Bernard Knight - Figure of Hate

He rose to meet them, anxiety written over his lined face as yet another death brought the King's coroner to the village. After greeting them and calling to a servant behind the far screens to bring food and drink, he invited them to sit at his table, where they were joined by the bailiff, Thomas and Eustace. There was still no sign of any-of the masters and mistresses of the house — the steward said thatJoel had gone off riding with Lady Beatrice and Avelina was in Tiverton visiting Sir Reginald.

'I've no notion where Sir Odo and Ralph might be.

They are probably somewhere about the bailey,' he concluded, but almost as he spoke Ralph Peverel stalked into the hall, slapping his thigh with a pair of leather gloves. Judging by his boots and cloak, he had been riding, and when Robert Longus appeared behind him, carrying a battered shield and a sword, it seemed obvious that Ralph had been training for the coming tournaments at Bristol and Wilton. On a previous visit, John had noticed an area just outside the stockade where the grass was churned into a welter of hoof marks and where two rotating tilts were set up for lance practice.

He strode arrogantly across to the table and stood with his fists on his hips, glaring at John de Wolfe. 'By Christ's wounds, Crowner, are you pestering us again? I'll have to start charging you rent if you spend much more time here!'

His attempt at sarcastic levity was lost on the dour coroner.

'You know damned well why I'm here, Peverel! Another murder in Sampford and I suppose you know nothing about it and care even less!'

Ralph flushed with anger.

'You have no call to speak like that to the lord of a manor — especially before my servants!'

'In my eyes, you are not the lord of this manor until the justices declare it to be so,' retorted de Wolfe. 'Now then, have you anything to tell me about the strangling of this poor girl?'

Ralph walked to the next table and threw himself into one of the three chairs that the hall boasted.

'What should I know about the throttling of some wash-house drab? You know her reputation. Undoubtedly some disgruntled customer from the village took exception to something she did — or didn't do!'

He said this with such uncaring nonchalance that John felt like shaking him until his teeth rattled. 'You do not find it a coincidence that this is the same girl that your brother lay with on the night that he was slain?' he said sarcastically.

Ralph seemed to have an answer for everything. 'Why should it be? We do not have so many whores in this village that the same one should not be at risk with men who wish to slake their passions.'

'Could it not be that someone, like yourself, who declared that the girl was the killer of your brother, took the law into their own hands?'

'The law should be in our own hands, Crowner! This is a manor with all the rights of manorial custom. We told you at the outset that we did not want your interference from Exeter, but could settle this ourselves. '

John glared at the younger man, whose arrogance and insolence seemed to increase by the day.

'Are you confessing to having taken the law into your own hands? Did you kill this girl, Peverel?'

'Don't be so damned foolish, de Wolfe! D'you think I'd soil my hands on the dirty offspring of a serf? And if I had, would I be daft enough to admit it to you?'

The coroner turned around slowly and looked back down the hall towards the door, where Robert Longus was still standing, the weapons trailing from his hands. He glared back defiantly, his hard face devoid of any expression within the rim of beard that encircled it.

'I want to search the dwelling of your armourer — and his assistant, Alexander Crues.' John spoke over his shoulder to Ralph, who immediately jumped up and stalked over to the coroner.

'What in hell's name for?' he shouted. 'Have you not intruded enough into our affairs? This is too much, I forbid you to interfere any further!'

De Wolfe glowered back at the angry man. Gwyn saw that his patience with Ralph Peverel was wearing thin and his fingers wandered unconsciously towards his sword hilt, in case this developing feud got out of hand.

'Are you defying me, sir? Remember that no one is above the King's law, not even manor-lords!'

'I have friends in high places, Crowner, you will hear more of this! Why on earth should you wish to ransack this man's quarters, other than from spite and prejudice?'

'Longus has been accused by a respectable silvercraftsman of being a robber and a murderer,' retorted John. 'Only your word now stands in contradiction, since your brother is dead.'

The escalating battle of words was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Odo, who came through the door that led upstairs. As he had been said to be outside in the bailey, John realised that he must have entered through the postern door 'from the kitchens. In his temper, Ralph seemed to forget that he was not supposed to be speaking to his elder brother and burst out with his complaints about the coroner.

'He wants to search the place, brother! This is becoming intolerable!'

Odo turned a calmer face towards John, though it was still disapproving of this outside interference.

'I fail to see how that can throw any light on the murder of this poor girl,' he said critically. 'But as the innocent have nothing to hide, I see no objection to pandering to his whims.'

With this backhanded agreement, Odo went to the far end of the room and poured himself some ale from a large crock, taking no further interest in the argument. Ralph simmered with anger as he watched de Wolfe walk back to Robert Longus to question him.

'We meet sooner than I thought! Can you account for where you were throughout last night?'

'I was in the inn until two hours or so after sunset, then in my bed until dawn. I'm not married, so I've no wife to vouch for me!'

This was delivered with thinly veiled insolence, in the expectation that Ralph would support him in everything he said.

'And that big lump who assists you? Where was he?'

Robert shrugged indifferently. 'I'm not his keeper, Crowner. He was in the inn as well, but he left before me. God knows where he went — maybe to his bed, maybe to roll a wench — for, like me, he has no wife living.'

Tired of this verbal fencing, John jerked his head at Gwyn and the two clerks.

'Come on, I want to see where these men live.' Grabbing Robert's arm in a grip like that of a lobster's claw, he pushed him towards the door. The armourer resisted, but Gwyn came round la the other side and he had no option but to stumble along with them, dropping the sword and shield on the floor. As they propelled him to the door, he screwed his head around to make a last appeal to his master, but Ralph had stalked away to the screens and was shouting for someone to bring him wine.

Out in the bailey, the coroner and his officer relaxed their grip on the armourer, who angrily shook himself free.

'Keep your bloody hands off me! I don't know what you expect to find, but for God's sake let's get it over with, then I can get back to some work. The Bristol tourney is only a few days away!'

He led them around the back of the manor house and past the kitchens and laundry hut to the forge and stables. Back to back with the forge, under the same shingled roof, were a couple of small rooms, and Robert Longus led them to the first door, where a heavy leather flap served to keep out the weather.

'I live in here and Crues has the smaller one next door,' he explained in a surly voice. 'So help yourself, and be damned to you!'

He stood back indifferently while John pushed past the flap, followed by Gwyn and Eustace. Thomas decided that a mean, odorous room was no concern of his and stayed outside.

In the dim light from a small shuttered window, John saw a lodging that was as barren as a monk's cell. A straw-filled palliasse lay along one wall; the only other furniture was a rough table with a three-legged stool below it. Some metal-working tools, a pitcher of ale and two clay cups stood upon it. From pegs and hooks on the wooden frames of the cob walls, lengths of chain mail, two helmets and various oddments of armour hung under a coating of dust.