He lifted the big iron latch and held up the candle, as the farrier’s flares opposite had burned out. The rain and the wind had died down and his candle flame survived the remaining breeze to show a muffled figure on his doorstep. Mindful of the Archdeacon’s warning of assassins, he held the door only partly open, until he realised that the figure was female.
‘You are Sir John – the Crowner?’ asked a tremulous but still attractive voice.
‘I am indeed. And who are you?’
‘My name is Rosamunde – Rosamunde of Rye, they call me. Can I speak with you, Crowner, please? I am in trouble.’
The fitful candlelight fell on a beautiful face, half hidden in a deep hood – though even this poor view showed something wrong with one eye. Though the chivalrous de Wolfe would have helped any woman in trouble – even an old hag – one with such a voice and the face of a sultry angel was irresistible.
He pulled open the door and beckoned her inside. This was the woman who had been involved with Giles Fulford and probably Jocelin de Braose, but somehow he doubted that she had come to stab him to death. He escorted her into the hall and over to the hearth, where the sticks were now burning briskly, throwing light across the room. Brutus stood to look at the new arrival then, sensing no danger, wagged his tail slowly and lay down again.
The woman, tall and straight, was still shrouded in a heavy cape that fell to her feet. ‘I know you have heard of me, Sir John, in not very favourable circumstances.’
As they stood eyeing each other from either side of the fire, she lifted her hands and threw back the pointed hood of the mantle, revealing a cascade of glossy black hair that gleamed in the firelight. She also revealed, on the smooth features of her full-lipped face, a large bruise that discoloured the eye lids and the upper part of her left cheek. ‘Look at this, Sir John – and these!’ Rosamunde slid the mantle from her shoulders so that it fell to the floor. She wore a bright green silk kirtle with a deep round neckline, unlike the modest tops of the dresses he was used to seeing. The silk strained across her full breasts and was pulled tight at her waist by lacing at the back.
He dragged his attention back to what she was showing him. Down both sides of her long white neck were red scratches, obviously from fingernails, and above her collarbone, partly obscured by the edges of her dress, were recent blue bruises.
‘I have been badly used, Crowner, and this is only the half of it! I know I have a reputation but I still deserve the protection of the law.’ She gave him a look of supplication from her large eyes, which glistened from under half-lowered lids. Her lashes were darkened with soot and her lips reddened with rouge.
De Wolfe moved closer to her, partly to study her injuries but also in a spontaneous gesture of sympathy. ‘Who did this to you, girl?’ he demanded.
‘Jocelin de Braose, the swine! You must know that I am the woman of his squire, Giles Fulford. His master decided that he wanted to bed me too, and when Giles was away today he forced himself on me – look here!’
Her hand had been on her right shoulder and now she pulled it away to show that the green silk had been ripped from the back of the neck to the seam of the long bell-shaped sleeve. As she took her fingers down, a large flap of the bodice fell forward to expose most of her right breast. ‘The other is the same, Crowner,’ she said, in her low voice, pointing with a slim finger to the group of penny-sized bruises on her bosom and around the large brown nipple.
Interested though he was in wounds and injuries, the details of these bruises were not foremost in de Wolfe’s mind as he gazed down at her seductive body – especially as her face and lips were within inches of his own. He swallowed and dragged his mind back to this unique situation. ‘Where is de Braose now?’ he rumbled. If the renegade was inside the city, maybe he had a chance to trap him, even though Gwyn was locked outside the walls until morning.
But Rosamunde did not reply and, suddenly, alarm bells began pealing in his head. Before he could step back, she put an arm around his neck and kissed him full on the lips, her bare breast pressed to his chest.
The next moment, she threw herself on the floor at his feet and screamed, ‘Rape, rape!’ at the top of her voice. As she did so, she was busy pulling down the other side of her kirtle top and dragging up her skirt so that she was naked to the waist. For some seconds, which seemed like minutes, de Wolfe was paralysed with surprise. Though in battle his reflexes were instantaneous, this had been so unexpected, so outrageously bizarre, that he stood gaping at her performance in that empty house.
Except that it proved not to be empty: the hall door crashed open, four men burst into the hall and ran across to seize him. He struggled, but he had nothing, not even a dagger, with which to defend himself, his weapons being in their usual resting place in the vestibule. His old hound jumped snarling against the first intruder, but a heavy kick in the ribs sent him yelping into a corner.
Two ruffians grabbed his arms from behind and held him in a vicelike grip, while the other two men came to stand before him. They were Jocelin de Braose and Giles Fulford, who came up close and sneered in his face. De Braose gave him a heavy punch in the stomach, which would have doubled him up, had he not been held by the men behind. ‘That’s part payment for Dunsford, blast you,’ he snarled. He was followed by Fulford, who gave de Wolfe a double slap on either side of his face, which almost knocked his head off. ‘And that’s for near-drowning me, Crowner. I’ll pay you for the rest later!’
For a moment, de Wolfe thought that they were going to kill him there and then, but when his head cleared after the blows, reason told him that if this was a simple assassination, there would have been no need for Rosamunde’s play-acting.
She picked herself up from the floor, the two men making no attempt to help her. Calmly, she dropped the hem of her skirt and pulled up the top of her kirtle to cover her bosom, pinning it back in place with a small brooch she produced from a pocket in her cloak, which she picked up and threw around her shoulders. De Wolfe found his tongue at last, though his lips were swelling from the blows he had taken. After a stream of oaths, which aroused the admiration of the two thugs holding him, he muttered thickly, ‘What do you bastards want of me? You’ve already committed two murders, which will bring you a hanging – and you tried to steal the King’s treasure! Are you asking to be hanged three times?’
De Braose thrust his round face with its rim of red whiskers close to him. ‘What’s the penalty for ravishing this poor girl, Crowner? One hanging will be enough to stretch your neck.’ He gave de Wolfe another prod in the belly as he spoke.
The coroner shouted back, with a voice like a bull, ‘And who is going to try me on this laughable load of perjury that two criminals and a painted whore will trot out?’
‘Painted whore? Yes, Crowner, that’s paint from her lips that’s on your own, you dirty old bastard!’ sneered Fulford, his thin, fair face contorted with hate.
‘You ask who will try you?’ replied de Braose. ‘The sheriff in his court, of course. This was partly his idea, as his stupid first idea to shame you with your mistresses had no chance of success. Everyone knows what a randy old goat you are, even your pig-faced wife.’
‘Don’t speak of my wife like that! She’s worth a thousand like you, you putrid bucket of shite!’ roared de Wolfe, adamantly determined that he was the only one entitled to insult Matilda.
De Braose lifted his hand to strike John again, but thought better of it and turned to the woman. ‘You’ve got your story straight, have you?’ he demanded. ‘We’re all going up to the castle now to throw this stubborn fool into the cells, unless de Revelle can talk some sense into him.’