De Wolfe stretched out his arms and yawned. ‘We shall see for ourselves before long. Gwyn, hurry and shovel to rest of that mutton into your gut. We need a walk down to the river.’
Exe Island was formed from the marsh that lay around the western end of the city wall. Exeter came downhill to its river there, but the Exe was no tidy stream running between banks: it was a shifting meander of swamp and mud shoals. The city was at the upper limit of the high tides and this, together with the greatly variable flood that ran down from distant Exmoor, caused the land outside the West Gate to change constantly. For years, efforts had been made to stabilise the area by cutting leats through the marsh to drain it and to persuade the main channel of the river to keep to its bed. An island had been laboriously formed, and a settlement, with fulling mills for the wool trade, had been set up on the extra land.
A precarious footbridge crossed the river to join the road to the west, but only people on foot could use it, all cattle, horses and wagons having to splash across the ford. During the past four years efforts had been made to build a substantial stone bridge. However, the builder Walter Gervase, had run out of money, as the length of the bridge needed proved so expensive. It was against the deserted stonework of this bridge that the coroner and his officer found Frog Lane, the name quite appropriate in this marshy bog. They came out of the West Gate and trudged along a track, still whitened by the light snowfall, until they squelched down a muddy bank to the entrance of an ill-defined lane. This was lined by mean shacks, even worse than those in Bretayne. Wood smoke poured up into the leaden sky from a fire in each hovel. Several dwellings were burned-out shells, testifying to the dangers of open fires in huts built largely of hazel withies woven together and plastered with mud on the outside.
The usual collection of barefoot urchins followed their progress, apparently oblivious to the December cold. Women wrapped in ragged shawls ambled between huts, and men with oat-sacks over their shoulders as makeshift cloaks carried huge bundles of raw wool from the quayside, which lay further down-river, to the fulling mill at the end of the lane.
‘Where does Bearded Lucy dwell?’ demanded John of the nearest and dirtiest urchin dancing about him.
The boy made a leering grimace and he and his companions all started jigging about with their fingers spread at their foreheads in imitation of hobgoblins. ‘Bearded Lucy, Bearded Lucy is a witch!’ they all chanted in unison.
Gwyn took a swipe at the leader, but he hopped nimbly out of the way. ‘Where is she, boy?’ he roared.
One of the lads, less antisocial than the rest, pointed between the two nearest hovels to a hut set back from the lane, sitting alone on a wide expanse of reeds.
The two law officers set off along the side of a stagnant leat that led to it and were soon in wet mud, their feet lifting at every step with a sucking noise.
‘By St Peter and St Paul, this must be the worst bloody place for miles around,’ muttered de Wolfe, as he felt the water seeping through the seams of his leather shoes.
‘Surely a fancy lady like Adele de Courcy would never come down here,’ objected Gwyn.
John shrugged. ‘Women in dire trouble, like having a full womb and an imminent marriage to someone else, would dare a lot, Gwyn.’
They reached the hut, which was even more dilapidated than the others. It leaned over precariously to one side so that it seemed about to fall into the leat, probably because the marsh had sunk under its flimsy foundations. Smoke filtered out from under the tattered reed thatch, which was patched with clods of turf. There was no door, but a fence hurdle was propped on end to block the entrance. Gwyn heaved it aside and yelled into the smoky interior, ‘Anyone there?’
Feet shuffled through the dirty straw on the earth floor and a bowed figure came to the entrance. Though John had seen many strange and misshapen people in his time, this one was unique. Grotesquely ugly to begin with, the hag’s face was almost covered with wispy grey hair; only the upper cheeks, nose and forehead were bald. One eye had a red, inflamed lid that pouted outwards, and a slack mouth revealed toothless pink gums. That the person was female was hinted at by the nature of the rags she wore and the dirty close-fitting bonnet tied under her chin.
‘Who is it? Why do men come to my dwelling?’ she demanded, in a rasping, querulous voice, ending in a fit of coughing, which brought up a bloodstained gobbet that she spat on to the floor.
‘I am the King’s coroner and this is my officer. You are the woman they call Bearded Lucy.’
It was a statement, rather than a question, but the old crone nodded. She was bent far worse than Thomas, but probably from the same phthisis of the spine, thought John.
‘I need to ask you some questions, woman.’
Lucy cackled. ‘Am I accused again of being a witch, sir? I care not. It would be a mercy to be hanged or drowned, anything rather than live like this.’
‘I am told that you have been know to help women who are with child and wish to lose their burden?’
She sighed. ‘Do you want to come in, sirs? Or will you arrest me out here?’
They declined to go into the hut, having a fair idea of the state of the inside and its various infestations.
John, used to human suffering and despair, yet felt stirrings of sympathy for the old woman, whose mind seemed clear though her body was a wreck. ‘We are not here to arrest you, old woman, but I need information about a woman who lies dead in the city.’
He explained about Adele de Courcy and the nun’s diagnosis of a bleeding miscarriage. ‘Did such a lady ever seek your help?’
Bearded Lucy’s dulled eyes rose to meet his and, hardened as he was, he flinched a little and remembered all the tales of witches that his mother had told him as a child. ‘Describe her to me,’ she demanded.
The coroner did his best and the crone began to nod. ‘It must be the same one. Very rarely does any lady of quality come to me. I deal mostly with my neighbours and those from the lower town and the villages nearby. But such a woman visited me a month or two ago.’ Another spasm of coughing racked her. Then she said, ‘My conscience is clear for I could do nothing for her. She had missed two of her monthly issues and was getting desperate. I did not ask why, though she wore no wedding ring.’
‘Did you do any damage to her, old wife?’ John demanded.
‘No, those days are over for me. But I gave her some herbs, aloes and parsley, and some pessaries of pennyroyal. She gave me sixpence, bless her, then went away.’
Gwyn broke into the inquisition. ‘How do you know they did her no harm, then?’
The hag swivelled her bent head and looked up at him obligingly. ‘Because she came back. Two weeks ago she returned and said that she was still with child, as my previous potions had not had any effect. They rarely do, for when women miscarry in the early months it is because they would have done so anyway. But sometimes I get the credit for what God performs.’
‘She wanted something stronger?’
‘She wanted me to interfere with her – the lady knew, as I did, that she had gone too far for any of my witchcraft to have the slightest effect.’
John glared at the old woman. His previous pity had evaporated. ‘So what did you do to her?’
‘Nothing, sir. Look at this.’ She raised her arms and held her hands in front of her. They shook like leaves in the wind. ‘And my eyesight is almost gone, I have cataracts in both. What chance is there for me to do anything? I can just manage to find my mouth on the times when I have some food.’
Gwyn murmured to the coroner, ‘If it was two weeks ago, it can hardly have been here, if the lady bled yesterday.’