By Sunday morning de Wolfe’s patience was in shreds and he even considered sending Gwyn riding out on the high road to the east to see whether there was any sign of emissaries from Winchester. He soon realised that this was a futile gesture and turned his attention instead to Nesta, wondering if he should ride to Stoke-in-Teignhead to see if all was well there. This idea in turn was rejected, in case someone from the capital should arrive in his absence. Instead, he restlessly alternated between his chamber in Rougemont and the taproom in the Golden Hind, where he drank more ale than his bladder could cope with.
At noon, he had another silent meal with Matilda, his efforts at conversation being largely unsuccessful. He had told her about her brother’s return on Friday and the fact that he had been in Gloucester, not with his own wife at Revelstoke. He also described the lawyer-priest that Richard had brought back with him, but she seemed uninterested. John had expected her to go up to visit Richard again, but she seemed indifferent to the man who had been for so long her paragon of success and virtue. After the meal, she took herself off to the solar and, feeling that he had done all he could for her in this time of her despair, he whistled for Brutus and went down to Idle Lane to inspect the work that he was paying for. During the past week, Adam had organised more men and now the site was virtually clear of debris. Edwin, the potman, had recovered from his ordeal and, though he was coughing like an old horse, he was comfortably housed in the brew-shed, acting as watchman over the building works. The two serving maids had gone home to stay with their families in nearby streets, with the promise that they would be re-employed as soon as the inn was back in business.
John walked around the remains of the tavern and saw that the masonry of the front and back walls and the high gables on either side was now intact. Where stones had been pulled down by the fall of the rafters and roof beams, Adam had employed masons to mortar new blocks into place. The stumps of the logs that had held up the floor of the loft had been removed and the holes cleaned out, ready to receive new timbers. John was eager to see these first beams brought up by teams of oxen from Holcombe, as they would surely bring news of Nesta, probably in a note penned by his literate sister Evelyn, which Thomas could translate for him.
On the way back, he called in at Canons’ Row to see John de Alençon, mainly to ask him whether he knew anything about this Roscelin de Sucote, the priest that Richard had brought from Gloucester.
‘I have heard of him by name, no more,’ replied the archdeacon. ‘He is part of Prince John’s entourage and spends more time in Mortain than England. He is an ordained priest, but seems to play no part in religious affairs. He is an aspiring politician and presumably is looking ahead to high office under John, when, God forbid, he takes over the throne from his brother.’
‘In that, he has much in common with de Revelle,’ said de Wolfe, cynically. ‘But what’s he doing here? Can he really get Richard off the hook, merely because he is a creature of the Prince?’
De Alençon shrugged over the wine that he had as usual produced for them both. ‘A desperate situation calls for desperate remedies, I suppose! I know that this Roscelin went with the sheriff for an audience with the bishop yesterday. No one knows what was said there, but I get the impression that Henry Marshal is not too keen to openly associate himself with potential rebels these days — just as he has distanced himself from the witch-hunting campaign.’
‘Our bishop was never one to be seen backing the losing side,’ observed John, sarcastically. ‘What’s happened to that bloody fellow-canon of yours, Gilbert de Bosco?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘Lying low, as far as we can tell. It seems that he has been afflicted by all manner of ailments, which most folk — including himself — put down to the witch’s curse!’
‘What’s wrong with him now? I heard he had some sort of seizure.’
‘That seems to have righted itself almost completely, so my steward tells me, as Gilbert refuses any visitors. But he still has a stinking mass of corruption on his neck — and now he has a red rash over all his chest and belly, which the infirmarian tells me is probably some sympathetic reaction to the purulence of his carbuncle.’
De Wolfe could not restrain a lopsided grin, even though his Christian duty was to feel sorry for the canon’s afflictions. The man had obstinately encouraged a period of hysterical madness in the city, which had led to a number of deaths, and John found it hard to forgive him.
‘So Bearded Lucy did have some powerful magic, after all! She was not a woman to be crossed — alive or dead!’
This earned him a disapproving look from his old friend, whose Christian concepts of the after-life did not include dispensing seizures and carbuncles. ‘I despair of you, John,’ he said with mock severity. ‘You are still a heathen at heart!’
With another grin, de Wolfe sank the last of his wine and left for the castle. Here he found his two servants in their usual postures, Thomas scribing at the table and Gwyn perched in the window embrasure, staring idly down into the outer ward.
Silence reigned for a time, as the coroner tried to concentrate on a piece of parchment that Thomas slid in front of him, a revision of some simple Latin sentences. His heart was not in it, however, and he kept churning over the various problems he had, especially the failure of anyone to show up in answer to his message.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his inattentive eye, he saw Gwyn stiffen and lean forward as if to get a better view from his window-slit. ‘Who the hell’s this?’ growled the Cornishman. ‘I know that fellow, I’m sure I do! And the other one, of course!’
John rose but, before he could get to the other window, Gwyn gave a shout. ‘By Christ, it’s the Marshal himself! Riding alongside Walter de Ralegh.’
With an excited Thomas trying to peep under his arm, the coroner’s officer kept up a running commentary on the men now riding slowly up Castle Hill to the drawbridge below. ‘William, the Marshal of England, by damn! I thought these days he was always with the King in France.’
By this time De Wolfe was also looking down and could confirm Gwyn’s words. Two tall erect men, with light surcoats over their tunics, rode finely caparisoned horses up the slope, followed by a pair of esquires and six mounted soldiers. The latter wore round iron helmets, but none of the party wore mailed hauberks or aventails, which would have been intolerable in this hot weather. The surcoats of the men in front bore armorial devices, which were repeated on pennants attached to the lances carried by the two leading men-at-arms.
De Wolfe almost leapt to the doorway and clattered down the steps at a speed that risked his neck on the steep, twisting stairway.
At the bottom, he was just in time to meet the riders as they came under the gatehouse arch, where Sergeant Gabriel, almost speechless at this sudden visitation, was sending his guards to fetch ostlers and take a message to summon Ralph Morin.
John saluted the two men, both of whom he knew well. They hauled themselves wearily from their horses and greeted him with a grasp of the forearm.
‘I’d kill for a jug of ale, John,’ were the first words of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Striguil and the most powerful soldier in England and Normandy. The other man was Sir Walter de Ralegh, a Devon man who was now one of the King’s judges and who had led the last Eyre of Assize in Exeter only a couple of months previously.
‘Come across to the hall, you can take your ease there,’ said John, still reeling from the seniority of the men who had come in response to his plea.
‘Is that bloody man de Revelle there?’ barked de Ralegh, an elderly man whose face seemed carved from granite.
Before he could answer, pounding feet brought the castle constable across the bailey. Ralph Morin was as dumbfounded as John by the exalted visitors who had just arrived. He also knew both men, as in the past they had all served in the same campaigns.