John grunted at these expert opinions. He had previously — and secretly — compared the writing with Thomas’s own hand on the many documents in the office and, to his relief, had found them totally unlike. Yet now his clerk was proving that there were ways of disguising the style of a person’s script — but surely that in itself must be an indication that Thomas could not have written it. Or was it some double bluff?
‘So you think it’s useless trying to match this with anyone we might suspect?’ he asked.
‘I see no chance of success, Crowner. The colour of the ink is ordinary black and the parchment might have been torn from anywhere.’
That reminded de Wolfe of Matilda’s comments: ‘My wife pointed out that the text is copied from a Vulgate. He could have torn out the appropriate page instead to avoid any risk of his handwriting being recognised.’
Thomas shuddered and crossed himself at the thought of such desecration, both religious and literary. ‘Even a murderous priest would baulk at defacing his Bible! And, of course, if the book was later found with the significant pages missing, it would be disaster for him,’ he added shrewdly.
De Wolfe made a few more throat noises as he considered the seemingly hopeless task before him. ‘You’d better come with me to this Chapter meeting in the cathedral tomorrow, in case I need any advice about texts or gospels and the like. Late in the morning, after Terce, right?’
Thomas almost smiled at the prospect of being admitted to the daily meeting of the canons, when cathedral business was discussed. Anything that got him into a religious building and among priests was balm to his injured soul.
While the little clerk was savouring the prospect of infiltrating the cathedral establishment, John de Wolfe had more secular prospects on his mind. He stood up and buckled on his heavy leather belt, with his long dagger at the back. ‘I’ve had enough of this place. I’m going to give my old hound a bit of exercise.’
As he left, Gwyn had a fair notion of where Brutus would be within the next hour.
As if to make up for lost time, John spent another energetic hour in the little cubicle in the loft of the Bush Inn, until Nesta declared that not only her strength but her business would wither away if she stayed any longer. She left him on the big bed while she made herself respectable then climbed down to supervise the cook-maid and the two serving-girls, as the early-evening clientele often wanted food to go with their ale and cider.
After de Wolfe’s two Herculean efforts that day, she decided he needed a substantial meal to replenish his strength and by the time he ambled down the ladder a thick trencher, dripping with gravy, was ready for him at his favourite table near the hearth. A large boiled pig’s knuckle sat in the centre and a platter of cabbage, onions and turnip lay next to it. A small loaf, complete with a pewter pot of butter, rounded off the meal, which de Wolfe washed down with a quart of rough, turbid cider.
Nesta was bustling about, trying to conceal the radiance of a woman well satisfied with the day’s events. Her rounded figure was shown off by her tight-waisted green kirtle, laced down the back; her linen apron emphasised, rather than concealed, her prominent bosom. John looked up frequently from his meal to watch her joke with the regular customers, her heart-shaped face and high forehead perfectly balanced by the small, turned-up nose and smiling lips.
Even the memory of Hilda, beyond his reach in Dawlish, faded when he looked at Nesta, and he scowled at the thought that he might be in love. He cursed himself for a middle-aged fool — how could a hardened, cynical old campaigner, married for too many years to a cold, unloving battleaxe like Matilda, feel like a callow youth? If he wasn’t careful, he would be writing poetry next and bringing her flowers!
He tried to tell himself that it was the prospect of two sessions each day in the French bed that made him so happy, but glance across the room at the sweet-natured woman who had an easy word for everyone and no guile or spite to dispense, told him he wanted to be with her always, bed or no bed.
Feeling at peace with the world, he dropped his stripped knuckle-bone on to the rushes under the table, where Brutus was patiently waiting for it.
CHAPTER NINE
Next morning, de Wolfe felt as if time was replaying itself from the previous Tuesday, as a thunderous knocking on the front door woke him soon after dawn. This time he was alone on the wide pallet in the solar: the evening before Matilda had announced to Mary that after her devotions in St Olave’s she would spend the night with her cousin in Fore Street — an abdication for which John was profoundly thankful.
Mary had answered the door before he could struggle into his tunic and shoes and get down the stairs from the solar. When he reached the vestibule, he found that, instead of the expected Gwyn, the callers were Gabriel from the castle, with Osric the constable lurking behind him. Bleary-eyed from sleep and his heavy night at the Bush, the coroner waited for the sergeant to explain himself.
‘We’ve got another, Crowner! At least, we think we have.’
John glowered at him as he pushed his brain into full working order. With his black locks tousled from bed, and a week’s growth of dark stubble on his cadaverous face, he looked even more menacing than usual. ‘Got what? A nd where’s Gwyn?’ he demanded sourly.
‘Hasn’t appeared yet — he was probably on the ale at St Sidwell’s last night,’ replied Gabriel. ‘A dead priest is what we’ve got. At St Mary Arches.’
De Wolfe sat down heavily on the vestibule bench, where he usually changed his footwear. ‘A priest? Murdered?’
The lanky Osric chimed in nervously, ‘Gabriel thinks so — but I wonder if he didn’t kill himself, in remorse for the other slayings.’
De Wolfe glared up at them. ‘Well, which is it? A murder or a felo de se?’
The sergeant of the guard threw the town constable a withering look. ‘God’s bones, man of course it’s a bloody murder!’ He appealed to de Wolfe: ‘Come and look for yourself, Crowner.’
John pulled on a pair of boots and threw his worn wolfskin over his shoulders. As they opened the big oak door, he snapped a request to his maid-servant, who was standing in the entrance to the passageway: ‘Mary, slip down to Canons’ Row and tell Thomas to get himself up to St Mary Arches as quick as he can. If Gabriel’s right, we might need his reading and biblical skills.’
A few minutes later, after pushing through the early morning crowd of traders and their customers that thronged the narrow high street, Osric and the sergeant led the coroner up a lane that turned off Fore Street just before St Olave’s. A few yards up on the right was the church that gave the narrow street its name. St Mary Arches was bigger and wealthier than many of its fellows in Exeter, as although Bretayne was but a few hundred yards away, it lay in a district of craftsmen and merchants. Even so, it was still a simple, rectangular building, albeit in new stone with a sturdy tower at the street end. A handful of people clustered around the open twin doors, kept out of the church by the other constable, Theobald, who was as fat as Osric was stringy.
The three men hurried up the steps and went through a round Norman arch into an empty nave. High clerestory window openings gave a good light, revealing walls painted with scenes from the scriptures, though not of the hell-fire variety depicted down at St Mary Steps. At the other end, another round arch led into a short chancel, two steps up from the paved floor of the nave. A large gilded wooden cross stood above a carved rood screen and, beyond, the altar, of solid Dartmoor slate, was covered with a lacy white cloth. Paintings of Christ and the church’s patron saint, Mary, hung on each side of the altar, which boasted a silver cross and candlesticks.