‘I appreciate your position, John. But what can I do to help? I am in an even more difficult position here, as you know. I am supposed to give a lead in defending the Church in this matter, though you know my heart is not in this particular persecution.’ He looked behind again and saw that the other priests and clerics were moving away. ‘I must go to chapter, John. There is no time now, but come to see me later.’
De Wolfe nodded, but then held up a restraining hand. ‘One question, John. If the perpetrator of this foul crime confessed to a priest, are there any circumstances where that confidence could be broken, given the outrageous nature of the crime?’
De Alençon laid a hand his friend’s shoulder. ‘The eternal question, John! The answer is “no”, as that confession is made to God. The priest is but a passive channel to the Almighty, then conveying back God’s absolution to the one confessing.’
‘Even if by allowing that man to stay free, it might permit him to repeat his crimes?’
The archdeacon groaned. ‘It would be a personal decision by the priest. I have heard of only one such instance and then the priest left his vocation, becoming a hermit, as he felt that he could no longer continue in office after breaking his vow of silence.’ He backed away and lifted a hand in farewell. ‘I must go to chapter, John. I will see you soon.’
The coroner made his way slowly out of the cathedral, unsure of what to do next. The illness of his brother hung over him all the time, like some dark cloud under which he had to go through the motions of daily life. Even thoughts of Hilda rarely entered his mind these past few days, it being filled with the horror of this multiple crime, as well as concern over his deteriorating relations with Matilda and her odd behaviour since the deaths of those children. He thanked God that at least the added worry about Thomas seemed to have receded and that faithful Gwyn, his rock in this turbulent life, seemed as stable and reliable as ever.
On the way out of the nave and again as he crossed the Close, he enquired of several clerks and lay brothers if they knew where Alan de Bere might be found. He went again to the proctors’ office, partly to annoy them with his persistence, but neither bailiff was there. He thought of trying St Nicholas Priory, in the backstreets near Bretayne, but decided it was a futile quest to seek Alan there, as he had been ejected by them a long time before. The only other people who might know of him were in the constables’ hut at the back of the Guildhall; though Osric and Theobald were there when he called, neither had anything useful to tell him.
‘Not a sign of that crazy bloody monk,’ growled Theobald, the fat constable. ‘No one seems to have laid eyes on him since he was taken from the castle gaol.’
De Wolfe turned to Osric, the Saxon with an emaciated body and a thin face to match. ‘Were there any sightings of a stranger in Milk Lane that night?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve asked everyone in the lane and up and down nearby Fore Street,’ he said nervously, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his scrawny neck. ‘Everyone is keen to help, but the trouble is they invent things in their urge to be useful. I’ve had reports of all manner of folk being seen there, from the portreeves to the bishop himself!’
John sighed. He had come across this warped imagination of witnesses before. ‘But nothing definite? The same person being seen by two different people, for instance?’
Osric shook his head. ‘As that neighbour told us, they go to their beds early there, with the morning milking to do. It’s a side street; not many people use it unless they come to buy butter, cheese or milk, and that’s in the daytime.’
Theobald put in a sensible question. ‘Where would anyone get this naphtha stuff, Crowner? I’d only heard of it as something used in warfare. Would it have to be a soldier of some sort?’
The coroner shrugged. ‘I know little about it myself. I heard of it being used at the siege of Constantinople, as an ingredient in this Greek Fire they shot from catapults. But who in Devon would possess it, God alone knows.’
‘We’ll keep asking around for this Alan de Bere, sir,’ promised Osric. ‘He must be hiding somewhere, unless he’s already left the city.’
‘I’ll question all the gatekeepers,’ offered Theobald. ‘But most are so blind or so stupid that they’d not notice if an elephant passed through!’
On this pessimistic note, John left and went back to his chamber at Rougemont, where Gwyn had news of a serious assault in Polsloe, a mile north-east of the city.
‘The Serjeant of the Hundred rode in to say that a woman there had been robbed, ravished and beaten. She’s been taken into the priory in danger of her life.’
‘Have they caught the assailant?’ demanded de Wolfe, already sickened by the increase in violence lately.
‘The hue and cry was raised and they seized two men. They’re locked in a cowshed waiting for you, with half the men of the village eager to hang them from the nearest tree.’
‘People are too damned ready to hang anyone they dislike,’ grumbled the coroner. ‘What do they think the king’s courts are for?’
Gwyn had his own opinion on that, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
An hour later they rode into Polsloe, a village which had a small house of Benedictine nuns nearby. John knew it well, not least because it was where Matilda had taken refuge twice, though she never stayed long enough to take her vows. They were met at the edge of the hamlet by the Serjeant of Cliston Hundred and the manor-reeve, who took them to the small barn where a couple of angry villagers were guarding two men locked inside.
‘Who are they?’ asked John, peering through a crack in the rough planking at the pair of ruffians sitting disconsolately on the floor, already feeling the gallows rope around their necks.
‘Strangers, passing through,’ answered the serjeant, a tall, muscular man named Thomas Sanguin, who was responsible for upholding the law in his Hundred, a subdivision of the county. ‘One claims his name is Martin of Nailsea, the other just David the Welshman. Both say they are ship-men, stranded at Exmouth and walking back to Bristol.’
‘Have they confessed?’ asked Gwyn.
‘No, have they hell! They deny everything, though they were seen running away from the woman’s house.’
‘Any stolen goods on them?’
Sanguin shook his head. ‘She had nothing to steal. A young widow, living on the parish, so they beat her and ravished her for spite, the swine!’
‘Will she die?’ asked John.
‘Best ask the nuns at the priory; they are caring for her. But the poor woman is beaten badly.’
John scratched his head as an aid to thought. Where victims were badly injured, they could be given into the care of the assailant, who would usually do all he could to keep them alive, for if they died within a year and a day of the assault, he would be tried for murder. However, a couple of rascally sailors were unlikely to be of much use to the poor woman, compared with the care she was getting at the nunnery, which was well known for its expertise in dealing with childbirth and women’s ailments.
‘Get them sent into the city. They can be housed at the South Gate gaol. The sheriff can decide what to do about them, depending on whether the woman lives or dies. I’d better go down to the priory to make enquiries.’
He and Gwyn went to the woman’s cottage on the way, a desperately poor place, where he was told that the woman eked out an existence after her husband died of poisoning of the blood caught from an injury in the fields with a hayfork that stabbed his foot. The single room was so barely furnished that it was hard to tell if an assault had taken place there, apart from the bloodstains on the pile of rags that was her bed.
‘Better keep those to show at the court, if it ever gets that far,’ said John to the serjeant. ‘Now I’ll go to see the woman — or at least talk to the nuns about her.’
The nunnery was in a compound behind a stone wall, with a gatehouse guarded by a porter. John knew the place well, not only from visits concerning his wife, but from several cases concerning women, where Dame Madge, a formidable nun who acted as the sub-prioress, had been of great help to him in matters of rape and abortion.