De Wolfe took a long draught of her best ale before replying. ‘It’s true that that thing showed that some person must have wished some evil to come to de Pridias,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘But I don’t know of any law that forbids placing a straw dolly in a man’s saddlebag! What am I supposed to do about it?’
She sensed that his resolve was weakening a little. As long as John de Wolfe was not challenged head-on, she could sometimes win him around by persuading him that the suggestion came from himself.
‘Someone must have been stalking him, to obtain a bit of his hair and a shred of his clothing. Is that sort of behaviour something the law condones?’ she asked with false innocence.
For once, he saw through her stratagems and grinned lopsidedly as he nipped her smooth thigh under the table. ‘You’re a cunning woman yourself, Nesta of Gwent!’ he murmured in the Welsh they always used together. ‘I think you must have put a spell on me, to be able to twist me around your fingers, as you do.’
Her heart-shaped, open face smiled back at him with undisguised affection. ‘I’ll be putting another spell on you very soon, cariad, one that will make you go with me up that ladder in the corner.’
She raised her fine eyebrows and inclined her head towards the wide steps at the back of the taproom which led up to her little room. His fingers were encouraged to explore a little farther under the table, as they sat close together on the bench.
‘Maybe it’s just that bit too hot tonight, Nesta,’ he teased. ‘I’m already in a sweat, just sitting quietly here.’
She pretended to pout and pulled away from him. ‘Then sit and drink your ale, old man, if you’re that feeble!’
‘I’ll just finish this quart and then see if I can manage to climb those rungs. Meanwhile, tell me something of these cunning women, if you’re really a witch yourself.’
‘Oh, John! You know as well as I do that everywhere there are old wives — and younger ones — who carry out a bit of homespun magic. And there are men too, the women don’t have a monopoly of the art.’
‘Do you know any of these people yourself?’ he asked.
‘Most of them keep it within the family, like grandmothers who boil a few herbs and mutter a few spells when the babe has the croup or the house cow goes dry.’
‘But some go much farther than treating the family. There are those who make a living from their art, surely?’
Nesta took a sip from his mug and shook her head. ‘Very few make a profession of it. Those who try to help outside their family usually keep it to their friends and others in the village.’
‘What about the towns? We must have them here in Exeter as well? This must surely be where the corn-dolly came from, as de Pridias was a city man.’
She looked up at him looming over her, his black hair curling around his neck. Fierce though he usually looked, she loved this big stern man with an intensity that was as strong as it was hopeless. He was a Norman knight, a respected Crusader and a senior law officer of the King. And what was she but a lowly ale-wife and a foreigner from Wales into the bargain? What could life hold for her, other than frustration and disappointment for as far ahead as she could imagine? With a sigh, she forced herself to pay attention to what he was asking.
‘In the towns? Well, there are cunning women here as in every other borough and city. You know that for yourself, you called on Bearded Lucy at one time, remember?’
John certainly did recall the poverty-stricken old woman who lived in squalor in a tumble-down shack on the marshes of Exe Island — and Nesta had plenty of cause to remember her, too.
‘But there must be many more in Exeter, a great city with over four thousand souls,’ he objected. ‘Are they more likely to ply this as a trade than the ones out in the countryside?’
The red-headed landlady prodded him with her elbow. ‘Why look on me as an authority, Sir Crowner?’ she snapped, using the parody of his title to poke fun at him. ‘I’m not the warden of the Guild of Witches, you know! You’ll be getting me into trouble if this pompous canon launches a campaign against cunning women.’
Perhaps Nesta did possess a sixth sense, for her careless remark was to be proved all too prophetic.
The chapter house was an old wooden building, planted against the foot of the southernmost of the two great towers of the cathedral. Exeter was a secular establishment, like eight of the other nineteen English cathedrals, the rest being monastic institutions. It was run by the ‘chapter’, comprising the twenty-four canons who ran every aspect of cathedral business.
The lower floor of the chapter house was used for their daily meeting, the upstairs housing the library and scriptorium, as well as accommodating the clerks who toiled over the treasury and accounts. The building was becoming too small and inconvenient, and negotiations were slowly going ahead for the acquisition of part of the garden of the bishop’s palace, further along the south side of the church, where a new stone building would be erected. Although officially the palace was Henry Marshal’s main residence, he was more often absent than present. The bishop had many manors of his own where he preferred to stay — and was frequently in London, Winchester or Canterbury, leaving his diocese in the care of his archdeacons.
At about the eighth hour on the morning after the remarkable funeral service, the canons and clergy assembled as usual after prime at the chapter house. Sitting in their black-and-white vestments on benches around three sides of the bare room, they listened as a chorister stood at a lectern and read out the daily calendar — including the date as given by the Roman calendar, the age of the moon in the month and the saints to be commemorated that day.
A secondary, a young priest in training, next announced the rota of duties for the following day, then another read a chapter of the Rule of St Chrodegang, the strict code of behaviour adopted by Leofric, the last Saxon bishop, who founded the cathedral. Then, after prayers for the King, the relatives of the clergy and the dead, the lower orders and choristers departed to celebrate their capitular Mass, leaving the canons to deal with their official business. Jordan de Brent was this week’s convenor of the chapter, as it would be another quarter of a century before Exeter appointed a dean to officiate. He rose to introduce a few financial matters, then a rather bitter discussion took place between the precentor and succentor about the choral arrangements for the feast of Epiphany. A short disciplinary hearing followed, when a downcast secondary was brought in by a proctor and sentenced to a month of almost continuous duties for being found incapably drunk in the Close. Jordan de Brent then asked whether there were any further matters for discussion and immediately Gilbert de Bosco lumbered to his feet. John de Alençon, sitting on the right hand of the convenor, groaned inwardly, as he guessed what was to come.
‘Brothers in Christ, I rise to put before you an issue which should long ago have exercised our hearts and minds,’ he began in his powerful voice. ‘In all humility, I am as guilty as any of us, as I had never considered the matter seriously until it was forcibly brought to my attention this very week.’
Chapter was not always very attentive to the usually dull business before them and canons often whispered together or even dozed as the discussion droned on. But today every ear was cocked towards the speaker. Almost all had already heard of the outspoken obituary speech the day before, the grapevine being even more active in the incestuous community of the Close than in the city generally, where it was certainly highly efficient.
‘In this diocese, in this county, in this very city, we have a legion of evil-doers who practise their black arts under our noses — and we hardly notice them, let alone do anything to stamp them underfoot!’
Gilbert slowly swung his big head around to encompass the three sides of the chapter house with his glaring eyes and his powerful presence. Although the archdeacon disliked the launching of a pogrom against harmless folk, he had to admit that Gilbert de Bosco was a highly effective orator, able to seize and hold the attention of his audience.