Gwyn had by now grabbed the ladder, letting the pots of pigment crash down to stain the nave floor. As he charged across the nave with the stout timbers held like a lance, John tried to assimilate all that the last few moments had revealed. It was patently obvious that Adam of Dol was the deranged killer and the attacker that they had been so desperately seeking — for whose sake Thomas had come so close to a humiliating death. If only he had taken more notice of these damned paintings earlier, then a great deal of trouble — and even a life or two — might have been saved.
A thunderous crashing began at the base of the tower, where Rufus of Bristol had joined Gwyn in swinging the heavy ladder against the stubborn door. While they were assaulting it, John laid a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and shouted a question at him: ‘Were all those quotations underlined in the book?’
‘Like the faces up on the walls, all of them except the one left at your attack, master. But that was but a few hours ago.’
They were interrupted by the rending of wood and turning, they saw that the door to the tower was hanging from its hinges. With a roar, Gwyn dropped the ladder and dived through the opening. By the time John had followed him inside, his officer was still roaring, but with further frustration. A tiny room, the floor rush-covered, was empty but for a broom and a bucket. In one corner there was a square hole in the ceiling and below this a rope ladder lay crumpled on the floor, thrown down from above. They could hear heavy feet pacing up and down on the boards overhead and a muffled litany of imprecations.
‘Come down, Adam! There’s no way you can escape,’ yelled Rufus, in his usual interfering way. Thomas scowled at him, annoyed that the chaplain had been first to notice the faces in the wall paintings, though Thomas still could claim recognition of the marked passages in Adam’s Bible.
The coroner joined in calling upon the priest to surrender, but was met by another barrage of defiance, mixed with the usual commentary on the Armageddon soon to come.
‘The Book of Revelation must be his favourite reading,’ muttered Thomas cynically, though he made the Sign of the Cross a few times, to be on the safe side.
‘Any fear of him jumping from the top?’ asked Rufus, echoing John’s earlier thoughts.
‘Any hope, you mean!’ countered Gwyn cynically.
‘It would certainly solve many problems — not least those of the Bishop,’ said Rufus wryly.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked de Wolfe suspiciously.
The castle priest shrugged. ‘Unlike our little friend here, Adam is a fully fledged parish priest, still in Holy Orders. The Bishop proscribed torture for Thomas, though technically he is a layman, so I doubt he’ll withhold Benefit of Clergy for this man.’
‘That’s not my business, thank God,’ grated de Wolfe. ‘My concern at the moment is to get the swine down from up there.’
Adam’s head appeared in the trap above, an almost manic leer on his face as he stared down at them. ‘My work on this earth is nearly finished — but the Lord will deliver me from mine enemies!’ he yelled triumphantly.
‘I’ll bloody deliver you, you evil bastard!’ shouted Gwyn angrily. He bent and picked up the end of the ladder that was lying across the ruined door, and propped it just below the hole into the upper chamber, where the bell-rope hung. As he began to climb the rungs, John called a warning, as Adam’s face vanished and was replaced by one of his feet. ‘Watch your face, man!’
The furious priest above was kicking downwards as Gwyn’s head reached the ceiling. A heel skimmed the red hair as Gwyn dodged and retreated a rung or two.
‘Right, your time has come, unless you can get God to whisk you out of there right now!’ he roared. Reaching behind him, he pulled his dagger from his belt and went back up the rungs. The foot stamped down again, but this time the coroner’s officer jabbed it through the leather sole. There was a yell of pain and Gwyn dropped the knife to grab Adam’s ankle with both hands and pull it with all his considerable strength.
For a second, the open-mouthed spectators standing below thought that both men were going to fall on top of them and scattered to the opposite wall. But though the priest came bodily through the trap-door, he managed to grab the edges as he fell. Now Gwyn had him around the knees and reached up to land Adam a punishing blow in the belly. The priest jackknifed down on top of the Cornishman. Careless of any further injury, Gwyn tipped his prisoner sideways off the ladder, letting him crash on to the thick layer of old rushes on the floor. Adam lay there bruised and winded — silent for once on the subject of sin and retribution.
By the end of that week, most loose ends had been cleared up.
The Eyre of Assize went more quickly than had been expected and all the Gaol Delivery and criminal cases had been finished by Saturday, leaving de Wolfe relatively free of the court: the General Eyre, which the sheriff was dreading, had little to do with the coroner.
The Justices were subdued when it came to acknowledging their grievous error over the identity of the Gospel killer, though Archdeacon Gervase assumed a rather condescending ‘I told you so’ manner. Walter de Ralegh was gentleman enough to offer a gruff apology to John in private, but Serlo de Vallibus and Peter Peverel did their best to avoid the subject.
Richard de Revelle’s main concern was to keep his name clear of any association with the fire in Waterbeer Street, afraid that a trial might bring out some embarrassing evidence. He was therefore overjoyed to hear that Bishop Henry Marshal had exercised his right to insist on Benefit of Clergy for Adam of Dol, preventing him being dealt with by the secular courts — which in this case would have the Exeter Eyre of Assize that very week.
Meanwhile, the deranged priest of St Mary Steps was closely confined in one of the cells adjacent to the cloisters, kept for erring clerks by the proctors, the representatives of the Chapter who, with their servants, were responsible for law and order in the cathedral precinct.
As John de Alençon related to de Wolfe a few days later, Adam was first brought before the Bishop for his sins to be explored. As he was not a cathedral priest, the Chapter had no jurisdiction over him but, given the uniquely heinous nature of his crimes, a preliminary interrogation was considered necessary, before the matter went to the Consistory Court of the diocese. The Bishop led this inquisition, assisted by some senior canons. De Alençon, as Archdeacon of Exeter, was present as Adam’s immediate superior, and the Precentor, Thomas de Boterellis, with the Treasurer, John of Exeter, made up the group, along with Jordan de Brent, the archivist.
The deposed incumbent of St Mary Steps was led by two proctors into the Bishop’s audience chamber in the palace. Given Adam’s tendency to physical violence, his wrists were shackled and a pair of burly servants stood on either side of him. As if anticipating his ejection from Holy Orders, he had been dressed in a smock of drab hessian instead of his black clerical robe, but he displayed no sign of shame or contrition. On the contrary, he glared at his accusers with aggressive contempt as he stood before the Bishop’s great chair, the others hunched on stools alongside.
The cold-eyed Henry Marshal was more than equal to the challenge as he opened the proceedings. ‘Are you mad, Adam, or just evil?’ he asked quietly.
The priest’s face flushed with righteous anger. ‘Neither, Lord Bishop! I do the Lord’s work in my own way, because the efforts of you and your feeble cohorts to counter the devil and all his works are futile.’
‘You wretched man! How dare you insult your fellow labourers in the vineyard of God, they who use compassion and solicitude in place of your sadistic perversions?’
Adam continued to bluster about the need to warn their flocks of the torments that awaited sinners, but the prelate cut him off with an imperious gesture. ‘Be quiet! Your evil obsessions weary me. Do you deny that you have been killing and attacking innocent people in this city?’