With that he closed the door in Walter’s face, but the apothecary was too pleased with his success to be concerned at the other man’s rudeness and limped away, savouring the thought of the imminent replenishment of his money chest.
As had happened a number of times before, a storeroom at St Nicholas’ Priory was commandeered as a mortuary, especially as the monastic establishment was not far from the tragic scene, being at the upper edge of Bretayne. The priory was small, with a prior and eight monks living in a cramped building, which belonged to Battle Abbey in Sussex, founded by the first King William on the very site of his conquest of Harold and his Saxons.
But there were no thoughts of such history as the corpse of Theophania Lawrence was brought in and laid to rest on trestles in the small room that had hastily been cleared of garden tools and old furniture. Several of the local inhabitants, including a few close neighbours of the old woman, had carried her up from the town wall on a door removed from a nearby house, escorted by the coroner and his group. It was Gwyn who had gently taken down the pathetic body from the sconce, untying the rope that had been thrown over it and lashed to the ring-handle of the door of the Snail Tower. Both he and the coroner had urgently looked for any signs of life, having had experience of some remarkable recoveries in their violent careers. But this time there was no doubt that the old woman was dead, even though she was still quite warm and her limbs supple, the shameful deed having been perpetrated only a few minutes before they arrived.
A middle-aged widow, a neighbour of the dead woman, chaperoned them as the body was laid out on the boards of the trestles. Tears trickled down her rosy cheeks as she arranged Theophania’s hands over her chest in an attitude of prayer.
‘It’s a scandal, she was a good enough woman. She would do her best to heal any ills that people brought to her — and often took not a ha’penny in return.’ She sniffed back her tears. ‘Maybe now and then she might help some poor girl who was in the family way — and she was not above a spell to curdle someone’s milk if they had fallen foul of her. But she never deserved this, poor soul! This is murder, so what are you going to do about it, Crowner?’
A good question, de Wolfe thought. He would have to hold an inquest, but every member of the lynch-mob had run away as he arrived at the scene. It was true that some of the neighbours could identify a few faces in the crowd, but no one knew — or would say — who the ringleaders were and who had actually hauled her up by the neck over the torch bracket. Edward Bigge was clearly named as denouncing Theophania, but that was not proof that he had been involved in her execution. John also knew that the folk in Bretyane were no lovers of the law officers and would suffer torture before they would disclose anything — apart from the fact that any informer would be at great risk of retribution from the other rioters.
He sighed with resignation as he set about examining the corpse. There was little to be seen, apart from the obvious signs of hanging.
‘Cut right into her skin, she’s a heavy woman,’ observed Gwyn, with clinical detachment, as he studied the deep groove where the thin rope had sunk into her neck.
‘A blue face, blood spots in her eyes and eyelids — she didn’t die easily,’ agreed the coroner, who since taking office almost a year ago had attended scores of hangings.
‘What about a jury for the inquest?’ asked his officer. ‘There’ll be no finding any of those bastards who did this, they’ll be skulking in their holes all over the city by now.’
De Wolfe considered the problem for a moment, standing hunched over the cadaver like some grey-and-black vulture contemplating its fallen prey.
‘I’m going to leave it until tomorrow. There’s nothing to be gained until we’ve learned some of the names of those involved, if that’s possible. I’ll have to talk to the damned sheriff about this. It’s his responsibility to curb mob violence in his own city and county.’
‘He’s away for a few days, Crowner,’ volunteered Gabriel. ‘He’s gone to Winchester to take the extra taxes that the King’s chancellor demanded for the new campaign in France. And he’s taken that box of treasure trove with him, so I hear.’
De Wolfe’s face darkened as he forgot all about the lynching for a moment. ‘Taken the treasure already? Damn him, I expressly said that the Justices at the next Assize should decide what was to be done with it. I impressed upon him that I wanted it stamped with both our seals before it went anywhere! And that only after checking that everything we counted at Cadbury was still inside! He agreed to it, the lying bastard!’
John paced up and down the small room, glowering at the floor as he considered what was best to do. He swung around and jabbed a finger towards Gwyn. ‘I want you to take Thomas and the inventory we made in Cadbury of that treasure and ride to Winchester straight away. Get Thomas to seek out the chief clerk to the treasury at the castle and get him to check whatever de Revelle has delivered against the list. I don’t trust my brother-in-law farther than I can throw my horse, and there’s no way I’m going to let him get away with anything that belongs to our king, who needs every penny he can get!’
Leaving the monks and the motherly neighbour to cover up poor Theophania, he stalked away, suspicion about Matilda’s brother hovering over him like a black cloud.
With Thomas away with Gwyn on their three-day journey to Winchester, which was England’s joint capital with London, the coroner had no spy to worm his way into the consistory court on Tuesday morning. However, later that day he had a full report from John de Alençon, who made it his business to attend. Although he was the Archdeacon of Exeter, he had no special standing in the court, the sole arbiter of justice being its chancellor. It was no surprise to anyone that Bishop Marshal had appointed Gilbert de Bosco to this office and so he was effectively both judge and jury in the proceedings.
‘Fair-mindedness was a scarce commodity in the chapter house today,’ said de Alençon cynically, as he sat with the coroner at the table in his study that afternoon, sharing the usual flask of wine. ‘My fellow-canon was puffed up with his importance and imbued with missionary zeal — so the truth was low on his list of priorities.’ He took a sip of the red nectar of Anjou and shook his head sadly. ‘I must give myself a penance later for my cynical lack of charity towards Gilbert de Bosco, but the whole affair was a charade, a complete travesty of justice.’
For a normally mild man, the archdeacon sounded bitter and de Wolfe pressed him for more details of what had gone on that morning in the chapter house, where Gilbert had hastily added Jolenta’s case to that of Alice Ailward and tried them both together.
‘The poor women were not allowed to say a word in their own defence and the couple of neighbours who were allowed to speak up for them were treated like imbeciles by the chancellor.’
‘So what were the charges against them?
‘Almost identical, though it mattered little as to the details, the result was inevitable. As far as the Ailward woman was concerned, that she was guilty of sacrilege in summoning up Satan in defiance of God’s law, that this meant she had committed apostasy by denial of God and that there was implied blasphemy by seeking other gods but the true one.’
John scratched his head where a flea was biting his scalp. ‘All that on the uncorroborated lies of an ignorant boor like Adam Cuffe? I can’t believe he has the brains to invent all that rubbish about Satan. Someone must have put him up to it.’
‘Quite possibly, but I’ve no idea who that could be — or why he did it. And as for being uncorroborated, a trio of equally great liars were called, some of them I strongly suspect from that gang who lynched the other woman yesterday.’
‘Did they spin the same story?’