He held up his staff as they ran towards him, and now John could see that one entire side of the monk’s clothing was sopping wet with stinking fluid and that the side of his face was grazed and bleeding.
‘Those bastards pushed me over when I tried to stop them,’ he wailed. ‘They had some poor woman and seemed intent on doing her harm!’
‘Which way did they go, brother?’ shouted Gwyn.
The monk, who must have been from the small Bendictine priory of St Nicholas higher up in the town, pointed his stick behind him.
‘Last I saw of the swine, they were clustering around the Snail Tower, yelling and screaming like a pack of Barbary apes. That was a good few minutes ago, so you’d best make haste.’
Again, the coroner pounded on at the head of his small posse, making for the round tower that stood at the junction of the north and west walls of the city, just above the upper part of Exe Island. It was only a few hundred paces away and as they came past the last row of dwellings before the lane that ran inside the high walls, they saw the remnants of the mob melting away into the numerous alleys and paths that ran back up into Bretayne. The noisy approach of half a score of vengeful custodians of the law had scared away the rioters, but they left behind a chilling legacy of their activities.
Turning slowly, with her feet a yard above the ground, was the body of Theophania Lawrence, hanging by a rope around her neck from an old iron bracket sticking out of the Snail Tower, which had once carried a sconce for a lighted pitch-brand.
Her head lolled sideways on to her shoulder, her face purple as a token of her slow death from strangulation, rather than a broken neck. As a final indignity, her pathetically thin chemise was ripped down from the neck, exposing her sagging breasts, between which some at least partially literate rioter had crudely inscribed with a charcoal stick a large ‘W’ for ‘Witch’.
Whilst Edward Bigge was drunkenly involved in the riotous events in Bretayne, his wife was pursuing the other part of her husband’s contract with the apothecary. Acting on the instructions that Edward had laboriously dinned into her head, she dressed as neatly as she could and went to seek an audience with Gilbert de Bosco at his house in Canons’ Row. She waited until after the last of the morning offices to make sure that he would be at home seeking his midday dinner — although in fact Gilbert had deputed today’s attendance at the cathedral to his vicar, as he kept his hours of worship close to the minimum allowed by the rules laid down by the chapter.
When his steward came to his well-appointed study to tell him that a common woman urgently wished to see him, he was dismissive, especially as he could hear the clatter of pewter plates and the clink of a wineglass from his adjacent dining room, where his meal was almost ready to be served. But his servant’s next words caught his attention.
‘She says she has a complaint about a witch, Reverence. Something about being assaulted by an incubus, raised from hell.’
As the steward had expected his master to instruct him to throw the madwoman out into the street, he was surprised when the burly priest slapped down the book he was reading and curtly told him to bring the dame in to see him. When she appeared, Emelota avoided giving her husband’s name, in case the fact of two members of the Bigge family giving testimony against cunning women might look suspicious. She was not to know that the precaution was unnecessary, as at that very moment the drunken Edward was precipitating the lynching of Theophania, in which the canon was not to be involved.
Gilbert remained seated as she stood before him, hands clasped demurely in front of her. His plethoric face glared at her expectantly. ‘So what have you to tell me, woman?’
‘I have been grievously wronged, sir. I went to a woman who I was told was a respectable healer, but found her to be in league with imps and devils, spurning the Christian ways which are so dear to me.’
The words were music to Gilbert’s ears and he had a momentary vision of himself with mitre and crozier if this campaign went as planned.
‘In what way were you wronged?’
Emelota launched into the story that Walter Winstone had concocted. She told how she had visited Jolenta of Ide in order to get help in ridding herself of the barrenness that had afflicted her womb these past three years, as her husband was becoming impatient at the lack of further sons. The bizarre imagination of the apothecary led her to describe how Jolenta had caused the room to be plunged into darkness, with rolls of thunder and flickering red lights, accompanied by a smell of burning sulphur. Then wicked imps appeared, climbing up her legs and tearing at her clothing, as the witch screamed invocations to Satan and all the fallen angels. Then, after Jolenta had demanded payment of five pence, she promised Emelota that she would be with child within two months. Since then, she had been visited several times at midnight by a horned incubus, who had ravished her during her sleep — and now she was afraid that if she did fall pregnant, the child would be the by-blow of the Devil.
Incredible as this story was, the eager canon welcomed it gladly, uncaring of whether it was true or not, as long as it gave him further ammunition for his chosen crusade. It seemed that his campaign to stir up the population was bearing fruit, especially his exhortations to the parish priests to whip up animosity through their sermons.
‘Can you take me to this evil woman?’ he demanded, thrusting his big, florid face towards the obsequious complainant.
‘Indeed I can, sir. The village is but a mile or two beyond the West Gate.’
Even the prospect of a new denunciation of a sorcerer was insufficient to keep Gilbert from his dinner, as the prospect of salmon poached in butter and boiled bacon with new beans easily overcame his crusading enthusiasm.
‘We will go there in two hours, good-wife. Be back here then and when we return from Ide I will exorcise these unclean spirits from your poor abused body.’
As he sat down to his meal, he sent servants to fetch two of the proctor’s men and a brace of horses, so that when they set out for Ide, Emelota was perched side-saddle upon a pony led on a halter by one of the other riders.
After splashing through the ford over the Exe and making a short ride through country lanes, they reached the hamlet of Ide. De Bosco recalled with satisfaction that it belonged to Bishop Henry Marshal, which made things much easier for him, not having to deal with some possibly obstinate manor-lord. His first action when he reined up in the small village was to send for the reeve, who quickly arrived in company with the bailiff, who was doing his rounds of the manor that day.
Gilbert quickly established his authority over the men. ‘I am Canon Gilbert de Bosco, here on behalf of the Lord Bishop, who has appointed me chancellor of his consistory court.’
The two men were unsure as to what all this meant, but they were not prepared to challenge anything the canon might say, if he was the spokesman for their lord, who had the power of life and death over them.
‘I am here to deal with a sorcerer in your midst, a woman called Jolenta,’ bellowed de Bosco, sliding from his horse.
The jaws of the bailiff and reeve sagged in dismay and several villagers who had drifted in to eavesdrop on the group began muttering among themselves.
‘Jolenta, Your Reverence? But she is a good woman, one of the most useful in the manor,’ protested the bailiff.
‘That’s no concern of yours, fellow. Just tell me where she lives.’
His tone reminded the local officials again that they had no power to obstruct this emissary of their lord and master and, reluctantly, the reeve pointed to a cottage just along the tiny street.