The Grim Reaper Read online

  They had to go to this damned banquet that evening, he thought despondently, which would be even harder to endure if she was in a really caustic mood.

  He decided to try to lighten the atmosphere, if only for his own sake. However, his favourable comments about the meal were met with disdain, because Matilda disliked Mary and nothing the maid did ever found favour in her eyes. She suspected that there was something going on between the serving woman and her husband – correctly, as it happened, although it was now in the past, for Mary was more attached to her employment than her employer, fond though she was of him.

  His next attempt at conversation was more successful, as the subject was her brother and the imminent arrival of the royal judges. ‘I must go up to Rougemont this afternoon and talk to Richard about the arrangements for the Eyre next week. We have not yet heard who the Justices will be.’

  ‘I trust they will be men of stature, not just common clerks like those who came as Commissioners of Assize last time,’ she snapped.

  ‘They will be senior men, as this is a General Eyre, not just an Assize,’ he replied, pandering to her incorrigible snobbishness. The prospect of some noble barons or a bishop coming to the city perked up her interest.

  ‘I never understood all these different courts,’ she whined. ‘Why are there eminent men of the king’s court at some and only snivelling clerks at others?’

  De Wolfe grinned to himself at her derogatory description of some learned Commissioners, though it was true that some were but very able clerks, administrators from the Exchequer or Chancery. To humour her, he launched into an explanation. ‘In the old days, anyone seeking justice from the king, first had to find him. That meant journeying either to Winchester, London or even Normandy in the hope of catching him at his court – or else chasing around the countryside after him, as he paraded around the shires, fighting, hunting or just battening on his barons for lodging.’

  He swallowed a piece of fat mutton, before continuing. ‘Then old King Henry, a great one for law-making, decided this wasn’t good enough and demanded that members of his court should go around regularly to each county and hear the Pleas of the Crown, cases that were not dealt with by the local courts.’

  Matilda paused in her chewing to glare at him. ‘But that doesn’t explain why sometimes we get barons and bishops here, but more often a pack of London clerks – “men raised from the dust”, as my brother calls them.’

  John got up and filled her pewter cup with more wine, thinking that a little gracious behaviour on his part might mellow her in time for the evening. He topped up his own and sat down again, ready to explain a little more. ‘The justices who are coming next week are also holding a General Eyre, so they will be the most senior men. As well as hearing royal pleas in serious cases, they look into the whole administration of the county, which is why your brother is so flustered and uneasy.’

  For the sake of avoiding a tantrum, he did not pursue this subject, thinking it wiser to avoid antagonising his wife with hints at Richard’s dishonesty.

  ‘The General Eyre comes but seldom these days – it has to call at every county in England, but trundles around so slowly that years pass between visitations,’ he added.

  ‘So what are the other courts? We get visits more often than that,’ she demanded truculently.

  ‘Those are the ones you complain are held by clerks,’ he replied, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice. ‘Again, they are supposed to take place every quarter, but the Commissioners have never reached Exeter more than twice a year, if that. As the Justices in Eyre come so seldom, these lesser courts are meant to clear up the royal pleas at much more frequent intervals. That’s why they’re called, “Gaol Delivery”, to try those who have been incarcerated, to save expense and reduce the number escaping.’

  The lesson over, Matilda reverted to her main interest in the matter. ‘Well, I just hope that we get some notables here next week. Exeter is such a backwater. When you became coroner, I had hopes that your connections with the King and the Chief Justiciar would get you preferment. Then, maybe, we could move to somewhere more civilised, like Winchester.’

  God forbid, thought de Wolfe. Devon was his birthplace and his home; the last thing he wanted was to end up near a royal court, with all the intrigue and manoeuvring for social advancement that that would mean.

  The meal ended and de Wolfe, satisfied that Matilda was talking to him in a moderately agreeable way, waited for her to go up to the solar for her afternoon slumber. Then he walked up to Rougemont. Gwyn had gone to St Sidwell’s to see his family, after his night spent away from their hut, but Thomas was in the chamber above the gatehouse, making copies of documents of presentment for the Justices next week.

  De Wolfe sat at the other end of the trestle from his peculiar but industrious clerk and spent an hour silently mouthing Latin phrases from the parchments left for him by his tutor at the cathedral.

  After a while, he became aware that his were not the only lips moving in the silence. Peering up from below his beetling brows, he watched Thomas covertly. The clerk’s pen had stopped and he was staring blindly through the window slit at the sky. He was having some silent conversation with unseen beings and from the scowl on his face and the occasional grimace that showed his yellowed teeth, he seemed to be directing some silent diatribe at an invisible audience.

  The coroner was becoming increasingly concerned for his assistant’s sanity. Although Thomas had always been a miserable companion, it was only since he had learned that there was little hope of him being received back into the Church that he had become so morose. De Wolfe threw down his parchment and cleared his throat loudly, the sign that he was about to launch into some possibly embarrassing topic.

  ‘How goes it with you now, Thomas?’ he asked, rather fiercely. ‘Are you in better spirits these days?’

  Startled, the former priest looked up, his beaky face showing surprise at such an unexpectedly personal question from his revered master. ‘I am fairly well, Crowner,’ he stammered, ‘though never can I be happy again while I am excluded from the company of my fellows in Holy Orders. But I have to live from day to day, as the Almighty indicated not long ago.’ When, in a paroxysm of despair, he had tried to kill himself a month or so ago, his uncle, the Archdeacon, had cleverly convinced Thomas that his failure was a miraculous sign that he was meant to live for some greater purpose. He still hoped that, some day, his ejection from Holy Orders for an alleged indecent assault on a girl pupil at the cathedral school in Winchester would be reversed – although his uncle held little hope that this would come about for a very long time, if ever.

  ‘Are you living well enough – your bed and board, I mean?’ continued the coroner gruffly. He paid his clerk twopence a day and knew that he had a free mattress in a servant’s hut in one of the houses in Canon’s Row.

  ‘I am well enough provided for in my bodily needs, thanks to you and my uncle, sir. It is rather my soul that needs the nourishment of belonging in the House of God.’ Suddenly he scowled at some inner thought. ‘There are those who persecute me and should be punished. False witnesses ruined my life, yet there seems no sign from God that they will be humbled,’ he added darkly.

  ‘I can’t help you there, Thomas. I did my best with the Archdeacon, but you know what he said. You must contain yourself in patience, I’m afraid. Meanwhile, you are very valuable to me, both as an excellent clerk and an invaluable fount of knowledge.’

  At this extraordinarily rare compliment Thomas’s pale features pinked with pleasure. It was all the more precious coming from this stern, gaunt man of whom he was half afraid. Thomas respected him with almost dog-like devotion, being grateful for John having given him a job – and indeed the means to stay alive at a time when he was destitute.

  They went back to their work for a while, but de Wolfe’s attention span for Latin texts was very limited and soon he threw down the parchments and took himself off to the castle keep. The hall was a hive of activity, and
many of the tables, which were usually in use for eating, drinking or gaming, were occupied by the sheriff’s and burgesses’ clerks, all busily writing or shuffling parchments. Harassed-looking stewards, bailiffs and more clerks were hurrying around with sheaves of documents, all intent on trying to get the county’s affairs in order before the eagle eyes of the Justices in Eyre arrived next week.

  When de Wolfe marched into the sheriff’s chamber, the scene was even more frantic. De Revelle was almost submerged under a pile of bound parchments and three clerks were jostling at his shoulder to place more sheets in front of him, jabbering their insistence that their problem was the most urgent. When he saw John come in, he yelled before the coroner could open his mouth, ‘Not now, John, please! I am going mad with these fellows battening on me every hour of the day. God curse these laws that send visitations from London to make our lives a misery! I hope all your affairs are in better order than mine.’

  For once, de Wolfe felt almost sorry for his brother-in-law, but the realisation that de Revelle was spending most of his energy in trying to cover up the signs of his corruption hardened his heart. ‘Your dear sister wants to know who the justices will be next week. Tell me, if you know, and I’ll leave you in peace.’

  De Revelle’s pointed beard jutted up at him. ‘There are four this time,’ he snapped petulantly. ‘Sir Peter Peverel, that over-rich baron from Middlesex, and Serlo de Vallibus, a senior Chancery clerk.’

  ‘You said four?’

  ‘Gervase de Bosco, an archdeacon from Gloucester, and someone with local connections, Sir Walter de Ralegh.’

  From the sheriff’s tone, de Wolfe was not sure if the last name was welcome to him or not. A baron with Devon connections might know too much about de Revelle’s scheming for the sheriff’s comfort. ‘I suppose two will hear the civil pleas and the others the criminal,’ he observed.

  The sheriff’s narrow face puckered with disgust. ‘And all four of the bloody men will make a nuisance of themselves by poking their noses into our affairs!’

  The clerks were shaking parchments at him again and John left his brother-in-law to their urgent ministrations. Outside in the hall, he met Ralph Morin, who had just been giving orders to Sergeant Gabriel about escort arrangements for the king’s judges. The castle constable was a massive man, with the blue eyes and forked beard of his Norse ancestors, only a few generations removed from their Norman descendants. He had been directly appointed by the King, as Exeter Castle had been a Crown possession ever since it was built by William the Bastard.

  Now Morin took de Wolfe’s arm and steered him to a vacant spot on a nearby bench. He yelled at a passing servant to bring them some ale, and when the pots arrived, he raised his in salute to the coroner.

  ‘This place is a mad-house this week. Thank Christ these Justices don’t come more often than every few years.’

  ‘Are they staying in Rougement?’

  ‘No damned fear! They like their comfort too much to be stuck in this draughty hole – no wonder de Revelle’s wife refuses to live here with him.’

  ‘So where are you putting them – in the New Inn?’ This was the largest hostelry in Exeter, in the high street between Martin’s Lane and the East Gate.

  ‘It belongs to the cathedral Chapter, so they’ll make a few shillings out of lodging the judges and their acolytes,’ said Ralph sarcastically. ‘Last time, the bishop put them up in his palace, but I hear he found it too expensive to provide free bed and board for them all.’

  They talked together for a while, each comfortable in the company of another professional soldier, both familiar with the campaigns in France and Outremer. Morin had some fairly recent news of Coeur de Lion’s exploits against the hated Philip of France and de Wolfe responded with tales he had heard about the endless wrestling between the Marcher Lords and the Welsh princes.

  After an hour’s pleasant gossip and another few jars of ale, the coroner reluctantly decided that he had better make tracks for home, to avoid the evil eye from Matilda, if he was late in preparing for the Guild feast that evening.

  ‘Are you attending this damned performance in the Guildhall tonight?’ he demanded, as he rose to leave the keep.

  Morin shook his head. ‘Rough soldiers like me are rarely invited. The burgesses are glad enough of my men-at-arms when something goes wrong, but otherwise they look down their noses at me – thanks be to Christ!’

  With a grin and a friendly clap of the shoulder, the two friends parted and John made his way slowly back to Martin’s Lane.

  Two banquets in a week was a form of torture to John de Wolfe, akin to the peine forte et dure that was applied to reluctant witnesses or to those who refused to accept trial by battle.

  He sat sullenly near the end of the top table in the smoky Guildhall, a new stone building in the centre of High Street, gazing down the other trestles that ran in three rows down the length of the chamber. The gabble of conversation and tipsy laughter drowned out the efforts of three musicians who were trying to entertain the crowd from a small gallery above John’s head. At about three hours before midnight, the meal was well advanced and the first courses lay in disarray on the scrubbed tables all around. Servants were struggling through the narrow gaps between the trestles to pick up the remnants of bread trenchers, soggy with gravy, to give to the beggars who clamoured outside the doors. Wooden and pewter platters held chicken and goose carcasses, while bones and scraps of meat were scattered over the tables. Hunks of bread, dishes of butter, cream and slabs of cheese vied with the ragged skeletons of fish as the most prominent debris of the lavish meal. All this was lubricated with spilt ale, cider and wine from an assortment of cups, goblets and horns that were standing on the boards or grasped in unsteady hands.

  In the centre of the top table sat the Master of the Guild of Tanners, a hearty, florid burgess who was already quite drunk. On either side of him were his two Wardens, themselves flanked by lesser officials. On the other side of the table from de Wolfe, the wives sat together, including Matilda, who was happily exchanging gossip and scandal with her cronies. The only consolation for the antisocial coroner was that his friend Hugh de Relaga was next to him, a guest favoured both as a Portreeve of the city and a Guild Master in his own right. On John’s other side, at the extreme end of the table, was another guest, a Warden from the Company of Silversmiths, whose sole object seemed to be to get as much food and drink into himself as humanly possible.

  The tipsy Master had just made a speech, welcoming his guests and extolling the virtues of his Guild in only slightly slurred tones, before sitting down heavily to devote the rest of the evening to getting even more drunk.

  ‘I suppose you have to endure many of these bloody charades?’ growled John to his friend Hugh. There was little fear of anyone taking offence at his sentiments, as the noise of clashing platters, shouting servants and a rising crescendo of babbling voices made any conversation inaudible beyond a foot or two.

  ‘I’ve got used to them over the years. Quite a lot of business is conducted at these affairs, most of it while pissing in the yard, where at least you can hear yourself think.’ The cheerful Portreeve, resplendent in purple silk and a fur-trimmed mantle of green velvet, tore off the leg of a roast duck lying on the table and began to gnaw it with every appearance of satisfaction at the evening’s fare.

  A serving man came around behind them, laying new trenchers of thick bread on the table, one between two diners. John absently reached out with his dagger and pulled a large slice of pink flesh from a salmon carcass lying on a pewter plate nearby and dumped it with the neatness of long practice on their trencher. ‘Try some of this, Hugh. They say that fish strengthens your brain, so maybe you can make even more money for us tomorrow.’

  They began to talk about their wool-exporting partnership, which had shown good returns since the last shearing season. ‘We still have a few hundred bales stored down at the quayside, John. Our agent in St Malo has had a firm offer at a good price.’ The rotund burgess
frowned as he laid a piece of fish on a fresh crust. ‘That reminds me. Tomorrow I must make some new arrangements about shipping them out.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked de Wolfe.

  ‘We usually get Thorgils to move our goods to Brittany but I hear that his vessel was badly damaged in a storm last week. It’ll be a month on the beach at Dawlish for repairs, so he won’t be taking wool anywhere for a while.’

  The Portreeve was unaware of John’s liaison with Thorgils’s wife, so had no idea of the frustration that de Wolfe felt at this bad news. The coroner said nothing, but he cursed silently at this second blow to his love-life within the space of a day. With old Thorgils beached at home, there was no way he could enjoy the delicious company of his young wife.

  De Relaga had turned now to the guild treasurer on his other side to respond to some chatter about the extortionate increase in journeymen’s wages and John felt no inclination to strike up a conversation with the inarticulate silversmith who was still gorging himself on his other side. He refilled his goblet with wine imported from Rouen and sat drinking moodily, half watching the antics of a troupe of jugglers who were performing as best they could with drunken revellers falling against them and servants thrusting irritably past them with jugs and plates.

  He craned his neck to see how Matilda was faring. She seemed to be in her element, filled with good food and drink and engrossed in loud conversation with the other guests, both next to her and at the top end of two of the spur tables. In such company, he saw that she was a different woman from the surly malcontent he knew at home – she was gesturing animatedly and smiling and smirking with the pompous merchants and priests around her.

  John drew back with a long sigh, feeling sorry for himself at the prospect of enforced celibacy for the foreseeable future and applied himself with grim determination to serious drinking, even though he knew he would suffer for it in the morning.