The Dorset man was still trying to deny John’s right to sanctuary. ‘You are still part of a coroner’s jury. I command you to come out and take your place in the inquest,’ he protested.
‘I decline your kind invitation,’ answered John sarcastically. ‘I am well aware that the verdict was decided beforehand by you and your cousin’s husband here.’
‘Then I shall have no option but to continue without you,’ huffed Aubrey. ‘That will deny you the opportunity to say anything more in your defence.’
‘Why, is this a trial, then?’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘And does anyone think for a moment that anything I say will have the slightest impression on what you have already decided?’
Richard de Revelle, who had just railed against John’s right to sanctuary, suddenly reversed his attitude. ‘Let him stay here, Aubrey,’ he said gaily. ‘It proves his guilt, for why else would he abandon the chance to maintain his innocence? Only the guilty run for sanctuary, so he has condemned himself by his own actions!’
He pulled at de Courtenay’s arm, but as they went to the door Aubrey called over his shoulder. ‘On your own head be it, de Wolfe! I am going to complete the inquest forthwith.’
Henry de Furnellis, John de Alençon and Ralph Morin remained in the chapel with John and the chaplain.
‘Archdeacon, is sanctuary valid in these circumstances?’ asked the sheriff, his drooping features heavy with concern.
De Alençon nodded. ‘I see no reason why it should not be. As de Wolfe has said, there is nothing that prevents it. Sanctuary is denied only to those committing sacrilege against the Church.’
‘But how can you go about proving your innocence when you are cooped up in here, John?’ boomed Ralph Morin.
‘I have forty days to think of something,’ replied de Wolfe. ‘If I stay out there, those bastards will see that I get thrown into some gaol or other to await trial God knows how far in the future!’
‘We had better get back and discover what mischief those two have managed to perpetrate,’ growled de Furnellis, leading the way back out into the inner ward. Aubrey de Courtenay was just finishing haranguing the jury, before ordering them to consider their verdict.
‘The poor woman clearly was strangled in her own home,’ he cried with a flourish of his hand. ‘She was still warm when the hue and cry saw her, and her husband, John de Wolfe, was present in the room, waving a dagger about and claiming he found her dead.’
He stopped and glared from one end of the jury to the other.
‘You have heard that he regularly quarrelled with his wife and that his brother-in-law has heard him threaten to kill her. His next-door neighbour, a physician and his wife, both of impeccable character, told you that they had heard altercations through the shutters. The dead lady’s maid heard voices raised in anger at about the very time that she must have been killed.’
He reached the climax of his damning speech, gesturing with outflung arms. ‘John de Wolfe has not denied those facts — and who else would or could have strangled her? It flies in the face of reason to think otherwise! And now he has sought sanctuary — is that the act of an innocent man?’
He dropped his hands to his sides as his histrionics ceased. ‘Now you must debate among yourselves as to how Matilda de Wolfe came to her death. This is not a trial and you are not judging anyone’s guilt — that is the task of the king’s justices when they next come to this city.’
The outcome was both inevitable and rapid. After a few moments’ muttering, the man appointed foreman, a pastry-man from the High Street, stepped forward, still wearing his flour-dusted apron.
‘We find that the poor lady was murdered and that her husband can be the only man responsible.’
Aubrey de Courtenay nodded his approval. ‘Then I so pronounce my verdict,’ he said pompously. ‘That Matilda, wife of John de Wolfe, was killed with malice aforethought on the twelfth day of November in the seventh year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King Richard. And the jury name the said John de Wolfe as the perpetrator.’
He drew a deep breath, as he had never done this before to a knight of the realm and a king’s coroner.
‘I therefore use my power as a coroner to commit him for trial before the royal justices and command that he be kept in close custody until that time.’
There was an urgent murmuring among the crowd, broken by a stentorian voice from Henry de Furnellis, Sheriff of Devon. ‘How can you commit him, when he is in sanctuary?’ he demanded.
De Courtenay shrugged. ‘That is now your problem, sheriff! My jurisdiction ceases at the end of an inquest. He either emerges from that chapel and is arrested, or he stays there for forty days and is then starved to death — unless he confesses his crime and abjures the realm, in which case you will need me to come back to take his confession.’
He walked away from his chair as if distancing himself from any further involvement, but Richard de Revelle hurried towards him and began to speak urgently into his ear. The Dorset coroner stopped and beckoned to the sheriff, who from the look on his face would like to strangle Aubrey himself.
‘What is it now?’ he growled.
‘I have been reminded of your close friendship with the accused. I demand that you will not let your personal feelings allow him to escape from sanctuary — nor from your prison, if and when he emerges to be arrested.’
‘If he shows his head outside that chapel door, you are entitled — indeed, obliged — to hack it from his shoulders!’ added Richard de Revelle with obvious delight.
Henry glowered at the two men. ‘I need no reminding of my duties, thank you!’ he snarled.
De Courtenay wagged an insolent finger at him. ‘I’m sure you don’t, but I shall be kept well informed of any mishaps and I will see to it, through my noble family if needs be, that the Curia Regis be immediately made aware of any failure to keep this man in custody!’
With this last threat, he walked away with Richard de Revelle to fetch their horses. Then they rode away to Richard’s house to stay the night before his return to Lyme next morning.
‘Bastards!’ was Henry’s succinct comment as he watched them vanish through the gatehouse arch.
‘Can you not look the other way when John takes a walk one night?’ suggested Ralph Morin, who admired de Wolfe as much as he detested de Revelle.
The sheriff sighed. ‘I dare not. Richard will be watching like a bloody hawk! I’ll wager he’ll station one of his servants here in the bailey during the daytime, to check that John is still here.’ He spat on the ground, livid that de Revelle seemed to have got the better of them at last. ‘As the king’s officer in this county, I have sworn on oath to uphold his peace. Even for such a good man as de Wolfe, I could not break that obligation — and I know that John would not wish me to.’
‘I suppose something will turn up,’ said Ralph with an optimism that he did not really feel.
That evening was a very strange one for John de Wolfe. As the early dusk approached, the castle bailey lost its daytime bustle and an eerie quiet fell over Rougemont. The gawking crowd from the inquest had dispersed, as John was no longer on show, and soon he was left alone in the empty chapel.
Brother Rufus had brought him a fresh loaf, some cheese and a jug of ale, then went about his business. Gwyn and Thomas had stayed with him for a while, then the Cornishman went off to the Bush, promising to bring up a decent supper when Martha had finished cooking. Both men seemed somewhat ill at ease, unsure how to react to this new situation where their master was virtually a prisoner and accused of murder. The possibility of him being guilty never crossed either of their minds, but they needed time to adjust and to work out how they might best help him prove his innocence.
It was indeed a bizarre situation, locked in a stone box with only his murdered wife’s corpse for company. He wandered over to the bier, a wooden stretcher with four legs, normally kept hanging by ropes from the rafters at the back of St Martin’s Church, from where it had been borrowed.