‘It reads as follows. “I saw the short clerk who scribes for the crowner running away from the house of the cordwainer, soon after the Matin bells on the night he was slain.” So what about that, Crowner?’ The triumph in his voice was evident.
‘Very good, Richard. Did you write it yourself?’
De Revelle leered back at his brother-in-law. ‘You can’t shrug it off so easily. It was handed to your friend Sergeant Gabriel, no less, by some street child who was given a coin by some nameless man in the town.’
‘Great evidence, sheriff! Unsigned, uncorroborated, unproven — and who could have seen my clerk or anyone else in the city in the pitch darkness of midnight?’
‘I don’t care about that. The very fact that someone has sent this note strengthens the suspicions against your clerk. The finger is pointing, John.’
Though inwardly he felt more concerned than he dared show, de Wolfe again dismissed the message with an airy nonchalance. ‘God forbid that we should take any notice of some mischief-maker who can use a pen and ink. In fact, this almost certainly points to a literate priest — and there is a whole clutch of those who are aggravated by being named by the cathedral as suspects.’ He slammed his palm hard on to the table in front of the sheriff. ‘I should worry more about the Justices in Eyre, if I were you. They may well hear of the fire and even the fact that our resident Exeter murderer left his trademark behind once again. Of course, your part in this must never come to light — unless you do something stupid.’
He drank the rest of his wine and left for the gatehouse, leaving a chastened de Revelle behind him.
It was past midnight when de Wolfe reached home, but for once he cared nothing for his lateness or for the noise he made when he clumped up the solar steps and dropped his boots with a thump on the bedroom floor. Tonight, he cared little for Matilda’s scowling face at the disturbance he caused, as he usually tiptoed in stockinged feet to escape her withering tongue. A single rush light burned in a dish of water on the floor, giving enough light for him to see her sitting up in bed, her hair confined in twisted wires and parchment scraps, to be wrestled into ringlets by Lucille for the banquet next evening.
As soon as he dropped on to the edge of the bed to pull off his hose, he went on the attack. ‘I have disturbing and distressing news for you, wife,’ he began, and launched into a full and accurate version of the evening’s events, sparing her no details of her brother’s dishonourable part in the affair. Matilda listened in frozen disbelief as he finished his catalogue of Richard’s misdemeanours. ‘All he was concerned with, was his own escape and the concealment of his presence there,’ he concluded.
Matilda was still bolt upright in bed, her back against the wall. Her face was grim and, although he waited for her denials of everything he had said and a diatribe about his wanting further to discredit her brother, she said nothing. She knew that what he had told her must be the truth. Matilda was not blind to the weakness of men when it came to women, but the shame he had narrowly escaped that night would weigh heavily on her for a long time to come. John could imagine the verbal lashing that her brother would get from Matilda in the very near future.
‘Will this melancholy tale become common knowledge, John?’ were the only words she could find. There was ineffable sadness in her voice and suddenly her husband abandoned any trace of satisfaction in possessing this weapon against her. His voice softened as he said, ‘I promised you before that I would protect him as best I can and I will keep my word — short of him becoming involved in any more acts of treason. This affair tonight was conduct unbecoming a senior law officer, but carnal weakness is a lesser offence than seditious leanings against the King.’
He took this opportunity to hint that amorous exploits were of little consequence, compared to the important activities in life. Matilda, for all her many failings, was an intelligent woman and the message was not lost on her.
A simple ‘Thank you, John,’ was her uncharacteristically short response, as she heaved herself down under the blanket and turned away from him.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes and slipped into his side of the bed. As they lay there, one on each edge, he listened uneasily to her muffled sobs as she cried herself to sleep over her repeatedly fallen idol, Richard de Revelle. Once again, his emotions were confused. She was his wife and would be until death — or until she took herself to a nunnery: his iron sense of duty would keep them bound together in this loveless union. Yet he would never allow her to be harmed and — except when he was in a temper — he had no wish to see her unhappy. At times like this, when she cried into her pillow, he felt guilt, shame, and almost tenderness for the woman who had shared his life for sixteen years. But he knew that in the morning, she would be grim old Matilda once more, throwing his feeble attempts at companionship back in his face and driving him down to the Bush, where humour, love and understanding would start the cycle of his emotions turning full circle once again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Early next morning, the King’s Justices attended Mass at the cathedral, and the Bishop himself officiated, which was rare indeed. It was an official event, the preliminary to the opening of the Eyre and, like it or not, all the law officers and their hangers-on had to attend.
A ll the canons who were not away from the city were there, as were the sheriff, coroner, constable, Portreeves, many burgesses, clerks, and a bevy of lesser officials and priests. When the service was over, the leading participants paraded solemnly through the city streets to Rougemont. They were escorted by a troop of Ralph Morin’s men-at-arms, led by Sergeant Gabriel, who, to the accompaniment of raucous blasts on their war-horns, pushed aside the curious onlookers to make way for the austere quartet of Justices and their acolytes.
At the castle, an attempt had been made to make the barn-like Shire Hall more presentable for this important session, which would last well over a week. Banners and tapestries had been draped at each end, and along the walls a line of shields sported freshly painted armorial bearings of the Devon barons. Another dais had been erected at the other end, so that two sets of proceedings could be held simultaneously: the two pairs of Justices had to work at the same time to get through all the cases. More trestle tables had been brought in for the clerks, and towards the front of the platforms, several large chairs borrowed from the keep and from various burgesses, provided seating for the judges and senior officials.
In the body of the hall and spilling outside into the inner ward of Rougemont, a mass of people milled around. They were mainly jurors, called from the many Hundreds of the county, with witnesses, petitioners, appealers and their families, all trying to get what passed for justice. As the session wore on, relays of soldiers brought bedraggled prisoners from the cells under the keep and the two constables, aided by some hired thugs, escorted more miscreants from the larger burgesses’ gaol in the towers of the South Gate.
The aloof Sir Peter Peverel sat with Gervase de Bosco, the archdeacon from Gloucester. They dealt mainly with civil proceedings, mostly disputes about land and boundaries, matters of inheritance and claims from widows on their late husbands’ property. Sir Walter de Ralegh took the Chancery clerk, Serlo de Vallibus, with him to the other end of the hall, where most of their labours concerned felony, outlawry, suspicious deaths and the seedier side of Devonshire life.
The sheriff and the coroner were obliged to stay at the court the whole time, unless pressing business took them elsewhere. De Wolfe had to justify his title, Keeper of the King’s Pleas, by presenting the numerous cases with which he had dealt and Thomas de Peyne found he had no time for miserable reflection.