Bernard Knight - A Plague of Heretics

With a mixture of reluctance and suppressed wrath, the jury filed past a handcart which Gwyn pushed out of the mortuary shed. On it were four still figures, shrouded in clean linen, the wrappings turned back to expose the faces.

The man lay next to this wife, and nestled in the crook of each of her arms were her children. All the faces were tinted pink like ripe cherries, together with scattered burns from fallen thatch. There were sobs from some of the men and outright wailing from women in the crowd, who had a more distant view of the pathetic remains on the handcart.

De Wolfe watched impassively as the men returned to their places before him, though there was cold fury in his own heart at this atrocity. He scanned the crowd as he waited, identifying those from the castle and Guildhall — and was surprised to see Matilda at the back, attended by Lucille and Cecilia. At dinner he had told her briefly of the calamity and the findings of incendiary devices and the blocked door. She had listened in silence, but he sensed that it was not the silence of her usual indifference, but from horror and dismay. He had not known that she intended to come to the inquest, but there she was at the rear of the crowd, along with so many others who had come because of the killing of two innocent children and their mother.

When the last juryman had shuffled into place, John’s deep voice again boomed out over the crowded churchyard.

‘The duty of a coroner is to determine who, where, when and by what means persons came to their deaths — and where necessary to send any persons suspected of causing those deaths to the king’s justices for trial.’

He paused and glared around as if to deny any contradiction.

‘The first four of those tasks is not difficult in this instance. We well know who the victims are, we know where and when they died and we know they died from the effects of fire. As to who caused their deaths, at this stage that remains unknown, except to God himself.’

He pulled himself up on his mound to his full height, his grey-black cloak stretched over his bony arms like some great bat or avenging angel.

‘But I and your other law officers will not rest until we have discovered what evil person did this cowardly deed — barricading the door and throwing combustibles to ensure that a man, a woman and two innocent children would be done to death!’

Another throaty growl of angry agreement rolled across the churchyard as he continued.

‘It is not the business of a coroner to probe into why certain acts were committed, but in these hideous and appalling circumstances I feel obliged to say something of what I and probably many of you must feel about the matter.’

There was a mutter of agreement as he went on speaking, an expression of cold ferocity on his long face.

‘No one traps a man and his family in his house and then deliberately sets it alight, just because he is a fuller! You know as well as I do that events in this city in the last few days have shown the animosity that many folk have to those whose religious views do not sit well with their own.’

There was silence at this, and John could almost feel the guilt that crept over the crowd. He continued remorselessly.

‘As King Richard’s coroner, I am not interested in the whys and wherefores of that dispute. I am here to uphold the law, as is your sheriff and his officers. On the quayside last week, only good fortune allowed us to intervene in time before several men were hanged. I do not want to know if any of you were involved; that episode is past!’

Again there was silence, with only the shuffling of feet and sideways glances to indicate the unease that pervaded the crowd.

De Wolfe’s voice suddenly became louder and took on a harsher tone. ‘But all of you — and I include myself — should be ashamed to live in a city where an evildoer took the lives of a goodwife and her two infants, over the issue of how Jesus Christ should be worshipped. Let us not be mealy-mouthed about this. There can be no other motive for this foul act, other than to destroy a man for his beliefs, uncaring whether innocent children and their mother perished with him!’

He glared around the subdued crowd, as if challenging any other explanation.

‘God knows, I am no saint, not even a devout enough Christian, yet I remember something of the Gospels. Did not the Good Lord say “Suffer the little children to come unto me”?’

He raised his fists in the air in a final explosion of frustrated anger.

‘Is this how whatever fiend did this terrible act brought little children to Him? Killing innocent mites in the name of some argument about how best to worship God? He must be found and made to pay for his sins!’

De Wolfe reached the crescendo of his wrath and suddenly his arms dropped to his sides as he slumped into despondency.

‘Jury, consider your verdict. I challenge you to find any other decision than wilful murder, though unfortunately against a person or persons unknown!’

At supper that evening Matilda was unusually subdued. Though it was now normal for her to ignore her husband, especially at mealtimes, John sensed that this was something different. She was not snubbing him with her usual air of dislike and discontent, but seemed more pensive and abstracted. He realised that the inquest had affected her, as it had many people, due to the cruelty of the deaths, but as a childless wife who had never shown any maternal interest, he had never expected her to be so distraught. His attempts to talk to her were met with a shrug or a shake of the head, and he soon abandoned any attempt to lighten her mood.

John had escorted her back from St Bartholomew’s, together with Cecilia from next door, and whereas Matilda remained in frozen silence, the physician’s wife, tears still wet on her cheeks, quietly praised his handling of the inquest.

‘It was a terrible thing, Sir John, but you said what needed to be said. I think it has jolted the consciences of many who heard it, and hopefully dampened this hysteria that has been pervading the city these past few weeks.’

De Wolfe was afraid that this might have inflamed Matilda’s defence of the anti-heretic faction, but she remained silent, almost as if she had not even heard the words.

When supper was over, to which unusually his wife failed to do justice, she called for Lucille and soon made her way out again, cloaked and hooded. Breaking her silence, she informed him that she would be at St Olave’s, praying for the souls of the victims from Milk Lane.

Equally unusual, John did not feel like going down to the Bush that evening and slouched in front of his fire, drinking ale and then wine. He felt depressed by all that was going on: his brother’s illness, the lack of any progress over the increasing number of murders associated with the heresy issue — and now his wife’s strange moods. He wondered sometimes if she was losing her mind, as a result of her brother’s repeated falls from grace, the disappointment over his own abandonment of the Westminster coronership and, not least, his own infidelities.

As he drank more and more, he slid towards sleep, his thoughts churning in his mind. Would William live or die, could the miracle of Thomas be repeated? How would he cope with Stoke and Holcombe if he did die? Who killed the four heretics? Was it the same assassin in each case?

Mary came in later to add logs to the fire and shook her head sadly at the sight of him slumped on the settle, a mug of ale spilled on the floor where it had slipped from his hand as he snored the evening away. ‘This household is falling apart,’ she murmured to Brutus as she mopped the flagstones with a rag. ‘Things can’t go on like this. I can see me out of work and living with my cousin before long.’