Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics

‘Not very likeable, that fellow,’ grunted de Wolfe. ‘Is he always like that?’

‘He has a reputation for being strict in all matters concerning the observance of cathedral rules and customs,’ answered Thomas. ‘He is a pillar of the chapter, but it is hard to warm towards him.’

‘What about this remaining canon, Robert de Baggetor? What’s he like? I’ve only seen him in the distance, when my wife drags me to the cathedral.’

‘Another former archdeacon, this time of Barnstaple. He is older, probably in his sixtieth year. Another proud and somewhat arrogant man, may God forgive me for so saying.’ He crossed himself rapidly as a precaution against being struck by a thunderbolt for his disparagement of a senior churchman.

‘So where do we find him, Thomas?’

‘He lives further along from fitz Rogo on the north side. He is one of the two cathedral proctors who have houses reserved for their use. The other one is William de Swindon.’

‘I gather the proctors are responsible for order and discipline within the cathedral community,’ said John. ‘Is that all they do?’ His knowledge of ecclesiastical politics and administration was hazy.

‘They are, but much of their function is to deal with legal and ceremonial matters for the chapter and the bishop. They don’t soil their own hands with mere physical matters like riot or affray. For that, they employ proctors’ bailiffs, who are the cathedral’s equivalent of our Osric and Theobald in the city.’

Just then a bell began tolling in the cathedral and several groups of vicars, secondaries and one or two canons appeared from various houses and began converging on the various entrances to the great church of St Mary and St Peter.

‘You’ll not see him now, master,’ said Thomas, pointing to one group as they trod sedately across the Close. ‘He’s there, off to celebrate Terce, Sext and Nones.’ These were the mid-morning offices of the daily devotions.

‘We’d best catch him when he comes back for his dinner at noon,’ added the clerk. ‘I should be there myself, if you don’t need me at the moment.’

John waved him away, and Thomas followed the rest of the celebrants into the cathedral. These incessant services were not meant for the benefit of the public except on feast days, as the common folk were served by a plethora of parish churches in the city. The rituals in the cathedral were for the endless glorification of God by the priesthood and their lesser acolytes.

John walked slowly back to his house around the corner, somewhat at a loss as to what to do next. It was too late to trudge back up to the castle and too early for his dinner. Partly from old habits left from the Nesta days, he decided to take Brutus for a walk, his old weak alibi for going down to the Bush. Fetching him from the house, where thankfully Matilda was either in her solar or out somewhere, he walked down to Idle Lane and sampled the new batch of ale, which fully lived up to his expectations.

The big Cornishman came and sat with him, basking in the compliments about his latest efforts at brewing. A fervent dog-lover, he brought a bone from the kitchen-shed for Brutus, who lay in the rushes under the table, gnawing happily while the men above talked.

‘The yellow plague has hit Dartmouth now, so a carter told us this morning,’ said Gwyn. ‘Another port. We don’t hear of it happening up on Dartmoor, so it must surely be brought in by ship-men.’

They discussed this for a time, but felt futile and helpless in the face of a disease which struck so rapidly and so randomly.

‘That doctor next door to me is useless,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘I’ll have a word with Richard Lustcote, the apothecary. He’s a sensible man, though I suppose if there was anything he could do, he would have done it by now.’

His officer, depressed by the subject, moved to another problem. ‘What are we going to do about this murder? Where do we start?’

‘The heretic fraternity is the only lead I can see,’ answered the coroner. ‘Unless some fanatic comes to confess to it, which seems as likely as the moon breaking in half, we can only attack the problem by discovering whom the heretics fear or even suspect of such an act.’

‘And what about Thomas’s pale man in the plague pit?’

John shrugged and took a deep draught of his ale. ‘We’ve no chance of getting him dug up again, in the circumstances. And even if we did and found another bloody great wound in his head, what good would that be in finding out who did it? We’ve already got one example, and that’s taking us nowhere at the moment.’

Gwyn scratched his crotch, which seemed his alternative to Thomas crossing himself. ‘So we’ve got to find us some unbelievers?’

‘Unbelievers in the Roman way, certainly — though our clerk says they are more than devout in their own way. Someone said they heard such heresy being voiced in the Plough tavern, so maybe you should do one of your tours around the alehouses and keep those big ears open.’

Where Thomas gained much gossip from among his ecclesiastical colleagues, Gwyn was adept at eavesdropping in taverns, a task that suited him admirably.

‘I’ll start tonight, Crowner — my goodwife can hardly complain if I’m doing it on behalf of the king and his coroner!’

John spent the early part of the afternoon with Thomas in their chamber, as they had to work on some of the submissions to the royal justices when they came to hold the Eyre in a few weeks’ time. As de Wolfe had been away for months, most of the few cases were left over from Nicholas de Arundell, manor-lord of Hempston Arundell, near Totnes. He had reluctantly taken over the coronership when John was posted to Westminster and had now gone back to Hempston with a sigh of relief.

Thomas de Peyne was rewriting some of the scrappy records left by a junior clerk that Nicholas had borrowed from the castle, as his pride would not allow him to put such imperfect parchments before the king’s judges. In addition, he had to record a couple of fatal assaults, a rape, two house fires, seven hangings and four declarations of outlawry that John had dealt with since his return. As the coroner could only just about write his name, Thomas took dictation from him and read back any material that John needed to know about. The arrangement worked well, especially as Thomas used his own initiative to improve the content and style of his master’s words, without John being aware of it.

As they worked, de Wolfe listened for the cathedral bells, the only way of gauging the time, other than dawn and dusk. The only other means was going to a church that had graduated candles used for timing services.

‘That was for Vespers, so we’ll wait a while, then go down to tackle this other canon,’ he decided.

If de Baggetor had actually graced Vespers with his presence, instead of sending a vicar in his stead, he should be back within the hour.

In due course the coroner and his clerk walked back down to the Close, and Thomas took him to another house a few doors away from Ralph de Hospitali. Here they were again conducted by a steward to a comfortable room with even better furniture than before. De Baggetor was a tall, stooped man of about fifty, with a long, deeply lined face which reminded John of a hunting hound. The canon had an aloof manner which went with a stubborn and inflexible nature.

He offered no invitation for them to be seated, and de Wolfe was again made aware of the antagonism and jealousies that often existed between the clergy and the city. The cathedral precinct was almost a state within a state, as the writ of the sheriff and burgesses did not run in the Close, except along the public paths. Discipline and justice were meted out by the bishop and the cathedral chapter, through the strong arms of the proctors’ bailiffs. This had been softened a little by the decision of Bishop Marshal to delegate jurisdiction over serious crimes like murder to the sheriff and coroner, but it was always made clear that the secular powers operated in the precinct only under sufferance.