He glanced up at the open shutters over his small window and saw the darkened sky. ‘I must prepare for Matins soon, John. But why are you interested in Edmund Treipas?’
The coroner shrugged as he rose to leave. ‘His name has come up in passing, though I have no real reason to think anything sinister about it. It is is just that he might be in frequent contact with someone involved in this trouble in the forest.’
The archdeacon gave his friend a quizzical look, but held his peace.
CHAPTER NINE
The next day began a new week, and it started relatively quietly for the King’s coroner. After he had woken at dawn in an empty bed, Mary brought his solitary breakfast to the gloomy hall. Boiled oatmeal with honey and salt bacon and eggs fortified him enough to go and find Thomas in the nearby Close, where he had a free mattress in the servants’ quarters of a canon’s residence.
Together they walked to the dismal dungeon beneath the keep of Rougemont, which acted as the prison for those awaiting trial either at the Sheriff’s Court or the infrequent King’s Courts. This morning John had to take confessions and depositions from several ‘approvers’, robbers who were attempting to avoid a hanging by incriminating their accomplices. To achieve that, they would later have to fight these others in legal combat to the death, any vanquished survivors being hanged.
After he had finished, he came out of the rusted gate leading to the cells to find Osric, one of the city’s two constables, waiting to lead him down to deal with a rape in the mean lanes of Bretayne. By the time they arrived, the culprit had been beaten almost to death by the girl’s outraged relatives and neighbours. It only remained for the coroner to take statements from those who were capable of giving a coherent story and to examine the girl to confirm the ‘issue of blood’ that was necessary to establish a charge of ravishment. Then Osric arranged for the battered perpetrator to be carried to the fetid town gaol in one of the towers of the South Gate. Here, if he failed to die of his injuries, he would probably succumb to the overcrowding and insanitary conditions long before he could be brought to trial.
Following these diversions, John retreated to his chamber in the gatehouse of Rougemont, to take his usual morning ale, bread and cheese with his assistants. He wanted to know from Thomas how he had found Nesta when he had spoken to her the previous day.
‘She was in low spirits, master,’ Thomas said guardedly. ‘She needs constant reassurance and comfort, else I fear she will slip into a decline.’
Still a priest at heart, Thomas felt that what she had revealed to him about the true father of the child, as well as her thoughts of self-destruction, was as sacrosanct as the confessional, and it was not his place to tell the coroner. However, he wanted to ensure that de Wolfe was aware of her present vulnerable state, as Thomas knew that his master was not the most perceptive of souls when it came to personal relationships.
John rumbled and nodded and huffed his agreement, promising to go down to the Bush as frequently as possible to bring comfort and cheer to his mistress, but Thomas was not convinced that he was aware of the seriousness of the situation. Later in the day, John walked down to Idle Lane to spend the evening with Nesta — with the expectation of extending his stay overnight. He sat at his favourite table behind a wattled hurdle next to the fireplace and had a hearty meal of spit-roasted duck, onions, turnip and beans, served on a thick trencher of two-day-old bread, with extra crusts to dam in the gravy on the scrubbed boards of the table.
Nesta came to sit with him as he ate, bobbing up and down to attend to the various crises that frequently occurred between the potman, her two maids and the customers. Each time she came back to de Wolfe, she screwed up her courage to tell him the dread news about the true paternity of her baby, but each time her tongue cleaved to her palate and she was unable to get the words out. To John she appeared quiet and distant all evening, as he had no inkling of her inability to bring down the heavens upon him with her terrible confession.
After finishing his food, he sat with a quart of her best ale and tried his utmost to be loving and cheerful to his mistress, but had little response.
Time and again, he reassured her to the point of monotony that he was delighted at her being with child and that he would be the most devoted father. She smiled wanly and nodded and rested her head against his shoulder, but she lacked conviction, and even the insensitive John felt uneasy at her lack of encouraging response to his blandishments. Her strongest reaction was when he talked about Matilda and the impasse at Polsloe.
‘It doesn’t seem right, John, a wife hiding away from her husband like that. And it’s all my fault.’ Once again, her eyes became moist.
‘She’ll not stay there long, cariad,’ he said, lapsing into the common Celtic speech that they habitually used together.
‘I’m not sure of that, John. This is a different situation to any we’ve suffered from her in the past. She always had this leaning to religion. Look how much time she spends in St Olave’s or the cathedral.’
He squeezed her shoulder.
‘Yes, but have you seen her eat and drink? She’s in the same league as Gwyn when it comes to victuals. And she spends a fortune at the cloth dealers and the seamstress. I can’t see her giving all that up for a black habit and the dismal refectory at St Katherine’s.’
Nesta refused to be convinced. ‘You must go back and talk to her, John. Over and over again, if needs be. It’s all my fault!’
She became damp eyed again, burying her face in his sleeve. Though he knew all the patrons of the Bush were well aware of the situation, he was glad that they were shielded by the hurdle from their curious gaze.
As the evening light faded, he thought of his empty house and his barren bed.
‘Shall I sleep with you tonight, Nesta?’
She shook her head. ‘Best not to, John. Now that I am gravid, we should not endanger the babe.’ This was a secret lie, given that she had done everything so far to rid herself of it. But John would have none of her excuse.
‘I said sleep and I mean sleep, my love, if that’s what you desire. I’ve seen enough rapine in Bretayne today, anyway. I just want to hold you close and comfort you, rather than stew alone in that empty house.’
Nesta melted immediately. He sounded like a young boy asking for sweetmeats.
‘Very well, John — but only slumber, understand?’
Later, as they curled in each other’s arms in the big French bed, she lay awake while he snored, still having been unable to say the devastating words that she had promised Thomas that she would utter.
Tuesday was a hanging day, when John had to go out of the city to the gallows tree along Magdalene Street, to record the executions and tally up the possessions of the felons, which were forfeit to the Crown.
But before this regular chore, de Wolfe decided to cross the inner ward and have a few strong words with his brother-in-law over recent events. He found him in his chamber, surrounded as usual by rolls of parchment and two agitated clerks.
Richard de Revelle preferred to administer his county from behind a table, rather than by riding around the broad expanses of the countryside for which he was responsible to his king. In this, he was the complete opposite of the coroner, who wanted always to be out and about, meeting people and getting on top of any problem in the most direct fashion. Their meeting followed the usual pattern of mutual dislike and antagonism, fuelled by Richard’s jealousy of his brother-in-law’s stronger personality and his resentment of the hold John had over him because of his past personal and political misbehaviour. The inevitable quarrel was started off provocatively by the sheriff.