The Grim Reaper Page 28

  ‘You saw no one else upstairs?’ demanded de Wolfe, and Thomas’s denial was his only other contribution to a sterile investigation.

  Now the coroner waited impatiently for the court session to end so that he could try to do something more for his clerk. But as the raucous trumpets signalled the end of the day’s cases and the three judges solemnly paraded out, Richard de Revelle sidled up to him, a supercilious sneer on his face. ‘John, the justices have decided to be present tonight at the interrogation of that rat-like servant of yours. A confession will be drawn from him and they will bring him before them tomorrow morning, for that superfluous trial you’re so keen to have. Then we can have him hanged by afternoon.’ With that he hurried after the judges before John could think of a forceful enough protest.

  Gwyn had overheard the sheriff’s gloating message and his already worried face became even more disconsolate. ‘Is there nothing we can do, Crowner? They’ll hang the poor sod, just to prove their point.’ Though he had endlessly teased Thomas, the amiable Cornishman was protective towards the little man and the prospect of him being executed was too much to contemplate. For a moment de Wolfe stood in the doorway of the court, brooding and chewing his lip. Then he drew himself up and loped off towards the gatehouse, beckoning Gwyn to follow. ‘I must talk to his uncle. The Archdeacon is the most honest and sensible man I know, as well as being Thomas’s relative. Let’s see what he has to say.’

  At this slack period in the episcopal day, John de Alençon was usually at home and they found him in his austere room, reading a treatise on Eusebius of Caesaria. When he heard of his nephew’s arrest, he groaned. ‘Thomas, Thomas! He’s been nothing but trouble to his family since he was born! Yet none of it was his doing, I’m sure.’

  De Wolfe was blunt in his summary of the situation. ‘They’re keen to hang him, no doubt of that. These rumours have been going around for days, started by de Revelle and that malicious colleague of yours, Thomas de Boterellis.’

  ‘What can we do about saving him?’ asked the Archdeacon, his lean face etched with concern.

  ‘We have to get him out of Rougemont. Tonight they’ll torture him to get a confession – and knowing Thomas’s lack of courage, he’ll give it in the first half-minute. Then they’ll hang him, unless we can plead Benefit of Clergy.’

  John de Alençon’s face fell. ‘But he’s no longer a priest! When he was unfrocked, he lost the privilege of being tried by a consistory court.’

  ‘I thought that proving he could read and write was sufficient,’ objected de Wolfe.

  The Archdeacon hesitated, deep doubt showing on his face. ‘I agree that this is a popular notion, as virtually everyone who is literate is in Holy Orders. But it’s not a definition that can be relied on, especially when you have the King’s Justices, a sheriff and a Precentor eager to deny it.’

  ‘It’s his only hope, short of Gwyn and I storming the castle’ growled John. ‘If the Bishop threw his weight behind the idea, then surely it would succeed?’

  The Archdeacon looked dubious. ‘You know quite well that he has no love for you, especially since you crushed de Revelle.’

  However, after John had argued and pleaded with him for several minutes, de Alençon agreed to go to his bishop and seek to have Thomas de Peyne transferred to the custody of the cathedral proctors, instead of being incarcerated in Rougemont.

  ‘It’s desperately urgent,’ pressed the coroner. ‘Within a couple of hours, he may have his limbs broken or burned unless we can prevent it.’

  With this awful prospect drilling into his mind, the Archdeacon rose and threw his long black cloak around his shoulders, though the early-evening air was mild. ‘I’ll go straight away – thank God the bishop’s still in the city. But don’t have too high hopes of this, John – you may still have to storm Stigand’s prison.’

  Uneasily, de Wolfe and his henchman went to the Bush for food and ale and to wait for news from Henry Marshal. Thankfully, de Wolfe knew that Matilda was on some charitable visit with her friends to one of the city’s almshouses, so he felt no obligation to return for the evening meal. In Idle Lane, the prospect of what might soon befall the little clerk extinguished any humour or passion, and although they ate heartily the coroner and Gwyn were subdued and anxious. To break the glum silences, Nesta retailed some of the day’s gossip. ‘We had a strange tale brought by Alfred Fuller from Frog Lane. It seems that the priest of All-Hallows went crazy this afternoon.’

  ‘Which All-Hallows?’ demanded John, his interest aroused.

  There were two All-Hallows churches, one in Goldsmith Street, the other near the West Gate, about which he had a special concern.

  ‘Oh, on-the-Wall – for it seems he tried to jump from it.’

  ‘You mean Ralph de Capra?’

  ‘That’s the one – apparently he was in sackcloth and ashes and raving about his great sin.’

  Nesta stopped abruptly, her hand to her mouth. ‘He was one of those you were investigating, wasn’t he?’

  De Wolfe nodded grimly. ‘I saw him this very morning. Now he’s gone mad, you say.’ He stood up, feeling suddenly old and weary. ‘Is that all you know about it?’ John would have known more, but Osric the constable had not yet encountered him to give him his eye-witness version.

  Nesta beckoned urgently across the tavern. ‘It was Edwin who had the tale – you know he’s the nosiest man in the city. Edwin!’ she cried.

  The old potman came limping across the floor, his dead eye horribly white in his lined face. At his mistress’s prompting, he told what he knew of the incident in Bretayne. ‘The priest from St Mary Steps got him down, they say. Then took him away back to his lodging. Adam of Dol lives behind his church, not down in Priest Street like most of them.’

  ‘What was it all about?’ asked Nesta, but Edwin shrugged.

  De Wolfe got up and paced restlessly before the empty hearth. ‘I must talk to those two priests again – perhaps I stirred up something when I questioned de Capra this morning.’

  ‘But he couldn’t have been the one who attacked de Vallibus, could he?’ objected Gwyn. ‘Not if all this fuss happened down in Bretayne at almost the same time.’

  ‘We don’t know how much time there was between. Maybe he had visited Serlo and the experience turned him off his head.’ He put an arm around Nesta’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. ‘But I can’t risk going down there now, with poor Thomas facing peine forte et dure at any moment. I hope by the Holy Virgin that the Archdeacon has had some influence with the Bishop.’

  With Nesta looking after them anxiously, the coroner and his officer hurried out into Idle Lane and made for the castle.

  The Moors almshouses were just outside the city, near the half-completed new bridge over the Exe. The short row of dwellings for the poor, built some years earlier by the benefaction of a wealthy fulling-mill owner, was supported by donations from city merchants and some of the churches. This evening, a dozen good ladies of St Olave’s, accompanied by their priest Julian Fulk, were making their monthly pilgrimage with gifts of food, clothing and money. Prominent among them was Matilda de Wolfe, playing Lady Bountiful with a large pie made by Mary, some cast-off clothing and a purse of coins extracted from her husband.

  The hard-faced harridan who was the warden had lined up the inmates for inspection and the ladies of St Olave’s paraded past the aged crones, the cripples and the despised unmarried mothers, doling out their gifts. Later, they sat in the narrow hall of the building to share the food they had brought, but they occupied separate trestles and did their best not to mingle with the destitute.

  Julian Fulk tried to be his usual unctuous self, though it was difficult as he had a lot on his mind. Dressed in a new black tunic, flapping round his ankles, his head was covered in a tight coif, on top of which was a floppy beret of black velvet. Matilda made sure that she sat next to him at the table, with her back to the toothless hags and the anaemic drabs who dragged out their wretched existence in this place.


  ‘You were not at the Bishop’s banquet last night?’ she asked sweetly, knowing that no parish priest would have had even the smell of an invitation, but it gave her an opportunity to describe her husband’s eminence and the exact position on the tables that they had occupied. Of course Fulk knew who her husband was and, in fact, his preoccupation tonight was due to the coroner. The repeated visits that de Wolfe had made to him over the murders had done nothing to help his reputation, at a time when he was bursting every sinew to improve his standing in the Church. Being on the suspect list for multiple murders did nothing for his dreams of advancement.

  As Matilda’s prattle washed over him, Fulk contemplated his limited options – he must try to see the Bishop again, while he was still in Exeter, and he must also make the arduous journey to Sussex, to see the Abbot of Battle. One way or the other, he must get away from these maddeningly dull people who were holding back his career in the Holy Ministry. Could no one recognise his theological prowess, his mastery of the liturgy, his God-given understanding of the scriptures? Was he condemned to waste his talents in a tiny chapel in a mediocre city at the far end of England, when he had the makings of a bishop – or even an archbishop? He must do something soon, for desperate situations require desperate solutions

  That evening, Thomas de Peyne, chains on his wrists and ankles, was half led, half dragged through the gate in the iron grille that divided the undercroft of the castle keep. The grotesque gaoler, Stigand, pulled him along by the manacles, with a soldier walking rather shamefacedly behind – this wretched prisoner was hardly likely to put up a fight.

  Stigand hauled the clerk across the damp earth of the forbidding basement towards the group of men waiting silently for him. Three of the Justices were there, as well as the sheriff, the constable, the coroner and a priest. The latter was the castle chaplain, Brother Rufus, his usual affability muted this evening. De Wolfe had had to banish Gwyn from Rougemont, afraid that his outrage at the arrest of his little friend might provoke him into some rash act, such as a hopeless rescue attempt. Now he glanced repeatedly towards the steps coming down from the inner ward, desperately hoping for some sign that de Alençon’s plea to Bishop Marshal had been successful.

  The gaoler dragged the clerk before the row of brooding men and stood aside, his bloated face grinning with anticipation as he poked at a brazier in which branding irons glowed.

  Richard de Revelle opened the proceedings. ‘A confession would make it easier for all of us, fellow. We are busy men, as you know from your own work, when you are not murdering honest folk.’

  De Peyne stood in the mud, his narrow shoulders drooping, the left more than the right, which accentuated the hump on his back. Though he had been incarcerated for only a few hours, his shabby black tunic was already badly stained, with pieces of filthy straw clinging to it. His lank hair hung over his high forehead and his mournful eyes stared fearfully from behind it. He mumbled something in reply to the sheriff’s words.

  ‘What was that? Speak up, damn you!’ snapped Sir Peter Peverel, muffled in a brown cloak against the cold of the dank undercroft, where the outside air never seemed to penetrate.

  ‘I said I have done nothing wrong, sir, so what can I confess?’

  The sheriff stamped his foot in annoyance. ‘Stop wasting our time, I say. You were caught running away from the scene of your cowardly attack on Serlo de Vallibus.’

  Thomas mumbled, ‘I was going to get help,’ but Walter de Ralegh interrupted, ‘De Peyne, you have been under suspicion for some time. This merely confirms your guilt.’

  ‘The only suspicion he was under came from malicious gossip!’ cut in de Wolfe angrily. ‘There has not been a shred of proof against this man – only mischievous tittle-tattle.’

  Peverel seemed determined to blacken Thomas’s chances. ‘Not gossip, Coroner. As a former priest – and one with a grudge against the world, so I understand – he can read, write and has a good knowledge of the Vulgate. That narrows down the field a hundredfold in this city.’

  ‘And he cannot account for his movements on any of the occasions when these outrages occurred,’ brayed the sheriff triumphantly.

  ‘Can any of us account for our movements at all those times?’ demanded the coroner. ‘Though I know where you were on one occasion, Richard.’ This was an oblique threat to the sheriff, but he knew it was insufficient to help Thomas. Desperately, he looked again towards the bright square of the entrance, hoping against hope that relief would arrive. De Ralegh began to lose patience and started to shout at the prisoner. ‘If your lips are sealed by malice, there are ways to open them! As a servant of the Crowner, you must know better than most how confessions can be obtained. See sense, man, and speak now!’

  Thomas’s response was to fall to his knees in a rattle of chains and burst into tears. ‘I am innocent!’ he screamed. ‘Master, save me!’

  This was no prayer, but a direct plea to John de Wolfe, who stood impotent, swinging between intense anger and deep sorrow. ‘This is intolerable!’ he shouted. ‘There is no evidence whatsoever to link this man with the crimes. Let a jury decide tomorrow! What use is there in torturing a false confession from this poor soul?’

  At this, de Revelle rounded on his brother-in-law. ‘You should not be here, John. As this creature’s master, you can have no balanced view of how things really are. You should leave well alone!’

  Archdeacon de Bosco had been silent until now, but looked uneasy at the prospect of a fellow priest, albeit one dishonourably discharged from the Church, being subjected to peine forte et dure like a common felon. The procedure to extract confessions varied, but should have been performed by placing increasing weights of iron on the chest of the victim, lying flat on his back, until he either spoke or expired. However, the practice had been widened to include many forms of torture, some sadistically ingenious.

  ‘Perhaps it should be left to the court tomorrow, brothers,’ said the Archdeacon tentatively.

  ‘You are biased because the man was once in Holy Orders,’ retorted Peverel nastily. ‘But he’s not now, so that can no longer be an issue.’

  De Ralegh walked over to the clerk and hoisted him to his feet by grabbing a handful of his hair. ‘Tell us why you did it, wretch!’ he bellowed. ‘All those deaths, were you trying to play God, eh? Is not the King’s justice enough to punish evildoers that you have to take the law into your own hands?’

  Outraged at seeing the puny clerk mishandled, de Wolfe stepped forward and seemed ready to strike de Ralegh, a move which would have had disastrous consequences, given that he was a Justice of the King. Almost casually, the bulky figure of Brother Rufus stepped sideways in front of him and pressed him back, giving enough time for de Wolfe’s passion to subside.

  Then, providentially, a cry came from the entrance arch, which distracted them from the mounting tension. ‘Stop! I have orders from the Bishop.’

  It was John de Alençon, looking more haggard even than usual as he stumbled across the uneven floor towards them.

  ‘Is he granting Benefit of Clergy?’ De Wolfe asked eagerly.

  ‘Not as such, no,’ panted the Archdeacon. ‘Bishop Marshal declines to refer the matter to the Consistory Court, as he rightly points out that my nephew is no longer an ordained priest. But he takes great exception to a former man of the cloth being put to the torture for a confession and forbids you to proceed.’

  The sheriff looked as if he was going to object, then thought of his relationship with the Bishop and decided not to risk damaging it for the sake of a fleeting victory over the coroner. He kept silent, but Walter de Ralegh and Peter Peverel felt no such inhibitions. They protested strongly that even the head of the Church in this diocese had no power over a secular court, especially the will of the King’s Justices. However, Archdeacon de Bosco came down firmly on the side of the Church, as this confirmed his own recent misgivings.

  They argued for a few minutes, while the dishevelled Thomas, red-eyed and forlorn, looked from face to face s
eeking any crumb of hope.

  Richard de Revelle settled the matter. ‘Our Lord Bishop in his wisdom has made no attempt to take the judgement into the hands of the Church so, confession or not, we can proceed with the trial tomorrow morning – and I suspect there is little doubt of the outcome, so any bickering tonight is hardly worth the effort.’

  Tired, irritated and in need of their evening meal, the others agreed grudgingly and Thomas was dragged back to his foetid cell by a disappointed Stigand. The others dispersed, most of them confident that the murderous clerk would be swinging at the end of a rope within a day or two.

  De Wolfe spent a miserable night worrying about Thomas’s fate. Though he was grateful for John de Alençon’s intercession with the Bishop as far as the forced confession was concerned, he had little hope that the Eyre of Assize would acquit him in the morning. As he had told a depressed Gwyn and a tearful Nesta, when they had sat discussing the crisis in the Bush that evening, it was the attack on de Vallibus, one of their own number, that was likely to seal the clerk’s fate.

  Nesta clutched de Wolfe’s arm and rested her head against his shoulder for comfort. ‘They mustn’t hang the poor fellow, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone kill a string of people,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s had nothing but trouble and misery all his life, being afflicted in his back and his leg and his eye, then being falsely accused of rape and thrown out of his beloved Church.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll be glad to leave this earth,’ said de Wolfe, mournfully. ‘He tried to go the other month, when he jumped from the cathedral roof.’

  ‘Is there nothing more we can do for him?’ demanded Gwyn, his great red moustache drooping as low as his own spirits.

  ‘There is so little time,’ answered John. ‘If the sentence goes against him tomorrow, as surely it must, they’ll demand a hanging next day – and I’ll wager all the Justices will turn out to watch it.’