Stung by these criticisms of his wardship, de Revelle launched into an exaggerated account of the investigations and hinted that lack of co-operation on the part of the cathedral authorities was part of the reason for their failure. This provoked an angry response from Thomas de Boterellis and soon a first-class argument had broken out along the table. It petered out after everyone had declaimed their pet theories and impractical solutions. Much to de Wolfe’s dismay, Serlo de Vallibus had the last word: ‘I also hear that a favoured candidate for these crimes is your own clerk, de Wolfe. A most unsavoury and unstable person, ejected from the Church, but well versed in the scriptures and adeptly literate. Neither has he any alibi for each of these evil events, so I am told.’
Red with annoyance, John almost shouted his denials and ended with a final declaration of Thomas’s innocence: ‘I would stake my own life on it. And remember, he was the very one who deciphered the biblical clues in almost every case.’
De Vallibus smiled his icy smile. ‘And that might be the best sign of his cunning, Crowner.’
When the afternoon session began, de Wolfe was still smarting as the Justices’ criticisms of their hunt for the murderer and their accusations against Thomas de Peyne. He glowered throughout the long proceedings, making his many presentations with a thunderous face. After an hour or so, there was a diversion: Sergeant Gabriel pushed his way through the throng to report that a man had been knifed in a brawl down on the quayside. Unable to leave the Shire Hall himself, he sent Gwyn to investigate.
The cases came and went, men shuffled and jostled as the juries of the various Hundreds were called to account. De Wolfe had to listen to an endless catalogue of rural dramas that had occured over the past ten months. The requisite twelve jurors of Teignbridge Hundred reported that Adam le Pale took refuge in the church after robbing a traveller and then abjured the realm.
Budleigh Hundred produced only nine jurors and the missing three were ‘put in mercy’ by the judges to the tune of two marks each.
The sergeant of Plympton Hundred reported the washing up of a tun of wine on the beach, worth six shillings and eight-pence, but as the barrel was only half full when viewed by the coroner, they were amerced five shillings.
The cases went on and on — drownings, crushing by carts, rapes, murdrum fines, sentences of death, arguments over fences, declarations of outlawry, claims on land by ancient tenure and the finding of treasure trove were the endless grist to the legal mill. John was quite bemused by the early evening when the court adjourned, though one case remained in his memory. The jurors of Axminster Hundred presented that William de Pisswelle was suspect because he ate, drank and dressed expensively, yet they did not know where his money came from, but suspected that he stole pigs. They were unable to support their accusation with any evidence of William’s wrongdoing, so the Justices dismissed the case and fined the jurors ten shillings for malice!
With this example of good sense in his mind, de Wolfe made his way home where, as he had anticipated, Matilda was in a ferment of excitement and anxiety about the banquet in the Bishop’s Palace that evening. He was banished to Mary’s kitchen-hut in the yard while his wife and Lucille fussed over her kirtle, apparently requiring the dining table to spread it out and run a heated smoothing iron over the skirt.
There was no meal at home that night, in anticipation of lavish episcopal victuals, but Mary had made some honey-filled pastry cups and, with a cold leg of chicken, de Wolfe staved off the pangs of hunger. As he washed down the food with a quart of cider, Mary sat with him at the kitchen table, while he told her of the scenes in the Shire Hall that day. When he indignantly mentioned the Justices’ comments about Thomas, she nodded sadly. ‘It’s all over the town already,’ she said. ‘At the bread stall, I heard a man telling Will Baker that the crowner’s clerk was about to be arrested and hanged — stupid fool!’
She looked up anxiously at her master for, like Nesta, she had a soft spot for the ex-priest. ‘There’s no chance that he-’
Mary failed to get the words out, but John banged his pot on the table, his anger covering his own concern. ‘Of course not, woman! Can you see that poor wretch as a multiple killer? He faints if he as much as cuts his own finger!’
Outside there was a babble of voices and crunching of feet as Matilda and her maid came through the side passage, holding the precious gown between them. De Wolfe jumped up, feeling guilty without knowing why he should, in time to see them climbing the steps to the solar, where no doubt Lucille would lever her mistress into the dress then start the laborious business of arranging her hair — a process that always invoked a stream of invective from Matilda. As they vanished into the upper room and slammed the door, John slunk back into the kitchen-hut to finish his drink.
‘I’ll give them half an hour, then I’d better go up and get into my best tunic.’ He rubbed a hand over his chin. ‘I’ll run a comb through my hair to please her, but I don’t need a wash, do I, Mary?’
She examined his face critically, then planted a swift kiss on his dark-shadowed cheek. ‘You’ll last until next Saturday, Sir Crowner — though don’t go kissing any girls or your stubble will rip their faces!’
Eventually he braved the two women upstairs to collect his best clothes from the chest in the solar and went down to the hall to put them on, where Mary gave him the clean linen shirt that was his only undergarment. Against Matilda’s desire for more flamboyant dress, he put on a grey tunic that reached below his knees, a wide belt of black leather with a Moorish silver buckle, black woollen hose and a pair of ankle-length soft boots, with only modestly pointed toes. The evening was warm enough for him to dispense with a mantle or pelisse, but he pulled on an armless surcoat of a darker grey and was ready to go.
However, familiar with Matilda’s dilatory ways, he sat down again by his empty hearth and fondled Brutus’s ears while he pondered his current problems, foremost of which was the apparent invincibility of the man he had come to think of as the Gospel killer. Linked to that was a nagging worry over Thomas — his continuing depression and the insidious rumours about his involvement in the murders. His hound seemed to share in his worries for, with a sigh, he laid his head on his master’s thigh, giving him a soulful look of sympathy and a streak of frothy saliva on his best tunic.
De Wolfe’s ruminations were ended by the grand entry of his wife, with Lucille running behind to make adjustments to the new kirtle of green silk. Though Matilda could never have been beautiful, if she had lost her perpetual expression of sullen ill-temper, she might have been handsome. In her fine clothes, with bell-shaped sleeves sweeping the floor and a white satin gorget pinned under the snowy coverchief that framed her face, she looked every inch a Norman lady. De Wolfe sometimes felt that only her love of finery kept her from entering a nunnery and wondered whether the latest bitterness and shame over her brother’s behaviour might tip the balance in favour of her taking the veil.
Lucille had her mistress’s mantle across her arm and now helped her drape the scarlet velvet across her broad back and secure it with a round gold brooch on the front of the right shoulder.
‘Are you ready, husband?’ grated Matilda, eyeing his dull outfit with distaste. Feeling like a crow alongside a peacock, he escorted her back through the screen around the door into the vestibule, where he took his wide-brimmed black hat from a peg and held the front door open for her.
With Lucille and Mary — who detested each other — watching from the doorway, the couple set off on the short walk into the cathedral Close and around the west front to the palace entrance. De Wolfe sensed the conflict within his wife, as she tried to balance the pleasure and anticipation of such a welcome social event with the anger she felt at her brother’s foolishness.