Bernard Knight - Crowner's Quest

The coroner’s gaze went to the edge of the planks that formed the seat of the privy, worn smooth by several generations of canonical buttocks. ‘No scratches or mud there, Gwyn,’ he observed. ‘If he had hanged himself he would have had to stand on there to tie the rope above, then launch himself into eternity.’ John turned and dragged Thomas forward. ‘Get up there and see how far you can reach to the roof-beams.’

As the lame clerk scrambled awkwardly up on to the seat, Gwyn grabbed his leg and pretended to push him down one of the twin holes into the malodorous pit below. The clerk shrieked in terror and tried to kick him in the face.

‘For God’s sake, stop it, you pair of fools!’ snarled de Wolfe.

‘But the little runt is too small to reach,’ objected Gwyn.

‘The canon was only a hand’s length taller, so lift him up a little,’ snapped the coroner.

With a grin, the officer grabbed the clerk around his waist and hoisted him up a few inches. ‘About there?’ he demanded.

‘Can you reach the knot now?’ demanded de Wolfe.

Thomas waved his hands in the air, but they fell well short of the knot tied around the rafter that supported the woven wattle under the thatch.

‘Is he high enough?’ asked Gwyn again.

John stood back in the doorway to check Thomas’s elevation compared to the dead man’s height. ‘Plenty high enough — so there’s no way he could have tied the rope up there. Somebody much taller did it for him, standing on the seat.’

He motioned Gwyn to put Thomas down and his officer again resisted the temptation to drop the clerk into the ordure below.

‘No more to see here,’ grunted de Wolfe, and turned to face the handful of servants and priests who stood at the bottom of the privy steps. ‘Did any of you see anything untoward out here last night? Any strangers in the yard or the house?’

There was a chorus of denials. Then the old steward spoke up. ‘Most of the servants from the Close were either at their homes or at Yuletide revelries in the taverns, and the priests were either in the cathedral or celebrating at each other’s lodgings.’

‘And anyone can come to this yard down the side passage,’ added the resident secondary, a pale young man with a hare-lip. ‘From there they can come into the house through the back door.’

De Wolfe paced the yard, but could think of no way to further the matter. ‘Right, the inquest will be held here at the second hour of the afternoon. All of you will be present.’ He strode off up the side lane, making for home and a confrontation with his wife.

When he reached the house in Martin’s Lane, however, only Mary was there. ‘The mistress has gone off to St Olave’s’, she informed him archly, ‘then to eat with her cousin in Fore Street, she said.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘You’re still in disgrace. Last night was a great disappointment to her.’

De Wolfe snorted in disgust. ‘The bloody woman! The party was almost over — and only I and the Archdeacon left them.’

‘It doesn’t need much for the mistress to take umbrage,’ observed Mary, sagely. ‘Now then, Master John, do you want me to make you a meal?’

De Wolfe picked up his cloak again. ‘No, dear Mary, I’ll go down to the Bush before the inquest — I’ll have a bite to eat there.’

As he marched out, the buxom maid murmured under her breath. ‘I’ll wager you’re hoping to get more than a bite at the Bush, my lad!’

His favourite tavern, run by his favourite woman, was built with empty plots of ground on either side. This gave the name Idle Lane to the short cross street that joined the top of Stepcote Hill to Priest Street in the lower part of the city. The inn was a square, thatched building with frame walls filled with wattle-and-daub.

John pushed open the door, ducked his head under the low lintel and went into a hubbub of sound, smell and smoke. The fire glowing on a wide stone hearth had no chimney, but vents under the edge of the thatch allowed the fumes to filter out between the ends of the beams that supported the attic-like upper storey. As it was Yuletide, the place was full with men and a few women, making the most of the chance to drink during the day.

His usual place at a small table on the other side of the fire was occupied, but as soon as the old potman saw him with his one good eye, he unceremoniously pulled two youths off the bench and waved de Wolfe across. ‘Morning, Cap’n, I’ll tell her ladyship you’re here.’ Edwin was an old soldier half blinded in Ireland, where he had also lost most of a foot. He always called de Wolfe by his military rank, to acknowledge his reputation as a fighting man.

The coroner slipped off his wolfskin cloak and hung it behind his table across a screen, a wattle hurdle hammered into the earth floor to keep off the draughts. Within half a minute, Edwin was stumping back to slap a quart pot of ale in front of him. ‘She’s coming directly, Cap’n. Do you want some food?’

‘Yes, and plenty of it, Sergeant. I could eat that old foot of yours, if you’d still got it!’

The ancient cackled with glee, rolling the white, collapsed eyeball horribly, then stumbled away to the kitchen.

As he drank the warm ale gratefully, John looked around at the throng. He nodded and spoke to a few nearby, all of whom were well aware of his intimacy with the landlady of the Bush. Many were tradesmen — of all types, from tanners to wool fullers, from butchers to tinsmiths. There were some off-duty men-at-arms from the castle and a few burgesses, the upper echelon of the merchants and traders in Exeter. The women were either the mistresses of some of the men — never their wives — or whores: their business never stopped for festive days.

He heard Nesta’s high voice shouting at her serving-maid and cook somewhere at the back of the big room, where Edwin was now busy drawing ale and cider from casks wedged up against the wall. As trade was brisk, the pottery mugs received only a token swill in a crock of dirty water before he refilled them under the spigots.

This was life as John liked it, even though he appeared a morose, solitary man. He was happiest in the company of men, despite his appetite for women’s charms. After a few mugs of ale his tongue would loosen and he enjoyed telling tales of past campaigns, of travel in foreign parts and hearing the latest scandals from Winchester or London. To sit by a warm fire in a busy tavern and listen to the bustle of life around him, to exchange greetings with men he had known for years, was a comforting change from the sterile hours of silence or stilted conversation he suffered in the house in Martin’s Lane. As he reflected on these things, he was suddenly and pleasantly interrupted. A warm body slipped on to the bench and pressed against him, a soft arm sliding through his. ‘How is my favourite law officer today? I hear you had a busy night in the cathedral Close.’ The owner of the Bush was a one-woman intelligence service: everything that took place in Exeter seemed to be common knowledge in the tavern within minutes of its happening.

John de Wolfe looked down at her with a rare smile of pleasure and affection. He saw a pretty auburn-haired Welsh woman of twenty-eight, with a heart-shaped face, a high forehead and a snub nose. Slightly under average height, Nesta was curvaceous, with a small waist and a bosom that was the object of many a man’s dreams in the city. ‘You are the best thing I’ve seen so far today, sweet woman,’ he said, with mock-gallantry.

The redhead pretended to pout. ‘As you’ve spent your time with the corpse of a strangled prebendary, that’s no great compliment, sir!’

He squeezed her thigh with a big hand. ‘If you know so much about my business, madam, maybe you’d like to tell me who are the culprits.’