‘I reckon that folk in the city have lost their appetite for hounding heretics, since that awful business on Sunday night,’ said a brawny smith from Smythen Street. ‘Time we let the bishop sort out his problems in his own way, not by taking affairs into our own hands.’
John was glad to hear that common sense was reestablishing itself in Exeter, but then he was diverted by the arrival of Martha with a wooden bowl of steaming potage, smelling deliciously of thyme and mint. She was closely followed by a young maid with a platter bearing a shank of mutton with beans and boiled leeks.
‘Get that down you, Crowner!’ she said cheerily. ‘It will raise your spirits in these dark days.’
He found that he was ravenously hungry, having left part of his dinner behind in his fight with Matilda and now gone well beyond his usual supper-time. He attacked the food heartily and soon finished it all. When he ended with a bare mutton bone, he realised that he had no Brutus beneath the table, as he had left him with Mary, where the dog spent most of his time when John was away from the house. He recalled that she was going to visit her cousin in Curre Street that evening and would probably have taken the dog with her, as Matilda had no time for the old hound and was probably at St Olave’s anyway.
The evening passed pleasantly in drinking and gossiping, but after a couple of hours John decided that he had better go home to bed, as tomorrow would be another hard day, if he was to ride to Stoke-in-Teignhead and back. He bade goodnight to his friends and trudged back along the familiar route to Martin’s Lane, a path he had taken a thousand times before, so the darkness was no hindrance.
In the cathedral Close he passed the guttering pitch-flare at Bear Gate and aimed for the next one stuck in a ring on the wall of St Martin’s Church, fifty paces from his house. As he reached the front door, he frowned because it was ajar. Though they rarely locked it, it was normally closed against the draughts that blew through the lane. He pushed it open and went into the small vestibule that connected the inner door to the hall with the passage to the backyard. A tallow dip in a wall niche gave him light enough to hang up his cloak, before he went into the hall.
The fire was burning low, but two more tallow lamps on each side wall dimly illuminated the high, gloomy chamber. No one was sitting near the hearth, so he assumed that his wife was still at her devotions. Going to the fire to throw on a couple of the logs stacked at the side, he suddenly saw a pair of feet sticking out beyond the further monks’ settle. Aghast, he thrust the seat out of the way and saw that his wife was lying motionless on the flagstones.
‘Matilda! Matilda, what’s wrong?’ He dropped to his knees alongside her, fearful that she had had a stroke or a seizure. She was lying on her side, and he tugged at her substantial body to turn her on to her back. Then, even in that poor light, he could see the bruises on her throat. She was dead — stone dead.
De Wolfe had seen too many corpses in his time to even attempt to revive her, and he rocked back on his heels, stunned by the realisation that his wife was dead. To his credit, the thought that he was now free of her never entered his head. Though he had made many empty threats in the past, these were just an angry retaliation to her jibes and he had never contemplated her demise as the answer to his marital problems. Now he felt confused, as if this was all happening to someone else.
‘Matilda, what the hell happened to you?’ he croaked, then berated himself for being such a fool. A practical man of action, he pulled himself together and stood up, a cold fury slowly overtaking him at whoever had robbed him of his wife, however undesirable to him she might have been.
He stared almost maniacally around the chamber, as if he might see some murderer skulking in a corner. Was this anything to do with the heretic hunt or was it some random robbery with violence? What about those two evil bastards from Polsloe? They had already attacked someone inside the city — and that was also an attempted throttling.
Or could it be someone getting back at him for his actions against those who wished to exterminate heretics? Perhaps that madman Alan de Bere? Or the lay brother Reginald Rugge — he knew Matilda well, as he was always lurking around St Olave’s. The possibilities swirled around in his head, confusing him, making him yell out in anguished frustration.
But he was the coroner, he told himself sternly … For God’s sake, pull yourself together, man!
He suddenly realised that he was now the First Finder. It was different being on the other side of the fence that usually divided a law officer from the people in the street or the village. What was he to do? Should he raise the hue and cry?
He stood indecisively, looking down at the inert body of the woman he had been married to for over seventeen years. For once unsure of what to do next, he stood transfixed, trying to get his thoughts in order.
There was a click behind him as the hall door opened and he swung around in a crouch, automatically whipping out his dagger to confront the return of the killer.
‘For Christ’s sake, what are you doing, John?’ came a familiar voice. ‘Put that damned knife away.’
It was Richard de Revelle, his detested brother-in-law, who came cautiously towards him, as John’s knife hand slowly subsided.
‘I came to visit my sister. Is this the welcome I get?’ he brayed in his high-pitched voice. Suspecting from John’s manner that something was amiss, he hurried forward, keeping his brother-in-law at arm’s length until he reached the chairs near the hearth. Finding them empty, he dropped his gaze and saw his sister lying motionless on the floor. With a cry of horror, he dropped to one knee and, like John, instantly recognised that she was beyond any mortal help.
‘What have you done, you bastard?’ he shrieked, looking up fearfully at de Wolfe, as if he expected him to jump murderously upon him. ‘You’ve killed her, you swine!’ He struggled to his feet and backed away from the coroner.
‘I knew this would happen! I’ve heard the many threats you’ve made against the poor woman!’ He stumbled backwards a few more steps. ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later, but you’ll not get away with it, damn you! I’ll see you hang for this!’
His hysteria seemed to jerk John back into rational thought. ‘Don’t be so bloody silly, Richard!’ he said dully, dropping his knife carelessly on to the flagstones. ‘I found her like this when I came in, not three minutes ago. It must have been those two swine who attacked that woman in Polsloe. I must send for the sheriff. He’ll know what to do.’
‘Damned right he will!’ shrilled de Revelle. ‘He’ll arrest you for murder if he knows what’s good for him!’ He moved warily towards the door, half-afraid that de Wolfe was going to jump on him.
‘Where are you going?’ snapped John. ‘You must help me get her decently laid out, not left crumpled on the cold floor.’
‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ shouted de Revelle. ‘You’ve done enough damage already. And nothing must be moved until the sheriff and his men get here — you should know that, as so-called coroner!’
He sidled to the door. As he vanished, he shouted, ‘I’m off to raise the hue and cry — though they’ll not have far to search for the killer!’
John slumped into his chair and stared across the room at where his wife’s feet pointed at him accusingly. The fire had livened up and he could see her more clearly, lying there murdered before her own hearth. The feeling of unreality began to creep over him again and he leaped up to dispel it, but again hovered indecisively over her still form.
Then the door opened again and Mary entered, straight from the street with a woollen shawl draped over her head and shoulders.
‘What’s going on, Sir John?’ she asked briskly. ‘Your brother-in-law is hammering on the door of the next house.’
He looked at her dully and wordlessly waved a hand towards the hearth. His cook-maid came forward to stare at what was behind the chair. Typically of her, she neither screamed nor shouted but dropped to her knees and felt Matilda’s face with the back of her hand.