As he handed one to Richard and his sister, he sighed and asked his visitor what urgent problem had brought him to his door.
‘This damned plague, John, what else?’ screeched de Revelle.
He was a slim, neat man of average height, a few years older than John. Another dandified dresser, with a penchant for bright green, he had wavy hair of a light brown colour, matching the small pointed beard, a fashion which was more that of Paris than of the Normans, who were usually clean-shaven. John suspected that he grew it to hide the weak chin at the lower end of his narrow, triangular face.
‘The plague?’ repeated John, still mystified. ‘Have you caught it, then?’ he asked facetiously. He wished his brother-in-law would stop hogging the fire, as being master of the house John felt that it should be his own cold backside that should be warmed.
‘Be serious, damn it!’ snapped Richard. ‘I mean that it’s ruining my business!’
‘Why, have all your students in Smythen Street been stricken?’
‘Not that business, I mean my pork-exporting venture!’ said the other, exasperated at John’s deliberate obfuscation.
The coroner feigned sudden enlightenment. ‘Ah, yes, I had heard that you were now a swineherd. But what has the yellow disease got to do with that? Are pigs able to catch it?’
With even less sense of humour than John, the former sheriff thought he was being serious. ‘Not the pigs, you fool! The men who work for me, of course. Three have died at Dartmouth and half a dozen are sick near to death at my holding near Clyst St George.’
De Wolfe was immediately more concerned. ‘There is plague at Clyst? I had not heard that!’
‘Nor had I until an hour ago. All the other slaughterers and salters have downed tools and run home. Only one old man has stayed to throw the hogs some food.’
‘And it is at Dartmouth as well?’
Richard nodded in agitation, then swallowed his wine in a gulp. ‘I have large orders for the king’s army to fulfil! How can I carry on with the workers refusing to attend to their duties?’
‘They could hardly work if they were sick or dead,’ pointed out John. ‘Best they stay away from their workplace until the danger of infection is past.’
This only inflamed de Revelle even more. ‘Impossible! Think of the money I am losing every day! Unless I can find other men who will take on the tasks, I will be ruined. I cannot feed hundreds of pigs and get nothing in return!’
‘So why come to me about it?’ demanded John. ‘I am a law officer, not a physician or apothecary!’
‘Surely there is something you can do, you and that idle fellow now sitting in my chamber in Rougemont!’ brayed Richard. ‘Forbid ships from entering our ports, as I have heard that it is likely that foreign seamen are bringing the poison. And also make it unlawful for these workers to stay away from their employment. If they were serfs on a manor, they would have no choice but to work for their lord.’
John looked scathingly at his brother-in-law. ‘And just how do you think that could be done? Most of the seamen coming to our harbours live there. They are now returning for the winter season. Would you have us ban them from their homes?’
Richard scowled at him. ‘Then the workers! Surely they can be put back to their labours?’
‘How? Send a troop of men-at-arms to each of your piggeries, to stand prodding the men with their lances?’
He advanced to the hearth and ostentatiously stood close to Richard, easing him away from the fire.
‘There’s nothing to be done. We all have to make the best of a bad situation and pray that it does not spread to obliterate the city and the county, as has happened sometimes abroad.’
‘We must all pray to Almighty God for deliverance,’ said Matilda, speaking for the first time. ‘For once, John is right. There’s nothing that can be done by we weak mortals.’
‘And as for physicians,’ added de Wolfe scornfully, ‘they can only offer the same advice — prayer! We have a smart doctor next door now, but he’s made it clear that he won’t go within a furlong of a plague victim!’
De Revelle huffed and puffed for a time, but it was apparent that he had no support from either Matilda or John. This was an unusual state of affairs, as though Matilda’s former hero-worship of her rich elder brother had collapsed with her realisation that he was a rogue, she normally contradicted her husband on principle.
Eventually, having gained nothing from his visit, he departed, muttering about having to find more men at a higher rate of pay to deal with his pigs.
‘He thinks of nothing else but his purse and his treasure chest,’ grunted John after the front door had slammed. ‘He has two manors and a rich wife, so why is he always pursuing more wealth?’
Matilda hunched in her chair, unwilling to side with her husband any longer. ‘At least he is aiding the economy of the county and giving work to many men,’ she sniped.
‘And what d’you think I and Hugh de Relaga are doing?’ demanded John. ‘We ship almost half the raw wool that goes from the Exe and a goodly proportion of the finished cloth. It’s that that keeps those in this house warm and well fed!’
Matilda sniffed disdainfully, then returned to attack from a different direction. ‘You should not cast aspersions on Doctor Clement like that,’ she complained. ‘He is a professional man and, if he is so busy with his regular patients to attend to the poor, then that is his concern.’
‘He’s afraid of catching the yellow distemper, that’s what!’ countered John.
‘And who isn’t afraid?’ she demanded. ‘You and that perverted little priest might be foolhardy enough to risk bringing it home to your family and friends, but normal people keep well clear for everyone’s sake.’
Another developing row was averted by Mary coming in to ask if they were ready for their supper, as it was now virtually dark outside. John suspected that she had been listening at the inner door and had interrupted to save him becoming enmeshed in yet another futile shouting match with his cantankerous wife.
The prospect of food always mollified her, and soon they were sitting at the table in smouldering silence as they ate their way through venison in broth, carp and eels in a crust and finally frumenty.
Afterwards, John sat by the fire with a pot of ale and his wife dozed in her chair opposite, while a cold wind whined around the shutters and sudden draughts sucked showers of sparks up the wide chimney. It was not a night on which to expect visitors, and John was all the more surprised to hear an urgent knocking on the outer door. Mary usually answered it, but it took her a time to get around the side passage from her hut in the yard, so he went out into the vestibule and pulled open the heavy oak door. A horse was tied to the rail across the lane and a man stood before him, shivering in a damp riding cloak.
‘Sir John, it’s me, Alfred from Stoke!’
In the dim light from a pitch-brand guttering on the corner of the Close, de Wolfe recognised the reeve from the family manor at Stoke-in-Teignhead, where he had been born and brought up. Surprised and apprehensive, he ushered the man inside and, aware of Matilda in the hall, took him around to Mary’s kitchen-shed, where a good fire burned and the man could get warm and have some food. But first Alfred had to give his momentous news.
‘I have bad tidings, Sir John. The yellow plague has appeared in the village and two are dead and half a dozen taken sick. I am afraid that your brother William is one of them!’
CHAPTER SIX
At dawn next morning, three riders left the West Gate soon after it was opened and splashed through the ford across the Exe, heading for the coast road southwards. Grim-faced, John de Wolfe was in the lead, with Alfred and Gwyn close behind. Thomas had been left behind, as though he offered to come, he was an indifferent horseman and would have slowed them down on his pony. Even John had left his heavy destrier, Odin, behind and taken a swifter rounsey from Andrew’s livery stable to speed his journey. As they cantered down the track towards Powderham and Dawlish, John soberly recalled the events that had set them on this mission.