‘Hold your tongue, woman! What do you know about it?’ yelled Fitzosbern. ‘This evil young bastard accused me of raping his girl!’
Mabel put her bruised features close to his and spat in his face. ‘And I’d not be surprised if he was right, you swine! I can tell the world a thing or two about you and your habits!’
Godfrey raised a hand to strike her again, but de Wolfe grabbed it in a steel-like grip. ‘You can’t testify to anything about me, you bitch,’ yelled Fitzosbern, struggling against the coroner’s restraint. ‘You are my wife and I command you to get inside that house. I’ll deal with you later.’
Now Edgar found his voice for the first time, speaking thickly through bruised lips. ‘Coroner, you must arrest this man – or call the sheriffs men if you don’t have the power. Look how he used me! He assaulted me and would have killed me if you hadn’t come along. And I believe he is a ravisher. My Christina was last in his company.’
Fitzosbern roared again and struggled to get free from John’s grasp. Hugh Ferrars, who had managed to keep quiet during these exchanges, launched himself forward to seize the silversmith, but John fended him off with the point of his sword.
‘Leave it!’ he yelled. ‘All calm down, or I’ll put the lot of you under the castle keep!’
He became aware of a growing knot of curious onlookers drifting into a semi-circle, attracted from the high street by the shouting and clatter of sword blades.
Hugh Ferrars, rocking slightly on his heels, prodded Fitzosbern in the chest with a thick finger. ‘Rapist or not, I want to know what your dealings were with my intended wife. She came to your shop many a time. What was she to you, eh? Come on, damn you, admit how well you knew her!’
His squire had picked up Hugh’s fallen sword and handed it to him, and now the baron’s son began waving it at Fitzosbern, taking the point perilously near the think bloody line on his neck.
‘Put that away, damn you!’ thundered the coroner, clashing his own blade down on Ferrars’s weapon. Trying to control four unruly men, two of them tipsy, was proving too much and he wished that he had Gwyn here to bang their heads together.
Mabel came back into the fray, pointing dramatically at her damaged face. ‘Look what you did, swine of a husband! You devil, it’s not the first time, either. I’ve had to stay inside my house for days on end until your handiwork healed up and I could go out and pretend to be the loving wife of a respectable burgess!’
Godfrey seemed on the point of apoplexy, so great was his rage, but the coroner had his arm twisted up his back to hold him off the others. However, his mouth was still in working order. ‘I told you to get inside that house, wife! You’ll be sorry for this behaviour,’ he screamed, almost beside himself with hatred.
‘Not nearly so sorry as you will be, when I’ve spread your reputation about the town. I’ve held my peace until now, but enough is enough. I’m leaving you.’
‘Good riddance! Go to hell, woman! And take that raddled wine pedlar with you. D’you think I didn’t know about your own petty affairs, you fool?’
Mabel ignored this, secretly relieved that it was out in the open at last. But she had not finished with her husband yet. ‘What’s this Hugh was saying about you and his wife-to-be, eh? Another rape, was it, you poxy swine?’
Hugh’s eyes swivelled to her. ‘Do you know anything of his affairs, madam? Do you know if he had been tumbling my intended wife?’
She looked from one to other. ‘I can’t say who he tumbled, they came and went so fast. It was too difficult to keep track of his philandering.’
The gathering crowd murmured with delight. This was an unexpected entertainment for a Saturday night and even the cold wind and occasional snowflake did not discourage them from waiting for the next act.
But John had had enough of this public brawl, especially as he spied Matilda coming out of his front door. The noise must have woken her at last, and he knew she would be incensed at such a vulgar fracas taking place outside her house.
‘Clear off, all of you. This is no place to hold a private dispute. Ferrars, take this drunken squire and get home to your lodging. Your father would be ashamed of your behaviour in a public place.’
Next he turned to Edgar. ‘And you had better mind your tongue, unless you have proof. You cannot go accusing prominent citizens of felony without a shred of evidence. Get back to your lodgings and be glad that I don’t have you dragged off to Rougemont for the night.’ He looked at the battered face and hunched body. ‘And get Nicholas, that leech-master of yours, to put some poultices on your wounds.’
The centre-stage players began to draw apart, but they all had parting shots to cast.
‘I’ll not enter that house again, he’ll kill me next time,’ grated Mabel. ‘I’ll go to my sister’s in North Street and beg lodging there.’ She glared virulently at her husband. ‘Just as well for you that I’m leaving,’ she spat. ‘You’d likely get my cooking knife between your ribs before very long – or poison in your broth!’ She marched off tight-lipped, pushing through the straggling ring of sightseers, cloakless but heedless of the cold in the heat of her fury.
‘And if she doesn’t slay, you swine, I will!’ slurred Hugh Ferrars, giving his sword a last wave in the air before unsteadily finding the lip of his scabbard to slide it home with a jangling scrape. He thrust his face close to Fitzosbern’s to utter a final threat. ‘I’ll be back to ask those questions, Master Silversmith. And if I’m not satisfied, I’ll kill you.’
He swaggered off, stumbling and pushing the spectators roughly aside, his squire close behind. Edgar limped after them, heading for the shop in Fore Street and some healing potions. Fitzosbern pulled himself away from John’s slackening hand and attempted to brush himself down. ‘You should have run those louts through – or arrested them! I’ll be visiting Richard de Revelle first thing in the morning to demand writs against them all for assault and attempted murder. Just look at my throat!’ He lifted his chin to show the line of drying blood across the front of his neck.
John ran a none-too-gentle finger across the mark. ‘It’s nothing but a scratch. You’ll come to no harm.’
Godfrey thrust away his hand impatiently. ‘Where’s that bloody wife of mine?’ he snarled.
‘She’s gone. I saw her going around the corner into the high street.’
John felt Matilda at his elbow. He knew of her partiality for Godfrey Fitzosbern and her disapproval of Mabel, whom she considered a gold-digging second wife, but the antagonism towards him of the son of Lord Ferrars had made her cautious of offering the silversmith much support.
The small crowd, sensing that the show was over, melted away and the coroner took his wife’s arm and steered her towards their own house.
‘I should go inside and bar your door, Fitzosbern,’ he advised. ‘Let’s hope everyone will have a cooler head in the morning.’
Chapter Eleven
In which Crowner John meets an Archbishop
The following day was Sunday, almost a day of rest for the King’s coroner for the county of Devon.
In the forenoon, Matilda dragged him off to church, which she did every few weeks. An enthusiastic worshipper herself, she was ever nagging John to be more devout. Although she went often to the great cathedral a few yards from their house, her favourite haunt was the tiny church of St Olave’s in Fore Street, strangely dedicated to the first Christian king of Norway.
Reluctantly, John accompanied her to Mass, thinking it a prudent move in the reconciliation plan with his wife. He had no firm religious instincts. He supposed that he believed in God – it was almost impossible not to in the conditioned atmosphere of the times – but for John, religious belief was just a part of life, like breathing, eating and making love. His life-threatening excursions to the Crusades had had no significant motive for wishing to rid the Holy Land of the infidels – in fact, he rather admired the Saracens. He went because his king wished to fight there, and loyalty to Richard was more than sufficient reason for him to risk his life – as well as giving him an excuse to be away from Matilda. So he went through the motions at St Olave’s, using the time when the priest was mouthing the liturgies and acting out the rituals to think of the various problems thrown up by his current cases.