The little church on the corner was deserted, as the Mass held by its Saxon priest had finished before the cathedral service, but as she tottered unsteadily into the blackness of the lane, she saw a faint light bobbing towards her. With a moan of mixed hope and fear, she slid back to the ground just as the skinny figure of Osric, one of the city's watchmen, hurried to her solicitously, his horn lantern revealing the coroner's wife, her face bloodied and her garments dishevelled.
Though John had dallied in Nesta's upper chamber until late in the evening, he was home long before the cathedral service had finished, at well after midnight.
Promising his conscience that he would attend the traditional High Mass in the middle of Christmas morning, he went straight to bed and was sound asleep when Osric began pounding on the front door with the end of his staff. It failed to wake him, but moments later Mary clattered up the steps to the solar and burst in to shake him by the shoulder.
'Come quickly, the mistress has been attacked!' she yelled, then dived back down to the yard below. Fuddled but soon fully awake, he clambered up from his pallet and threw on breeches and a tunic to cover his nakedness, thrust his feet into shoes and hurried after the maid.
In the hall, lit by a bundle of kindling thrown urgently on to the smouldering logs, he found a scene of chaos, with an almost hysterical Lucille cradling Matilda's head as she lay slumped in one of the monk's chairs. The more practical Mary was bathing a wound on his wife's head with a cloth and warm water from her kitchen, whilst Osric was dancing from foot to foot, unable to decide whether to run out and start scouring the darkened streets for the assailant or to wait for de Wolfe's orders.
'The mistress was attacked in the Close, on the way home from midnight Mass,' announced Mary, glaring at John as if it was his fault. She knew where he had been that evening and, as sometimes happened when she had a bout of righteousness, she placed some of the blame upon him, even though the poor man had been asleep in his own bed when it happened.
He pushed Lucille out of the way, telling her to get some brandy wine for her mistress, then knelt on the floor alongside Matilda, his head level with hers.
'Tell me what happened, good wife,' he said with surprising gentleness. 'Who did this to you, eh? Snuffles and groans were the only response, then she winced as Mary gave a final wipe to the injury on her temple. It was not a deep cut, rather a deep ragged graze, but it had bled profusely.
'I think she must have fallen to the ground,' murmured Mary. 'But look at her neck and her eyes.' John saw that her eyelids were much more puffy and swollen than usual and in the whites were some bright flecks of blood. When Mary gently eased aside her wimple and collar, several fresh bruises were evident under the angles of her jaw.
'Some bastard has tried to throttle her,' growled John.
He slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. 'You are safe now, wife,' he said gently. 'We'll get to the bottom of this, never fear!'
CHAPTER EIGHT
In which Crowner John becomes vindictive
For the first time in his life, John de Wolfe made a grudging apology to his brother-in-law. They were seated on either side of the fire in John's hall, drinking a midmorning cup of wine, for once united in their concern for Matilda and in cold anger at whoever had committed this outrage upon her.
'It seems that I have to agree with you, Richard,' grunted de Wolfe, reaching across to refill his guest's glass goblet with Loire red. 'I admit I disbelieved your accusation about the corpse in your college being the work of outlaws, but now it seems that you may be right.' De Revelle was too worried to crow over John's backing-down, as what he had just learned from the coroner indicated a frightening threat to himself.
'I suppose there's no doubt about what this swine said to my sister?' he asked anxiously. 'Could she have been so overwrought as to imagine it?'
De Wolfe shook his head. 'Matilda is a very strongwilled woman, as you very well know. After she had recovered a little last night, she was lucid and definite about what happened.'
When the immediate panic had subsided following her return home, a few glasses of strong brandy wine restored his wife enough for Mary and Lucille to help her up the stairs to the solar, with John and Osric hovering ineffectively behind. The two maids undressed her and got her into bed, heaping blankets and fleeces on her against the cold and plying her with more hot mulled wine. Lucille, the rabbit-toothed French maid from the Vexin, sat with her for the rest of the night, but John crouched for a time at the edge of the pallet and spoke gently to her as she recovered. As he had told her brother, Matilda was a tough, resilient woman not given to fainting or hysterics, and she soon was able to describe what had happened, though this was a pretty sparse tale, as she had seen nothing of her attacker apart from a hooded shape in black clothing. However, she was in no doubt about what he had threatened, though she could not identify his voice.
Osric had rushed away to seek the other constable and to rouse Gwyn from his bag of straw in the soldiers' quarters in Rougemont. They had searched the streets around the cathedral, but it was a futile gesture in the early hours of the morning, when only a few drunks were still abroad.
Richard de Revelle had hurried after his breakfast to Martin's Lane as soon as he heard the news, which had travelled rapidly around the city's grapevine, sparked off by the enquiries being made by the two constables.
'I'll strangle the bastard with my own hands when I catch him,' grated John. 'Matilda was quite definite that he said he had killed the poor fellow in Smythen Street and then boasted of the 'other two', which must surely mean the bizarre slayings out on the Ashburton Road and in St Bartholomew's churchyard.'
Richard stared at him uneasily. 'But he threatened both Henry de la Pomeroy and myself,' he repeated. 'It must be that bloody outlaw and his gang from Dartmoor.'
John shrugged. 'Unlikely as it seems, I have to agree with you. It was that mention of Hempston that clinches it. Your sins are coming home to roost, Richard, but I wish your sister was not involved in the fruits of whatever crafty schemes you've been up to.'
In his agitation, de Revelle ignored this shaft from John and stayed with the potential dangers to himself.
'I see how they could have slain that glazier out on the high road, but how do they manage to kill and attack within the city itself? This idle sheriff and the portreeves must immediately tighten up the security at the gates.'
De Wolfe gave a scornful laugh. 'How the hell can you stop any man coming into the city, Richard, unless you know his face? Hundreds enter through the five gates every day. Any man pushing a barrowful of hay or a fellow driving a pig could be an outlaw - they don't carry a placard around their neck, you know.'
De Revelle glowered at him, their temporary truce already under strain. 'So what are you going to do about it? I hear de Furnellis has delegated all his work to you,' he added sarcastically.
'I must somehow find this man Nicholas de Arundell - though looking for him in the wastes of Dartmoor will be like looking for a grain of barley in a wheatfield! Have you any idea where he might be, as you and Pomeroy were the cause of him being there in the first place?'
The former sheriff bridled at this. 'And good cause it was. The bloody man started a riot and killed one of my servants. Then they ran away and when they repeatedly failed to answer at court, they were rightly declared outlaw.'
John was too distracted to argue the merits of the case at the moment and wearily turned to more immediate matters. 'The cowardly swine that assaulted Matilda not only half-throttled her, but kicked her when she lay on the ground. Lucille found a great bruise over her ribs.' He swallowed the rest of his wine in an angry gesture.
'What I want to know is why she was attacked and not you? And what have these other killings got to do with it?'
'They are all directed at me or Pomeroy, John,' brayed Richard fearfully. 'It was my college enterprise that he wished to damage. It was my sister that he injured. It was Henry de la Pomeroy's glazier, tenuous though that connection might be... but he is attacking anything to do with Henry and myself in order to discomfort us.' Richard was now gabbling his words. 'In fact, I feel he assaulted my poor sister just in order to pass on the message via her lips. That is why, thank Christ, he did not finish the job and strangle her completely!'
John considered this for a moment. 'But he said 'two other killings' which can only include the candlemaker in the churchyard. What possible connection can that have with you?'
Richard stroked his neat, pointed beard as he reflected. 'What was he killed with?' he asked.
'An iron rod, rusted and pointed at one end. The thickness of a fat thumb and about a yard and a half long.'
His brother-in-law gestured with his hands. 'Means nothing to me. Maybe this killing was nothing to do with him.'
'Then why claim it as his?' objected John. 'There have been no other slayings this week.'
Neither man had an answer, and soon Richard left for his own house, an armed manservant accompanying him every step of the way.
That Yuletide day was different from all others, in that the de Wolfe household remained very subdued, with Matilda resting in bed. In spite of her refusal to have any medical attention, which John could have obtained from Brother Saulf at St John's, in the afternoon he sent around for Richard Lustcote, who came at once and gave Matilda a pain-relieving herbal infusion for her bruised ribs. The elderly apothecary was well known to her, and after a well-chaperoned examination of her head, neck and side, he declared that nothing was broken or seriously amiss and that she would be restored to health in a few days.
Their dinner was a muted affair compared to what Mary had planned for the festive day, but Matilda forced down a respectable amount of food and several cups of wine as she sat up on her pallet. John ate down in the hall, getting through the poached salmon, roast goose and plum pudding with full appreciation of his cook-maid's skill.
Afterwards, he sat with Matilda for some time, with little to say, but at least he felt that his presence reassured her that some maniac could not climb the solar steps to finish throttling her. His wife's memory of those few terrifying minutes in the cathedral Close was still perfectly lucid and there seemed no doubt that her assailant had clearly linked the three deaths with her brother and his crony Pomeroy, together with Hempston, seemingly unequivocal proof that all were connected.
John stayed with her for well over an hour, but when she fell heavily asleep from the effects of the apothecary's drug, he surrendered his post to Lucille and made a quick trip to the Bush, where Gwyn, Thomas and Nesta were anxiously awaiting his news.
As was to be expected from her nature, Nesta was the most upset and solicitous for Matilda's welfare, even though his wife was the main impediment to their love affair.
'Poor woman, to be so sorely set upon at dead of night - and on her own in a darkened churchyard!' she gasped, rather illogically. 'You should be with her, John, it is your duty.' Both of them were relieved that he had not been down at the Bush when the attack took place, as this would have been an even greater burden on their consciences. After relating all the facts he knew over a jug of mulled wine, the coroner discussed with his three friends the significance of the assault until they ran out of suggestions.
'I'm not convinced that this is the work of that Nicholas de Arundell,' said John finally. 'Whatever that bastard said to Matilda, it seems totally at odds with the nature of a knight and a former Crusader. Unless the fellow's mind has become unhinged, such a nobleman would hardly strangle a defenceless woman coming from Mass!'
'Maybe he has become mad, Crowner,' grunted Gwyn. 'To be so badly treated by de Revelle and Pomeroy and then be banished to Dartmoor is enough to twist any man's wits.'
Thomas repeated the query that John had put to his brother-in-law.
'Why should he claim responsibility for this killing in St Bartholomew's?' he squeaked. 'what can a candlemaker have to do with the old sheriff? And why are all three senior men in the city guilds?'
De Wolfe threw up his hands in despair. 'It's all beyond me, maybe things will sort themselves out eventually. I'll have to see Henry de Furnellis and try to decide what we do about this gang of outlaws. It will be business as usual tomorrow, Yuletide or not.'
He drained his wine cup and reluctantly rose to his feet.
'You're right, Nesta, I'd better get back home. If Matilda wakes and finds me absent, maybe she'll have a relapse - though considering what happened to her, she's remarkably well.'
Nesta walked with him to the door, John acknowledging the murmured sympathy of some of the other patrons, who had all heard, like the rest of Exeter, what had happened the previous night.
She laid a hand on his arm as he bent to give her a kiss before leaving.
'It's spoilt all our Christ Mass festivities,
cariad
,' he said in the Welsh they always used when together. 'I'm sorry for it, but we'll make up for it when all this is settled.'
Sadly, she watched him vanish into the darkness, Gwyn following him ponderously. If there was an assailant lurking in the shadows, the Cornishman was going to watch his master's back like a hawk.