Figure of Hate Page 19

  'You lost the inheritance by the ruling of the law, Odo!' shrieked Ralph. 'You cannot hope to retrieve it now. '

  'Why not? The court found for Hugo against me, unjust though that decision was. They did not rule me out against a mere youth like you, so do not assume airs and graces that do not exist, either in equity or law!'

  De Wolfe, though beginning to despair of getting any sense out of this discordant family, nevertheless allowed the dispute to flourish, as he felt that anger might lead to some incautious admissions. They were all shouting and declaiming in such confusion, however, that little sense could be made of anything.

  The steward stood at one end of the table, his mouth drooping in astonishment, and the lesser servants in the background were enjoying the sight of the family in such undignified disarray. It would give them ample fuel for gossip in the kitchens for weeks to come.

  When it became apparent to de Wolfe that he was going to gain nothing useful from this spiteful cacophony, he beat his fists upon the table and yelled at the top of his voice.

  'God's guts, will you all be silent! Ladies, I apologise for my necessary intrusion upon your domestic disputes, but I have to attend to the King's business.' There was an immediate lull in the arguing, more from surprise at a stranger shouting at them in their own hall than from any desire to obey him.

  'Lady Beatrice, let me ask you what I need, then I'll leave you all to your personal affairs,' de Wolfe continued.

  The younger woman was the only one who had not joined in the general hubbub, sitting placidly through it all. John suspected that her virtues lay in her undoubted beauty rather than her brains or depth of character.

  'I regret having to pester you in your bereavement, but is your recollection of last evening similar to the other sparse testimony that I have heard?' Beatrice raised her long-lashed eyes to meet his, and in spite of the circumstances he felt a frisson of desire as she smiled at him.

  'You are most genteel, Sir John, but there is nothing I can add. I played draughts with Joel after the meal ended, then I went to my chamber, where my maid prepared me for bed. My husband did not return before I went to sleep - but that was not unusual,' she added rather petulantly.

  'And as far as you recall, he did not return at any time during the night?'

  She shook her head, a wisp of golden hair appearing from under her silken cover-chief. 'He was not there after I awoke some time after dawn. And my maid, who sleeps on a pallet outside my door, said that he had not returned at any time.'

  The dark-haired girl, who stood behind her Chair, nodded but said nothing. All their stories were so similar that John suspected that they had agreed on them beforehand, but he philosophically accepted that this may have been because they were true.

  'And being in the closest confidence of all, Hugo being your husband, have you any reason to suspect any person who might wish him evil?'

  Beatrice glanced quickly around her brothers-in-law, then lowered her eyes.

  'None at all, sir,' she replied in little more than a whisper.

  'A complete waste of bloody time!' grumbled de Wolfe.

  'The whole lot of them clammed up like limpets at low tide.'

  It was late that night and the coroner was sitting with Gwyn and Thomas in the village alehouse near the green, only a stone's throw from the byre where Hugo had been found. Though the tavern was a miserable place, John found it preferable to the hostile atmosphere of the manor house.

  When he had abandoned his attempt to squeeze more information from the Peverel family, he had sought out his assistants in the kitchens and walked them in the dusk around the village, to get a feel for the geography of the place. Then he had brought them to the hovel with the bare bush hanging from a bracket outside the door, and they stood in the only room, drinking an indifferent ale, which from the expression on their clerk's face was only slightly preferable to hemlock.

  The taproom was but a shadow of the superior accommodation at the Bush at Exeter. A low room with crumbling cob walls between worm-eaten frames, it had damp, dirty rushes on the floor, which rustled ominously as various rodents burrowed through it for scraps of fallen food. Inside the once whitewashed stones that ringed the fire-pit in the centre, some logs smouldered on the ashes. There were a few three-legged stools scattered about but no tables, and the coroner's trio stood together by the only window-opening, where they used the rough sill to support their misshapen pottery mugs. Against the far wall, a slatternly ale-wife ladled her thin brew into the mugs from several tengallon crocks standing on the floor. A dozen men stood about drinking, ignoring the stools and staring suspiciously at the three strangers near the window.

  'Did you learn anything from the kitchen maids?' John asked Gwyn, knowing of his roguish ways with servant girls.

  His officer finished filtering ale through his luxuriant moustache before replying. 'It's an unhappy manor, that's for sure, but I heard nothing much of use. A little more digging will probably turn up more scandal, though whether it would have any bearing on this slaying is doubtful.'

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'That Hugo was unpopular with everyone, that's for sure, but they wouldn't tell me why.'

  John took another mouthful of ale and winced at the taste, comparing it unfavourably with the fruits of Nesta's expertise. 'When I've finished this horse-piss, I'll find a pallet in a corner of the hall, as long as those damned brothers have cleared off. But I want you to stay here for a while, Gwyn. See what you can wheedle out of these villagers. Here's twopence to ply them with ale.'

  As he fumbled in his scrip for some coins, he spoke to his clerk.

  'And you, Thomas, you can do what you have done to good account several times before. Seek out that fat Irish priest and play your cleric's game with him. It will be more honest now that you must surely soon be on your way to reinstatement.'

  Thomas de Peyne felt a glow of pleasure, both at the trust his master placed in him and the reminder that his time as an outcast from his beloved Church was coming to an end. The little clerk had a gift for wheedling information from parish priests, who usually accepted him as one of their own with his threadbare cassock, shaven head and wide command of Latin. They were more free with their confidences, especially when their tongues were loosened by drink, which was a common failing among those disillusioned priests dumped in some obscure parish with no hope of advancement.

  As the coroner and Thomas prepared to leave the dismal inn, Gwyn gave a valedictory piece of news.

  'There's something going on between Richard de Revelle and the Peverels. I saw them with their heads together as he was leaving and I'll wager they were plotting some mischief- though God knows what!'

  Chapter Eight

  In which Crowner John attends a burial

  After Tuesday morning's hangings, at which John had to be present to record the event and seize any goods and chattels of the felons, he went home to his noontide dinner. Here he received the expected frosty reception from Matilda, which was her usual reaction to him having been away overnight. Once again he reflected on the unfairness of her attitude, when it was she who had so eagerly supported his appointment as coroner a year earlier. Yet now she resented his absences from home carrying out the very duties that she had been so keen for him to accept. He knew she suspected him of taking the opportunity offered by these excursions to drink and womanise, though he thought wryly that, given the quality of the ale at Sampford and his current devotion to Nesta, neither of these allegations could possibly be true.

  As he sat silently chewing poached salmon and cabbage, he threw covert looks at his wife, wondering what was going on in her mind. He had noticed lately that in addition to her devotion to religious observance - she went at least twice a day to services at either the cathedral or St Olave's - Matilda was becoming increasingly obsessed with her Norman ancestry, tenuous though it was. The de Revelles had left St-Lô in the early years of the century and those now remaining in Normandy were but distant cousins. S
everal years before, Matilda had spent a month visiting them and had come home with the firm conviction that she was a scion of a noble house, exiled among English barbarians. The fact that she, together with two previous generations of ancestors, had been born in Devon could not shake her belief in her exalted heredity. Even though John's late father was of pure Norman stock, she had despised him for taking a Cornish-Welsh wife, and she looked on her husband as something of a Celtic mongrel. Of late, when she deigned to hold a conversation with him, the subject reverted increasingly to her noble family across the Channel and how she yearned to see them and the fair orchards of Normandy once again. Secretly, John wished she would take ship for Caen and never return, but so far she seemed to have no plans to repeat her pilgrimage.

  After the meal, they sat on either side of the hearth in the monk's chairs whose side-wings kept out some of the draughts. Mary brought them each a pewter cup of red wine poured from a small skin on a side table and left them to their silent vigil.

  After a few minutes, John felt that he should make an effort to converse with his wife to bring her out of her latest sulk. Knowing of her snobbish fascination with the local aristocracy, he thought the current drama in Sampford Peverel might catch her attention, and he related the events of the past day. If there was one group of people that Matilda knew almost as well as the ecclesiastical establishment, it was the Devon gentry, among whom she was always prodding her husband to advance himself. Her small eyes lit up with interest as she scented a prime topic for gossip with which to regale her friends at church.

  'You know the scandal there was at Sampford earlier in the year?' she demanded. 'After Lord William was killed at Salisbury.'

  John shook his head in false innocence, hoping that he might glean something useful from this fount of rumour that was his wife.

  'Well, with four sons, the manor should naturally have gone to the eldest, which was Odo. But the second son Hugo disputed the claim and it became a great issue, which had to be settled by the King's justices and even by the chancery in Winchester.'

  'So what was the problem?' asked John. He had heard the bones of the story elsewhere, but maybe Matilda had the meat.

  'The second son, this Hugo, contested the succession on the grounds that his brother was not a fit person to rule the manor. He claimed that Odo suffered so badly from the "falling disease" that he would be unable to attend properly to the duties of a manor-lord.'

  What little de Wolfe had seen of Odo gave no cause for thinking that the man was incapable in any way, but he waited for his wife to add some detail.

  'It was claimed, so I've heard from Martha, the goldsmith's wife, that this Peverel had sudden convulsions and strange aberrations of behaviour. Several times, he had fallen from his horse and damaged himself.'

  'How would this lady know of that?' demanded John.

  'Her husband is Wilfred, the master of the goldsmiths' guild. It seems he was in Winchester when the case was being heard, as he happened to be in some civil dispute in the courts over the quality of a necklace.'

  Trust Matilda to be connected to the grapevine when some tasty scandal was being aired, thought John cynically.

  'And obviously Hugo won the day,' he observed.

  Matilda sniffed contemptuously. 'Huh, it was to be expected! Like his father, Hugo was well known on-the tournament circuit, rubbing shoulders with barons and powerful knights who either jousted themselves or took a great interest in the wagering. This Odo was a dull stay-at-home, never so much as lifting a lance. That was probably on account of his affliction, but still, he had no powerful friends like Hugo, so he lost the decision.'

  'Well, now the battle begins again,' grunted John.

  'For though this Ralph has assumed he is next in line, Odo seems willing to dispute his claim on the grounds that the chancery decision related to him and Hugo, not Ralph.'

  Matilda shrugged dismissively. 'Then he'll lose again, for I hear this Ralph is also devoted to the tourney field, so will know the same influential men who swayed the decision for his brother last May.'

  With some careful probing, John discovered that his wife knew nothing more of any use, and soon the effects of a large meal and the wine sent her upstairs with Lucille to seek the solace of her bed.

  De Wolfe, free from any tasks that afternoon, decided to seek his mistress, both for the pleasure of her company and possibly as another source of information from her fund of tavern gossip. With Brutus as a feeble alibi, he walked through the bustling city down to Idle Lane, where he had told his two assistants to meet him.

  He had ridden on ahead of his officer and clerk when they had left Sampford Peverel early that morning, as he had to hear two appealers before the hangings.

  These were persons who were accusing others of offences against them, one a theft of money, the other a wounding. The plaintiffs had to decide how they were going to seek justice - either by battle, by ordeal or through the courts. John's task was to try to sweep their dispute into the royal courts, which would benefit the exchequer as well as offer a more sensible solution than the old superstitious and barbaric practices. Having had no time the previous night to discover whether Gwyn and Thomas had learned anything useful in Sampford, he was keen to hear what they had to say.

  When he entered the main room of the inn, he found his men sitting at his favourite table. Inevitably Gwyn was eating, demolishing a meat pasty supplied by Nesta.

  Brutus, who adored the dog-loving Cornishman, made straight for him and sat under the table, waiting for the titbits from the pie that he knew would come his way. John sat himself down on one of the benches alongside the scrawny clerk and waited for Edwin to limp across with a quart pot of ale. Gwyn had cider and Thomas a cup of watered wine, given in pity by Nesta, as she knew how much he disliked ale, even her superior brew.

  'The mistress will be with you directly, Cap'n!' croaked the ancient potman, rolling the white of his blind eye horribly at the coroner. 'She's stirring the mash in the brew shed.'

  While Gwyn finished chewing and then picking bits of mutton, onion and pastry from his whiskers, John asked his clerk whether he had heard any more from his uncle concerning his readmission to holy orders.

  Thomas was the nephew of the Archdeacon of Exeter, best placed to hear news of an ecclesiastical nature.

  'Nothing at all for weeks, master,' replied Thomas dolefully, his weak face displaying his chronic concern that his long-awaited reinstatement might never materialise. 'I fear they have conveniently forgotten me in Winchester.'

  'How do they reinstall you as a priest, Thomas?' asked Gwyn, after a massive belch. 'Do you have to be dipped in holy water - or maybe they circumcise you!' He could never resist teasing the poor fellow.

  'I don't need to be made a priest again,' snapped the clerk huffily. 'Ordination is for life, nothing can remove it, not even the Pope himself.'

  'So what happens?' asked John, genuinely interested.

  'As I told this great oaf, ordination is indelible.The grace, once bestowed, is ex machina, it cannot be repeated, nor can it be removed.'

  'So what happened when you were thrown out?' persisted Gwyn.

  'The Church's authority for me to exercise my ministry was revoked and any sacramental acts carried out by me would thereafter be void. Though still nominally a priest, I have been falsely condemned to ecclesiastical impotence!'

  As the Cornishman cackled at this, John spoke more seriously.

  'Then how will you be restored?'

  'There is no great ceremony. The bishop, during a celebration of the Mass at which I am present, needs only to publicly read the Chancellor's document, which cleared my name. Then hopefully he will add a personal blessing and restore me to my lost functions.'

  'And that's all that's required?' queried the coroner.

  'The bishop would need an assurance that I could sustain myself by employment appropriate to the status of a priest and also have a designated place in a consecrated building to celebrate Mass.'
/>   'How are you going" to manage that?' asked John.

  'Does it mean you will need to find a living in some church?'

  Thomas shook his head. 'There is no need - I will remain your clerk for as long as you wish. And my uncle has promised to intercede with the cathedral chapter to grant me a share in the stipendary service at one of the altars in the cathedral.'

  He had brightened up during this talk about his beloved Church, but now relapsed into a doleful depression. 'But none of this matters, if Winchester has forgotten my very existence.'

  He looked so miserable that John was moved to encourage him.

  'I'll do what I can for you, Thomas, though I have no influence in matters concerning the Church. When I next see the archdeacon, I'll raise the issue yet again.

  Meanwhile, tell me if you learned anything from that disciple of St Patrick you were with last night.' Just as Thomas was about to speak, Nesta bustled up, wiping her hands on a white cloth, which she dumped on the end of the table.

  'There's a splendid mash bubbling away,' she said cheerfully. 'A few more days and it'll be the best I've ever brewed, though I say it myself. A new recipe, with some young nettle leaves added, ones I dried last spring.'

  John moved up the bench for her to slide alongside him and he slipped an arm around her waist to give her a squeeze.

  'Damn the ale, just let me have the ale-wife!' he said, with a gaiety that momentarily transformed the normally dour coroner into a roguish lover.

  Gwyn looked fondly at him across the table, seeing de Wolfe for an instant as he had been twenty years before, when they would both dash off uncaring into battles and brothels alike. Now it was only in Nesta's company that he saw John relax, cast off the cares and concerns that his doggedly conscientious nature insisted on bearing.

  When they had settled down again, the patient Thomas began his story.

  'As you guessed, Crowner, Father Patrick is quite fond of his drink. When I called on him, he had already got through half a jar of mead. By the time I left, he had soaked up most of the other half, as I managed to avoid all but a few mouthfuls.'