‘Did she offer a cure? And I want the truth, woman, not a litany of lies about devils and goblins, or it will be even worse for you!’
The twisted wife peered furtively to left and right, but whoever she was seeking had made themselves scarce. ‘She said she could do nothing about my neck, sir. But she gave me a salve for my skin.’
‘Did she demand money from you for this simple service?’ snapped John. Heloise hesitated, then shook her head, a strange movement given the angle of her neck. ‘No, sir!’ she whispered.
‘And did anything untoward happen when that good lady did her best to help you, without so much as a ha’penny fee?’
Again the woman wagged her head. ‘No, Crowner, nothing.’
De Wolfe’s voice rose into a roar. ‘Then how was it you told Canon Gilbert that when you visited the tavern, that the woman conjured up black mist out of which came a hellish devil with fire coming from its mouth — and that she and this apparition performed lewd and obscene acts upon you? Answer me, you wretch!’
Heloise fell to her knees, her hands clenched before her in supplication. ‘It was my sister, Esther, sir,’ she wailed. ‘She persuaded me and gave me good silver coin to do what I did. It was her fault, sir, not mine. I only did what I was bid — and I am a poor woman, deformed in body.’
‘This sister of yours, Esther. Is she in this court today?’ John thundered.
‘No sir, she left the city last week, in fear of what might become of her after what happened. I don’t know where she is. I think she may have gone to Plymouth to follow the sailors.’
‘Your sister is a whore, is she not?’
Heloise seemed to shrink, like a hedgehog when threatened. ‘She is, sir, God forgive her.’
‘I doubt that, woman — and he will have to stretch his compassion to forgive you, too. Tell me, this harlot sister of yours, did she have regular clients in this city?’
Again, Heloise’s eyes squinted furtively along the front rows of the hall. ‘I don’t know that, Crowner. I tried to keep clear of her immoral business.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Do you see anyone in this court who you know visited her often — or who she visited for carnal knowledge?’
Here Roscelin de Sucote made his first mistake. He stepped forward a pace from the sheriff’s side to address the three men seated in the centre of the dais. ‘As a lawyer, I must object! The woman has said she doesn’t know, so why badger her further? It is not relevant.’
William Marshal leaned forward in his chair. ‘If it’s not relevant, why did you intervene, eh? What possible interest can you have in who might be the customer of a whore?’
The Gloucester cleric flushed and stepped back, getting a venomous look from the sheriff, whose troubles were only just beginning. The coroner dismissed Heloise after attaching her in the sum of four marks to attend the next visitation of the royal justices, then he called Richard de Revelle.
Again de Sucote intervened, to protest that a sheriff could not be forced to testify in a lower court in his own county, as he himself was the principal law officer. This time, Walter de Ralegh cut him down to size. ‘You talk arrant nonsense, young man! This is the coroner’s court, an office set up only last year by the King, to conduct the King’s business. Have you taken no notice of his title, eh? Custos placitorum corona, “keeper of the pleas of the crown”!’
On the other side of the upstaged coroner, the Marshal of England spoke again. ‘Your interference is doing more harm than good, sir! I would advise you to keep your mouth shut, before you do more damage.’
The said mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish, but Roscelin obviously thought better of antagonising two members of the Curia Regis any further, and stepped back.
‘De Revelle, come before us!’ grated the Earl Marshal, crooking his finger.
With reluctance showing in every slow footstep, the sheriff moved to stand below his brother-in-law. Although he stood in a deliberately nonchalant pose, throwing his gaudy cloak back over one shoulder, his small eyes looked up at John with pure poison oozing from them.
De Wolfe was deliberately correct and polite, doing his best to suppress his own contempt and loathing for the man in the cause of even-handed justice. ‘Sir Richard, were you acquainted with Esther, the sister of Heloise Giffard?’
‘Of course not, I’ve never heard of her!’ said the sheriff contemptuously. ‘Why I should know the name of an alehouse strumpet?’
There were a few cackles of laughter from the back of the court, as de Revelle’s partiality for whores was well known in the city. He turned round furiously, but the culprits had ducked down out of sight.
‘I fear we shall hear soon that your memory is failing you, if you continue to claim that she was unknown to you. I suggest that you paid this woman to get her unfortunate sister, who arouses sympathy because of her affliction, to visit the Bush inn under a pretext.’
‘Absolute nonsense — or rather, malicious lies!’ snarled de Revelle. ‘I suggest you produce this woman to speak for herself, before you make such unfounded accusations.’
John sighed. ‘I wish we could, but she has vanished — most conveniently, it seems. Now, Sir Richard, you were at the scene of the fire in Idle Lane, why was that? It’s not your habit to attend criminal events.’
‘I was riding in the city and heard the commotion and naturally went to investigate,’ he said loftily.
‘It would be the first time you’ve ever investigated anything,’ observed John, cynically. ‘Where were you riding that you could hear what was going on in Idle Lane? It’s not a part of the city that a busy sheriff normally frequents.’
‘Were you expecting something to happen there?’ cut in de Ralegh.
‘Of course not — I tell you, I was riding down the high street and heard this rumpus.’
‘He must have had bloody good hearing!’ muttered Gwyn to Gabriel, at the side of the platform.
The sheriff stonewalled all further questions with flat denials and, however unconvincing he sounded, there was nothing further to be obtained from him. When the coroner curtly dismissed him, Richard stared haughtily at the three men above him. ‘If you have no further need of my help, I will return to my chamber and get on with the more pressing business of administering this county!’ He turned and, head held high, strode towards the doorway.
‘Don’t go too far, Sheriff,’ called William Marshal after him. ‘We have much more to say to you later.’
Ignoring this, de Revelle stalked out, Roscelin de Sucote falling in behind him as the men-at-arms cleared a path for them through the gawping crowd.
The last witness was Gilbert de Bosco, now a different man to the arrogant, blustering fellow of a couple of weeks earlier. He looked ill, he was hunched and his face had an unhealthy fullness about it that was worsened by the rash around his jaws and the bulky dressing around his neck.
De Wolfe motioned to his vicar and steward to help him from his stool and settle him back upon it below the centre of the dais. Having salved his conscience by deferring to a sick man, he then treated him as any other witness. ‘Canon, did you instigate, foment or encourage the attack upon the Bush inn by that mob?’
De Bosco raised his head slowly and painfully to the coroner. ‘I did my duty as a Christian and a priest, in that I sought out necromancy, witchcraft and those consorting with the Devil.’
‘That’s not an answer to the question the coroner put to you,’ snapped Walter de Ralegh. ‘Did you stir up a riotous assembly?’
‘I received information that two daughters of Satan were hiding in that den of iniquity and acted accordingly.’
‘What d’you mean “hiding”?’ barked William Marshal. ‘One of them was the landlady, she owned the bloody place!’
‘And from where did you receive this information, as you put it?’ asked the coroner.
The priest looked uneasily across the front of the hall. Seemingly reassured by the absence of Richard de Revelle, he replied. ‘I had a message from the sheriff, through one of his clerks, that the old witch from the mud flats beyond the West Gate was being sheltered there. It became well known that she was a disciple of the ungodly, probably their leader in these parts.’