Bernard Knight - The Witch Hunter

Now trickier matters had to be settled. The first hitch was when the coroner enquired of his officer why Canon Gilbert de Bosco was not visible in court, as he had been requested to attend the inquest on Lucy. In answer, a young priest approached the dais and looked up nervously at John de Wolfe.

‘I am Peter de Bologne, vicar to Canon Gilbert de Bosco, sir. He has instructed me to tell you that he is not well enough to carry out your summons to attend this court — but also that, even if he had been in good health, he would have refused to come, as you have no jurisdiction over a member of the cathedral chapter.’

He stood back warily, as if afraid the messenger might be punished for bringing unwelcome news. John, with a face like thunder, pondered this for a moment. He did not know whether Gilbert’s impertinent claim was true or not, as he had never before needed to summon a senior cleric to an inquest. He turned to de Alençon, who sat near by. ‘John, what do you say to this?’

The wiry archdeacon shook his head. ‘The Church lawyers have not yet caught up with this new office of coroner. You must admit, the Article of Eyre that promulgated it last year was more than a little short on detail. It ran only to one clause, you know!’

‘But can this bloody man just thumb his nose at the King’s courts like this?’

‘He cannot be tried by any of them, that’s for sure, being able to claim benefit of clergy. Whether or not that extends to inquests, where no one is actually being tried, I suspect no one yet knows. Perhaps this is the first test case?’

John made his rasping throaty noise, which he did when he could think of nothing civil to say, but the archdeacon carried on.

‘In any case, the man is ill, there’s no doubt of that! The whole town knows that he was struck by a minor seizure when he stood to preach yesterday. What with that and his carbuncle, everyone is whispering about the hag’s curse!’

John sighed and had to accept the inevitable, which was to adjourn the inquest on Bearded Lucy, whom he referred to as ‘Lucy of Exe Island’, remembering then that the town constables had reported that after the fire at the Bush, part of the mob had gone down to the marsh where she had lived and tipped her pathetic dwelling into the river, where it broke up and floated downstream to the sea.

It was not only Gilbert’s absence which decided him to wait until another day, but also the failure of the sheriff to turn up. He wanted him present when he interrogated Heloise and her immoral sister, to establish that Richard de Revelle had had a hand in the attack on the Bush.

All that was left was the much-delayed inquest on Robert de Pridias, for which Cecilia had been pressing since his death. Her own narrow shave with a murder charge made her less triumphant than would otherwise have been the case, but she still managed a smirk of satisfaction when she heard the coroner call the matter before the court. He used the same jury as for the last cases, as it was impractical to get a score or even a dozen men in from Alphington at that time on a Monday morning, but Gwyn had got Gabriel to send a couple of soldiers to fetch in the two men who saw Robert drop from his horse and the ale-wife who announced that he was dead.

They gave their simple testimony, then John called Richard Lustcote, the master apothecary.

‘This blackening of the gums, especially around foul teeth — what can that signify?’ he asked him.

The benign seller of pills and potions beamed at him, as if this were some kind of riddle.

‘Almost certainly plumbism — which means lead poisoning, Crowner.’

‘And could that occur in any natural way?’

Lustcote shook his head. ‘Impossible! The poison would have to be given in repeated amounts over a period. Something like sugar of lead, also called Plumbum acetas .’

‘Could this be given in food? Is it tasteless?’

‘It has no particularly obnoxious taste, but in any case, if supposed medicaments were being administered, it could either be added or even totally substituted.’

‘And could it cause sudden death, as in this man who tumbled from his horse?’

The apothecary looked dubious. ‘It would be unusual, though I hesitate to say impossible, never having killed anyone with lead myself!’

He thought for a moment. ‘But of course, if a man already had some disorder of his humours or a weakness of his heart, then I suspect that plumbism might finish him off.’

With that John had to be content, and he shied away from any suggestion that necromancy may also have contributed, much to Cecilia’s disappointment. Still, she was satisfied that she had had her inquest after all, and vindicated when the coroner brought in a verdict of murder by the hand of Walter Winstone, at the instigation of Henry de Hocforde — both of whom were beyond earthly justice, whatever awaited them in the valley of death.

The rest of the week following his inquests seemed interminable to John de Wolfe. The weather remained hot and sultry and on Wednesday there was a brief thunderstorm, with torrential rain for an hour, then the heatwave returned. He had a few new cases, including a man who was caught in the cogs of a watermill when he was oiling them. The mill-master fled and sought sanctuary, because he thought he would be held responsible for the death. He later abjured the realm, but when the case came much later to the justices, they absolved him and the King’s pardon had to be sought to allow him to return home from Scotland.

Apart from this the week was quiet and every morning John looked anxiously for any signs of a messenger from Winchester. Even though Hugh de Relaga had claimed that his courier was faster than any other, it was well over a hundred miles to the city, which shared capital status with London. Even an almost immediate turn-round there — an impossibility, as John was well aware of the bureaucracy that reigned in such places — would still require a full week for the return journey.

By Thursday his patience was wearing thin, especially as Richard de Revelle had not shown up at Rougemont. He half hoped that news would come from Revelstoke that the sheriff had taken the honourable way out and fallen upon his own sword to escape the shame of being disgraced and dishonoured. This had happened two years earlier, when Henry de la Pomeroy, Lord of Berry Pomeroy near Totnes, had fled from Richard the Lionheart’s retribution for supporting Prince John. He had gone to St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall on hearing that the King had been released from captivity in Germany. The constable of the Mount had dropped dead of a heart attack on hearing the famous message ‘Beware, the Devil is loose!’ and de la Pomeroy had made his surgeon open the veins in his wrists so that he bled to death.

But de Wolfe knew that his brother-in-law would never take that way out — he must be waiting for some news or other, possibly for messages to go to the Prince or others among his supporters, to gather ammunition to fight back against any censure from the royal council.

Unable to sit idle any longer, after dinner John left the morose Matilda and walked through the clammy afternoon heat to Hugh de Relaga’s house in High Street. He found him in a purple silk robe, sitting in a chair in his solar, cooling himself with an oriental fan made of woven palm fronds.

‘No news from Winchester, I suppose?’ John asked. ‘When do you expect this Mercury-heeled messenger back?’

The rotund burgess wiped the perspiration from his face with a linen kerchief. ‘Expect him back? Not for another week, John. He’s riding to Rye and Dover after Southampton, with letters to other ship-masters.’