The Witch Hunter (22 page)

Jolenta nodded her understanding, as this was a common enough request, the finding of missing objects or even persons. She went to a shelf above the table and took down a ragged book, the parchment pages fraying at the edges between the battered leather covers. She could not read it, but that was no bar to its usefulness. Coming over to the woman who stood alongside the dead fire-pit in the middle of the room, she opened the book, revealing a rusty key in the middle.

‘Take this psalter, shut your eyes and place the key between any of the pages, then close the covers.’

Emelota did as she was told and waited for the next instructions.

‘Now we will pray together to St James and St Jerome that they will help us reveal the truth.’

With her eyes still closed, Emelota repeated some doggerel chanted in a mechanical voice by Jolenta, calling on a variety of holy persons to assist them in their quest.

‘Now, hold the holy book at arm’s length and say out loud the names of those neighbours who you think may be guilty of this theft.’

Emelota mumbled at random the names of half a dozen of her neighbours in Exeter, careless of what result there might be. Nothing happened and Jolenta commanded her to hold the psalter higher, level with her forehead, which made her grip upon it less secure. Halfway through the second recitation of the names, there was a dull clink as the heavy iron key fell to the hard-packed earth of the floor.

‘There, that fell as you said the name of William Hog. He is the one who stole your buckle.’

Her voice was so definite and matter-of-fact that the impostor almost believed her, until she reminded herself that the theft of the buckle – and even its very existence – was completely fictitious.

‘Is there anything else?’ asked Jolenta, as she retrieved the key and put the book back on the shelf. Like Nesta, she was well aware that clients often used one request as an excuse for introducing something more personal, once they had got themselves inside.

‘I suffer from heavy courses each month,’ murmured Emelota. ‘It weakens me and they are getting worse as time goes by.’

For the first time she was telling the truth and this was an opportunistic addition that her husband had not schooled her to use. If she was to pay this woman a couple of pence, she might as well get Edward’s money’s worth – or rather, the apothecary’s money’s worth.

Jolenta nodded, as this was yet another common complaint. She went to a box on the floor and lifted the lid to reveal a number of bags and pouches of various sizes. Taking one, she opened the draw-strings at its neck and took out a few pieces of dried stick, each a few inches long.

‘These are blackthorn. Scrape off the outer bark with a knife and discard it. It is the white pith of the under-bark you need. Pound it in the milk of a one-coloured cow and drink some every morning. When it’s gone, you can easily find more blackthorn in the hedges. In a month or two, you will be relieved of your problem.’

Emelota placed the twigs in the purse dangling from her girdle and offered some pennies from the same pouch. Jolenta took two.

‘That’s for the theft of your buckle. The blackthorn and my advice are free.’

Feeling somewhat guilty, Edward Bigge’s wife left the cottage and walked back to the alehouse to join her husband.

Several days passed in relative peace, with little to disturb the normal rhythm of life in the city, although the undercurrent of dispute concerning cunning women continued unabated in the taverns, the workshops and in the gossip along the streets. On Sunday, more of the parish priests preached sermons condemning all forms of heresy, apostasy and sacrilege, as Canon Gilbert had been around as many as he could to remind them forcibly of the bishop’s concern on the matter.

Most of this passed over John de Wolfe’s head, as he had a number of deaths to deal with, one drowning in a mill-race taking him away for the night, as he had to ride to a village near Totnes. As usual, this earned him more scowls and sarcasm at home, Matilda insinuating that it was an excuse for him to spend the night whoring and drinking. He would not have minded so much if it had been true, but in fact he and Gwyn had spent an uncomfortable night huddled in their riding cloaks in a barn, as there was no inn in the village.

The other days were taken up with an alleged rape in Clyst St Mary, another village to the east of Exeter, and a near-fatal assault in the Saracen alehouse in the city. This tavern, run by Willem the Fleming, was the most notorious inn in Exeter, being a rendezvous for thieves and harlots, providing a regular supply of knifings and head injuries for the attention of the city constables and coroner.

To assuage Matilda’s bad mood, that Sunday John allowed her to drag him to Mass at St Olave’s. He succumbed to this about once a month, although he flatly refused to attend confession, especially as Julian Fulk, the fat, oily priest of St Olave’s, had been one of his murder suspects not long before. De Wolfe found it bad enough having to endure Fulk’s sermon, full of exaggerations about witches and wizards and their supposed communion with the Devil as they went about their business of eating infants and flying through the air. Although John disliked the priest, he knew he was a well-read, intelligent man, unlike many of his colleagues, so he failed to see how he could have been persuaded to peddle such fanciful nonsense, unless it was to curry favour with his ecclesiastical superiors.

However, Matilda seemed impressed by his diatribe, as she had always favoured Julian Fulk with her admiration, rating him a potential archbishop, if not a pope. On the short walk back to their house in Martin’s Lane, she ranted on about the iniquities of the cunning women in their community, putting herself firmly in the camp of Canon Gilbert, Cecilia de Pridias and all the witch-hunters of the city. Her husband wisely kept his mouth firmly closed, letting the tirade flow over him, as any contradiction of her bigoted views would serve only to start them up afresh, at an even higher level of vituperation.

That evening, he escaped to the Bush and spent a pleasant and passionate few hours with Nesta. As they lay in bed in the languid glow that followed their lovemaking, she idly mentioned that she had used the room to counsel the strange woman Heloise, who had such a peculiar affliction of her neck. Although her account of the meeting seemed innocuous, something about the incident started a little niggle of anxiety within de Wolfe’s mind.

‘Nesta, my love, with all this present unrest about sorcerers and folk healers, it would be best if you kept well away from such matters for the time being,’ he advised sternly. ‘This business with Alice Ailward shows that this crazy man de Bosco is quite willing to use false testimony to trap unwary women.’

Nesta, always an independent spirit, argued against him for a while, but his obvious sincerity and concern for her eventually caused her to promise to avoid employing her gifts again, until the present hysteria had died down.

The matter worried away at him during the night and, the next morning, at their habitual second breakfast in his chamber, the coroner mentioned Nesta’s client to Gwyn and Thomas.

‘I’ve seen that woman with the twisted neck about the town,’ rumbled his officer. ‘She’s from some hovel in Bretayne. I know nothing of her, except that her sister is a whore who works out of the Saracen.’

Although this did nothing to lessen John’s unease, the fact that the woman was a relative of a harlot seemed to have no real relevance to his concerns until he noticed Thomas looking rather uneasily at him.

‘Do you know anything of this woman?’ he barked.

The clerk shifted uncomfortably on his stool. ‘I’m sure it’s of no importance, but I have seen that woman with the wry neck walking in the town with a painted strumpet, who Gwyn says is her sister. It’s just that I remember our friend Sergeant Gabriel pointing her out to me in the castle bailey one day, saying that she was one of the sheriff’s whores.’

It was no particular secret that Richard de Revelle was fond of low company in his bed, as his glacial wife Eleanor almost never came to Rougemont, preferring to live at their manor near Tiverton. In fact, the coroner had once caught his brother-in-law in bed with a harlot and on another occasion, had rescued him from a burning brothel.

‘Can’t see the connection,’ growled Gwyn. He was aware that something was bothering his master and tried to put his mind at ease.

De Wolfe chewed the matter over in his mind for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I expect you’re right. I’m getting unreasonably anxious with all this nonsense about witches in the air.’

‘I hear that the consistory court sits tomorrow on this poor woman Alice Ailward,’ said Thomas, who knew everything that went on within the confines of the cathedral Close. As well as eavesdropping on the gossip of the canons’ servants in the house where he lodged, he knew most of the vicars and secondaries, many of them accepting him as if he were still in holy orders himself.

‘Are you sure that this bishop’s court has the power to try such women?’ demanded de Wolfe, mindful of his discussion with the archdeacon.

The ever-knowledgable Thomas was only too happy to air the fruits of his recent researches among the books in the cathedral library and conversations with his priestly aquaintances. ‘Generally, the Church shows little interest in the transgressions of cunning women,’ he said. ‘Though there have been various pronoucements on the issue for centuries.’ He warmed to his theme, the latent scholar in him bubbling to the surface. ‘The Synod of Elvira in 336 punished apostasy by refusing to offer communion. Then the Frankish bishops at Worms in 829 stated that it was the Devil who aided witches to prepare love potions and poisons and to raise storms. The Synod of Reisbach in 799 demanded penance for withcraft, but no actual punishment …’

‘For Christ’s sake, clerk, will you stop lecturing us,’ boomed Gwyn. ‘We’re not pupils in your cathedral school!’

John was more sympathetic and motioned for Thomas to continue. He poked his tongue out at the Cornishman and carried on.

‘When the issue is forced upon its attention, the Church prefers to divert it to the manorial courts – or presumably, here in Exeter, to the burgesses’ courts. Only if some conspiracy to cause criminal damage is evident will the consistory courts intervene – and even then, they always hand over persons they convict to the other courts for sentencing.’

‘You should have been a bloody lawyer, not a priest, Thomas!’ growled Gwyn with mock sarcasm, as he was really quite proud of the little man’s erudition.

‘What do you mean by criminal damage?’ demanded the coroner.

‘Well, in the villages, if a mare drops a foal or the chickens stop laying, then the owner may claim he has lost profit because a witch cast a spell on them, at the instigation of some neighbour who holds a grudge.’

‘Where I come from in Cornwall, the folk don’t bother with all that nonsense,’ boomed Gwyn. ‘They just form a lynch-mob and hang the suspected culprit from the nearest tree!’

‘We all know what tribe of savages you hail from!’ squeaked the clerk, dodging a playful swing from Gwyn, which would have knocked him from his stool if it had connected.

‘Calm down, you childish pair!’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Where and when is this court being held tomorrow, Thomas?’

‘It will be in the chapter house, after terce, sext and nones. But it is a closed hearing, Crowner, only churchmen will be admitted.’

‘I am the coroner for this county, damn it!’ roared John.

Thomas shook his head. ‘No matter, sir. The secular powers have no jurisdiction there. Not even the sheriff could attend.’

‘Can you worm your way in, Thomas?’ asked Gwyn.

The clerk managed to look both sly and sheepish. ‘I had thought of slipping into the back row. My usual garb and my tonsure often make me inconspicuous in such company.’

‘Do that, then let me know straight away what transpires there,’ commanded his master. ‘It’s a damned scandal, having a secret inquisition. Even our sheriff’s court, for all his corruption, is at least open to the people.’

Walter Winstone’s intention was to use Edward Bigge to fabricate a story to incriminate Theophania Lawrence and to make similar accusations against Jolenta of Ide through the false testimony supplied by Edward’s wife, Emelota. Both these were to be fed through to the obsessively receptive ears of Gilbert de Bosco, so that as with Alice Ailward proceedings could be taken against them in the bishop’s court. Unfortunately, the apothecary had unwisely paid half Edward Bigge’s fee in advance, the other part to be given once he had given his lying evidence to the canon. On Monday morning, with twenty pence in his purse, Bigge decided to celebrate and went drinking, first in the Anchor Inn on the quay-side, then at the Saracen on Stepcote Hill, so that by noon he was uproariously drunk.

A surfeit of ale and cider always made Edward Bigge loquacious, usually at the top of his bull-like voice and he reeled out of the Saracen shouting to the world at large that he had had a narrow escape from the Devil. The inhabitants of the area around that disreputable alehouse were all too familiar with noisy drunks and normally no one would have taken any notice of the slurred ranting of yet another inebriate. However, as Edward weaved his way up to Smythen Street, the continuation of Stepcote Hill, he came across an unfortunate old fellow who was looking into the open front of one of the blacksmiths’ forges that gave the street its name. Pinning the man against the door-post, he leaned towards him and uttered a confidential whisper that could be heard twenty paces away. ‘I saw Satan, as plain as I see you now,’ he hissed. ‘Huge and black he was, with horns on his head and red fire coming from his nostrils!’ His voice rose as got into his drunken stride and three men and a woman coming down the street stared at him with curiosity. ‘She conjured up Beelzebub as plain as the nose on your face,’ he roared at the disconcerted old man. ‘This cunning woman over in Bretayne can kill cattle ten miles away and put a spell on husbands so that they leave their wives and cleave to another woman! I saw her bewitch someone myself, with the bats flying out of a great book she had there!’