. Her head felt about to burst and red flashes appeared inside her eyes as she frantically tried to draw a breath. A feeling of unreality and disbelief coursed through her muddled brain, as she tried to convince herself that this could not really be happening. A buzzing began in her ears, but she was still able to hear a voice hissing sibilantly a few inches from her face.

  'You old bitch! Tell that evil bastard you call a brother, that the body in his damned college - and the two that followed - shows what happens to people who cross me.' Suddenly, the grip on her throat was released and the weight of her assailant's body lifted as he rose to his feet. Then Matilda felt a violent kick in her ribs, thankfully somewhat blunted by her thick mantle, before the harsh voice spoke again.

  'And you can tell him that his own time is coming, as it is for his foul accomplice Henry Pomeroy! I want revenge for Hempston, which ruined my life.' Then she heard footsteps loping away towards Bear Gate and Southgate Street. Gasping, then sobbing with pain and fear, she turned on to her side and lay crumpled into a bail, shivering first with distress and then with cold. Slowly, she dragged herself to her knees and painfully rose to her feet. There was still not a soul in the Close that could come to her aid, and weeping she staggered like a drunken person towards the end of Martin's Lane, only a hundred paces away. As she went, she put her fingers to a newly recognised pain in her forehead and sobbed anew as they came away moist with seeping blood. •

  The little church on the corner was deserted, as the Mass held by its Saxon priest had finished before the cathedral service, but as she tottered unsteadily into the blackness of the lane, she saw a faint light bobbing towards her. With a moan of mixed hope and fear, she slid back to the ground just as the skinny figure of Osric, one of the city's watchmen, hurried to her solicitously, his horn lantern revealing the coroner's wife, her face bloodied and her garments dishevelled.

  Though John had dallied in Nesta's upper chamber until late in the evening, he was home long before the cathedral service had finished, at well after midnight.

  Promising his conscience that he would attend the traditional High Mass in the middle of Christmas morning, he went straight to bed and was sound asleep when Osric began pounding on the front door with the end of his staff. It failed to wake him, but moments later Mary clattered up the steps to the solar and burst in to shake him by the shoulder.

  'Come quickly, the mistress has been attacked!' she yelled, then dived back down to the yard below. Fuddled but soon fully awake, he clambered up from his pallet and threw on breeches and a tunic to cover his nakedness, thrust his feet into shoes and hurried after the maid.

  In the hall, lit by a bundle of kindling thrown urgently on to the smouldering logs, he found a scene of chaos, with an almost hysterical Lucille cradling Matilda's head as she lay slumped in one of the monk's chairs. The more practical Mary was bathing a wound on his wife's head with a cloth and warm water from her kitchen, whilst Osric was dancing from foot to foot, unable to decide whether to run out and start scouring the darkened streets for the assailant or to wait for de Wolfe's orders.

  'The mistress was attacked in the Close, on the way home from midnight Mass,' announced Mary, glaring at John as if it was his fault. She knew where he had been that evening and, as sometimes happened when she had a bout of righteousness, she placed some of the blame upon him, even though the poor man had been asleep in his own bed when it happened.

  He pushed Lucille out of the way, telling her to get some brandy wine for her mistress, then knelt on the floor alongside Matilda, his head level with hers.

  'Tell me what happened, good wife,' he said with surprising gentleness. 'Who did this to you, eh? Snuffles and groans were the only response, then she winced as Mary gave a final wipe to the injury on her temple. It was not a deep cut, rather a deep ragged graze, but it had bled profusely.

  'I think she must have fallen to the ground,' murmured Mary. 'But look at her neck and her eyes.' John saw that her eyelids were much more puffy and swollen than usual and in the whites were some bright flecks of blood. When Mary gently eased aside her wimple and collar, several fresh bruises were evident under the angles of her jaw.

  'Some bastard has tried to throttle her,' growled John.

  He slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. 'You are safe now, wife,' he said gently. 'We'll get to the bottom of this, never fear!'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In which Crowner John becomes vindictive

  For the first time in his life, John de Wolfe made a grudging apology to his brother-in-law. They were seated on either side of the fire in John's hall, drinking a midmorning cup of wine, for once united in their concern for Matilda and in cold anger at whoever had committed this outrage upon her.

  'It seems that I have to agree with you, Richard,' grunted de Wolfe, reaching across to refill his guest's glass goblet with Loire red. 'I admit I disbelieved your accusation about the corpse in your college being the work of outlaws, but now it seems that you may be right.' De Revelle was too worried to crow over John's backing-down, as what he had just learned from the coroner indicated a frightening threat to himself.

  'I suppose there's no doubt about what this swine said to my sister?' he asked anxiously. 'Could she have been so overwrought as to imagine it?'

  De Wolfe shook his head. 'Matilda is a very strongwilled woman, as you very well know. After she had recovered a little last night, she was lucid and definite about what happened.'

  When the immediate panic had subsided following her return home, a few glasses of strong brandy wine restored his wife enough for Mary and Lucille to help her up the stairs to the solar, with John and Osric hovering ineffectively behind. The two maids undressed her and got her into bed, heaping blankets and fleeces on her against the cold and plying her with more hot mulled wine. Lucille, the rabbit-toothed French maid from the Vexin, sat with her for the rest of the night, but John crouched for a time at the edge of the pallet and spoke gently to her as she recovered. As he had told her brother, Matilda was a tough, resilient woman not given to fainting or hysterics, and she soon was able to describe what had happened, though this was a pretty sparse tale, as she had seen nothing of her attacker apart from a hooded shape in black clothing. However, she was in no doubt about what he had threatened, though she could not identify his voice.

  Osric had rushed away to seek the other constable and to rouse Gwyn from his bag of straw in the soldiers' quarters in Rougemont. They had searched the streets around the cathedral, but it was a futile gesture in the early hours of the morning, when only a few drunks were still abroad.

  Richard de Revelle had hurried after his breakfast to Martin's Lane as soon as he heard the news, which had travelled rapidly around the city's grapevine, sparked off by the enquiries being made by the two constables.

  'I'll strangle the bastard with my own hands when I catch him,' grated John. 'Matilda was quite definite that he said he had killed the poor fellow in Smythen Street and then boasted of the 'other two', which must surely mean the bizarre slayings out on the Ashburton Road and in St Bartholomew's churchyard.'

  Richard stared at him uneasily. 'But he threatened both Henry de la Pomeroy and myself,' he repeated. 'It must be that bloody outlaw and his gang from Dartmoor.'

  John shrugged. 'Unlikely as it seems, I have to agree with you. It was that mention of Hempston that clinches it. Your sins are coming home to roost, Richard, but I wish your sister was not involved in the fruits of whatever crafty schemes you've been up to.'

  In his agitation, de Revelle ignored this shaft from John and stayed with the potential dangers to himself.

  'I see how they could have slain that glazier out on the high road, but how do they manage to kill and attack within the city itself? This idle sheriff and the
portreeves must immediately tighten up the security at the gates.'

  De Wolfe gave a scornful laugh. 'How the hell can you stop any man coming into the city, Richard, unless you know his face? Hundreds enter through the five gates every day. Any man pushing a barrowful of hay or a fellow driving a pig could be an outlaw - they don't carry a placard around their neck, you know.'

  De Revelle glowered at him, their temporary truce already under strain. 'So what are you going to do about it? I hear de Furnellis has delegated all his work to you,' he added sarcastically.

  'I must somehow find this man Nicholas de Arundell - though looking for him in the wastes of Dartmoor will be like looking for a grain of barley in a wheatfield! Have you any idea where he might be, as you and Pomeroy were the cause of him being there in the first place?'

  The former sheriff bridled at this. 'And good cause it was. The bloody man started a riot and killed one of my servants. Then they ran away and when they repeatedly failed to answer at court, they were rightly declared outlaw.'

  John was too distracted to argue the merits of the case at the moment and wearily turned to more immediate matters. 'The cowardly swine that assaulted Matilda not only half-throttled her, but kicked her when she lay on the ground. Lucille found a great bruise over her ribs.' He swallowed the rest of his wine in an angry gesture.

  'What I want to know is why she was attacked and not you? And what have these other killings got to do with it?'

  'They are all directed at me or Pomeroy, John,' brayed Richard fearfully. 'It was my college enterprise that he wished to damage. It was my sister that he injured. It was Henry de la Pomeroy's glazier, tenuous though that connection might be... but he is attacking anything to do with Henry and myself in order to discomfort us.' Richard was now gabbling his words. 'In fact, I feel he assaulted my poor sister just in order to pass on the message via her lips. That is why, thank Christ, he did not finish the job and strangle her completely!'