He sat down and handed the roll back to Thomas. The sheriff sighed to express his boredom and looked down at the bedraggled figure below him. ‘Have you anything to say for yourself, fellow?’
The bruised face rose briefly. ‘Whatever I say will be of no account. But I did not harm that girl.’
‘Did you steal that money?’ asked John, more out of curiosity than for anything relevant.
‘That’s never been proved,’ said Aethelard sullenly.
‘Because you never showed up in court to plead your innocence,’ observed the coroner.
‘Stop wasting my time!’ cut in the sheriff irritably. ‘It’s of no interest to me whether you were guilty or not. You were legally declared outlaw and now you have been recaptured. The only penalty for that is death! It would have saved the time of the court — and my patience — if someone had seen fit to cut off your head at the roadside!’ His stomach rumbled to remind him of dinner-time. ‘Take him away and hang him tomorrow. Bring in the next case.’
Half an hour later, John de Wolfe sat down at his own table, having forgotten all about Stephen Aethelard, although he would see him again briefly the next day, when he was pushed off a ladder at the gallows, with a rope around his neck — one of six hangings scheduled for the Thursday executions. Even then, the outlaw would be of little concern to the coroner, as he had no land nor chattels for him to confiscate for the royal treasury, which was the main purpose of the coroner’s attendance at the gallows-beam on Magdalen Street, out of the city towards Heavitree.
De Wolfe had dismissed the youth from his mind and was concentrating on the mutton stew that Mary had set before them. It was too liquid to be served on trenchers of bread, so they had wooden bowls and horn spoons, with small loaves alongside. A large jug of ale stood between John and his wife, who sat at either end of the oaken table and Mary bustled in frequently to ladle more stew into their bowls and to refill their pottery mugs from the jug. As usual, the meal was a silent occasion, apart from the slurping of the stew, especially from Matilda’s end, as she was a voracious eater. When they had eaten their fill, Mary appeared with a slab of hard yellow cheese to accompany the remainder of the bread. John hacked some slices off with his dagger and Mary carried the platter up to her mistress. When she left, de Wolfe tried to start up some conversation to break the strained silence.
‘I hear that the funeral Mass of Robert de Pridias will take place tomorrow afternoon.’ He chose something to do with the Church to catch her attention.
Her face lifted towards him and he waited until her jaws had finished champing the hard bread. Though she still had most of her front teeth, albeit yellowed, most of her molars had either crumbled or had been wrenched out by the itinerant tooth-puller.
‘I know that. I shall be there to support poor Cecilia. But we also have a private memorial service in St Olave’s beforehand — the widow was a faithful attender there, though like you, Robert himself came but seldom.’
She managed to squeeze a reprimand even out of a stranger’s death, thought John sourly. He waited for the expected complaint about his failure to hold an inquest and was not disappointed.
‘My poor friend tells me that you were less than helpful yesterday, when she called you, John.’ Her eyes were like gimlets and her lips like a rat-trap, he thought, as she glowered at him down the length of the table.
‘There was no call to do otherwise! The man was seen to clutch his chest and fall dead across his horse.’
‘You know of the feud between de Hocforde and Robert. Could you not take it more seriously?’
‘I didn’t know then. But it would have made no difference, the law is not for giving credence to old wives’ tales.’
As the words left his lips, he knew he had said the wrong thing.
‘Old wives, are we? I’m glad I know what you think of me. No wonder you go chasing young whores, Welsh or otherwise.’
Her chair grated on the flagstones as she stood up. With a glare that should have turned him to a pillar of salt, she swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
The old hound, lying near the empty hearth, showed the whites of his eyes as he looked mournfully up at his master. John got up and took his mug of ale to his favourite seat alongside the fireplace, bending to fondle the dog’s soft ears. ‘She’ll be in a foul mood until tomorrow, Brutus. But a good requiem Mass will cheer her up again, never fear.’
The coroner dozed for an hour, seduced by the oppressive heat and humidity that penetrated even the dank hall of his gloomy house. Although the sun still beat down from a pale blue sky, a bank of cloud was building up on the western horizon and a distant rumble of thunder threatened the return of the rain that had plagued the country all summer. Mary let him sleep as she quietly removed the debris of the meal, but by the middle of the afternoon he roused himself and stretched his arms above his head, feeling his undershirt sticking to his back with sweat. Although all he wore over it was his usual drab grey tunic with no surcoat, it was still uncomfortably hot. He had even forsaken his long hose in favour of knee-length stockings and, like everyone else, wore no undergarments on the lower part of his body, yet still felt as uncomfortable as he had been in the heat of Palestine.
He walked around to the back yard and relieved himself against the fence, as in this hot weather the privy stank so much that even his insensitive nose baulked at going inside.
‘When is the night-soil man due to shovel this place out?’ he called across to Mary, who was washing a pan in a bucket of murky water hauled from the well in the middle of the yard.
‘He’s two days late — everyone is having their privies and middens cleared more often in this heat.’ She tipped the dirty water on to the ground and dropped the leather bucket back down the well. ‘We need some rain again soon to bring the water level up, there’s little better than mud in it now.’
They stood together to look down the narrow shaft and John, after a quick look up at the stairs to Matilda’s solar, slid an arm around the maid’s waist. They had had many a tumble in the past, but the handsome woman, a by-blow of an unknown Norman soldier and her Saxon mother, had recently refused him, being wary of Matilda’s suspicions, strengthened since the nosy body-maid Lucille had arrived to spy on them.
Now Mary smiled and twisted away from him. ‘What would your mistress Nesta do, sir, if she saw you? To say nothing of your wife — and the pretty woman from Dawlish?’
The mention of John’s other paramour down at the coast was enough to make him grin sheepishly. His childhood sweetheart Hilda was now married, but that had not stopped them from an occasional bout of passion when it could be managed. As Mary went back to her kitchen-shed, where she not only cooked, but slept on a pallet in the corner, John was aware of a distant crash as his front door slammed shut. Heavy footsteps followed and Gwyn hurried out of the narrow passage at the side of the house. His dishevelled ginger hair was wilder than usual and the armpits of his short worsted tunic were dark with sweat, as he had been trotting across the city in the sultry heat.
‘Crowner, d’you recall that outlaw in the court this morning — the one the sheriff sent to be hanged?’
John stared at his perspiring officer — it was unlike the normally imperturbable Gwyn to exert himself, unless there was a fight on offer.
‘What about him? Has he cut his own throat to cheat the gallows?’
‘No, he’s done better than that. He’s escaped from the South Gate and he’s gained sanctuary. He’s calling for the coroner to take his confession so that he can abjure the realm.’