However, after John had argued and pleaded with him for several minutes, de Alençon agreed to go to his bishop and seek to have Thomas de Peyne transferred to the custody of the cathedral proctors, instead of being incarcerated in Rougemont.
‘It’s desperately urgent,’ pressed the coroner. ‘Within a couple of hours, he may have his limbs broken or burned unless we can prevent it.’
With this awful prospect drilling into his mind, the Archdeacon rose and threw his long black cloak around his shoulders, though the early-evening air was mild. ‘I’ll go straight away — thank God the bishop’s still in the city. But don’t have too high hopes of this, John — you may still have to storm Stigand’s prison.’
Uneasily, de Wolfe and his henchman went to the Bush for food and ale and to wait for news from Henry Marshal. Thankfully, de Wolfe knew that Matilda was on some charitable visit with her friends to one of the city’s almshouses, so he felt no obligation to return for the evening meal. In Idle Lane, the prospect of what might soon befall the little clerk extinguished any humour or passion, and although they ate heartily the coroner and Gwyn were subdued and anxious. To break the glum silences, Nesta retailed some of the day’s gossip. ‘We had a strange tale brought by Alfred Fuller from Frog Lane. It seems that the priest of All-Hallows went crazy this afternoon.’
‘Which All-Hallows?’ demanded John, his interest aroused.
There were two All-Hallows churches, one in Goldsmith Street, the other near the West Gate, about which he had a special concern.
‘Oh, on-the-Wall — for it seems he tried to jump from it.’
‘You mean Ralph de Capra?’
‘That’s the one — apparently he was in sackcloth and ashes and raving about his great sin.’
Nesta stopped abruptly, her hand to her mouth. ‘He was one of those you were investigating, wasn’t he?’
De Wolfe nodded grimly. ‘I saw him this very morning. Now he’s gone mad, you say.’ He stood up, feeling suddenly old and weary. ‘Is that all you know about it?’ John would have known more, but Osric the constable had not yet encountered him to give him his eye-witness version.
Nesta beckoned urgently across the tavern. ‘It was Edwin who had the tale — you know he’s the nosiest man in the city. Edwin!’ she cried.
The old potman came limping across the floor, his dead eye horribly white in his lined face. At his mistress’s prompting, he told what he knew of the incident in Bretayne. ‘The priest from St Mary Steps got him down, they say. Then took him away back to his lodging. Adam of Dol lives behind his church, not down in Priest Street like most of them.’
‘What was it all about?’ asked Nesta, but Edwin shrugged.
De Wolfe got up and paced restlessly before the empty hearth. ‘I must talk to those two priests again — perhaps I stirred up something when I questioned de Capra this morning.’
‘But he couldn’t have been the one who attacked de Vallibus, could he?’ objected Gwyn. ‘Not if all this fuss happened down in Bretayne at almost the same time.’
‘We don’t know how much time there was between. Maybe he had visited Serlo and the experience turned him off his head.’ He put an arm around Nesta’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. ‘But I can’t risk going down there now, with poor Thomas facing peine forte et dure at any moment. I hope by the Holy Virgin that the Archdeacon has had some influence with the Bishop.’
With Nesta looking after them anxiously, the coroner and his officer hurried out into Idle Lane and made for the castle.
The Moors almshouses were just outside the city, near the half-completed new bridge over the Exe. The short row of dwellings for the poor, built some years earlier by the benefaction of a wealthy fulling-mill owner, was supported by donations from city merchants and some of the churches. This evening, a dozen good ladies of St Olave’s, accompanied by their priest Julian Fulk, were making their monthly pilgrimage with gifts of food, clothing and money. Prominent among them was Matilda de Wolfe, playing Lady Bountiful with a large pie made by Mary, some cast-off clothing and a purse of coins extracted from her husband.
The hard-faced harridan who was the warden had lined up the inmates for inspection and the ladies of St Olave’s paraded past the aged crones, the cripples and the despised unmarried mothers, doling out their gifts. Later, they sat in the narrow hall of the building to share the food they had brought, but they occupied separate trestles and did their best not to mingle with the destitute.
Julian Fulk tried to be his usual unctuous self, though it was difficult as he had a lot on his mind. Dressed in a new black tunic, flapping round his ankles, his head was covered in a tight coif, on top of which was a floppy beret of black velvet. Matilda made sure that she sat next to him at the table, with her back to the toothless hags and the anaemic drabs who dragged out their wretched existence in this place.
‘You were not at the Bishop’s banquet last night?’ she asked sweetly, knowing that no parish priest would have had even the smell of an invitation, but it gave her an opportunity to describe her husband’s eminence and the exact position on the tables that they had occupied. Of course Fulk knew who her husband was and, in fact, his preoccupation tonight was due to the coroner. The repeated visits that de Wolfe had made to him over the murders had done nothing to help his reputation, at a time when he was bursting every sinew to improve his standing in the Church. Being on the suspect list for multiple murders did nothing for his dreams of advancement.
As Matilda’s prattle washed over him, Fulk contemplated his limited options — he must try to see the Bishop again, while he was still in Exeter, and he must also make the arduous journey to Sussex, to see the Abbot of Battle. One way or the other, he must get away from these maddeningly dull people who were holding back his career in the Holy Ministry. Could no one recognise his theological prowess, his mastery of the liturgy, his God-given understanding of the scriptures? Was he condemned to waste his talents in a tiny chapel in a mediocre city at the far end of England, when he had the makings of a bishop — or even an archbishop? He must do something soon, for desperate situations require desperate solutions
That evening, Thomas de Peyne, chains on his wrists and ankles, was half led, half dragged through the gate in the iron grille that divided the undercroft of the castle keep. The grotesque gaoler, Stigand, pulled him along by the manacles, with a soldier walking rather shamefacedly behind — this wretched prisoner was hardly likely to put up a fight.
Stigand hauled the clerk across the damp earth of the forbidding basement towards the group of men waiting silently for him. Three of the Justices were there, as well as the sheriff, the constable, the coroner and a priest. The latter was the castle chaplain, Brother Rufus, his usual affability muted this evening. De Wolfe had had to banish Gwyn from Rougemont, afraid that his outrage at the arrest of his little friend might provoke him into some rash act, such as a hopeless rescue attempt. Now he glanced repeatedly towards the steps coming down from the inner ward, desperately hoping for some sign that de Alençon’s plea to Bishop Marshal had been successful.
The gaoler dragged the clerk before the row of brooding men and stood aside, his bloated face grinning with anticipation as he poked at a brazier in which branding irons glowed.
Richard de Revelle opened the proceedings. ‘A confession would make it easier for all of us, fellow. We are busy men, as you know from your own work, when you are not murdering honest folk.’
De Peyne stood in the mud, his narrow shoulders drooping, the left more than the right, which accentuated the hump on his back. Though he had been incarcerated for only a few hours, his shabby black tunic was already badly stained, with pieces of filthy straw clinging to it. His lank hair hung over his high forehead and his mournful eyes stared fearfully from behind it. He mumbled something in reply to the sheriff’s words.