Bernard Knight - Figure of Hate

De Wolfe sighed, chastened by his wife's fondness for de Charterai. She would deem him innocent even if he were found clutching a bloody knife. Even worse, she was almost certainly right.

The third interruption of the day came in midafternoon, when de Wolfe was in the sheriff's chamber, checking the names of those who were to be hanged the next day. Henry de Furnellis had inherited his sheriff's clerk from Richard de Revelle, a wizened, miserable cleric in minor orders, by the name of Elias Pulein. Though he was probably not yet forty, he looked and acted like a man twenty years older. No one could ever recall seeing him smile, and his attitude was one of martyred resignation at having to serve a succession of high-born idiots. His one saving grace was an ability to read and write almost as well as Thomas de Peyne, and a pedantic attention to detail and routine that kept the somewhat haphazard administration of justice in Devonshire in some sort of order.

Now he stood at the sheriff's elbow with a sheaf of parchments, comparing one list with another.

'Edwin of Cullompton died of a fever in the South Gate gaol last week and Robert de Combe had his throat cut by another prisoner, so we can cross them off our list.' He spoke in a tired, dispassionate voice, as if he were cancelling invitations to a guild dinner, rather than an appointment with the gallows-tree.

'So how many are there left?' asked John irritably.

'Five, including one woman … the girl who poisoned her husband for beating her.'

John had to attend the hangings on Magdalen Street, the high road to the east outside the city walls, to see that the executions were correctly recorded for presention to the King's justices when they eventually came to hold the General Eyre. This was the major inquiry into the administration of the county and might not occur for several years, but all legal events had to be catalogued for their perusal. In addition to the more frequent Eyres of Assize, there were the courts of 'Gaol Delivery', held by commissioners who could be either judges or senior officials from Winchester or London, and who came to clear the congested gaols of prisoners awaiting trial. These gaols were not places of punishment after conviction, as no such penalty existed — they merely held those awaiting trial until they were acquitted, fined or hanged. In actual fact, a significant proportion of those on remand never reached the courts, as they either died, were murdered or escaped, the latter through widespread bribery of the gaolers or the connivance of the local inhabitants in small towns and villages, where the cost of guarding and feeding miscreants for long periods was unwelcome.

After agreeing on the names of the felons to be dispatched on the morrow, Elias Pulein began a litany of cases to be dealt with at the next Shire Court, due the following week. This was mainly the responsibility of Henry de Furnellis, though he seemed content to nod sagely at intervals and let his clerk make all the arrangements. Some of the cases needed some input from the coroner, such as declarations of outlawry, depositions about appeals and the confessions of 'approvers' trying to save their necks by incriminating their accomplices.

The dry voice of the chief clerk droned on and John fancied that he could see the sheriff's eyelids drooping as he slumped behind his table. Indeed, the coroner himself felt drowsy from the combination of a heavy dinner and Elias's boring monologue. Abruptly, they were delivered from this wearisome catalogue by a rapping on the heavy door and the appearance of Sergeant Gabriel's helmeted head.

'Sorry to disturb you, sirs, but what looks like an important visitor has just turned up at the gatehouse, wearing the royal livery. Got two armed escorts and says he comes from London on the King's business.'

John uncoiled himself from the corner of the table where he had been perched and Henry managed to shake himself fully awake and get to his feet.

'Who is it, Sergeant? Where is he now?' asked the sheriff, looking slightly confused.

De Wolfe stalked to the door ahead of him and hurried out into the main hall of the keep. As he made for the door at the top of the wooden staircase, two tall men-at-arms on either side of a shorter, youthful figure appeared in the arch. All wore round iron helmets and leather cuirasses, over which were tabards bearing the three golden lions on a red ground — the royal arms of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Judging by their dusty and mud-spattered appearance, they had ridden long and hard.

The man in the middle — hardly more than a youth, though he had a knightly bearing — advanced with a smile and offered his right arm in a forearm grasp of greeting.

'I know that you are Sir John de Wolfe. I saw you last year with the King at that short but bloody fight at Nottingham after his release!'

He introduced himself as William de Mora and said he was acting as a herald for Hubert WaIter, the Chief Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury. By this time, Henry de Furnellis had" arrived, puffing, and introduced himself to the newcomer as the sheriff, immediately pressing the herald to eat, drink and rest.

'First I must deliver my message, sirs, which my Lord Hubert emphasises comes from the King himself. Then I will gladly avail myself of your hospitality, though we must set off with your reply tonight, as apparently the matter is of some urgency.'

Henry dispatched Cabriel with the two escorts to see that they were fed and to make sure that their horses were looked after, then led the way back into his chamber off the hall. Elias Pule in was still standing there, looking aggrieved that such a trivial matter as a messenger from King Richard should interrupt his routine.

The young knight was a fresh-faced fellow, obviously from the family of one of the major barons, who had been placed on the fringe of the royal court as a good launching point for his career. Henry fussed over him, divesting him of his riding cloak and getting him seated with a cup of wine pressed into his hand.

'Now, William de Mora, what urgent business can the King have with me? Has he decided to sack me already?' The herald smiled and shook his head deprecatingly — John thought that the lad's easy manner would take him far in the corridors of power.

'I fear my business is not with you, Sheriff, though I may say that your name is spoken of with great respect at court.'

Henry de Furnellis looked uncertain as to whether he was being praised or snubbed, but relief at not having new orders to bother him won the day.

'No, I have a message for the coroner,' went on de Mora. 'Dictated from the lips of the Justiciar himself.'

He slewed around on his seat to unlace a pouch at the side of his belt and drew out a parchment package, heavily sealed with tape and red wax. Handing it to de Wolfe, he repeated his plea for an early reply.

John stared at the square of vellum, folded over at either side to make an envelope. The main seal, carrying a mounted rider and a cross, was recognisable as the personal emblem of Hubert Walter:

'Please open it at once, Sir John,' requested the young knight, who could only have earned his spurs very recently. The coroner turned the package over, then back again, before pulling the tapes to crack the brittle wax from the seams of the parchment.

It was a single sheet, carrying a few lines of elegant script and a further seal at the bottom. He stared at the manuscript, but although he recognised his own, name at the top and a few scattered words, the Latin was beyond his simple capabilities, and he cursed under his breath as he remembered that Thomas was on his knees in the cathedral, instead of being at his side to translate.

He looked across at the sheriff, who shrugged helplessly, but at once Elias Pulein came to the rescue and held out his hand for the letter. To be fair to the man, he managed to suppress the supercilious sniff that he could have made to express his disdain for the barbarian's he had to work with.