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vanished. The brewet of veal was especially popular, the sauce being provided in small dishes at each place, into which the diners dipped their right little finger to spread upon the meat. Before the harassed Mary could bring in the next course, there was time for more talk and Clement expounded upon his medical practice.
    ‘Salisbury was too small to contain an ambitious doctor like me,’ he declaimed. ‘I needed to offer myself to a wider clientele, and Exeter is famed for its burgeoning prosperity.’
    ‘My husband has a chamber in Goldsmith Street where patients can consult him,’ offered Cecilia, delicately wiping sauce from her finger with a linen cloth. ‘Already he has a substantial practice.’
    ‘Entirely among the better class of citizen, of course,’ added Clement. Matilda murmured her approval, but John was determined to put a brake upon the doctor’s conceit.
    ‘Perhaps you could spare some of your undoubted talents to helping the less fortunate as well,’ he suggested. ‘I’m sure that Brother Saulf at St John’s Hospital would welcome your expertise with some of his poor sufferers down there.’
    The physician put on a doleful expression. ‘I would like to do that; it would no doubt be an act of Christian charity,’ he said sententiously. ‘But unfortunately my practice is growing so rapidly that I would have little time to spare – but I will try to assist them when circumstances allow.’
    He went on to speak more honestly. ‘Also, I fear that my patients, who come from the higher levels of county society, might not look with favour on the possibility of my carrying contagion to them from the legion of ailments from which the poorer classes suffer.’
    Matilda nodded in agreement, but de Wolfe again noticed that Cecilia made no effort to support her husband’s selfish attitude.
    ‘So you also wish to keep well clear of any victims of this yellow distemper?’ observed John with a harder edge to his voice, which made his wife glare at him.
    The elegant doctor made a deprecating gesture. ‘What purpose would it serve? There is nothing I or anyone else can do to help. As I said, it is in the hands of God, whose ways are mysterious.’
    Any developing dispute was avoided by Mary returning with a large platter of grilled trout and a dish of capons’ legs, which the diners seized upon with relish. The cook-maid took away used dishes and returned with a pudding of rice boiled in milk with saffron and raisins, together with fresh bread, butter and cheese. All this occupied them for a further hour, including John’s further ministrations with a wineskin of white Loire and a flask of strong brandy-wine. When they eventually left for their short walk home, the physician seemed a little unsteady on his feet, but nonetheless effusive with his appreciation of their hospitality. John thought somewhat cynically that his excessive zeal for religion did not diminish his fondness for good food and drink. Cecilia also thanked them, less enthusiastically, but quite charmingly, for their kindness, and for once Matilda was smiling smugly as they at last said their farewells to their guests at the front door. The moment it closed, however, her amiable mask slipped immediately.
    ‘It would have been a perfect occasion tonight but for your constant ogling of that poor lady!’ she snapped. ‘Cecilia is too refined and genteel to have men like you lusting after her.’
    As she turned away from him to lumber off towards the solar and her bed, John felt his fingers aching to settle around her fleshy neck, to release him for ever from her mean-spirited nature.

CHAPTER THREE
In which Crowner John talks
to an archdeacon
     
    Soon after a grey November dawn, when the cathedral bells were ringing for Prime, the coroner made another call upon the sheriff and brought him up to date with the events surrounding the bizarre killing of Nicholas Budd. Then he went across to his chamber in the gatehouse, where he found Gwyn