What met him in his hall dashed his hopes, as he found his wife slumped in her chair, a linen kerchief pressed to her face. Her wimple was hanging awry and strands of her mousy hair were poking from beneath it.
'Matilda? Are you unwell? Shall I call Richard Lustcote for you?'
When she looked mournfully up at him, he saw that her eyes were reddened and tears welled from the lids.
'I am not ill, John. Just sick at heart.'
He crouched at the side of her chair as she haltingly told him everything that had happened. 'Her name was false, John, she deceived me!'
Privately, he thought it was only natural that the woman would not advertise the fact that she was the wife of a hunted outlaw, but he patted Matilda awkwardly on the shoulder. 'Never mind that, she no doubt wanted to spare you embarrassment,' he said instead. 'But this is a most extraordinary revelation. So she's not a de Whiteford from Somerset, but wife to Nick o' the Moor.'
Matilda sniffed back her tears and wiped her face with the linen cloth. 'She loudly denied that he had anything to do with my ordeal, John. She claimed that they had both been wronged by my brother. How can such a wicked, deceitful woman say such things, when she seemed at first to be such a nice, devout woman?'
De Wolfe groped for a stool and pulled it up to squat near his wife's chair. 'I have spoken to a number of people, including the sheriff — and today I have been down myself to Hempston and Berry Pomeroy. There may well be some truth in what she says, Matilda,' he added gently.
She glared at him with a return of her old antagonism. 'You too, John? You never miss a chance to defame Richard, do you?'
He held his temper in check with an effort. 'Come, Matilda, you cannot deceive yourself that your brother is a pillar of righteousness, after all the dangerous escapades that he has become embroiled in. What I say comes not from my mouth or my imagination — it is a fact that the Arundell manor was, shall we say, acquired by Richard and Henry de la Pomeroy in dubious circumstances. I am still not clear about the details; there are conflicting accounts, depending on who one speaks to.'
Matilda was not mollified by this. 'So who half killed me and spat the poison in my ear that it was revenge for Hempston, answer me that? Who could it have been but this Arundell knave or some hired assassin of his?'
Her husband had no answer for this and shook his head in frustration. 'I must get to the bottom of this, and quickly, before anyone else is killed. Where does this lady live? I must speak to her urgently.'
'Speak to her? Surely you mean seize her, arrest her, throw her into the cells at the castle. She is the wife of a condemned outlaw.'
John hauled himself from the stool and backed away to the other monk's seat, where Joan had sat that fateful afternoon.
'I cannot arrest her, Matilda, even if I saw some merit in doing so. It is not against the law to be married to a criminal, unless she gives him aid and succour. And as he is far away on Dartmoor, that hardly seems possible.'
'She lodges in Raden Lane with her cousin, Gillian le Bret — though after her vile deception, even that is open to question!'
John sensed that Matilda was torn between hating Joan de Arundell and trying to save her affection for her.
Her words seemed aimed at bolstering her outrage, but there was an undercurrent pleading for her to be proved wrong. John tried to placate her as much as possible.
'I truly cannot see a knight and a fellow Crusader stooping to attack a defenceless woman in the cathedral precincts at Christ Mass,' he said confidently. 'It would be against all the instincts of honour and chivalry.
Though I don't for a moment deny your recollection of that foul assault, it could have been another man, as when he was ejected from his manor, many other men went with him and have suffered ever since.'
The logic of this struck home, and Matilda began to grasp at the faint hope that her rift with Lady Joan was not irrevocable.
'Then you had better set about finding out, husband,' she said with a hint of her habitual grimness. 'Now being unmasked, she may leave the city and hide herself away somewhere.'
The same thought had occurred to John. 'She can go nowhere until the gates open at dawn. I'll confront her tonight — though after a day in the saddle, I'll first need some of Mary's victuals to fill my empty belly, even if it's only umble pie.'
An hour later, the coroner and his wife were standing outside the gate to the burgage plot in Raden Lane.
Matilda had insisted on accompanying him, saying that she was the one most concerned in this matter and that she was determined to see it resolved. Though often a surly, selfish person, she was lacking in neither intelligence nor fortitude, and nothing John could say would deter her from coming with him.
It was dark and cold, but the wind had dropped, reducing the chill considerably. Both wrapped in their mantles, they waited for someone to answer the loud rapping that John had made on the gate with the handle of his dagger. Eventually, footsteps were heard on the other side and the quavering voice of the elderly servant, Maurice, called out to ask who was there. No one readily opened their doors to unexpected callers in the dark of a winter's evening, but the authoritarian voice of the king's coroner persuaded Maurice to pull the bolts and lift the bar to allow them inside.
He led them into the main room where, lit by the fire and a number of tallow dips, they found Gillian le Bret standing protectively in front of Joan de Arundell, who like Matilda earlier had obviously been weeping.
'With what intent have you come, Sir John?' demanded Gillian stiffly. 'My Cousin has done no wrong. The mild deception about her name was to protect her from the gossips who abound in this city.'
'The lady need have no fear of me, Mistress le Bret. But those same gossips will no doubt have informed you that my wife here was grievously assaulted a few nights ago, and I have certain information that links that with the manor of Hempston. That is why I am here, to urgently seek information.'
Matilda stood stock still behind him, her eyes on Joan at the far side of the room. She said nothing, and John was unsure whether her attitude was hostile or forgiving.
For her part, the younger woman displayed only apprehension, as if she expected to be clapped into irons at any moment. Gillian seemed to have taken on the role of interlocutor in this matter.
'My cousin knows nothing of this, but we can swear, by any means you desire, that her husband had no part in any attack upon the good lady.'
'How would you know that, lady, if her husband is many miles away and has no contact with his wife?' asked John in a reasonable tone.
Joan spoke up, more firmly and resolutely than the coroner had expected.
'I know my husband, Sir John. He is a fine man, honourable and fair. He was a Crusader like yourself, but his absence in the service of our king has brought us nothing but ruin and despair.'
She broke down in tears, and Matilda, undergoing a rapid reversal of mood, lumbered forward to put a consoling arm around Joan's shoulders and to press her head against her own bosom.
Gillian and John looked at the pair and then at each other.
'There seems to have been a miraculous reconciliation,' murmured the elder cousin. 'We had better be seated and talk this through.'
They arranged themselves on a padded settle near the firepit and on a wooden chair and a stool, Joan now linking her arm through Matilda's. Alternately smiling and blinking back tears, Joan told how she had been callously told of the death of her husband and then been evicted from Hempston by de la Pomeroy and de Revelle, on the claim that the manor had escheated to Prince John.
John looked covertly at his wife when her brother's name was given, but apart from a tightening of her lips, she made no comment.
'I know little of what happened when Nicholas Came back to Hempston, as I was far away down at the tip of Cornwall. In fact, I knew nothing of his return from the dead for some months, until he got word to my kinsmen down there, through some carters.'