Bernard Knight - Crowner's Quest

Desperate, he had walked to Exeter to throw himself on the mercy of his father’s brother, Archdeacon John of Alencon. His uncle gave him a little money to keep him alive and promised to look out for some suitable employment. In September, the newly appointed coroner had needed a clerk to keep his inquest rolls and the Archdeacon had prevailed upon his friend John de Wolfe to take the disgraced priest on probation. In spite of the largely assumed scorn with which the two big fighting men treated the stunted clerk, the arrangement worked well and Thomas’s undoubted skill with a pen was reinforced by his value as a seeker-out of information. He was incurably inquisitive and had a knack of worming information from people and sifting gossip, which the coroner had found invaluable in the tightly knit communities of Devonshire.

Now, however, as Thomas tried to recall any recent rumours that might in any way be connected to the murder of the canon, nothing came to mind. ‘The only hints of intrigue I’ve heard in the Close concern outside matters — and they were political, rather than ecclesiastical,’ he said thoughtfully, tapping his chin with the end of the feathered quill.

Gwyn, who was lifting a stone jar of cider on to the sill, was scornful of the clerk’s efforts to be useful. ‘We’ve got a dead canon to deal with, so what’s politics got to do with it?’

‘Let’s hear about it, anyway,’ countered de Wolfe. ‘We’ve nothing else to follow up.’

Thomas made a rude face at the Cornishman before continuing. ‘It’s only a glimmer of a rumour, really, but I overheard it several times from different people. They were guarded and spoke in a roundabout way, but I had the impression that some of the barons and, indeed, some prominent churchmen are chafing at the way the King seems to have abandoned England for Normandy and left William Longchamp as Chancellor and Hubert Walter as Chief Justiciar.’

De Wolfe was indignant. ‘King Richard would never abandon his country, for Christ’s sake! He has to fight that yellow-bellied Philip of France to keep Normandy intact, after John — that fool he has for a brother — tried to give it away when he was imprisoned in Germany.’ The coroner was almost obsessively loyal to Richard, after serving him so closely at the Crusade: he took any criticism of his monarch as a personal affront.

Thomas was immediately on the defensive. ‘I’m only repeating the gossip, Crowner. Everyone hates Longchamp and though Archbishop Walter,’ he paused to cross himself, ‘is not himself unpopular, these crushing taxes he has imposed to support the King’s campaigns certainly are.’

Gwyn joined in the argument as he reached for the loaf and hunk of cheese that were sitting in a stone niche in the bare wall. ‘People have always grumbled about their rulers and their taxes. It’s only natural.’ He hacked off a culf of bread for each of them with his dagger and chopped the hard cheese into three portions. ‘So what’s this to do with our dead canon?’ he asked, handing round the food.

‘Nothing, I suppose. I was only repeating what tittle-tattle is current,’ squeaked Thomas.

De Wolfe stared suspiciously at his clerk. ‘Is it just idle talk, Thomas? I know you, and your crafty mind wouldn’t have brought this up unless you knew something more.’

The scribe wriggled on his stool. ‘Not so much what is said, Crowner, as the way some people around the cathedral are talking. They look over their shoulders and lower their voices — or change the subject if they sense me eavesdropping.’

‘That’s no wonder, everyone knows what a nosy little turd you are!’ growled the Cornishman, pouring rough cider from a stone jar into three mugs set on the table.

Thomas made a vulgar gesture at him with two fingers, borrowed from the archers who had escaped having their bowstring digits chopped off by their enemies. ‘More than that, Sir John, I overheard, at a small feast for St Justinian the other day, two vicars-choral who had their heads together over the wine. It seems one had heard the cathedral Precentor, Thomas de Boterellis, talking to another canon after Chapter. They were discussing some imminent meeting with the Count of Mortaigne, at which Bishop Marshal was to be present. They broke off when they saw they were being overheard.’

The coroner chewed this over in his head. Prince John was the Count of Mortaigne: it was one of the titles — to a Normandy province — that the King had recently restored to him, as part of his forgiveness for having plotted against him. The Prince had been across the Channel for most of the time since Richard’s release last March, but he was reported to have been seen back in England recently.

‘Why shouldn’t the bishop talk to his sovereign’s brother?’ Gwyn always contradicted the clerk on principle.

Thoughtfully, de Wolfe washed down his bread and cheese with a swig of the sour cider. ‘It bears keeping in mind, though. Both Bishop Marshal — and his Precentor — were supporters of John’s treachery last year, though I can’t see any connection with our dead priest. But keep your ear to the ground, Thomas.’

When their morning repast was finished, the coroner spent a few laborious minutes at his Latin lesson, silently mouthing the simple phrases from the parchment supplied by his mentor. Thomas watched him covertly, wishing he could use his considerable teaching skills to help his master, but conscious of the coroner’s sensitivity over his inability to read and write. Before long, de Wolfe dropped the vellum roll impatiently and stood up, stooping slightly as his knuckles rested on the table. ‘It’s too early to go down to the cathedral — the priests will still be at their high mass. I’ll walk across to have a word with our sheriff and see if I can get any sense out of him about how we pursue this killing.’

He pushed through the sacking and stumped down the narrow stairs, bending his head to avoid the low roof of rough stone, built by Saxon masons under Norman direction. Rougemont had been erected on William’s direct orders in 1067 after he had captured Exeter following an eighteen-day siege. It was said that the Conqueror had personally paced out the foundations for the keep and it was towards this that John made his way. The castle occupied the high north-eastern part of Exeter, cutting off a corner of the city walls, first built by the Romans. Outside this inner ward, beyond a deep ditch, was the wide zone of the outer bailey, itself protected by an earth bank and a wooden stockade. Here, a jumble of shacks and huts housed soldiers, their families and their animals — a cross between an army camp and a farm.

De Wolfe’s loping strides took him across the inner ward, surrounded by crenellated walls of red sandstone. As he walked through the frozen mud towards the keep, he heard chanting from the tiny chapel of St Mary on his right, where the castle chaplain was celebrating Christ Mass. On his left was the Shire Court, a bare stone box where the sheriff held his county court and the King’s Justices came at intervals to hold the Eyre of Assize. His destination was straight ahead, almost against the further curtain wall, which ran along the edge of a low cliff above Northernhay. The keep was a squat structure of two storeys above an undercroft, a semi-basement that housed the castle gaol. The entrance was up wide wooden steps that led to a door on the first floor. In times of siege, the stairs could be thrown down to prevent attack from ground level, though Rougemont had not been at war for almost sixty years.

As John walked across the inner bailey, familiar sights, sounds and smells assailed him — the neighing of horses in stalls built against the walls where tattered huts also housed kitchens, wash-houses, and the shanty dwellings of senior soldiers and castle servants. Chickens, pigs and goats wandered through the mire, adding their ordure to the rubbish trodden into the mud, where hardly a blade of grass survived. The Yuletide holiday seemed to make little difference to the usual chaotic routine of life. Smoke rose from a score of cooking fires, while men-at-arms, their women and a few ragged children criss-crossed the busy area.