Bernard Knight - Crowner's Quest

De Wolfe cursed, but agreed with the constable’s logic. ‘I suspect that many a sympathiser will have second thoughts now, when it’s realised that, within days, Winchester will be told of what’s going on down here,’ he said resignedly.

The men from Berry Pomeroy were sent on their way, with a message to their lord that heralds would leave that day to take the news to the Justiciar and the King’s Justices.

‘That should give them a few sleepless nights!’ said John. ‘Either they’ll have to buy their pardons with a huge fine to the Exchequer or stock up their castles for a long siege. I suspect the first choice will be cheaper.’

Frustrated at being deprived of a fight, they wheeled their horses round and began the soggy journey back to the city.

Before the King’s supporters dispersed, a last meeting was held in the sheriff’s chamber in Rougemont. The main purpose was to make it abundantly clear to Richard de Revelle that they all knew of his recent questionable behaviour and that he was on probation for an indefinite period. Typically, he turned and twisted and made excuses, mostly by attempting to claim that he had had dialogue with the rebels only to spy out their membership and their intentions. No one was convinced by his feeble justification and Guy Ferrars summed up for all of them. ‘If it were not for the pleading of your brother-in-law, who quite naturally wishes to spare his wife such shame, we would denounce you to Hubert Walter and let him take what action he sees fit. As it is, we shall look the other way for now, but any whisper of further impropriety will condemn you. Do you understand?’ Having had this rubbed in in several ways, de Revelle was left in no doubt that he would have to walk strictly in the paths of righteousness from now on, under the eagle eye of John de Wolfe.

When the meeting dispersed, he was left alone with the coroner in the chamber, as darkness fell outside. Awkwardly, he began to mumble some thanks, mixed with excuses, but de Wolfe cut him short. ‘Forget that for now, but I’ll be watching every move you make, Richard. More to the point, I want to know what we are going to do about those murderous rogues that are in the cells beneath us.’

The sheriff wanted to do nothing with them, having allowed one of them to go free once before, but he dared not again show such partiality, or even apathy, with the Damocletian sword of the loyalists hanging over him. ‘What do you suggest, John?’ he said diplomatically. ‘Have you really got solid evidence against them?’

‘A confession from Fulford, witnessed by three people, written down soon after by my clerk,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘True, it names Jocelin de Braose for both killings, but his squire was with him on both occasions and must be a partner in the crimes. And as for the attemptto steal Saewulf’s treasure, I saw them both with my own eyes — and then they both tried to murder the King’s officers who challenged them. There is enough there to condemn them three times over.’

After his dramatic downfall, de Revelle’s cunning was returning quickly. He saw a chance to wash his hands of the affair, even if it meant an about-turn from his previous attitude. ‘Then these are Pleas of the Crown, John! You should present them to the Justices in Eyre when they next come. You’ve wanted that privilege so often and now is your chance to employ it.’

The sheriff was wrong if he thought he had managed to hoist the coroner with his own petard, as John had already fully intended to prevent the sheriff fudging the matter through his own County Court. His concern was to make sure that de Braose got his just deserts, and there were considerable risks in waiting months for the Justices to trundle down to Exeter. Escape from gaol was a stock joke in most parts of England, where a considerable proportion of those committed for trial never appeared in court. The cost of guarding and feeding prisoners fell on the tax-payers of the city and that, together with bribery of guards and the dilapidated gaols, made escape a common event. Many prisoners reached sanctuary and abjured the realm, the rest either vanished into the forest to become outlaws or slipped away to other parts of the country and began a new life. De Wolfe had no intention of letting Jocelin de Braose slide back to his old haunts in the Welsh Marches, after the brutal killings he had perpetrated.

Looking at the weak, evasive sheriff, he could see that he would get no help there. He sensed that de Revelle still had one eye on the possibility of Prince John eventually coming out on top and wanted to avoid any acts that might put himself on a blacklist with any new government and its supporters in the West Country. The germ of an idea was wriggling in the coroner’s mind. He left Richard to lick the wounds of his injured self-esteem and walked back to the chamber high above the gatehouse.

Gwyn was there, eating as usual, having given up trying to get home to his family before the curfew. They spent some time going over the momentous events of the past couple of days. De Wolfe suspected that if he had been convicted and sentenced to be hanged, his faithful Cornish giant would have torn down the gallows to prevent it. As they sat talking, they heard the familiar erratic tap of a limping leg coming up the stairs. ‘The midget priest seems in a hurry tonight,’ grunted Gwyn, as the sacking curtain flew aside and Thomas hopped into the room. They could see that he was in a state of great elation, his ferret face alight with excitement.

‘I’ve found it, Crowner!’ he squeaked, groping in the scruffy cloth bag he used to carry his pen, inks and parchments. He hurried up to the table, where a couple of tallow dips threw a pool of light, and carefully unrolled a parchment, which protected a loose inner page, stained and mottled with age. ‘After all these days and nights, I found it! The missing directions to Saewulf’s hoard!’ He could hardly speak, such was his agitation.

De Wolfe rose from his stool to look, while even Gwyn forgot to bait the little clerk and came across to the table. Though neither man could read it, they looked with fascination at the frayed piece of treated sheepskin, on which faded brown ink was partly obscured by rings of fungus and scattered yellow foxing.

‘Are you quite sure this is the genuine document?’ asked the coroner.

‘And where did you find it, dwarf?’ boomed Gwyn, secretly proud of his colleague’s tenacity and success.

Thomas rubbed his spiky hair ruefully. ‘I fell asleep in the archives this afternoon and slipped off that high stool,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘I hit my head on the leg of the desk and lay there for a moment in pain. Then, as I was looking up from the floor, I saw that on the under-surface of old Roger de Hane’s desk this outer parchment was stuck with blobs of bone glue. I pulled it off and inside was this ancient piece of vellum.’

They looked at it again, silently. ‘So what does it say?’ asked Gwyn.

Thomas ran his finger along the faint words, being careful not to touch the fragile membrane. ‘Sixty paces, each of four shoe-lengths, sighted from the west tower wall, in line with the outer corners. Mark the spot, then twenty paces towards the largest yew. A leg’s length deep.’ They digested this for a moment. ‘It doesn’t say where, and there’s no mention of Saewulf or a village priest or even a treasure,’ complained Gwyn.

‘The vellum is torn off close above and below the actual writing,’ explained Thomas, indignant that his marvellous discovery was being challenged. ‘Someone has ripped the directions from a longer document — maybe it fitted the original that de Limesi told us about.’

The coroner was less critical than his officer. ‘Given what we know about the finding of the brooch and the whole story of Saewulf — and that this parchment was deliberately hidden under de Hane’s desk — I’m quite sure that it’s genuine. Well done, Thomas. Your diligence will be rewarded somehow.’