'I wonder who you would have wedded instead of Matilda,' mused Nesta, wistfully. They were sitting by the hearth in the taproom of the Bush, with a quart of cider, a cold lamb shank and a bowl of flummery on the table, and a salivating Brutus beneath it.
'God knows! Perhaps some simpering third daughter of another baron or manor-lord,' he muttered. 'Certainly no chance of her being a beautiful Welsh girl with red hair and a bosom straight from heaven.'
Even the flattery failed to deflect a sudden barb from the landlady.
'Maybe it would have been a willowy Saxon blonde from the seashore?'
Once again a warning bell sounded in the back of John's mind. He had not expected Nesta to become so jealous of Hilda, especially as she had seemed so much at ease with her when they had met some months earlier.
John had not bedded the attractive blonde for a long time, though in spite of his genuinely deep affection for Nesta, he could not deny to himself that he might succumb again if the opportunity arose. He managed to turn Nesta's attention to other matters. He told her of his return visit to Shillingford that afternoon, where he had held a frustratingly short inquest over the body of Sir Peter le Calve, which, as he had expected, turned up no new evidence at all and was merely a legal formality to get the meagre facts into the record. The sons were concerned about burying their father without his head, but John assured them that if and when it turned up, there could be an exhumation and the missing part reunited with the rest.
After this rather grisly account, John lightened the conversation by wondering how Thomas was faring on such a long journey, as he was probably England's most reluctant horseman. The sheriff's party would take three full days to cover the hundred miles to Winchester, stopping overnight somewhere around Dorchester and then Ringwood. Nesta asked whether the clerk would have to be reordained into the Church, but John had questioned his friend the archdeacon about this and was quite knowledgeable on the matter.
'It seems that whatever crimes a priest has committed, he can never lose that status which was bestowed by God,' he explained. 'Once a priest, always a priest, it seems. But the Church can take away all the attributes of priesthood, ejecting him from any office he held and forbidding him to administer the Sacrament, take confessions or exercise his ministry.'
'So how does he get reinstated?' asked Nesta, with terrier-like persistence.
'John de Alençon says that during a celebration of the Mass in the cathedral, the bishop will publicly read out the judgement of the Chancellor of the Consistory Court, which decided that there is no longer any barrier to Thomas resuming his ministry, then bestow a personal blessing on him. And that's all that's necessary, except to find him a position afterwards to give him a livelihood.'
'But he's already your clerk — and wishes to remain so,' objected Nesta.
John smiled wryly. 'That's what he says now — and I'm sure he means it. But that's just his loyalty and gratitude. Before long, his deep desire to take an active part in his beloved Church will overcome him. His uncle says that he hopes to find him some sinecure in Exeter, so that he can combine the two jobs, though I'm sure he'll drift away little by little — and I'll not stand in his way when the time comes.'
'You are a kind man, Sir Crowner,' said the Welsh woman, squeezing his arm affectionately. They spent the next hour in amicable companionship before the fire, until it was time for him to go back to Martin's Lane for his supper.
The food he had eaten at the Bush in no way spoiled his appetite and Mary's poached salmon and eggs went down well with fresh bread and butter. Matilda's chronically depressed mood similarly failed to affect her partiality for well-cooked victuals and she ate everything the maid put before her, albeit in silence. Her husband sat hunched over his own trencher, wondering what was the point of a marriage in which the participants detested, disliked or at best were indifferent to each other. He felt trapped, as marriages could not be dissolved and an annulment was equally impossible after almost seventeen years.
After the meal, the same ritual was performed as on most other evenings — Matilda sullenly announced that she was retiring and went off yelling for Lucille, while he sat by his fireside, with his dog and his wine-cup, half asleep and dreaming of old battles in which he and Gwyn had fought side by side. Eventually, when he judged that his wife was sound asleep, he climbed wearily up the steps to the solar and slipped under the sheepskin coverlet to sleep away his cares until the dawn of another day.
John's expectations of a good night's slumber were ill founded. Soon after midnight, he was awakened by an urgent tapping on the door of the solar. Though thankfully it failed to rouse the snoring Matilda, the old soldier was instantly alert and he jumped up from his mattress to lift the wooden latch on the door. Shivering in the thin undershirt that did service as a nightgown, he stared out and saw in the dim light of the half-moon a tonsured young man in a black cassock. He recognised him as one of John of Exeter's 'secondaries', a lad of about eighteen who was training to become a priest. This other John was one of the senior canons, who was the treasurer to the Chapter, responsible for all the finances and accounting for the cathedral. He was a good friend of de Wolfe, mainly because he was a staunch King's man, like John de Alençon.
'Sir John, will you please come at once,' the visitor hissed conspiratorially. 'The treasurer urgently requests your presence in the cathedral!'
John was not all that fond of attending church at the best of times and even less so in his shirt in the middle of the night. He stepped outside on to the platform at the top of the solar steps and pulled the door closed behind him, to avoid disturbing his wife.
'What the devil for?' he asked testily. 'What time is it, anyway?'
'Just after midnight, Crowner,' answered the youth anxiously. 'That's the problem. We should be starting Matins now.'
'What's happened, boy? Why does he want me at this unholy hour?' He used the phrase unconsciously, even though Matins was anything but unholy.
'Please, sir, I think you'd better see for yourself! I have to get back. The canon was most insistent that I brought you without delay.'
Grumbling, de Wolfe went back into the solar to feel for his tunic, hose and shoes, then followed the secondary down the stairs, where Mary was standing looking sleepy and dishevelled, after having to get up to let the young man in through the front door. She looked questioningly at her master, but he just shrugged and hurried after the other fellow.
The cathedral was a mere few hundred paces away, the surrounding Close opening out from Martin's Lane. As they approached the massive West Front, he saw a small crowd of people clustered around the small wicket set in the huge doors that were opened only on ceremonial occasions. The weak moonlight was aided by flickering flames from a few pitch brands set in iron rings on nearby walls, and John could see that the group consisted of black-cloaked clerics, a flash of white visible here and there where linen surplices were exposed. As he came near, he recognised several canons, among them Jordan de Brent, the cathedral archivist, the precentor and John of Exeter. The others were a motley collection of vicars-choral, secondaries and a few wide-eyed choristers peeping between the skirts of their elders.
'What's going on, John?' he demanded, as he strode up to his friend, the treasurer. He was a large man, normally ruddy faced and amiable, but tonight the coroner could see, even in the dim light, that he was pale and shaken. 'Come and see! I wish to God that de Alençon was here and not on his way to Winchester.'