Nesta looked at him sternly. ‘I know of a King’s crowner who regularly beds a common innkeeper! When the sap rises in a man’s loins, he is capable of anything.’
John gave her one of his rare grins, a lop-sided lift of his full lips. His hand squeezed her plump leg again, as he leaned over to whisper, ‘Are you very busy at the moment, madam? Or can we inspect the upper room of this hostelry to see if the pallets are soft?’
As he followed her up the wide ladder steps in the corner, many pairs of eyes looked knowingly in their direction, but John’s thoughts were mainly on the legs of the pert lady ascending in front of him – although a fraction of his mind was mulling over what she had said about Godfrey Fitzosbern.
At the same time, not far away, others were discussing the silversmith, in a room over Eric Picot’s wine store in Priest Street.[3]
Joseph of Topsham, his son Edgar and the wine merchant sat earnestly considering the situation. The rumours about Christina’s visit to Fitzosbern had spread within minutes, and it was already well known that the sheriff was going to interrogate the two smiths next morning.
Picot was scornful of the gossip. ‘I fail to see why we should suspect those two nonentities,’ he exclaimed, standing to pour more good wine into the glass cups of his guests. ‘I would a thousand times better suspect their master.’
He was echoing the words of Nesta, but probably a good proportion of Exeter men felt the same, jealous of Godfrey’s winning ways with the ladies, which included some of their own wives.
‘But there is no shred of evidence – nor can I see how such can be obtained,’ objected Joseph, cupping the wine in his hands as he stared moodily into the fire.
‘I would kill him with my bare hands if I thought he was the one!’ snarled Edgar, who since yesterday had turned from an ineffectual youth into a wrathful man, obsessed with hurting whoever had injured him so badly. Though he had not yet admitted it to himself, much of his anger arose from his indecision as to whether he now wanted to marry Christina, who could never come to his bed with her maidenhead intact. He was ashamed at the thought that slid into his mind and used righteous anger to try to block it out.
He and his father had been to see her earlier that evening. The visit had not been a success, as a shutter like a great portcullis seemed to have come down between Christina and Edgar. Though they exchanged courteous words and Edgar made all the right expressions of horror and condolence, they could not embrace or even touch hands. Edgar, sensitive to mood and atmosphere, felt the girl stiffen and tremble when he came near. ‘It was almost as if she suspected me of being the ravisher!’ he blurted out to his father, after they left the Rifford house.
They made their way to Eric Picot’s dwelling, Joseph wanting to unburden himself to a good friend, before going back to sleep in a corner of Edgar’s room, in the store of the apothecary’s shop. Picot kept his stock of wine in the house in Priest Street, as it was near the quayside, where ships either brought the imported casks direct or lighters rowed them up the river from Topsham. He lived above, in rather Spartan circumstances, as his wife had died five years before and he had reverted to a bachelor existence. However, he also had a new house built on a plot purchased from the manorial lord at Wonford, just outside the city, where he spent some days each week.
‘What can we do about this, Father?’ demanded Edgar. ‘I’ve a mind to challenge Fitzosbern to deny that he knows anything about this foul assault. Christina was last seen in his shop, getting that damned bracelet. God above, I wish I had never thought to give it to her if this is the ruin it brought upon us!’
‘Steady, boy! What earthly good could that do, except to get you into trouble? We have no proof at all that Godfrey knows anything about this.’
Edgar subsided into muttering under his breath, but Picot took up the theme. ‘He is an evil man. I know that from the way he treats his wife – he is unfaithful to her at every opportunity. The poor woman made a bad bargain when she married him. He harried his first wife into an early grave.’
Joseph smiled wanly at his friend, because he knew his secret – as did half the city. The attractive wife of the silversmith had been Picot’s lover for at least half a year and it was also no secret that she heartily disliked her husband. Edgar, who was as perceptive as his father when he forgot his own self-interest, looked from one to the other. ‘It’s all right, Father, I know about Eric’s affair with Mabel Fitzosbern, you don’t have to keep things from me as if I was a child.’
Joseph rolled his eyes at Picot. ‘It seems common knowledge, Eric, like the crowner and his Welsh doxy. Let’s hope that Godfrey isn’t aware of it.’
‘I don’t give a damn if he is. I mean to take her away from him one day,’ said the wine merchant stoutly. ‘And maybe we can turn this to our advantage, for I can ask Mabel to keep her ears and eyes open for any hint Godfrey might drop about this terrible happening.’
‘He’s hardly likely to confess to it, least of all to his wife!’ objected Joseph.
‘But if he does, I’ll kill him,’ hissed the apothecary’s apprentice.
Chapter Seven
In which Crowner John is summoned to a corpse
Next morning, John stood moodily in front of the smouldering fire in the hall. Mary had given him his breakfast, which he ate in solitary state soon after dawn. Then, still in his bed shirt, he went out to the back yard and washed his face and neck in a bucket of water: it was Saturday morning, the day for ablutions. He had the second of his twice-weekly shaves, rubbing his face with soap made from goat’s fat and beech ash boiled with soda, then rasped at his black stubble with a special knife, its edge honed to extreme sharpness. It was also the day to change his clothes, and Mary had put out a clean long undershirt and a grey tunic for him which he pulled over his head, after warming them before the fire.
He dragged on his braies, trousers that came to the knee, and then long stockings, over which he wound cross-gartering. His clothes were almost devoid of ornamentation or embroidery, merely a few lines of stitches around the high neck. He was not riding that day, so put on low shoes, pointed but without the extravagant curled tips in the new fashion that dandies like de Revelle and Fitzosbern sported.
‘It’s cold out, that wind never ceases,’ advised Mary, holding out a clean super-tunic in black woollen serge.
‘What was she like last night, after I left?’ he muttered to his maid and former bed-mate.
Mary’s eyes lifted to the small embrasure high above them that communicated with the solar, where Matilda was still in bed. ‘She stayed here an hour, poking the fire so hard it almost went out!’ she whispered conspiratorially. ‘Then she yelled for Lucille and they went up to her solar. She’s not moved since.’
John knew that, for he had spent the night on the further edge of their large palliasse, Matilda ignoring him in a pretence of sleep. ‘She’ll come round, it’s not so bad as last month.’ Then his wife had barred the solar door against him for several nights, making him sleep on the floor of the hall before the fire.
After dressing, John intended to go up to Rougemont for the eighth bell, to be present when Richard de Revelle interrogated the two silversmiths, as he had threatened the previous evening. But Fate, that unpredictable meddler, took a hand in his plans. She arrived in the form of Gwyn of Polruan who, just as John was taking his cloak from a peg in the vestibule, banged on the outer door and pushed in from the lane outside. The east wind had brought the first flurries of snow and his tattered leather jerkin was spotted with white.