A Plague of Heretics (Crowner John Mysteries) Read online

  Gwyn scowled. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past those bastards!’

  The reason for his unwavering antipathy to everything ecclesiastical remained a mystery to John, but he now pursued another matter. ‘Thomas, tell me more about the way that the Church deals with these people who disagree with their monopoly of religion. Why did Hubert Walter send out that reminder to bishops to be more vigilant?’

  Hubert Walter was the king’s Chief Justiciar, the head of the legal system, as well as being Archbishop of Canterbury and the Papal Legate, the Holy Father’s representative in England. In fact, he virtually ruled as regent during the king’s apparently permanent absence at the French wars. John knew him well, as he had been the king’s right-hand man at the Crusade and when Richard was imprisoned in Germany. As the justiciar who introduced the coroner system two years before, their paths had crossed several times since.

  The little clerk was in his element at being asked to spill out his knowledge. Gwyn gave an anticipatory groan, but this didn’t deter Thomas.

  ‘Some years ago, the rise of heresy all across Europe led Pope Lucius to issue a decretal called Ab Abolendum at the Synod of Verona, designed to root out heresy. That was in 1184, but nothing much was done about it until the Cathars, the Waldenses, the Poor Men of Lyons and many other groups became even more widespread and outspoken. So recently the present Pope, through his Legates in each country, has demanded more action from his bishops.’

  ‘So what can they do about it?’ asked de Wolfe.

  Thomas rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation of giving another lecture.

  ‘The decretal obliged the bishops and their officers – the archdeacons and others – to be vigilant in seeking out heretics. They were supposed to preach sermons against heresy several times a year and visit each parish regularly to enquire about it – though this was rarely done. They also were obliged to seek the aid of the secular authorities in enforcing their campaign – people like the sheriffs, burgesses and even the coroners!’

  De Wolfe scowled at this, as the last thing he wanted was to get mixed up in some witch-hunt.

  ‘So what could they do to heretics when they found them?’ asked Martha, who leaned on the table with her chin in her hand, absorbed by Thomas’s story.

  ‘They were excommunicated, so could not be married or buried in a church, forbidden to hold any public office, could not make a will and could not inherit or pass on their property.’

  ‘They might as well be outlawed!’ said Gwyn.

  ‘Exactly! Moreover, anyone else who gave them aid or concealed them was treated in the same way. When found guilty by a church court, they could be turned over to the civil authority for any further punishment that might be thought necessary. I suppose they could be hanged or imprisoned, if the local sheriff felt malicious towards them.’

  John stared at the flames flickering from the logs in the fire and wondered if, in time, heretics would feel similar flames licking at their bodies. The zeal of the Roman Church to repress any who challenged their absolute despotism was sufficient for that to eventually happen, he feared. He sighed and turned his attention to other worries.

  ‘Gwyn, I will go out with you to Wonford in the morning, to see this corpse and hold an inquest. Then we will go straight to Stoke, using the ferry at Topsham. If all goes well, we will be back before nightfall.’

  There was little to be done at Wonford except to pull out the knife from Hengist’s belly and look at the other wounds. The smell on his body from his sojourn in the privy-pit had abated a little overnight, and Gwyn and the bailiff dragged up his thin tunic to expose the injuries. They saw that the knife was a curved blade set in a rounded cylinder of wood for a handle.

  ‘This is surely from his own workshop,’ said Robert. ‘There are others there with exactly the same sort of crude hilt. He probably made them himself to cut and shape the leather.’

  On the chest and belly were six stab wounds, all of a size consistent with the same knife. In addition, John’s probing finger found an area above his left ear which was swollen and boggy. When he pressed it, he could feel the crackling of the edges of broken bone grating together.

  Rocking back on his heels, he rubbed the blood and filth from his fingers on the nearby grass and weeds. ‘He wasn’t stabbed in his cottage, for there’s no sign of blood there. He must have been struck this severe blow on the head to stun him, then dragged outside, his heels making those marks on the floor.’

  ‘Then brought here and stabbed – or stabbed on the way,’ completed Gwyn.

  ‘There’s very little blood coming from the belly, so he may well have been dead by then, as it didn’t bleed much,’ noted the coroner, getting to his feet. ‘But that doesn’t help in telling us who did it.’

  ‘Could only one man have hit him, dragged him out and brought him here?’ asked the bailiff. ‘It’s half a mile from his toft.’

  ‘One man couldn’t have dragged him that distance,’ said John confidently. ‘But he might have had a horse, so that he could throw him across the saddle and walk him here.’

  ‘It must have been during the night or they would have been seen,’ said Gwyn.

  They stood in silence for a moment, looking down at the corpse.

  ‘That still doesn’t help in finding the killer,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘So let’s get on with the inquest and see if anyone knows anything – though I doubt it.’

  As he anticipated, the inquest was a frustrating formality. The dozen men that the bailiff had rounded up from the manor stood around the cadaver while John officiated, but no one had heard anything during the nights of the past week. The harness-maker’s croft and workshop was at the edge of the village, so when he was dragged out and taken away to the abandoned cottage, he would not have had to pass any of the other dwellings. The jury, directed sternly by the coroner, unhesitatingly brought in a verdict of murder, and John handed over the sad corpse for burial. The two sons claimed it rather reluctantly, for the parish priest was unwilling to allow it to be buried in the churchyard.

  ‘He is a heretic and a sinner, a blasphemer cursed by God and man!’ brayed Father Patrick angrily.

  John walked up to him and bent down to glare directly into his face, his hawk-like nose almost touching the red bulbous one of the Irishman.

  ‘Listen, priest! No court, not of Church nor king, has pronounced Hengist to have been a heretic. If you don’t find him a nice quiet corner of your churchyard to rest in, I’ll take you back to Exeter and drag you before your archdeacon, John of Alençon, understand? He’ll tell you what you can and can’t do in this diocese.’

  He was bluffing, as for all he knew the archdeacon would agree with Patrick, but the bluster worked and with a shrug the priest walked away.

  ‘But don’t expect me to hold a burial service over him,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘For all I care, he can rot in purgatory for the next thousand years!’

  The rest of the day was uneventful, though worrying and depressing for de Wolfe, who was so concerned for his brother. From Wonford he rode with Gwyn to Topsham, the little port on the estuary of the Exe, where they were poled across the river with their horses on the flat-bottomed ferry. From there it was an easy canter across the flat lands to Dawlish, where de Wolfe steeled himself once again to ride past Hilda’s house. On his last visit to Stoke-in-Teignhead, he had arranged for a message to be sent to Holcombe, to tell the reeve to let his daughter know that he was avoiding her, because of the risk of carrying the yellow plague. It was almost two weeks since he had last seen her, and he yearned for her company.

  At Stoke they found little change in William’s condition, though his fever had abated and his skin and eyes were slightly less yellow.

  ‘I am concerned that he is passing almost no water,’ said their mother, looking drawn and tired with worry. ‘That nice apothecary you brought said that we were to try to make him drink more, but it is very difficult.’

  ‘William still does not have his wi
ts,’ added Evelyn. ‘He seems to sleep most of the time, and sometimes seems to know us, but it is hard to force food and drink between his lips.’

  When John went in to sit with his brother for a time, there was nothing he could do but crouch on a stool alongside his pallet and watch his shallow breathing and closed eyes. There was a strange smell about him, which seemed to come from his breath rather than his sweat.

  Sadly, he compared this wreck of a man with the robust, active man he had always known. Several years older than John, he had a marked resemblance to him, both in height, coloration and features, but he lacked John’s habitual stern and grim expression, being a placid and even-tempered man. Unlike some brothers, these two had always got along amicably, and John was very fond of William, making the present situation all the more difficult to bear. He sat for an hour or two, while his mother and sister had a well-earned respite from their vigil. Eventually, they came back to keep him company at the bedside, until a meal was prepared in the hall outside.

  ‘He has been hiccuping now and then,’ reported John, mainly for something neutral to say. His mother nodded.

  ‘The poor boy has been doing that for the past day or so,’ she said. ‘His breath smells peculiar, too. I wish I knew what more could be done for him.’

  John had no useful suggestions, and Evelyn, a most religious woman, provided the only remedy by endlessly passing rosary beads through her fingers as her lips soundlessly prayed for her brother’s life. The evening passed slowly, John helping his mother and one of the servants to clean William’s body and to struggle a new bed-shirt over his limp limbs. William muttered a few incomprehensible words when he was disturbed, but he was in a stupor, if not actually a coma, and did not respond to any questions or attempts to rouse him.

  At dawn the situation was unchanged and reluctantly John and Gwyn saddled up after a good breakfast and prepared to head for home. As his mother came to say farewell in the bailey outside the house, her tears touched John’s heart, for he was aware that both of them were afraid that William would not survive.

  ‘At least there have been no more deaths in the manor – nor new cases for a week,’ she said, wiping her eyes and nose with a kerchief. ‘And there have been none at all in Holcombe, thanks be to Christ and His Virgin Mother.’

  He kissed her and his sister, who was also weeping silently, and with a promise to return in a couple of days he left with a subdued Gwyn riding alongside him. As the tide was in, they crossed the river by another ferry further upstream near Combe-in-Teignhead, and then made their way eastwards along the coast road.

  ‘Strange how this bloody illness hits one village and not another,’ ruminated Gwyn. ‘Holcombe has had no trouble at all.’

  He waved an arm to the left, where that manor lay just off the track, and John wondered if his officer was trying to hint at something. By the time they were in sight of Dawlish, a short distance further on, he had made up his mind.

  ‘I’ll speak to Hilda, but not come within coughing distance!’ he announced.

  In the little port, fishing boats were drawn up on the beach and larger vessels on the banks of the small river that came down from the hills behind Dawlish. At this stream, they turned off and found a short backstreet, parallel with the high road. Among the few houses there, one stood out by being both stone-built and larger than the rest. It had two stone columns at the front supporting an arch over a large door. Hilda’s late husband, shipmaster Thorgils the Boatman, had modelled it on one he saw at Dol, in Brittany.

  They reined in before the house, and Gwyn slid off his big mare to knock loudly on the door. Then he went back and climbed back into his saddle before Hilda’s young maid Alice answered.

  ‘Call your mistress to an upper window,’ commanded John.

  A moment later one of the upstairs shutters flew back and Hilda leaned out, a shawl thrown around her shoulders in the keen morning air. She was a lovely woman, her honey-coloured hair falling down her back, unfettered in her own house by any cover-chief.

  ‘John, you must come in! I do not fear you bringing any contamination to me!’

  He shook his head stubbornly. ‘This is as near as I must come, though God knows I would wish to have my arms around you!’

  ‘I had your message through my father,’ she called. ‘It is tragic what has happened in Stoke.’

  John gave her the latest unhappy news from his brother’s manor and they talked for some time across a gap of twenty paces.

  ‘There have been no more attacks of the yellow plague in Stoke for a week, so we hope it has passed. But it seems that it has damaged William badly.’

  Hilda offered to go to his mother to help nurse William, but John forbade it. ‘You are a good woman, my love, but there is nothing you can do there that cannot be carried out by Evelyn and my mother. I would worry myself to my own early grave if I knew you were putting yourself at risk.’

  Hilda pulled the shawl more closely around her against the cool morning air, and leaned further over the window sill, as if trying to get nearer to her lover.

  ‘Now that the distemper seems to have passed, then it must soon be safe for you to visit me, John. I have missed you so much!’

  They talked for a few more moments but, aware that their public conversation was starting to attract the attention of neighbours and passers-by, John reluctantly felt that he had to say goodbye, with a promise to call again within a few days. The two horsemen wheeled their steeds around and Hilda waved until they were out of sight, then the shutter closed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In which Crowner John

  hears more bad news

  Having left at dawn, the coroner and his officer were back in Exeter soon after the cathedral bells tolled for High Mass in mid-morning. Gwyn went straight to his family and another large breakfast at the Bush, while John went up to Rougemont. He had not seen the sheriff for a few days and felt he should tell him of yet another murder, that of Hengist of Wonford.

  ‘What in God’s name is going on, John?’ exclaimed Henry de Furnellis as they sat on each side of his cluttered table. ‘Three heretics slain in a week? By whom?’

  De Wolfe turned up his hands in a gesture of bafflement. ‘Someone is taking the law into their own hands, not trusting the Church or the king to deal with these people,’ he growled. ‘These three canons are the obvious suspects, but I can’t see them getting blood on their own hands in such a barbaric fashion.’

  ‘Are they getting someone else to do their dirty work?’ queried the sheriff. ‘What about these two proctors’ men?’

  ‘William Blundus is ruffian enough, I suppose,’ answered the coroner. ‘He is used to throwing drunks out of the Close and beating a few hooligans with his staff when the occasion arises. The senior bailiff is Herbert Gale, a more serious fellow altogether. But why should two men who are little more than constables or beadles take to murdering heretics?’

  Henry, whose main concern was getting in Devonshire’s taxes, was content to leave the problem to de Wolfe, but the latter reminded him what Thomas had told him about the Papal decretal.

  ‘Our good friend and master Hubert Walter has sent a reminder to all the bishops about the need to stamp out heresy. My clerk Thomas tells me that we secular officers – and that especially means you, Henry – are obliged to give all necessary aid to the ecclesiastical authorities in detecting, securing and punishing these blasphemers. So we may not get out of this situation so lightly.’

  De Furnellis sighed and pulled a face. ‘You certainly know how to cheer me up, John! I need no distractions to scraping together the county farm, after this year’s awful harvest.’

  ‘We may have little choice after tomorrow, when they hold the first of these inquisitions,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘They are dragging in a handful of so-called heretics for interrogation and, if they are sent to the bishop’s court, they may well call upon you to deal with them.’

  John left the sheriff muttering under his breath at these extra labou
rs likely to be piled upon him and went back to his chamber high in the gatehouse. He expected to find Thomas there, labouring away with his pen, ink and parchment, but there was no sign of the little priest, and John assumed he was either at one of the interminable services in the cathedral or working in the scriptorium on the upper floor of the chapter house.

  With no new deaths reported and no hangings to attend that day, he felt rather at a loose end, so he settled down to a boring hour before dinner, trying to follow the reading lessons that Thomas had set him. He had been coached on and off for a year or so, by a vicar-choral from the cathedral, but had made little progress. Then Thomas had taken over, but their move to Westminster earlier that year had dislocated his tuition and he was no further forward, mainly from a lack of enthusiasm on his part.

  He sat staring at a few curled sheets of parchment on which Thomas had carefully inscribed the Latin alphabet and some simple sentences, but his mind kept straying to Stoke-in-Teignhead and the vision of his brother lying so desperately ill on his bed. He found himself praying again, ill-formed words muttered under his breath, but nevertheless sincere in their plea to whoever was up above in heaven, asking him to deliver William from danger.

  His lessons ignored, he sat gazing into space until the noon bell from the cathedral told him it was past dinner-time. Back in Martin’s Lane, he endured another silent meal with Matilda, after he had told her of his brother’s desperate condition and she had grudgingly admitted that she had prayed for his recovery or, if that was too much to ask of God, for the salvation of William’s soul.

  ‘I also hear that there is another outbreak of the plague down on Exe Island,’ she added in a rare burst of loquacity. ‘Not surprising, with such people living in those squalid shacks that dot the marshes there.’

  He felt like telling her that not everyone had such a soft life as her, with a relatively rich husband, her own income bequeathed by her father from the de Revelle estates and a substantial house to live in. But he held his tongue, preferring silence to provoking another tirade.