Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics

‘You have some sympathy with these heretics, lady?’ he asked gently.

Cecilia looked startled, as if she had just realised that perhaps she was speaking unwisely. ‘My husband would not favour my expressing such thoughts, I’m sure! He has very strong views on this subject, as on everything else.’

John did not miss the trace of bitterness in her voice and fell to wondering what might go on in the house next to his own. But not wanting to end the meeting, he steered the conversation on to safer ground.

‘Your husband is busy, then? His practice is flourishing?’

She smiled wanly. ‘I rarely see him except at mealtimes!’

And in bed, thought John — what husband would not wish that? ‘He visits his patients at their homes as well as at his doctor’s chamber?’

She nodded. ‘He is being called from far afield now, to manors and castles all across the county. He keeps a fine horse there, where your great destrier also lodges.’ A gloved hand appeared from under her cloak, pointing to Andrew’s livery stables opposite their houses.

‘I trust he looks to his safety, Mistress Cecilia,’ he said gravely. ‘Riding the Devon roads can be a dangerous business, given the number of outlaws and malcontents that infest the forests. Even a rough old Crusader like myself rarely rides alone these days.’

‘Clement always has a manservant with him, a former soldier,’ she said, pulling her cloak around her more tightly. ‘And I don’t think you are a rough old Crusader, Sir John. You are a gentleman and a brave one at that, by all the accounts I’ve heard!’

Flushing slightly at her own boldness, she bowed her head and hurried away, her maid trotting at her heels. De Wolfe watched her until she vanished around the corner of his house, for hers was set back slightly from the edge of the lane.

‘Well, well!’ he thought to himself, feeling a pleasant glow at being flattered by a desirable woman. ‘She seems at odds with her husband’s opinion. There’s a woman with a mind of her own.’

He walked to his front door and, once inside, heard voices in the hall. He sat on the bench in the vestibule to pull off his boots, then, as he hung up his cloak on a peg and put on some leather slippers, he groaned when he recognised the reedy tones of his brother-in-law on the other side of the inner door. Reluctantly, he pushed it open and went between the draught-screens into the hall. As he feared, Richard de Revelle was standing with his back to the hearth, bleating and gesticulating to his sister Matilda, who sat in one of the hooded monks’ chairs. Hearing John enter, he jerked up his head and redirected his high-pitched voice towards him.

‘It’s not good enough, John. You and that lazy successor of mine must do something about it!’

De Wolfe had no idea what he was talking about, but he advanced to the centre of the hall and bobbed his head curtly in greeting. Though he detested the man, he felt obliged as the host to at least be civil and went to his side table to pour some wine, this time into pewter cups, rather than the grand glass goblets that he had brought out for the doctor and his wife.

As he handed one to Richard and his sister, he sighed and asked his visitor what urgent problem had brought him to his door.

‘This damned plague, John, what else?’ screeched de Revelle.

He was a slim, neat man of average height, a few years older than John. Another dandified dresser, with a penchant for bright green, he had wavy hair of a light brown colour, matching the small pointed beard, a fashion which was more that of Paris than of the Normans, who were usually clean-shaven. John suspected that he grew it to hide the weak chin at the lower end of his narrow, triangular face.

‘The plague?’ repeated John, still mystified. ‘Have you caught it, then?’ he asked facetiously. He wished his brother-in-law would stop hogging the fire, as being master of the house John felt that it should be his own cold backside that should be warmed.

‘Be serious, damn it!’ snapped Richard. ‘I mean that it’s ruining my business!’

‘Why, have all your students in Smythen Street been stricken?’

‘Not that business, I mean my pork-exporting venture!’ said the other, exasperated at John’s deliberate obfuscation.

The coroner feigned sudden enlightenment. ‘Ah, yes, I had heard that you were now a swineherd. But what has the yellow disease got to do with that? Are pigs able to catch it?’

With even less sense of humour than John, the former sheriff thought he was being serious. ‘Not the pigs, you fool! The men who work for me, of course. Three have died at Dartmouth and half a dozen are sick near to death at my holding near Clyst St George.’

De Wolfe was immediately more concerned. ‘There is plague at Clyst? I had not heard that!’

‘Nor had I until an hour ago. All the other slaughterers and salters have downed tools and run home. Only one old man has stayed to throw the hogs some food.’

‘And it is at Dartmouth as well?’

Richard nodded in agitation, then swallowed his wine in a gulp. ‘I have large orders for the king’s army to fulfil! How can I carry on with the workers refusing to attend to their duties?’

‘They could hardly work if they were sick or dead,’ pointed out John. ‘Best they stay away from their workplace until the danger of infection is past.’

This only inflamed de Revelle even more. ‘Impossible! Think of the money I am losing every day! Unless I can find other men who will take on the tasks, I will be ruined. I cannot feed hundreds of pigs and get nothing in return!’

‘So why come to me about it?’ demanded John. ‘I am a law officer, not a physician or apothecary!’

‘Surely there is something you can do, you and that idle fellow now sitting in my chamber in Rougemont!’ brayed Richard. ‘Forbid ships from entering our ports, as I have heard that it is likely that foreign seamen are bringing the poison. And also make it unlawful for these workers to stay away from their employment. If they were serfs on a manor, they would have no choice but to work for their lord.’

John looked scathingly at his brother-in-law. ‘And just how do you think that could be done? Most of the seamen coming to our harbours live there. They are now returning for the winter season. Would you have us ban them from their homes?’

Richard scowled at him. ‘Then the workers! Surely they can be put back to their labours?’

‘How? Send a troop of men-at-arms to each of your piggeries, to stand prodding the men with their lances?’

He advanced to the hearth and ostentatiously stood close to Richard, easing him away from the fire.

‘There’s nothing to be done. We all have to make the best of a bad situation and pray that it does not spread to obliterate the city and the county, as has happened sometimes abroad.’

‘We must all pray to Almighty God for deliverance,’ said Matilda, speaking for the first time. ‘For once, John is right. There’s nothing that can be done by we weak mortals.’

‘And as for physicians,’ added de Wolfe scornfully, ‘they can only offer the same advice — prayer! We have a smart doctor next door now, but he’s made it clear that he won’t go within a furlong of a plague victim!’

De Revelle huffed and puffed for a time, but it was apparent that he had no support from either Matilda or John. This was an unusual state of affairs, as though Matilda’s former hero-worship of her rich elder brother had collapsed with her realisation that he was a rogue, she normally contradicted her husband on principle.

Eventually, having gained nothing from his visit, he departed, muttering about having to find more men at a higher rate of pay to deal with his pigs.