Other guests were converging on the gateway into Henry Marshal’s garden and John cynically observed the intensity with which each wife studied another’s raiment with a mixture of admiration, criticism and jealousy. Within the garden, along the paved way that led to the porch, two lines of cathedral choristers stood in cassock and surplice, singing the guests into the palace, with descanted chants, which to John’s totally tone-deaf ears, sounded like dirges.
Inside, the dining hall was bright with candles, adding to the spring evening light coming through the high clerestory windows. Two rows of tables ran up the hall to join a cross table at the top, which had the Bishop’s chair in the centre. The chamber was not nearly as large as the hall in the castle keep so the much sought-after invitations had been limited. Though they were not awarded the honour of seats at the upper table, Matilda was mollified by being placed with her husband at the top of one of the long trestles, with her brother and the icy Lady Eleanor in equivalent places on the other spur. A manservant took her cloak and Matilda made sure that he hung it carefully in an alcove in the wall behind.
When all the guests had filled the long tables, a door opened behind the Bishop’s chair and a cathedral proctor entered with his silver staff, which he banged peremptorily on the table. Everyone lumbered to their feet as the Lord Bishop of Devon and Cornwall entered and took his place before his high-backed chair. He wore a caped tunic of dark purple, with a silver cross hanging on his breast from a chain around his shoulders. His head was covered with a close-fitting black coif, tied under his chin. Behind him the important guests filed in, the four Justices, two of the four archdeacons in the diocese, then the Precentor and Treasurer.
The proctor banged his staff again and the Precentor began a long grace in Latin, which to John, whose calves were being cut into by the edge of the bench behind him, seemed to go on for ever. Eventually they reached the muttered ‘Amen’ and with much scraping of stools and benches, the guests subsided with relief, ready to eat as much of the Bishop’s provisions as they could manage. A small army of servants appeared and trenchers of bread were placed on the scrubbed boards. As a modern luxury, there were also pewter platters, and wooden bowls and horn spoons were placed before each guest to supplement the daggers of the men, whose duty it was to serve the neighbouring ladies. As there were a considerable number of celibate priests, many of the pairs were male, but they still gave each other the courtesy of serving one another.
Wine, ale and mead appeared, and then a succession of dishes, and de Wolfe, though no sycophantic admirer of the Church, had to admit that Henry Marshal had not stinted in his hospitality that evening. There was duck, goose, heron and pheasant in abundance, venison and other red meat, fish of all kinds, from salmon to herring, then capon, rabbit, hare and boar, with a wide variety of herbed and scented sauces. Afterwards, sweet puddings, cakes and bowls of raisins and nuts were accompanied by a second relay of wines from Anjou and Rouen and sweeter ones from the South of France. When most of the serious business of eating had been accomplished, there was time for chatter and the endless supply of wine jugs aided the flow of conversation.
De Wolfe was opposite Walter de Ralegh, Peter Peverel, and his old friend, Archdeacon John de Alençon seated on the top trestle. They began an animated conversation about the cases of that day’s session, the successes and failures of King Richard against Philip of France and, inevitably, the mysterious killer of Exeter City.
Matilda, now confident that her new gown and mantle were at least the equal of any other in the hall — and undoubtedly better than those of her arch-rival sister-in-law, Lady Eleanor de Revelle — sat back content. She had eaten twice as much as her husband, who had worked hard to keep their trencher filled. Now she drank Henry Marshal’s best wine with smug appreciation and looked about the chamber to make sure that her lady rivals were aware of her prime position in the table hierarchy.
She was particularly pleased that John was relatively sociable tonight and glowed with reflected pride to see her own husband, a senior law officer, publicly engrossed in conversation with two of the King’s Justices, as well as senior churchmen. If only she could coax him to do this more often and curry favour with the top Guild-Masters and burgesses, then her life would be more tolerable.
Then her gaze moved to the next table and fell upon her brother. Immediately her euphoria faded: the man who had been her idol since childhood, now the sheriff of the whole county, had recently proved he had feet of clay. She had no political preferences of her own — indeed, she was ignorant of much that went on in the rest of England — but it was humiliating to discover that he had not only allied himself to a traitor, but to a traitor who had failed. Now the fool had almost ruined himself again in lusting after a strumpet. Though she detested Eleanor, mainly because she came from a far higher-born family than the de Revelles, she almost felt a twinge of sympathy for her at being married to a man who picked losing causes and cavorted with whores in back-street brothels. Though she was well aware that her own husband was constantly unfaithful, at least to the best of her knowledge he never paid for his fornication — and he certainly never let himself be caught in such humiliating situations as the burning stew in Waterbeer Street.
A sudden drop in the level of babble meant that the Bishop was rising to make his formal speech of welcome to the King’s Justices. As de Wolfe listened to the dry tones and humourless platitudes of the leader of God’s ministry in this part of England, he thought of Henry Marshal’s own political partialities. A supporter of Prince John, he had sailed close to the wind of treachery more than once — and de Wolfe suspected that, if the conditions were right, he might do so again, allying himself with other malcontents like de Revelle in an uprising against Richard the Lionheart. To stand there and welcome the King’s undoubtedly loyal judges, as if he himself was an equally dedicated champion of Coeur de Lion seemed the height of hypocrisy.
Once he had sat down, Walter de Ralegh made a short and rather gruff reply of thanks for the Bishop’s remarks and for his lavish hospitality. When that was over, the Bishop rose to give a final blessing, then bowed in farewell to his special guests and glided out through the door, attended by his proctor and confessor.
As soon as he had vanished, the hubbub of talk and laughter rose to new levels as the crowd made sure that all the Bishop’s wine jugs and ale pitchers would go back empty to the kitchens. Having exhausted politics, the talk around de Wolfe gravitated back to the series of killings and de Ralegh, made pugnacious by drink, became more critical of the city’s law enforcement.
‘That damn sheriff over there needs to get a better grip on things,’ he bellowed. ‘He seems to leave it all to you, de Wolfe — and you’ve not made much progress, by the look of it!’
The Archdeacon attempted to come to his friend’s rescue. ‘This is not a village, Sir Walter, where everyone knows everyone else’s business and where the frankpledge system keeps a tight rein on all men.’
‘What’s the difference?’ demanded de Ralegh.
‘In the countryside, the culprit is known instantly — he usually runs away or is caught within minutes. But in a city of almost five thousand souls like Exeter, there are hundreds of merchants, travellers, pilgrims, sailors and other itinerants. It’s a permanently shifting population. If someone hides around the corner of a lane at night and robs, kills or rapes the first person who passes, how can he be found if there are no witnesses?’
Walter de Ralegh would have none of this. ‘We’re not talking about casual thuggery! Some mad priest is methodically acting as God, dispensing what he sees as justice where the law fails to act. That’s the work of a clever brain, not some footpad hiding around a corner.’