Bernard Knight - The Witch Hunter

‘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.’

‘And what of the other, the ale-wife known as Nesta?’ interjected the marshal.

‘Sir Richard had already directed a woman to me. The one with the deformed neck, who had been a victim of that tavern-keeper. She told me of the hellish practices that she suffered when she visited her for some simple remedy.’

‘And you believed her?’ snapped de Ralegh, incredulously.

‘Today, she admitted that everything was a tissue of lies, you gullible fool,’ shouted William.

John, again excluded for the moment, steered the questions back on to the original path. ‘So how was it that a rabble appeared in Idle Lane, with you virtually at their head, some carrying flaming torches?’

Some of the old defiance flowed back into Gilbert de Bosco. With an effort, he stumbled to his feet and his head rose, despite the pain in his inflamed neck. ‘Yes, I walked the streets that day and preached a crusade against them, calling on good men to help cleanse the stables of God. I sent two proctors’ men to proclaim that witches lurked in the lower town and when enough good folk had assembled we marched there, intending to seize and arrest them and put that house of shame to the torch. It was not intended that anyone should be burned alive.’

‘No, you wished to save them for your own court, so that you could hand them on to your fellow-conspirator, the sheriff and have them hanged. Dead either way, the fire or the rope!’ boomed de Ralegh, his face as hard as a Dartmoor rock.

The canon remained silent, but his face bore a sullen defiance, almost a martyred resignation that these heathen would never understand his dedication to the protection of the Holy Church.

De Wolfe waved him away in disgust and his helpers led him away to the side again, while the coroner addressed the jury. ‘You have heard the evidence and indeed a confession from this priest. There is no doubt that both on the matter of arson and of the death of Lucy of Exe Island, the cause was a riotous assembly, whipped up by Gilbert de Bosco in an insane, misplaced campaign of hate against harmless women who use their gifts in traditional practices.’ He glared along the line of jurors. ‘The verdict you must return is clear — malicious fire-setting and manslaughter, for we must accept that the immediate object was not to cause death by burning.’

He paused and looked sideways at the two justices. ‘As to who is responsible, I am in a difficult position at an inquest, which is not a trial. One of the obvious culprits is a priest, over whom I have no jurisdiction when it comes to attachment on a criminal charge — that is a matter for the bishop. Similarly, it is unique for another suspect — for he declined to admit any guilt — to be the county sheriff. I therefore defer any action on him to my seniors present here today. I have attached the woman Heloise Giffard to the next visit of the royal justices and if her sister ever shows her face, she will go the same way.’

After this long speech, he directed the jury to return the verdicts he had set out, giving them a ferocious glare that defied them to contest or even question his decision. They all hurriedly assented and the Shire Hall broke out into a hubbub of excited gossip, as the men on the platform filed out and went to the castle keep for well-deserved refreshment in the sultry heat.

The next act in that day’s drama was held not in the public eye, like the inquest, but in the privacy of the sheriff’s chamber. This time, Gabriel and two soldiers guarded the door and others formed a line some yards away, to keep those using the hall well out of eavesdropping range. Inside the large room that was the sheriff’s office were assembled those who were to decide his future. The Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Striguil, sat behind de Revelle’s table with Sir Walter de Ralegh. At one end was one of the clerks who had come with the Marshal, ready with his pen, ink and parchments to record the deliberations.

An empty chair stood on the other side of the trestle, facing the august pair. At the back of the room, against the shuttered window-slits, sat Constable Morin, John de Wolfe and a large, elderly, florid man with a flowing white moustache. This was Henry de Furnellis, who had occupied this room as sheriff for a short time two years earlier. He had bristly white hair and bags under his pale eyes big enough to accommodate hen’s eggs.

‘Get him in here,’ ordered William Marshal and the constable went to an inner door that led to the sheriff’s private quarters, a pair of rooms behind his office. He knocked, went in and returned with Richard de Revelle, followed by Roscelin de Sucote. They were dressed as they had been in the Shire Hall, but de Revelle’s colour was different, in that he had rosy patches on his narrow cheeks and he seemed slightly unsteady on his feet, evidence of the brandy-wine that he had been drinking in the back room. He dropped heavily into the chair set for him, with his acolyte near by.

‘Get on with this charade, then!’ he said thickly. ‘I still deny the right you have to invade my privacy and subject me to this discourtesy. Prince John will hear of this, as soon as a messenger can reach Normandy.’