The Witch Hunter Read online

  The newly bereaved son-in-law explained where de Pridias was lying and on reaching the arch of the gatehouse the coroner led them across the inner ward of the castle to one of the lean-to sheds where their horses were tethered. Though it had been a very wet summer, the last two weeks had been unusually dry and the almost grassless mud of the ward had dried into hard rough-cast, churned by the hoofs of horses and oxen, wagon wheels and soldiers’ boots.

  Rougemont took its name from the red sandstone from which it had been built by William the Bastard soon after the Conquest. It occupied the high north-east corner of Exeter, in the angle of the city walls first built by the Romans and improved upon by both the subsequent invaders, the Saxons and the Normans. The inner ward was demarcated by a high wall, pierced by the gatehouse, which guarded a drawbridge over a deep ditch. This led out into the much larger quadrant of the outer ward, bounded by another ditch and an embankment topped by a palisade. The Conqueror had torn down over fifty Saxon houses to make space for his new fortifications. Three buildings stood inside the inner walls – the tiny chapel of St Mary, the bare stone box of the Shire Hall and the larger two-storey keep near the far end, where the sheriff and the castellan lived. All around the inside of the walls were sheds and lean-to buildings, which housed forges, stables and living quarters for soldiers and a few families.

  An ostler saw them coming and with a boy, led out Odin, de Wolfe’s retired warhorse, together with Gwyn’s big brown mare. Roger’s gelding was hitched to a rail outside the stable and when all three were mounted, they trotted back out beneath the portcullis and down into the outer ward. This large area was part village and part army camp, where most of the garrison and their families lived in huts and shanties behind the outer line of defences, which had not been needed for the past fifty years since the civil war between Stephen and Matilda.

  At the bottom of Castle Hill, the road joined the high street, which ran from the East Gate to Carfoix, the central crossing of the streets that joined the four main gates of the city. Beyond that, Fore Street dipped steeply down towards the river. They pushed their way through the crowded narrow streets, jostling aside townsfolk lingering at the stalls and booths along the sides of the main thoroughfare. Porters pushing barrows or bent double under bales of wool stumbled out of their way and beggars shrank back out of reach of the hoofs of the three horses.

  Near the bottom of Fore Street, the West Gate let them out on to Exe Island. There was a wooden footbridge across the main channel of the Exe, but the grand new stone bridge lay half completed, as the builder, Nicholas Gervase, had run out of funds. With the tide out and the water at a low level from the recent dry weather, they splashed across the ford with their stirrups clear of the surface and went up the far bank to complete the mile to Alphington. Roger Hamund seemed reluctant to enlarge upon the circumstances of the death and was relieved to see his wife and mother-in-law waiting with a small knot of people at the entrance to the churchyard.

  Willing hands took the reins as they slid from their horses and the sickly manor-reeve came forward to knuckle his forehead to the coroner. He had never had dealings with this official before and was vague as to his functions – but all he had heard by way of gossip seemed to indicate that unless you trod very carefully you risked getting both the length of his tongue and a hefty amercement.

  ‘The cadaver’s in the church, Crowner. We sent for you straight away, though there’s no call to think it was anything but a seizure.’

  He said this deliberately, as if the death was not natural, a ‘hue and cry’ should have been set up to chase any possible culprit and the failure to do so might be grounds for the first of the unwelcome fines. However, his words were brushed aside by the advancing figure of the widow, Cecilia de Pridias. She was a formidable woman of ample proportions, with a bust like the prow of a ship.

  ‘Nonsense, my poor husband was done to death by some cunning means!’ she snapped, in a voice that reminded John of the crack of a whip. ‘There have been omens these past few weeks. I know the signs, someone has caused a spell to be put upon him. He told me he had presentiments of death.’

  De Wolfe sighed, as it was obvious that she was going to be a difficult woman to placate. Like her daughter, who stood behind her, and her son-in-law, she was round of face as well as body, showing that the de Pridias family were affluent enough to over-eat. She wore a dark red kirtle of light wool, with a gold tasselled cord wrapped around her full waist. Instead of a wimple and cover-chief around her head and neck, she had a tight-fitting helmet of white felt, tied firmly under the chin. A short summer cape of fawn wool hung around her shoulders.

  ‘Perhaps I had better view the body first, then you can tell me what you know,’ he said with a mildness that Gwyn felt was uncharacteristic. John had just remembered that Cecilia attended St Olave’s Church, where his own wife Matilda was a devout supplicant. They knew each other quite well and if he trod too heavily on Cecilia’s toes, he would suffer a verbal lashing at home when the complaints reached Matilda.

  The reeve led the way into the little church, which had been built in Saxon times and was in dire need of repair or preferably rebuilding in stone. Architecturally, it was little different from a barn, but had a gabled entrance on the south side, through which they now trooped. John marched across the earthen floor to the flagstoned area at the other end, which served as the chancel. He stopped at the bier, which was like a wooden stretcher with legs, and looked down at the still figure, fully dressed, with his dusty riding boots hanging over the end. The ale-wife had crossed his hands over his chest and had closed his eyelids with her fingers before the stiffness of death set in.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ demanded the coroner, fixing the reeve with his deep-set eyes. The two old men from outside the tavern had tentatively followed them into the church, along with the ale-house keeper. Between them, they gave an accurate account of the sparse facts of de Pridias’s demise, but his widow remained adamant that he had been done to death by magical means.

  ‘I saw five magpies cross his path a week ago, when we visited my sister in Topsham,’ she snapped. ‘That’s certain sign of bewitchment. And not two days ago, my husband dropped his knife and horn spoon from the table and they fell to form a cross at the ground near his feet.’

  She voiced these occult manifestations with rock-hard certainty, as if defying anyone to query them as harbingers of doom.

  ‘You said your husband thought himself to be under some … some noxious charm?’ rumbled de Wolfe, cautious as to how he should approach this nonsense. If it had been a man offering this foolery, he would have given him a buffet around the head and told him not to waste his time, but a guildmaster’s wife was another matter, especially one who would have the ear of Matilda.

  ‘Indeed, he began having tight sensations in his throat every time he walked past a certain house in Fore Street, where a certain cunning man lives.’ Her son-in-law restrained himself from pointing out that this was the steepest part of the hill coming up from Exe Island.

  ‘Anything else?’ demanded the coroner.

  ‘For many weeks he has been waking in the early morning with a terrible headache, after dreaming morbid thoughts. He agreed with me that some hag somewhere was putting a curse on him.’

  ‘Was his health good? Did he take any pills or potions?’ asked de Wolfe.

  ‘He was a hale and hearty man! Perhaps he had a little shortness of breath, but he indulged at table a little too liberally. As master of his guild, he had to attend many feasts and I had told him that he needed to watch the size of his belly.’

  John noticed that the daughter and her husband looked a little askance at these protestations of rude health. ‘Did he take any medicaments, I asked?’ he repeated, gazing sternly at the weakest party, Roger Hamund.

  ‘He was attended now and then by an apothecary, it’s true,’ mumbled Roger.

  ‘Which apothecary would that be?’ snapped the coroner.

  ‘Walter Winstone
, who has his shop in Waterbeer Street,’ said Roger. ‘But he merely gave him regular potions for his indigestion. As my wife’s mother says, he was overweight and often had eructation of wind and an ache in the upper belly after a heavy meal. This Walter gave him some foul liquid for it – though the only good it did was to the apothecary’s purse.’

  Cecilia became impatient. ‘This is all of no consequence, Sir John! My husband was done to death by witchcraft.’

  John blew out a long breath in muffled exasperation. ‘Why should anyone wish to harm your husband?’

  Her pugnacious face, which reminded him too readily of his wife, glared up at him. ‘I know fine well who has commissioned these evil acts! It is Henry de Hocforde, who wishes him dead so that he may take over the mill.’

  Gradually, de Wolfe pieced together the accusation, explained disjointedly by Cecilia and the daughter and her husband. It seemed that de Hocforde, who owned an adjacent fulling and carding mill, had long wished to buy out de Pridias, partly to remove competition and also to gain a better site on Exe Island, as the leat that drove Robert’s mill-wheel was larger and more powerful than his own. He had made many offers of purchase and used every means of persuasion without success, until the matter became acrimonious in the extreme.

  ‘And you claim that de Hocforde has resorted to attempted murder to gain this mill?’ demanded the coroner, unable to keep incredulity out of his voice.

  Cecilia glared back at him, entirely unabashed. ‘And why not indeed? Men have killed for far less – a crowner like you should know that better than most!’

  John shook his head in disbelief, then turned to the son-in-law. ‘Do you think the same way, young man?’

  Roger squirmed as his gaze shifted uneasily between his dominating mother-in-law and the masterful coroner. ‘Well, I know that de Hocforde has become most aggressive about the matter these past few months. What started as a merchant’s offer drifted into a fierce dispute.’

  The daughter chipped in with her own forceful opinions. ‘In the end, he came to the mill and to our house, shouting and raving at my poor father, threatening to put him out of business if he didn’t see reason and sell up.’

  ‘But did he threaten his person, as well as his business?’

  The new widow glowered at de Wolfe. ‘Perhaps not in so many words, but the threat was plain to see. The bad blood between them became so vicious that I forbade my husband to go out at night without a servant to accompany him with a cudgel.’

  John waved a hand towards the bier. ‘As you see, there’s not a mark upon his body – and we have witness to the fact that he had a seizure, madam!’

  Cecilia de Pridias remained scornful of his dismissive attitude. ‘Of course there are no wounds, man! These cunning women spell their curses in occult ways. For a few pence, they will work any manner of mischief, from stealing your neighbour’s husband to killing a rival’s sheep.’

  The coroner sighed. There was obviously no way of shifting this obstinate woman from her conviction that her husband had been magicked to death. However, he was damned if he was going to distort the system of justice just to pander to her delusions.

  ‘You are entitled to think what you may, good-wife,’ he said as reasonably as he could. ‘But I cannot see any reason to bring this sad event within the jurisdiction of the coroner and hold an inquest. There is no wound, the death was witnessed by several people as a seizure – and now I learn that he was under the care of an apothecary for pains in his belly.’

  Cecilia glared at him and already he could feel the nagging that he would get from Matilda when she heard of this slight against her friend. ‘If you’ll not look into the matter, then I’ll go to the sheriff! Sir Richard will have a more sympathetic ear than yours seems to be.’

  John shrugged. ‘It’s none of his concern, lady. I was appointed by the King to record all such matters in the county. A sheriff has no jurisdiction, unless you can show that a killer is on the loose and needs apprehending.’

  ‘Well, one is, you stupid man!’ she said shrilly. ‘Henry de Hocforde!’

  De Wolfe regarded her sternly. ‘I’d be careful of proclaiming that too openly, madam. De Hocforde could take you to law for defaming his name if you persist in an accusation that you have no means of proving.’

  He said this with the best of intentions, as he felt that a newly bereaved widow might declaim things in her grief that at other times would be left unsaid – though he had to admit to himself that she seemed more angry than distressed.

  Gwyn sidled up to him and muttered in a low voice, ‘Are we staying, Crowner? This seems a waste of time.’

  ‘We’ll go through the motions, just to humour her fantasies,’ replied John, stepping away a few paces to avoid being overheard. ‘I’ll have a quick look at the corpse, to reassure them that he’s not been stabbed. You go and look at his horse and search through his saddlebags, just to make it appear as if we’re doing something.’

  As Gwyn shambled off down the nave, the coroner turned back to the family, who were grumbling indignantly among themselves.

  ‘I’ll examine the body myself, to put your minds at ease. You must wait outside, please. It’s not seemly for me to undress the cadaver in your presence.’

  Still protesting that he was wasting his time in looking for wounds, when the death was due to a malignant spell, Cecilia de Pridias stalked out of the little church, the others trailing behind her. John called to the reeve as he reached the door. ‘Shut that and come back here to help me, man. My officer is looking at his horse.’

  Between them, they took off Robert’s wide belt and hoisted up the dead man’s long tunic, of best-quality brown worsted. Underneath, he wore long black hose tucked into a pair of leather riding boots. An undershirt of fine linen was pushed up to his armpits for John to examine his belly and chest, which were unremarkable apart from the size of his paunch. Turning him over, John confirmed that there was no injury on his back, then they restored his clothing to make him decent and stood back.

  Death stiffness was beginning to appear and the coroner reached out to close his half-opened mouth before it set fast in that unbecoming position. As he did so, he noticed that although Robert still had most of his teeth, the gums were in a very bad state, being discoloured and darkened along the edges. He idly contrasted them with the perfect teeth of Nesta, his Welsh mistress, and recollected that during his visits to Wales he had seen many people cleaning their teeth with the chewed end of a hazel twig dipped in wood ash, a habit de Pridias could have adopted with advantage.

  He straightened up and stood broodingly over the reeve. ‘Nothing here, so let the family arrange for a cart to take the poor fellow home for burial.’

  As he stalked towards the door, it opened and Gwyn came in, his red hair as tousled as ever, the ends of his ragged moustache drooping to his collar-bones. His brow was furrowed and he came to meet the coroner with a hand outstretched, something clutched in his ham-like fist.

  ‘Don’t understand this, Crowner!’ he boomed. ‘It was pinned underneath one of the saddlebags. I only found it because I lifted the bag and the damned pin stuck in my finger.’

  He opened his hand and showed his master what lay across the palm – a small corn-dolly, no more than four inches long, with recognisable arms, legs and head, though it was crudely made. Stuck to the head was a small clump of what seemed to be human hair and around the body was a torn scrap of green cloth, secured to the dolly by a thin metal spike which transfixed the chest.

  The reeve sucked in a sudden breath and crossed hinself rapidly, a gesture that the coroner and his officer associated with their own clerk, who did it a dozen times a day.

  ‘That’s a witch’s effigy, Crowner!’ he hissed in a frightened voice and edged away from Gwyn’s proffered hand.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ grunted the Cornishman. ‘I remember a cunning woman in Polruan when I was a lad. She made one of these once when she wanted revenge on a man who had stolen one of he
r sow’s litter. Didn’t work, though.’

  De Wolfe took it from his officer’s hand and examined it more closely. It was little more than a bundle of straw stalks, bound up into the crude shape of a man.

  ‘That hair, it looks like a match for the dead ’un, I reckon,’ said Gwyn, pointing at the bier. John took the little effigy across and held it next to the corpse’s head. The fine, sandy hair did indeed appear to be identical with the fluff of hair on the dolly.

  ‘What about this bit of cloth? I wonder where that came from,’ said de Wolfe.

  ‘I can tell you that straight away,’ snapped a triumphant voice. Turning, John saw that the widow and her family had come back into the church. ‘It’s a shred from an old tunic of my husband that the moths had ruined. I threw it out some weeks ago.’

  ‘How can you tell that it’s his?’ demanded the coroner.

  ‘I know that pattern. It was made from our own wool by a weaver in St Sidwell’s to my own requirements. Some wicked person has salvaged part of it to use against him. So now will you believe that a spell was cast upon him?’

  ‘I believe, lady, that this thing was found under his saddlebag. That’s a long way from believing that it had anything to do with his death.’

  Cecilia’s round face flushed with anger. ‘Then you are a stubborn, stupid man, Sir John! You hold in your hand an effigy that is clearly of my husband, carrying his hair and his clothing, with a lethal weapon stuck through its chest like a chicken on a spit – and you say it’s nothing?’

  De Wolfe could see that he was in for a hard time from his own wife after this, but his sense of duty overcame any personal problems.

  ‘Calm yourself, madam. Let’s take this a step at a time. How would anyone come by this rag and this hair, which I do admit looks uncommonly like that of your husband?’

  This time the daughter spoke up. ‘I remember throwing that moth-infested tunic on to our midden in the back yard. We pay a man with a barrow to collect our night-soil and other waste every few days. He takes it to the river and tips it in, downstream of the bridge.’