Bernard Knight - Figure of Hate

Without him, they are all fighting like cats' in a barn.'

'His widow seems a tough old bird as well,' observed Gwyn.

John felt this was a poor description of a handsome woman in her prime, but he agreed that she had a formidable personality.

Thomas tapped the side of his long, thin nose. 'It seems she has a suspicion that her husband's death was not altogether accidental,' said the clerk, in a dramatic whisper.

'How could it not be?' objected Nesta. 'I recall the chatter about it in here at the time. He fell from his horse in full view of hundreds of people.'

'I hope that the priest wasn't breaking the confessional when he told me…' Thomas stopped to cross himself. 'But he claimed that Avelina has several times accused Hugo of somehow contriving the death, so that he could inherit the manor.'

'That seems nothing but a widow's bitterness to me,' said Nesta stubbornly. 'First, how could he do it — and why was it not detected by those at the tourney who went to William's aid? Also, it was this Odo, the eldest son, who was to be the heir, not Hugo.'

'Did you discover any more details concerning why Odo lost the inheritance?' demanded de Wolfe.

'It was solely on the grounds that he has this falling sickness. Patrick said that he has had this affliction since he was a youth. It isn't getting any worse, but Hugo seized upon it as an excuse to have him disinherited.'

'What happens in this condition?' asked Nesta. 'Does it occur often?'

Thomas lifted his humped shoulder in a shrug, 'I didn't go into that, but the priest said it can come on at any time, especially if Odo gets excited or harassed. Usually he just falls senseless to the ground, but sometimes he has a slight fit, with spasms of his limbs.'

'Did any other scandal drip from this fat Irishman's lips?' asked Gwyn sarcastically.

'Only about Hugo's wife — or rather widow now.'

'Beatrice? She was certainly making cow's eyes at young Joel,' grunted John.

Nesta's interest was raised another notch, as any romance intrigued her greatly. 'Was she unfaithful to her husband with his brother?' she asked eagerly.

Again the clerk twitched his shoulders.

'Father Patrick didn't say so in as many words, but he was the confessor to the whole family and must have known the truth, which he conveyed with nudges and winks. She had no love for her husband, that was obvious.'

'It must have been shaming for her, to see him so brazenly seducing the village girls,' pouted Nesta, championing a woman she had never seen.

'Enough to stick a knife between his ribs seven times?' queried Gwyn.

'A woman scorned is as dangerous as a squadron of mounted knights!' exclaimed John, feelingly though he did not explain how he came to know such a thing.

'She couldn't have done it,' objected Thomas. 'She went to bed while Hugo was still alive and her maid slept outside her door all night.'

'Pah! A maid is ever loyal to her mistress, especially if some silver changes hands,' said de Wolfe. 'That means nothing, but I don't see how she could pass back through the hall to get outside.'

'No need for that, Crowner,' said Gwyn. 'Yesterday I had a good scout around the buildings and found a little postern door at the back that the servants use to bring food in from the kitchens. It not only opens into the hall behind those screens, but also leads to a passage where there is another stairway in the thickness of the wall, leading up to the chambers above.'

'So any of the family could have gone outside without those left in the hall seeing them,' muttered John, half to himself. He turned back to his clerk. 'Did you gather if this affair between Joel and Beatrice is at all serious, or just a young stallion wanting to ride a pretty mare?'

'I just don't know that, master. There was a limit to what I could squeeze out of the priest, half drunk though he was.'

The coroner finished his ale and Nesta waved at one of the maids to fetch a large jug across. When their pots were refilled, he turned to Gwyn.

'What about you? Did you get any tongues to wag in that dismal tavern?'

The big Cornishman pulled at the ends of his moustache before replying.

'A surly lot, but eventually we got talking, with the help of those pennies you gave me to lubricate their tongues. Seems the whole damned village hated the Peverels, especially Hugo. Not many tears shed at his passing, that's for sure.'

'What's the problem, then? They can't all have daughters for him to seduce.'

'He was a harsh man in every way, so it seems. His father was a tough fellow, but they preferred him to his son.' Gwyn dipped his face back into his ale-jar to gain strength for his narrative. 'He drove the bondsmen too hard and was unreasonable when there was any problem. Hugo imposed crushing penalties at his manor court and he was over-fond of hanging people, which caused much discontent.'

'There are many manors where that applies,' observed John. 'Were there any who had a special grudge against him, enough to want him dead?' Gwyn nodded, his tangled red curls bobbing around his large head.

'The reeve for one, according to the village harnessmaker. It seems that his daughter was married a month ago and Hugo insisted on spending the first part of the wedding night with her, claiming droit de seigneur!'

An outraged Nesta clucked her tongue and Thomas almost hopped up and down on his stool in indignation.

'Droit de seigneur!' he squeaked. 'There's no such thing in law, it's just an immoral folk tale cynically conjured up by unscrupulous barons and manor-lords!' John knew that, although the feudal system allowed a lord to impose the 'merchet', a monetary charge, on any of his subjects for allowing a daughter to be wedded, the alleged right to sleep with the bride on the first night had no legal justification. Yet there was no doubt that some lords indulged in it, because there was no one to challenge them in the tyrannical system of closed manorial communities.

'Not only did the reeve, this Warin Fishacre, swear that he would avenge his daughter's degradation,' continued Gwyn, 'but the bridegroom, who almost abandoned the marriage after Hugo stole his bride's virginity, put it about the village that he would also get even with his master.'

Thomas was still outraged at the idea that droit de seigneur continued to be thought of by some as a legitimate perquisite of the gentry.

'It is a total fiction, invented by some whose purpose it suits,' he squawked indignantly. 'They claim it to be an ancient tradition, under its other name, the jus prima noctis, the "right of the first night".'

Gwyn reached out and ruffled the lank hair of the little clerk.

'Calm down, dwarf! It just means that Sampfbrd is conveniently living in the past.'

'So we have at least another two candidates for wishing the death of this figure of hate,' ruminated the coroner. 'Did you dig up any other scandal in that miserable alehouse, Gwyn?'

'It was hard to find anyone who didn't hate the bastard,' growled the Gornishman. 'This gossipy harness-maker told me that another bondsman who was rubbing his hands in delight that day was the village thatcher. It seems that soon after Hugo came into the lordship, he had the thatcher's youngest son hanged for poaching an injured stag that he came across in the forest when he was cutting thatching pegs. The father and his two other sons were said to be waiting for a chance to settle that score with Hugo Peverel, though it may have been all bluster.'

Nesta leaned across and took a mouthful of ale from John's mug.

'You seem to have a wide choice of suspects for your murder, Sir Crowner. Is there anyone in Sampford Peverel who didn't wish to see this hateful fellow dead?' John gave her a squeeze. 'There's another, not resident in that unhappy manor, who declared in my presence that he would kill Hugo when he next met him!'