A lad came out of the alehouse to hold their horses and, with a couple of curious villagers trailing behind them, the bailiff led them on foot across the rutted road and past the church. Here there was a small cottage of whitewashed cob, with a grass-infested thatch. A large open lean-to at the side was his workshop, filled with oddments of leather, ox-harness and a variety of tools.
‘Can I ask why you are seeking him, coroner?’ said Robert respectfully, as they stood looking around at the crudely equipped workplace.
‘I wanted to question him, but now I fear he may be in danger — or worse!’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Tell me more about him. What sort of a man was he?’ Unconsciously, he had already spoken in the past tense.
For the first time the bailiff looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, he was an odd fellow. A good worker, but he fell out with the parish priest some years ago and refused to attend church or take part in any of the village festivities. He was a freeman, so we let him go his own way.’
There seemed nothing to find outside, so the bailiff led them into the one-roomed cottage through a shaky wooden door secured by leather hinges and simple hasp and staple, with a piece of twig jammed through to keep it closed.
‘No fear of thieves in this village,’ said Robert, in an attempt to lighten the mood. Inside, there was again little to see, just a mattress on the straw-covered floor of beaten earth, a small table and two stools, a few shelves with pots and pans, and some food.
Gwyn bent to feel the ashes in the central firepit, which were as cold as the rest of the room. John saw no signs of a struggle or any bloodstains, but, as they were leaving, Gwyn touched his arm and pointed down at the floor just inside the threshold. In the dusty straw were two tracks, each a couple of inches wide and a foot-length apart. They passed out of the doorway and vanished on the harder earth outside.
‘They look like heel-marks from someone being dragged,’ murmured Gwyn.
John and the bailiff looked at them for a long moment. ‘I can’t think of a better explanation,’ agreed John. He turned to Robert.
‘Has anyone visited him lately? Any strangers been in the village?’
‘Only the usual folk, a chapman and, a few days back, a man with a cart trying to sell pots and bowls. Oh, and, of course, those men from the bishop, who came to see the priest last week.’
John was instantly alert. ‘What did they want?’ he snapped.
‘I don’t know exactly. Father Patrick told us to mind our own business.’
‘Were they priests?’ asked de Wolfe.
Robert shook his head. ‘No, though they wore black tunics. They weren’t clerks, for they carried clubs on their saddle-bows, as well as wearing long daggers.’
‘The proctors’ men,’ muttered Gwyn.
‘But Hengist has been seen since then?’ demanded John.
‘Yes, that was more than a week ago. He was seen about his usual business until Thursday.’
The bailiff had nothing else to tell them, and de Wolfe decided to talk to the parish priest. Robert took them to the gate in the churchyard wall and pointed to a small house in the far corner.
‘You’ll find him there, sir. He’s a forthright sort of man, Crowner,’ he added, a hint of warning in his voice.
De Wolfe and Gwyn walked between the low grave-mounds, set among a wide ring of ancient yews, to reach the parsonage. The warped boards of the door opened to repeated knocking, and the sleepy face of a rotund priest appeared, having been awakened from sleep, even though the morning was by now well advanced. He was a fat man, with jowls hanging below a bad-tempered face. His tonsure had not been shaved for some time, a grey stubble sprouting over it, matching his unshaven cheeks.
‘What do you want with me?’ he muttered, staring at his two tall visitors through bleary eyes.
De Wolfe, holding his short temper in check with difficulty, explained who he was and that he wanted to talk about Hengist the leather-worker.
‘You know he’s missing?’ snapped John irritably.
‘Of course I do. Wasn’t I out half the day and night looking for him with the rest of the village?’ responded the priest testily. He spoke English with an Irish accent, reminding the coroner of his campaigning days in that green isle.
Grudgingly, he invited them in to his one-roomed abode, though a back door led into a cubbyhole that was his kitchen. The main feature of his living room was a large box-bed at one side, with sliding doors to keep out the draughts. John suspected that he spent a large part of his time snoring inside it. There were a few books and some writing materials on a table, so Patrick was not illiterate, a failing not uncommon in the incumbents of rural parishes.
‘What can you tell us about this Hengist?’ he asked as they stood around the near-dead firepit. ‘We were told that he had a disagreement with you, some time ago.’
Father Patrick snorted. ‘Disagreement! The man was a damned pagan, with his blasphemous ideas. I would have banned him from my church, except that he refused to come anyway!’
‘Is that why the proctors’ men called on you last week?’
The priest glared at the coroner as if to condemn his prying into his business. ‘It was indeed! I had several times reported this Hengist to the bishop, after many months of his refusing to come to Mass or make his confession.’
‘So you think he was a heretic?’
Patrick’s paunchy face reddened with annoyance. ‘Think? I knew! He would argue with me when I remonstrated with him. Gave me a lot of seditious nonsense about free will and the freedom to choose his own path to salvation. To damnation, more like!’
De Wolfe considered this for a moment. ‘You said you told the bishop more than once about this. What happened on the first occasions?’
‘Absolutely nothing!’ ranted the priest. ‘They ignored me in Exeter. I heard when I visited there later that the bishop and his staff thought that it was not serious and that in any event they had no time to deal with it.’
‘So what did you do?’ asked Gwyn, speaking for the first time.
‘As no one in the bishop’s palace seemed interested, I sought out my archdeacon, John de Alençon, who is also vicar-general, having the bishop’s ear. But he, too, said that there was little he could do about it, but he sent me to one of the other canons, who he said had an interest in heresy.’
Now John wondered whether this lone man in Wonford had been the one who had sparked off this witch-hunt. ‘Which canon was that?’ he asked.
‘Robert de Baggetor. He was the first one who listened to me with any concern. He said he and several other members of the chapter would look into the matter.’
‘When was this?’
‘About a month ago, before the outbreaks of plague started to occur.’ He beat a fist into the palm of his hand, animated at last.
‘I am not surprised that the Lord has sent this curse. It is punishment for the rise of apostasy in the land!’
John was not clear what ‘apostasy’ meant and resolved to ask Thomas when he next saw him.
‘So why did these proctors’ bailiffs visit you?’ he asked.
‘The canons had eventually persuaded the bishop to investigate Hengist and came to tell me to be in Exeter next week, when he would be brought before his chancellor for interrogation. They also wanted to know if I knew of any others with such heretics’ beliefs.’
‘And do you?’ demanded the coroner.
The priest clutched his shabby bed-robe closer about him. It was cold in here with the fire just a heap of ashes with a faint glow in the centre. ‘I know there are more, but not in Wonford. Hengist used to walk out somewhere every week or so, and I suspect he met other blasphemers, but he refused to tell me about them.’
‘Did you know what kind of heretic he was?’ asked John. ‘I understand from my learned clerk that there are a number of different beliefs.’
‘We argued about predestination, free will and the right of any man to communicate with God without the intervention of a priest. He claimed that all worldly manifestations are innately evil. Such dangerous nonsense must mean that he sympathises with these bloody French Cathars.’