In due course the physician and his wife arrived and were conducted to a pair of folding leather-backed chairs before the chimneyed hearth, between the two monks’ seats. John gravely provided them with his best wine, served in glass goblets he had looted from a French castle in the Limousin and which came out only on special occasions.
If John had not known his wife so well, he might have thought that she had suddenly turned into a different person. From her usual glowering, sullen manner, the arrival of favoured guests had given her an ingratiating smile and a convincing façade of pleasantry. Her stocky body arrayed in a gown of dark red velvet, she had discarded her head-veil and wimple in favour of a net of gold thread which confined her hair. She also wore a surcoat of blue brocade, as in spite of the large fire the hall was cold and chilly.
Though he had met his neighbours before, albeit briefly, John now had time to study them more closely as they politely sipped their wine and listened to Matilda’s prattle about the cathedral and her little church in Fore Street. Clement was a handsome man, with a patrician face but rather thin lips. A few streaks of grey showed in the dark hair that was cut in the old Norman style, being clipped short around his neck and temples, with a thick bush on top. His manner was precise and rather imperious, suggesting that he did not take kindly to his opinions being questioned. What struck John most, seeing him at close quarters, were his eyes, pale blue and unblinking. They seemed to have a strange intensity, which reminded John of a cat waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting mouse.
Dressed elegantly in a long tunic of bright green linen, with a fur-edged surcoat of deep blue, he looked exactly what he was, a mature professional man who was sure of his position in society. Then, as he refilled Cecilia’s goblet, John — a connoisseur of women — realised anew that Clement’s wife was extremely attractive. Considerably younger than her husband, she was handsome rather than beautiful. About thirty, slim and straight-backed, she wore a cover-chief and wimple of white silk, though enough hair peeped out to show that it was as black as his own. A smooth complexion and full, slightly pouting lips convinced de Wolfe that she was a very desirable addition to the scenery of Martin’s Lane, especially in her elegant gown of black velvet with a gold cord wound around her narrow waist, the tasselled ends dangling almost to the floor. A heavy surcoat of dark green wool was held across her neck by a gilt chain.
Her presence undoubtedly made him less taciturn a host than usual, and he already felt Matilda’s censorious eyes upon him as he fussed over Cecilia’s glass of wine. After the usual platitudes about their health and the prematurely cold weather, the physician turned his attention to the news of the day.
‘Some sad deaths in the city, I hear,’ he observed. His voice was mellow, and John began to wonder if this paragon could have any faults at all.
‘You mean the outbreak of distemper in Bretayne?’ he suggested.
‘And the murder of that woodcarver up in Raden Lane,’ added Clement with a slight note of triumph in his voice at being so abreast of the news.
John was once again amazed at the efficiency of the Exeter grapevine, which seemed to be able to relay news even as it was happening, for it was less than a couple of hours since the identity of the victim had been established. When the face had been rubbed clean of dried blood by the vigorous application of wet rags, Osric was able to recognise him straight away as Nicholas Budd, who had lived alone in a rented room off Curre Street, which was not far away on the north side of the High Street. The two constables, who knew virtually every resident of the city, said that he made a modest living carving wood, both for furniture and especially for religious artefacts for churches or to sell to pilgrims. They knew little else about him, as he was a quiet, withdrawn person, with no relatives that they knew of.
Matilda seized upon the news like a terrier with a rat, as John had not bothered to tell her why he had arrived home late that afternoon.
‘I have heard of the man. He shaped some parts of the rood screen in St Pancras Church,’ she snapped. ‘Why should someone want to murder a devout man like that? He could have no riches to steal.’
Clement and Matilda launched on a somewhat patronising discussion about why the good are struck down while the wicked prosper. John, sitting now in one of the monks’ seats, was content to watch Cecilia, who so far had hardly spoken a word, except for some polite responses to a few questions about how she liked her new life in Exeter.
As he looked across at her profile, the old adage ‘still waters run deep’ came into his mind, and he again had to remind himself that an equally attractive woman awaited him in Dawlish. Cecilia seemed aware of his scrutiny, for she turned her head and gave him a slight, almost secret smile. He thought that she must be well used to men staring at her; it could hardly be otherwise. He was jerked from his daydreaming by her husband speaking to him.
‘Is there any reason why this man should have been fatally attacked?’ he asked. ‘As in any town, there are plenty of drunken brawls and knife fights, but this secret killing must be unusual, even for such a large city as Exeter.’
John raised his shoulders in an almost Gallic gesture. ‘It is too early to say. I sent my officer around to all the houses nearby, to raise the hue and cry, not that it was of any use as the man had been dead for some time. But no one admitted seeing or hearing anything untoward. We can do no more until daybreak tomorrow.’
He kept the nature of the injuries to himself, but saw no harm in enlarging on the circumstances, as doctors heard things that often no one else could pick up, other than priests in the confessional.
‘The victim was severely wounded, so it is probable that the assailant would have been heavily bloodstained. Given this deep frost, it is impossible even to guess at the time of the attack, which must have taken place somewhere else.’
At last, Cecilia joined the conversation. ‘How could someone move a body across the city without being seen?’ she asked. Her voice was low and pleasant, her Norman-French perfect. Though John knew that they could both speak good English — and no doubt the physician was fluent in Latin — Matilda insisted on always speaking French in the house. Though she was born in Devon and had lived all her life there, apart from a couple of trips to distant relatives in Normandy, she insisted on ‘playing the Norman’ on the strength of her de Revelle ancestors.
‘There are plenty of back alleys and, at night, few people about, except around the taverns,’ answered Cecilia’s husband. ‘Maybe you will never find the culprit, though Almighty God knows and will bring him to his proper reckoning when the Great Trump sounds!’ he added piously.
John was more forthright. ‘It must have been possible to move him, for indeed it happened!’ he declared. ‘The dead man was a thin old fellow; he could have been carried quite easily. And for all we know, there might have been more than one assailant.’
Matilda was becoming increasingly fractious at the choice of subject. She wanted to talk of churches, priests and well-known citizens of her acquaintance.
‘Do you have to bring your loathsome work home with you, John?’ she snapped. ‘I’m sure the doctor here does not weary his wife with tales from the sickbed!’
Cecilia smiled faintly but said nothing in response, leaving it to the others to guess whether her husband discussed his patients’ problems with her. However, John was not going to be sidetracked by Matilda, for he needed some information.
‘Doctor Clement, these outbreaks of the yellow plague,’ he began, topping up his guest’s goblet. ‘Have you experience of them elsewhere? There has not been such a murrain for many years, though it seems that some older people recollect them.’