Lord Ferrars was silent, at least not disagreeing with the speaker, but reluctant to abandon their only possibility. However tenuous it might be, it was better than nothing in their present state of frustration.
But the younger Hugh was in no mood for moderation. ‘I can’t stay stifled up in here, forever talking in circles.’ He threw more mead into his cup from a jug, splashing half of it on the table, then drained it at a gulp.
At the door, he prodded his squatting squire with a long-toed shoe. ‘Come on, we’ll walk the town and ease our minds in a tavern or two.’
They pushed out into the lane and made for the high street, finding their way by the dim glow of chestnut roasters, horn lanterns of hawkers’ stalls and the glimmer through linen shades over unglazed windows.
John de Wolfe slumped in his chair, almost dozing from the effects of red wine and the warmth of the fire on his front. Though it was only the middle of the evening, he was contemplating taking to his bed out of sheer boredom. Matilda had already succumbed and was snoring gently, her head back against her beehive chair, mouth wide open and the embroidery silks forgotten in her lap.
Through eyelids lowered to almost closing, the coroner stared at the fiery patterns made by the glowing logs, trying to decide whether to refill his wine cup or climb the outside stairs to the solar and his bed.
Suddenly, Brutus lifted his head and his ears went back. The big hound had been lying at John’s feet, head between his paws, but now he was alert. Sleepily his master caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. ‘What is it, old dog?’ he murmured.
The mastiff turned his head slightly to one side, listening intently. John sat up and strained his own ears, knowing that despite his age, Brutus still had keen hearing.
There was something outside, some commotion in the lane. Though the house walls were wooden, they were made of a double layer of thick oak and the inside was hung with tapestries, which helped muffle sounds but still some hubbub filtered through. He could hear shouts and raised voices, as Brutus jumped up and loped to the door to sniff at the bottom crack.
John got to his feet and followed the dog. Matilda had not stirred and was still making soft whistling sounds in her throat. Throwing his cloak loosely over his shoulders, the coroner stepped out into the street, looking to his left from where the noise came. The lane was better lit than much of Exeter, as two pitch flares were stuck in rings on the walls of the farrier’s diagonally opposite, towards St Martin’s church. That light now fell on two struggling figures outside his next-door neighbour’s house, the frontage of which was set back a few feet from John’s dwelling.
Immediately, he saw that it was a one-sided struggle, as the heavy figure of Godfrey Fitzosbern appeared to be beating the life out of a much slighter man, accompanied by oaths and yelling from them both.
John dodged back into his vestibule to pull his sword from its sheath, then ran back into the street. By the time he returned, a third figure was involved, dragging at Fitzosbern’s tunic. Even the dim light was sufficient to show that it was that of a woman.
‘What in hell is going on?’ roared John, as he ran towards the struggling trio, holding his sword aloft.
When she saw her neighbour approaching, Mabel, for of course it was Godfrey’s wife, screamed, ‘He’ll kill the boy, get him off, for God’s sake!’ She continued to tug at her husband, but he gave her a swinging back-handed blow that knocked her flying against the doorpost of his shop. He then set to kicking the body on the ground, who huddled up with his arms protectively over his head.
‘Stop that, Fitzosbern!’ yelled the coroner, grabbing him by the shoulder. His sword was useless – he could hardly run his neighbour through, although he contemplated whacking him with the flat of the blade.
The guild-master was in such a rage that he was oblivious of de Wolfe’s presence, almost blue in the face and yelling abuse at the cringing figure lying in the cold mud. John tried to get an arm-lock around his neck to drag him off, but the frenzied assailant twisted away.
Then, abruptly, the battle took another turn as two other figures materialised from the gloom and grabbed Fitzosbern, pulling him away from the man on the ground. But Godfrey pulled an arm free and delivered a ringing punch to the face of one of the new arrivals, sending him staggering. Then there was a metallic scrape as the other fellow pulled out his sword and, an instant later, Fitzosbern was pinioned against his own front wall, with a sharp blade pressed across his neck.
De Wolfe bent down to hoist up the first victim from the snowy mud, just as the man Fitzosbern had punched climbed to his feet and delivered a shin-cracking kick to the merchant’s left leg. Fitzosbern roared with pain and the coroner dropped his man back into the mud to leap forward and swing the flat of his sword against the shoulders of the kicker.
‘What in Christ’s name is going on here?’ he bellowed. The other man still had his long blade at Fitzosbern’s neck, a thin trickle of blood now running down from a shallow cut across his Adam’s apple. Without hesitation, John lifted his huge sword and again brought the flat of it down on the forearm of the assailant, who gave a howl of pain as his weapon clattered down the wall. Fitzosbern slid to the ground and the coroner grabbed the cloaked swordsman. He swung him round to reveal the face of Hugh Ferrars, flushed and obviously drunk.
‘You could have cut the man’s throat, sir!’ he snapped ‘Do you to want to hang for it?’
‘The bastard deserves it, by all account,’ snarled the young man. ‘Anyway, I was saving this other fellow’s life. Fitzosbern was killing him – who is he, by the way?’
They turned to the groaning figure that John had unceremoniously dropped back into the mire, ignoring both Fitzosbern and Hugh’s squire, who was sitting on the ground rubbing his shoulder where the coroner’s broadsword had struck him.
‘It’s Edgar of Topsham, by damnation!’ barked Ferrars. They dragged him to his feet and supported him while the apothecary’s apprentice gingerly felt his face, ribs and kidneys to see what was damaged.
Now the silversmith himself climbed groggily to his feet and staggered over to him, his temper not improved by the blood running down his neck. ‘Arrest them, murderers!’ he croaked, clutching John’s arm. ‘He tried to kill me, the swine – look at this blood!’
The squire had recovered enough to make another lung at Fitzosbern, but John pushed him away. ‘Control this fellow, Ferrars, or I’ll have you both in the castle gaol.’
Hugh muttered something at the other man, who seemed even more drunk than his master and the squire backed off a few paces.
The guild-master was still shaking the coroner’s arm and demanding that he arrest all three of his antagonists. ‘This evil young pup, be began it all!’ Godfrey gave the shivering Edgar a hearty push in the chest, but John grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind his back.
‘Let’s have no more violence from any of you!’ he yelled. Suddenly he was aware again of the other person among them, Mabel Fitzosbern, who had come across from her front doorstep, where she had sheltered since her husband had struck her. The light from the farrier’s showed that she had a livid bruise down the side of her cheek and her left eye was rapidly closing with purple swelling of the lids. Her linen head-rail had been torn off and her ash-blonde hair was hanging in a tangle across her shoulder. ‘He would have killed the boy, if you hadn’t appeared,’ she hissed, with a venom that surprised de Wolfe, coming from such a pretty and elegant woman. ‘It’s that damned husband of mine you should arrest, not these men!’