The Poisoned Chalice (10 page)

After a rumbustious night in Nesta's bed, he had slept like a log and finally filled up on a great breakfast of eggs, ham, horse-bread and ale. He walked back through the town, his tall, spare figure loping past stall-holders and their customers. He ploughed heedlessly through a herd of goats on their way to slaughter and dodged handcarts filled with vegetables fresh from the countryside – the five town gates were now open. He wondered wryly if the extra guards on duty had been anything but a waste of time: most of them would miss a suspect even if he was shouting, ‘Ravisher', at the top of his voice. Ox-carts trundled their huge wheels through the muddy slush as he crossed Southgate Street and the cries of vendors of everything from fresh river-fish to live ducks and bread hot from the over, rang in his oblivious ears.

On the way to the Riffords, he diverted slightly to have a look in daylight at the scene of last night's crime. He entered the cathedral Close through the Bear Gate and walked around the great west façade to the north side. Here, he found large new blocks of stone, some partly fashioned, others plain cubes, waiting to be hoisted up to the masons on their scaffolding. The building, begun as long ago as 1114 by Bishop Warelwast, was only now in the last stages of construction – indeed, some of the soft stone used eighty years ago already needed replacement.

John found the small door in the base of the North Tower and traced a short route from there to the main path, which ran parallel with the row of canons' houses. He poked about the new masonry, some piled up high above his head. There were several empty spaces, both between each stack and between them and the cathedral wall – plenty of hiding places for a girl to be dragged into and assaulted.

Bending down, he studied the ground but saw nothing except churned mud. He had not expected anything dramatic and the absence of blood was not surprising, given the small quantity shed and the state of the ground.

He soon abandoned the search and strode briskly away, passing his own street door without a glance. He stopped at Godfrey Fitzosbern's house, but decided to leave him until later. Soon he was at Henry Rifford's and was met by Matilda in the main hall. ‘The girl is sleeping, thank God,' she informed him. ‘I sat with her all night. Her cousin Mary is with her now, and the old aunt has gone to her own bed, so I can leave for a while.'

‘Did she say anything more of what happened?'

Matilda clucked her tongue and scowled at him. ‘Still the crowner, John? Will you not let it rest for a moment? No, she said nothing, and I did not bring the matter up. She needs peace and forgetfulness for a time, not inquisition.'

As he helped her on with her heavy serge cloak, she commented, ‘Where on earth can this Edgar be? You'd think her betrothed would have been around here at the gallop – he lodges only down at Fore Street with the leech Nicholas.'

John had forgotten the fiancé, but now realised that Edgar must have gone with his father, Joseph, down to Torre to identify the wreck and the dead sailors.

When he told Matilda, she exploded. ‘You sent word to them yesterday! They must have ridden out before dusk and stayed on the way. The boy will still not know that his fiancée has been deflowered.' In spite of the tragedy, she was excited at all this drama unfolding before her very eyes. ‘You must ride and tell him before he returns home, to prepare him for the shock,' she ranted. ‘Maybe he will not be so keen on a wedding when he hears this.'

John rubbed the dark stubble on his lean jaw. How was he best to fit together all these tasks? He felt like a juggler at the Martinmas fair, with six balls in the air at once.

He had to have the Topsham people to identify the sailors' bodies, and he had to hold an inquest with them present. In the circumstances, it was a lot to ask them to ride back to Torbay again tomorrow, especially after they learned of the assault on Christina. It would take them the better part of a day's ride, especially with the short hours of December daylight. ‘You're right, madam. I must ride down and meet them, to take them back to Torre. I will have to hold the inquest tonight or first thing in the morning, while they are still there – then hurry home to see what has developed with this ravishment.'

John had a few words with the anguished portreeve, then escorted his wife back to Martin's Lane, as she was stridently declaiming that things had come to a pretty pass in Exeter if a good woman couldn't walk the streets in safety. In the busy daylight, she was hardly at any risk – and, John thought bitterly, it would be a brave man who tried anything with Matilda.

After delivering his wife safely to their doorstep he went straight back to Rougemont. Gwyn and his clerk were there, eating and drinking as was usual at that time. Gwyn lived outside the town wall, in a hut at St Sidwell's beyond the East Gate, so had heard nothing of the commotion until he had come into town that morning.

Thomas, even though he lived in the cathedral precinct, had also remained unaware of the assault. However, the efficient grapevine among the castle soldiery had soon brought them up to date and they waited to hear their master's orders.

‘First, Thomas, take one of your rolls and enter the facts of the case so far as we know them now. I'll dictate what needs to be said in a moment.' John settled himself on his stool behind the trestle table and poured himself a jar of cider – Nesta's breakfast had filled him and he did not want any bread and cheese. ‘Then we have to ride back to Torbay again.'

The little clerk groaned at the effects on his backside of another long ride on his new pony. ‘We only came back last evening, Crowner. Why return so soon?'

Gwyn, leaning against the window-ledge, lifted a large foot and pushed the clerk off his stool, the only other furniture in the small room. ‘When Sir John says, “Ride”, we ride, you miserable toad!' He looked across at the coroner. ‘Is there a connection between these matters?'

‘Christina Rifford's husband-to-be is still unaware of her misfortune, as he went with his father and Eric Picot down to Torre to look at those dead seamen. I want to catch them before they return, to tell them of what's happened, and to get this inquest done with at the same time. Joseph of Topsham must bear witness and make presentment of Englishry.'

Gwyn pulled ineffectually at his tangled hair. He had a large face with a massive jaw, balanced by his slightly bulbous nose that bore the marks of old acne. The rest of his face was almost hidden under his rampant moustache. ‘What about those murdering villagers?' he demanded.

John took a long swallow of cider. ‘They must be arrested and brought back to the gaol. Go over to Ralph Morin and ask him for a couple of men-at-arms to accompany us – four of us should be more than enough to seize those dogs down there. See if Gabriel can come.'

Gwyn clumped down the stairs of the gate-house, and the coroner prepared to record the rape of the portreeve's daughter. Thomas scrabbled in the shapeless cloth bag that held his writing equipment and came out with parchment, quill and a stone bottle of ink. The parchment was a palimpsest, a piece of sheepskin used several times. The old writing had been painstakingly scraped off and the surface treated with chalk. New parchment and especially the finer vellum, made from young or stillborn lambs, was expensive. Thomas took a pride in both his writing ability and the tools of his trade and settled down happily to scribe the events of the previous night, as recounted by the coroner.

By the time they had finished, Gwyn was back with the news that the castle constable had given him a couple of men, one of them their friend the sergeant.

‘Did the sheriff have anything to say about it?' demanded John.

The Cornishman grinned. ‘He wasn't there, thank Christ – he's down at the Rifford house.'

John grabbed his sword and buckled it on. ‘To the stables then, before he comes back and interferes!'

They met Joseph and his party just after midday, on the coastal track where it crossed the estuary of the Teign. Fortunately, it was low tide when they reached the north bank of the river mouth, so that their horses could splash across the shallow water between the sandbanks without having to swim. On the left was the sea, still grey and choppy, and on the right, the wide expanse of sand, mud and marsh that went up for a few miles until the river narrowed near King's Teignton.

As the five riders entered the cold water, Gabriel gave a shout and pointed ahead. ‘Four horsemen at the other bank. Are these our men?'

John waved and yelled and the newcomers stopped, letting the coroner's party come up to them.

It was Joseph of Topsham and his companions, who were puzzled to see this unscheduled return of Sir John.

‘A sad business, John, losing my men like that,' said the ship-owner gravely. ‘But your message said we would need to return in a day or two for your inquest. Why this sudden rush?'

The coroner felt uneasy about divulging such a delicate matter while still on horseback on the bank of a river in a cold wind. ‘There are several important matters to speak about, Joseph, and this is not the place for it. I suggest we ride to my mother's manor, not two miles from here, and talk around a good fire over some food and drink.'

Mystified, Joseph and his companions spoke among themselves for a few minutes. One was Edgar, his son, a tall thin young man with blond hair cut in a deep fringe across his eyes. Eric Picot, the wine merchant, was a dark, handsome man of about thirty-six, thickset and well-dressed. He was French with Breton blood but had lived in Devon for many years, though he still owned vineyards along the Loire. The other man was Leonard, a wizened old fellow who had hardly a word to say. He was the chief clerk to Joseph's several trading ventures.

‘Is this really important, Crowner?' asked Picot. ‘We all have business awaiting us.'

De Wolfe nodded gravely. ‘You will find that it is of very grave importance. Going back to Torre later will save another ride from Exeter. We can return home first thing in the morning.'

Sensing the coroner's inflexibility, Joseph shrugged philosophically and wheeled his horse around. ‘You had better lead the way, John.'

Now on home ground, where he had grown up as a boy and hunted as a youth, John led them inland along the south bank of the estuary. Less than a mile upstream, a narrow side-valley came down to the Teign and they turned into it on a narrow track that wound through the dense woodland that filled the combe. Soon they came to a pleasant dell in the low hills, with crofts and cultivated fields well sheltered from the winds. A stone church sat a little above the village, which boasted a new church hostel, a timber and wattle building providing food and shelter for travellers.

‘Welcome to Stoke-in-Teignhead,' called John, reining in his big stallion outside the Church House. ‘Eric, Gwyn, Thomas, Leonard and the soldiers can take their ease here for an hour and eat around a good fire, while the rest of us go up to my family's manor.' As he and his party rode away, John could not resist waving a hand around him saying, ‘My father, may the Mother of God rest his soul, paid for that church of St Andrew of Bethsaida to be rebuilt in stone, and he endowed the hostel in gratitude for a safe return from the first campaign in Ireland.'

Just outside the centre of the village lay a fortified manor house, a two-storeyed, stone-built building with a steep-pitched stone roof. It was set within a wide bank and ditch, with a wooden stockade along the top. Fertile strip fields lay all around it, and a number of relatively tidy cottages of wattle and thatch, each with a well-kept vegetable garden and a pig, goat or house-cow. Inside the enclosure, there was a barn, several outhouses, stables and kitchens, with a few wooden huts for the servants. The whole place had an air of rural contentment and well-being that was not lost on Joseph of Topsham, who knew a well-run business when he saw one. But his mind was mainly on this unexpected appearance of de Wolfe: he had a bad feeling about what was to come.

John slide from his horse and looked about him with affection and pride. ‘This is where I was born – the house was wooden in those days.' Though his brother William lived here and ran the manor, John had a part share of it under his father's will, as did his younger sister Evelyn, who looked after the domestic side with their active mother, who had a life-interest in the manor. But unfortunately, this was not the right day or time for reminiscing about his inheritance. Sad work had to be done.

The manor bailiff bustled up, a cheerful fat Saxon named Alsi, and conducted them to the house, their horses being spirited away for food and water. ‘The ladies have gone with Lord William to market in King's Teignton, Sir John, but they will be home before long.'

The coroner was glad of a breathing space before his family arrived, so that he could get the bad news over with.

They climbed to the solar on the upper floor, reached by an outside wooden staircase, which could be thrown down in time of attack for the better defence of the upper storey. Thankfully, this had never been needed since Simon de Wolfe, John's soldier father, had built the new house.

They sat near the smouldering logs in the arched fireplace and Alsi poured wine for the three men. Then he hurried away to organise a meal to be served downstairs in the hall.

Joseph was as perceptive as his wise, patriarchal appearance suggested. He turned immediately to the coroner, whom he had known in the way of business for a number of years. ‘Well, John, out with it! You didn't bring us miles off the beaten track just to drink wine and show us your home.'

The coroner looked from father to son and back to the father. Edgar had said hardly a word since they met at the river and looked rather bored. Being dragged from his beloved herbs and poultices to ride for half a day to view drowned corpses did not amuse him, especially as it seemed they had now to ride back to Torre. But the next few minutes were to be the worst so far in his twenty-two years of life.