Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics

‘Like fitz Rogo, Robert de Baggetor was formerly another archdeacon, this time of Barnstaple. He is a severe man, immovable in his old-fashioned attitudes. I have heard him preach thunderously about those who voice the slightest criticism of the established Church. He is a reactionary in the strongest sense of the word.’

‘And the other one?’ prompted de Wolfe.

‘Ralph de Hospitali? A little younger than the other two, but equally zealous. He is a thin, active man, never still and always wanting to impress upon his juniors the perils of straying outside the strict rituals and formalities laid down by Rome. He is especially insistent that the Vulgate should never be made available in the vernacular, in case common people should read it and not require the interpretation of we priests.’

Thomas sounded bitter about this particular canon, and John suspected that his clerk had suffered a tongue-lashing from him at some time.

They parted at the end of Idle Lane, as John wished to call at the Bush to down a quart or two of his officer’s new ale, to see if he had mastered Nesta’s recipe. It was still an hour or two until dusk, and Thomas announced that after a prayer and a bite to eat in his lodgings he would walk down to St Bartholomew’s to see if there was any more news of the latest plague victims.

‘When I told you that one man was not yellowed, you said we must enquire further,’ he said with a frown. ‘Something worries me over that, but I can’t put my finger on it.’

‘You be careful, Thomas,’ admonished the coroner. ‘That part of town is unhealthy, and we don’t know how contagious this curse might be.’

His little clerk limped away, the cold weather making his spinal problem worse. John turned off down the lane to the tavern and sank thankfully on to his bench by the fire, where a pile of oak logs was warming the low taproom. The inn was quieter than usual, and John guessed that some of the regular patrons had stayed at home, fearful of possible contagion in crowded places. Edwin came up with a pottery mug of ale and waited until John had passed a favourable comment on Gwyn’s efforts.

‘Edwin, they tell me that you have become very religious these days,’ ventured the coroner. ‘What do you know of any people preaching heresy in the city nowadays?’

The old man leaned with his fists on the table, his one good eye fixed intently on de Wolfe. ‘It’s a scandal, sir, a real scandal that such folk should be allowed to walk the earth!’

He sounded almost viciously indignant, unlike the easy-going, hard-drinking old soldier that John knew previously.

‘Blasphemers like those should be hanged — or, better still, burned at the stake, to get them used to the everlasting fires of hell that they are bound to suffer eventually!’

De Wolfe could almost smell the brimstone coming from the potman’s nostrils and thought he might learn something useful here.

‘Who are these people you speak of, Edwin?’

The potman tapped the side of his prominent nose. ‘I know that fellow that was killed was one of them,’ he said, again confirming the efficiency of Exeter’s gossip-mill. ‘I heard him spouting his evil nonsense once, down in the Plough Inn in North Gate Street. There were several of them in there, gabbing about free will and the right of every man to choose his own salvation. Fair makes me sick now, though then I had not seen the light of God’s will and knew no better.’

‘Do you know of any more like him in the city?’

‘I used to hear others, but I never knew their names, back in the days when I was too ignorant to care. If I spotted any now, I’d be straight around to the proctors to denounce them!’

He banged an empty pot angrily on the table, and John marvelled at the change that the prospect of hellfire had on the elderly when they felt that they were soon to come face to face with the Almighty.

‘What about in the countryside — are these heretics confined to the towns?’ he asked.

Edwin scowled, his dead eye wandering horribly out of line with the good one. ‘The bastards are everywhere these days, Sir John! My sisters live out in a village and even there they tell me that some men and even a woman or two refuse to attend the church. They have heard that they meet secretly in a barn, but I don’t know if that’s true.’

John was willing to clutch at any straw that might further his investigation and asked Edwin where his sisters lived.

‘In Ide, Crowner, just a couple of miles outside the city. It’s a scandal that their parish priest doesn’t do something about it, but he’s a drunken sot who can hardly read.’

Just then, Martha bustled in through the back door and Edwin limped away, trying to look busy.

‘What nonsense has that old fool been stuffing you with, Sir John?’ she asked, but with a smile on her face. ‘Since he’s taken up religion, that’s all he talks about. He’ll end up as a bishop before he’s seventy.’

‘They say that only fools and children speak the truth, Martha. I pick up useful information in some of the most unlikely places.’ He turned down her usual offer of food, pleading that he must go home and eat whatever Mary had prepared that night, though Gwyn’s buxom wife was also an excellent cook.

‘How’s that husband of mine behaving himself, Sir John?’ she demanded. ‘I hope his new passion for brewing ale isn’t keeping him from his proper tasks.’ She was eternally grateful for de Wolfe’s generosity in given them the tenancy of the Bush, which gave them a far better home than the decrepit cottage they had rented in St Sidwell’s.

The coroner reassured her that his officer was as diligent as ever, but as they were going through a quiet patch in their duties, apart from this murder, Gwyn was quite welcome to spend time in his brewing-shed, especially if he produced such good ale as today’s batch.

With her thanks ringing in his ears, he left for home and another sullen session at the supper table with Matilda. As he reached his front door, he glanced at the neighbouring house, hoping to see the lissom shape of a far more attractive woman that his wife, but there was no sign of Cecilia and with a sigh he went inside to face the bane of his life.

‘I thought there was something I’d missed, Crowner,’ said Thomas next morning. They were in their usual place in the bleak tower room of the gatehouse, though thankfully the cold weather had moderated and instead there was a thin drizzle borne on a westerly wind.

John looked at his clerk from under his black brows. Gwyn, perched on his window ledge, waited expectantly.

‘That man in the plague pit, the one who wasn’t yellow,’ continued Thomas obscurely. ‘I got only a glimpse of his dead face and I failed to make the connection then, as I was intrigued by the difference between him and the other victims.’

‘What connection?’ demanded de Wolfe, convinced now that his clerk was becoming as long-winded as Gwyn.

‘I had seen him before, only the previous day. It had slipped my mind, but he was the man who was preaching heresy in the street at Carfoix.’

‘So what? Even a religious crank is allowed to catch the plague!’ grunted Gwyn, scratching at a flea bite on his thigh.

‘Two heretics found dead on the same day?’ mused de Wolfe. ‘That’s a coincidence, right enough.’

Thomas was impatient with the others for not seeing the full significance of his news. ‘Look, I saw him alive and perfectly well in the street at around midday on Tuesday. By the evening, he was dead along with those other poor people. Even this serious plague doesn’t kill you within such a few hours. I saw the corpse next morning and he wasn’t yellow then, so he can’t have died of the distemper.’