Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics

‘It would have been a perfect occasion tonight but for your constant ogling of that poor lady!’ she snapped. ‘Cecilia is too refined and genteel to have men like you lusting after her.’

As she turned away from him to lumber off towards the solar and her bed, John felt his fingers aching to settle around her fleshy neck, to release him for ever from her mean-spirited nature.

Soon after a grey November dawn, when the cathedral bells were ringing for Prime, the coroner made another call upon the sheriff and brought him up to date with the events surrounding the bizarre killing of Nicholas Budd. Then he went across to his chamber in the gatehouse, where he found Gwyn and Thomas huddled over the brazier. The wind had dropped outside, and it was marginally warmer but still miserable.

‘A lot to do today,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘We’ve got the Shire Court first, though that should be disposed of quickly. Then there are hangings to attend out on Magdalen Street as well as this murder to pursue.’ As he stood rubbing his hands above the charcoal glowing in the iron bucket, he sensed that Thomas was itching to say something.

‘I went down yesterday to attend the burial of those poor souls in Bretayne,’ said the clerk with a return of the slight stutter which afflicted him when he was excited. ‘I saw something curious.’

John frowned at him. ‘You’re a devil for danger, Thomas!’ he said sternly. ‘First at Lympstone, now here in Exeter. I would be very sad if you took in whatever noxious vapour causes this plague.’

‘And I’d be sorrier still if you brought it back to us!’ grumbled Gwyn, thinking of his family.

The little priest shook his head stubbornly. ‘God will protect me. I was afraid that those people might have been buried without so much as a prayer, let alone a proper shriving.’

‘And were they?’ demanded de Wolfe.

Thomas looked a little abashed. ‘No, as it happens. The old priest from St Bartholomew’s was there, God bless his soul. He was sober enough to say a few words as they threw the bodies into the pit.’

‘So what was this that aroused your curiosity?’ asked John.

The clerk ran a finger over the tip of his sharp nose to remove a dewdrop. ‘For some reason, maybe shortage of cloth in that poverty-ridden place, the bodies were not fully covered. Their heads were sticking out from the rags that passed for shrouds.’

De Wolfe sighed, for Thomas was catching Gwyn’s habit of spinning out every tale.

‘I noticed that four out of the five were as yellow as French lemons, as was to be expected. But the oldest man was still lily-white.’

The coroner and his officer digested this for a moment.

‘And you think that has some meaning?’ asked Gwyn.

‘Well, if this was a plague pit for those who perished from the yellow curse, why wasn’t he yellow?’ said Thomas defensively.

‘Are you suggesting that he might have died from something else?’ said John.

The clerk shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘It bears thinking about! It would be a good way to get rid of a murdered corpse, putting it in with plague victims, now that they are no longer coroner’s business.’

Crafty Thomas knew that this would pique his master, who was jealous of his duty to investigate all suspicious deaths.

‘Well, it’s too late to look into it now,’ boomed Gwyn. ‘He’s six feet under a layer of quicklime and soil by now.’

‘We could get him dug up again,’ retorted de Wolfe.

‘I doubt any labourer would risk shovelling out a plague pit, even for extra wages,’ said Gwyn. ‘Especially on such flimsy evidence as the colour of his face.’

John had to agree, but he was reluctant to let the issue drop. ‘We must enquire about how he died, but first find out who he was.’

‘I already know that, Crowner. I made enquiries on the spot. He was Vincente d’Estcote, from down near the town wall, opposite the Snail Tower. A fellow of fifty-five, an impoverished porter who carried mainly for the fulling mills on Exe Island. He lodged with the family that died and was found dead in the house with them. No one cared about the circumstances; they were too concerned to get them out and buried before the contagion spread.’

Once again, de Wolfe marvelled at the resourcefulness of his clerk, who was worth far more than the three pence a day he was paid for his work.

‘This dreadful killing in Raden Lane must be our first priority, but later we must find out more about the death of this fellow,’ he commanded.

After attending the single case of declaring outlawry held in the Shire Hall, a bleak barn-like building in the inner ward of the castle, they walked down Castle Hill and across to St John’s Priory, tucked away just inside the city wall, which had been built by the Romans, neglected by the Saxons and restored by the Normans.

It was a small Benedictine house, with just a prior and three brothers, devoted to caring for the sick and in schooling a few local children. The only ward was a large room with a row of straw mattresses on the floor down each side, dominated by a large wooden crucifix on the end wall, confirming Clement of Salisbury’s claim that God was the only real healer of bodies and souls.

They found Brother Saulf there, a tall, gaunt monk who acted as hospitaller. He had had some medical training in Flanders before entering the cloister and had been very helpful to the coroner on several occasions. Saulf led them around to the back of the tiny priory, where a small shed stood in the shadow of the ancient city wall. Functioning as a store for stretchers and old furniture as well as a mortuary, it now sheltered the corpse of Nicholas Budd, which lay on the ground covered with a sheet. Gwyn pulled it back and they looked down at a face now cleaned of all the blood and clot that had obscured it the previous day. His open eyes stared up glassily and his lips were distorted by the havoc that a knife had wreaked inside his mouth. Grey hair and stubble marked him as being probably in his fifties.

The monk bent down and picked up something wrapped in a rag from alongside the cadaver. ‘This is his tongue and throat parts,’ he said, unrolling the bloodstained cloth. ‘It should be buried with the body, for decency’s sake.’

Gwyn poked at it with a finger, while Thomas contrived to look elsewhere. ‘Must have been a damned sharp knife, Crowner,’ he observed. ‘Clean cuts, very little ragged edges.’

‘I try to heal bodies, rather than disordered minds,’ said Saulf gravely. ‘But I would have thought that whoever did this was making retribution for something that this poor man had said.’

De Wolfe stared thoughtfully at the Benedictine. ‘You suggest that cutting out the tongue and voice-box, the organs of speech, might mean that the victim had caused offence?’

‘Must have been a bit more serious than just telling him to bugger off!’ offered Gwyn facetiously.

They examined the body carefully, but apart from the wound on the head there was nothing else of significance. The scrip on his belt contained four pence and a tarnished medallion of St Christopher. The fingers were slightly callused and had some small healing cuts, consistent with his work as a woodcarver. The monk pulled the sheet back over the body when they had finished. ‘What happens now?’ he asked. ‘Did he have any relatives that will attend to his burial?’

De Wolfe straightened his back and moved away from the corpse. ‘We will have to make enquiries at his home, then I will have to hold an inquest. I will let you know about disposing of the body as soon as I can.’ He offered a dozen pennies to Saulf, which the monk gratefully received as a donation to the funds of the hard-pressed hospital, then left with his two assistants. They made their way down to Curre Street, which was one of the small lanes that led from the High Street towards the North Gate. It was lined with a mixture of houses and tenements, varying in size and shape, some with shopfronts and others being the work premises of various crafts. They found Osric outside a cordwainer’s shop, talking to the owner.