Others took up the cry, some of the worst insults and foulest language coming from women, both young and old, who formed a rearguard to the men in the front.
As the clamour increased, the door was suddenly thrown open again and the forbidding figure of the coroner stood in the opening. He wore his long grey tunic and a ferocious scowl on his lean face, framed by the jet-black hair that fell to his shoulders. Hanging from a wide belt, supported by a baldric strap over his right shoulder, was a lethal-looking sword that had seen action across half the known world. With a hand on its hilt, he glared around the crowd clustered around his door.
‘Get away from here, all of you — or I’ll attach you all for riot and conspiracy to murder!’ There was a growl of angry protest and he slid his blade a few inches out its scabbard, as the two constables waved their staves and used them to prod the nearest malefactors in the chest. ‘Come to your senses, for God’s sake!’ he roared. ‘There’ll be no repetition of the lawlessness down in Bretayne the other day! I know many of you, so be warned.’ His long head swung from side to side as he scanned the crowd and called out names of those he recognised. ‘Arthur of Lyme, is it? And you, Rupert Blacklock from Butchers’ Row — and you, James the miller! I know you all, and I’ll see you suffer if you persist in this madness. Who’s behind it, I want to know?’
His gaze darted around the mob, looking for any agitators, but there was no sign of Cecilia de Pridias or any of her family. He did not expect to see Gilbert de Bosco, but thought that perhaps he had sent some proctor’s servants or a servile priest to egg on the protesters.
‘We have the right to punish evil witches, Crowner!’ called the verger, bolder than the others.
‘You have no such right at all, damn you!’ bellowed de Wolfe. ‘The only right to punish is vested in the courts of this land, all of which ultimately answer to King Richard. Now clear off, all of you. Osric, get yourself up to Rougemont and call on the castle constable to send down a posse of men-at-arms with whips and staves to clear this rabble from my doorstep!’
With that, he stepped back inside and slammed the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
John de Wolfe could hardly have left Bearded Lucy in the lane, with an increasingly angry mob at her heels, but allowing her into the house brought down almost as much trouble on his head as if he had laid about the rabble with his sword. As soon as the stout wooden latch on the front door had clacked down into place, the smaller one on the door to the hall jerked up and Matilda stood framed in the gap. For a brief moment, she stared at the little tableau in the vestibule, with Mary hovering uneasily in the background. Then a roar burst from her thin-lipped mouth as she pointed a quavering finger at the old woman.
‘What is she doing in my house? Get her out of here at once!’
Sadly, Lucy turned to the door and reached for the latch, but John laid a restraining hand on her arm as he scowled ferociously at his wife.
‘Wait. Matilda, there is a mob outside pursuing this poor old woman. Do you want another Theophania Lawrence on your conscience?’
‘That’s none of my concern — nor is it yours!’ she spat in reply. ‘I’ll not have that foul witch in my house. Canon Gilbert was right when he quoted the Old Testament. They are evil unbelievers and should be dealt with accordingly — besides which, she stinks!’ she added inconsequentially.
John’s relationship with his wife habitually swung wildly from one extreme to the other and sometimes he even had a grudging respect for her. But at that moment his feelings for her reached an all-time low as her religious prejudices seemed to have overcome any trace of compassion. He stepped forward and confronted her, almost nose to nose as she stood above him on the step into the hall.
‘You are a hard-hearted, intolerant bitch!’ he yelled at her. ‘It may have escaped your notice, but “your house”, as you call it, was paid for by me out of my booty from the second Irish war. And I fully intend to invite anyone I wish into it. Is that understood?’
Matilda shook both her clenched fists in his face, her square face red with anger, though she knew that John in this mood was not to be provoked too far.
‘Then drive the dirty old cow around to the yard, where she belongs! She’ll set foot in the hall only over my dead body!’
‘That can be arranged, too!’ yelled her husband, sliding his sword up and down in its scabbard with an ominous metallic rasp — though they both knew full well that his threat of violence was an empty gesture, as, unlike many other men, he had never so much as laid a finger on his wife.
‘Go on then, kill me, you great coward,’ she screamed, playing along with the charade that was being fuelled by their mutual anger. ‘Go on, skewer me on that sword that has murdered so many others!’
With a gesture of disgust, he slammed the hilt fully back into its sheath and turned away. ‘Don’t be so bloody foolish, woman! All I’m doing is trying to keep the King’s peace in the streets of the city — a task your brother is supposed to fulfil, but he’s always too busy filling his own purse at the expense of the county!’
Before she could start a new tirade in answer to this insult to the sheriff, he grabbed Lucy’s arm and steered her to the opening of the covered passage that ran down the side of the house to the yard behind. Mary, who had listened open mouthed to this shouting match, scuttled ahead and was in her kitchen-shed by the time the old woman had shuffled through. Brutus took one look at the visitor, then slunk away to lie behind the privy. Even the maid Lucille stuck her projecting nose and teeth out of her box under the stairs to the solar to see what was going on, but withdrew them rapidly when she saw the apparition that the master was guiding into the yard.
Mary, who knew Lucy by sight and reputation, soon took pity on the old woman when John explained what had happened in the lane. She sat her down on a stool outside the cook-shed and found her a pot of ale and a piece of bread smeared with beef dripping.
‘What are we to do with you, Lucy?’ asked the coroner. ‘I doubt that you can go home to your hut. They’ll look for you there, now that they’ve been cheated of you here.’
The cunning woman stopped munching with her toothless gums. ‘Even my talents cannot help me now,’ she mumbled. ‘I care little what happens to me, but I wanted to do something to help those two poor souls who will surely hang — as will others not yet persecuted, unless this madness stops.’ She looked up at de Wolfe with her bleary yet riveting eyes. ‘And as I have told you, sir, one of those might be very close to your own heart.’
She made him feel very uneasy with these cryptic warnings, but he still tried to reassure her. ‘It will pass, Lucy. People enjoy novelty, but they soon tire of it,’ he said, though he was not sure that he believed his own words. ‘We need to hide you in a place of safety until this storm blows over.’ He scratched his black stubble ruefully. ‘But I’m afraid it can’t be here. You saw what my good wife is like!’
Mary had been listening to this exchange and now spoke up. ‘What about the Bush? There’s plenty of room up in that loft — or better still, in one of the sheds at the back.’
This seemed the only practical solution, thought John, especially as Nesta had had dealings with Lucy before, as well as seeming to possess some of the healing talents in common with her. After the old woman had finished her food and recovered a little from her ordeal, Mary went to the front of the house and returned to report that the mistress was shut in the hall with a jug of wine and that the lane was now empty of vindictive townsfolk.
John took Lucy out into the cathedral Close and headed for Idle Lane, keeping a sharp lookout and a hand on his sword. He wished that Gwyn was here to help protect them, but his two assistants were unlikely to get back to Exeter until the evening, or perhaps the next day — when another problem concerning the sheriff’s threat to arrest Gwyn would have to be faced.