A Plague of Heretics by Bernard Knight Page B

matronly cronies at St Olave’s.
    In due course the physician and his wife arrived and were conducted to a pair of folding leather-backed chairs before the chimneyed hearth, between the two monks’ seats. John gravely provided them with his best wine, served in glass goblets he had looted from a French castle in the Limousin and which came out only on special occasions.
    If John had not known his wife so well, he might have thought that she had suddenly turned into a different person. From her usual glowering, sullen manner, the arrival of favoured guests had given her an ingratiating smile and a convincing façade of pleasantry. Her stocky body arrayed in a gown of dark red velvet, she had discarded her head-veil and wimple in favour of a net of gold thread which confined her hair. She also wore a surcoat of blue brocade, as in spite of the large fire the hall was cold and chilly.
    Though he had met his neighbours before, albeit briefly, John now had time to study them more closely as they politely sipped their wine and listened to Matilda’s prattle about the cathedral and her little church in Fore Street. Clement was a handsome man, with a patrician face but rather thin lips. A few streaks of grey showed in the dark hair that was cut in the old Norman style, being clipped short around his neck and temples, with a thick bush on top. His manner was precise and rather imperious, suggesting that he did not take kindly to his opinions being questioned. What struck John most, seeing him at close quarters, were his eyes, pale blue and unblinking. They seemed to have a strange intensity, which reminded John of a cat waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting mouse.
    Dressed elegantly in a long tunic of bright green linen, with a fur-edged surcoat of deep blue, he looked exactly what he was, a mature professional man who was sure of his position in society. Then, as he refilled Cecilia’s goblet, John – a connoisseur of women – realised anew that Clement’s wife was extremely attractive. Considerably younger than her husband, she was handsome rather than beautiful. About thirty, slim and straight-backed, she wore a cover-chief and wimple of white silk, though enough hair peeped out to show that it was as black as his own. A smooth complexion and full, slightly pouting lips convinced de Wolfe that she was a very desirable addition to the scenery of Martin’s Lane, especially in her elegant gown of black velvet with a gold cord wound around her narrow waist, the tasselled ends dangling almost to the floor. A heavy surcoat of dark green wool was held across her neck by a gilt chain.
    Her presence undoubtedly made him less taciturn a host than usual, and he already felt Matilda’s censorious eyes upon him as he fussed over Cecilia’s glass of wine. After the usual platitudes about their health and the prematurely cold weather, the physician turned his attention to the news of the day.
    ‘Some sad deaths in the city, I hear,’ he observed. His voice was mellow, and John began to wonder if this paragon could have any faults at all.
    ‘You mean the outbreak of distemper in Bretayne?’ he suggested.
    ‘And the murder of that woodcarver up in Raden Lane,’ added Clement with a slight note of triumph in his voice at being so abreast of the news.
    John was once again amazed at the efficiency of the Exeter grapevine, which seemed to be able to relay news even as it was happening, for it was less than a couple of hours since the identity of the victim had been established. When the face had been rubbed clean of dried blood by the vigorous application of wet rags, Osric was able to recognise him straight away as Nicholas Budd, who had lived alone in a rented room off Curre Street, which was not far away on the north side of the High Street. The two constables, who knew virtually every resident of the city, said that he made a modest living carving wood, both for furniture and especially for religious artefacts for churches or to