In the house, Osanna fussed over him even more and insisted on administering a different honey posset made according to her grandmother’s recipe. John accepted it with good grace, then washed it down with a pint of ale as soon her back was turned. She appeared to have forgiven him for his indiscretion with Hawise d’Ayncourt and this latest drama seemed to restore their relations to normal.
De Wolfe refused suggestions that he should take to his bed and he waited up until Osanna provided supper. She insisted that he had mostly liquid food, in the shape of a vegetable potage followed by a mutton stew in which she had shredded most of the meat so that he could swallow it more easily. The last course was a junket of rennet-curdled milk, flavoured with saffron. In fact, he was glad of her thoughtfulness, as the food slipped down easily, though he could see that poor Gwyn would have preferred using his teeth to rip apart a pork knuckle or a brisket of beef.
Thomas had gone back to the abbey for his supper and fraternal gossip with his religious friends, so after the meal the coroner and his officer sat around the dead fire-pit and drank more ale, punctuated by sporadic conversation. John wondered how many times they had done this over the last two decades — sitting together in the evening in a devastated castle or under a thorn tree, talking over the day’s events, be they a bloody battle or a miserable ride across ruined French farmland or a stony desert in Outremer. His throat was improving by the hour and the desultory talk with his henchman proved no strain on his voice. The red line around his neck was still there, where the cord had dug into his skin, and a thin margin of bluish bruising had appeared alongside it, but apart from tenderness when the collar of his tunic rubbed him, he was virtually back to normal.
‘What are we going to do about this, Crowner?’ growled Gwyn. ‘We can’t let the bastards get away with attempting to kill a royal law officer!’
‘We’ve got to find them first,’ said John pragmatically. ‘They’ll put a foot wrong sooner or later, then we’ll have them. Maybe they’ll try again, but I won’t be so trusting next time.’
‘I’m not letting you out of my sight until this is settled!’ promised Gwyn with grim determination. ‘You’ll not so much as go to the privy without me standing guard outside!’
De Wolfe grinned at the thought of his burly officer parading with drawn sword while he attended to his bowels, but his heart warmed to the faithful Cornish-man who he knew would die for him if required.
The evening wore on, the sun still in the sky as the longest day of the year approached and it was about the eighth hour when there was a knock on the door to the lane. Osanna appeared almost instantly from the back door, like a genie from a bottle, confirming John’s suspicions that she spent much of her time lurking behind it to listen to what was said in the main room.
Hurrying across to the front door, she opened it and stepped back in surprise when she saw the elegant woman on her threshold. But her indignant scowl was stillborn when she saw that behind Lady Hawise was a gentleman dressed in expensive, if rather garish clothing, with a manner and appearance that exuded nobility.
From where John was sitting, he could at first see only the woman and began to groan at being hounded once again. He rose to his feet and then saw Renaud de Seigneur, with the maid Adele sheltering behind him. For a moment, he feared that the husband had come to accuse him of trying to seduce his wife, but their expressions of friendly concern reassured him.
‘Sir John, we have just heard the news, when we were at the supper table, for we were away overnight!’ fluted Hawise. ‘Ranulf told us that you had been viciously attacked and left for dead!’
John invited them inside and requested Osanna to fetch wine and cups. She seemed flattered to have this French lord in her house and accepted his forward wife as long as she did not throw herself again at her resident knight. Gwyn diplomatically withdrew to the nether regions with her, leaving John to entertain the guests.
The three sat at the table with the wine, the maid crouching unobtrusively in the corner, while de Wolfe regaled them with the tale of his ambush and his rescue by his clerk and the chaplain of St Stephen’s. Both Renaud and Hawise seemed genuinely concerned about his health and the Lord of Blois produced a glazed pottery bottle of red wine as a gift.
‘From my own vineyard in Freteval!’ he said proudly. For her part, Hawise offered him a small glass jar of a salve, which she said would help to remove the sting from his abused throat.
Touched by their solicitude, de Wolfe endured their questions with patience, responding as politely as he could to their wild theorising about the reasons for this attack. Even Osanna, hovering within earshot, seemed to be mollified by Hawise’s concern for John’s welfare.
‘It is just as well that we will all soon be on the road to Gloucester,’ declared Renaud. ‘Then you will be safely away from whoever wishes you ill!’
John gave one of his crooked grins. ‘Unless the miscreant goes with us,’ he said. ‘According to the preparations for the procession described by Ranulf, it seems that almost everyone in Westminster above kitchen boy, is joining the exodus.’
Hawise fluttered a hand to her mouth in a patently false gesture of terror. ‘Sweet Mary preserve us!’ she gasped. ‘Do you think that we might have a killer in our midst as we travel?’
De Seigneur patted her hand reassuringly. ‘Calm yourself, lady. We will have a strong escort of troops with us, for the queen’s sake, if not ours.’
The cynical John felt that she was as hard as nails under that divine exterior and had little fear of being assaulted — and as for ravishment, he thought that perhaps she might welcome it as a change from the podgy Renaud.
Hawise fluttered her lashes at him again. ‘And we have these doughty knights to protect us as well, Sir Ranulf and William, as well as our Crusading hero here!’
The coroner made one of his all-purpose rumbles in his throat, but found it hurt, even used as deprecation. The other pair continued to prattle on about his awful experience, then turned to ask about the other current excitements in Westminster.
‘Is there any more news of who slew the poor canon?’ asked Renaud, his plump face wreathed in concern. ‘And has that stolen treasure turned up anywhere?’
When John had to admit to not making any progress, Hawise probed the other recent murder: ‘That poor young man in our guest chambers, I still feel sad for him, though we never exchanged as much as a single word,’ she said solicitously. ‘It seems an injustice that he should lose his life and no one is brought to book for it.’
Although he had already raised the bluff, de Wolfe had to conceal his lack of any progress in finding a culprit for Basil’s murder and muttered some vague claim about hoping to settle the matter very soon. He had heard nothing at all from the city sheriffs about the slaughtered ironworker, so that made three undetected murders of local men within a couple of weeks. Again, it made him wonder if his presence in Westminster was of any use whatsoever and, like Gwyn, strengthened his desire to go home to Devon.
When the wine was finished and the conversation was exhausted, the pair from Blois rose to leave, with renewed expressions of concern for John’s health and hopes for a speedy return to full health and voice. Osanna hurried to open the door and bobbed her head obsequiously to the departing nobles.
John followed them out into Long Ditch to send them on their way and just as they were going, Hawise offered her hand to John to bow over. It was an excuse for her to whisper to him.
‘You have been avoiding me, John! But our journey to Gloucester and back is a long one.’
The coroner’s throat, if not his pride and temper, had improved greatly during the few days before the news was received of Queen Eleanor’s impending arrival. A herald on a fast horse had been dispatched from Kingston when she arrived there, so that Westminster could be put on full alert and the next morning the welcoming party set out to meet her entourage on the high road.