Bernard Knight - The Manor of Death

'So he went to sea recently, madam?' asked John politely. 'But he returned home safely some days ago?'

She nodded, still shredding the rag between her fingers. 'It was but his second voyage, sir. He hated it, but it earned the few pence we sorely needed. In fact, he came back last Thursday with more than we expected. He flung it down on the table and refused to say where it came from. I knew something was very wrong.' She began to sob, and again it was Gwyn who tried to console her. The big, shambling officer placed an arm around her shoulders as he bent over her. 'We need you to look at a body, Edith. Only you can help us in this. Come with us now, across to the church.'

As they all slowly crossed the village street to the church of St Michael, Luke de Casewold murmured to his clerk: 'How did you find her, Hugh?'

'I went around the few ships on that side of the river, but none could — or would — tell me anything. Then I found the reeve of Seaton and he said that Widow Makerel had been searching for her son Simon. I went to see her and it seemed likely that a dark-haired youth of eighteen might be the one we seek.'

In the churchyard, before the procession reached the mortuary shed, Thomas de Peyne and the parish priest, Henry of Cumba, appeared from the ornately carved arch which was the entrance to the church. Hugh Bogge briefly explained to them what was happening, and now the two priests took over from Gwyn as supporters of Edith Makerel. They guided her under the lean-to roof and the identification was short and dramatic.

With a howl, the poor woman fell upon the body as Thomas uncovered the face and lay sobbing across the odorous fish-cart. Her pathetic cries of 'My son, my poor son!' left no doubt as to the identity of the corpse.

An admitted coward in the face of emotional crises, John backed away and left the two priests with the distraught woman. As he walked back to the gate of the churchyard with the Keeper of the Peace and his clerk, he pondered the possible significance of what they had heard.

'Why strangle some young deckhand?' he muttered. 'He was hardly likely to have a heavy purse upon him that could be stolen.'

'What about this money that his mother said he gave her?' asked Luke. 'She seemed surprised and a little suspicious of where it came from. And why did she say there was something amiss with the lad when he returned from the voyage?'

De Wolfe turned to Hugh Bogge as they reached the village street. 'Do you know what vessel he was sailing on? Is it one of those still along the quayside there?'

'No, I asked the widow. She said this was the second voyage her son had made on a cog called The Tiger . He was due to sail on her again for Calais yesterday, but of course he went missing.'

'Damnation! I needed to have called her crew to my inquest tomorrow.' The coroner was irritated that nothing seemed to be going smoothly with this case. 'Is there no one else who knew the boy?'

'There is his brother — and his mother said he has a girl in Seaton whom he hoped to marry.'

'Get them to the inquest in the morning — I will hold it in the churchyard at the tenth hour. My own officer can roust out the rest to form a jury; the bailiff, the portreeve, the priest and a dozen villagers will suffice.'

De Wolfe looked at the Harbour Inn across the road. 'This looks the best tavern in the place. I need to find us a good meal and a mattress each for the night.'

Soon after dawn, John de Wolfe roused himself from his bed, which had been a hessian bag stuffed with straw. The accommodation for guests in Axmouth's premier inn was a barn-like building at the back of the tavern, where the upper floor was reached by a ladder. On the bare boards, a dozen such mattresses were spread out, the management providing a coarse blanket as an added luxury, under which the lodgers slept in their clothes, minus boots and headgear. The coroner stood up and looked around the loft in the pale morning light, which squeezed in through several slits in the walls. He saw four or five other men huddled on their pallets, as well as Thomas and Gwyn, the latter snoring like a grampus.

Pulling on his boots, he prodded his officer and clerk with a toecap and, when he was sure that they were groaning themselves awake, went down to the floor below. Here, several other men, all shipmen by their clothing, sat on benches at a long trestle table, slurping gruel from wooden bowls and eating fresh barley bread cut from several loaves lying on the scrubbed boards.

At the end of the room, a boy was stirring the oatmeal in a large pot hanging from a tripod over a fire.

When de Wolfe dropped heavily on a bench and grunted a vague greeting to the ruffian next to him, the lad brought him a bowl of porridge and a spoon carved from a cow's horn. Then a young girl, no more than eight years old, came around the table with a large jug to top up the crude clay pots with watered ale.

As he finished his gruel, which had the consistency of back-yard mud that had been trampled by pigs in wet weather, he reached for the nearest loaf and cut off an inch-thick slice with his dagger. There was half a cheese next to the loaf, and at the risk of blunting his blade he hacked off a large piece and began chewing while he cleared his mind of sleep.

By now, Thomas and Gwyn had tumbled down the ladder and started on their own frugal breakfast.

'We hold this inquest and then ride for home, Crowner?' asked the Cornishman hopefully.

John grunted. 'Doubt we'll learn much from it, but we have to start somewhere. I need to talk to the bailiff and the portreeve first.'

'A pity that vessel, The Tiger , sailed on Sunday,' observed Thomas, his narrow face twisted in distaste at the sour porridge. 'I feel someone aboard her might be the miscreant. After all, the lad lived across in Seaton, but his body was hidden on this side of the river, so he was almost certainly slain here.'

'Well, they bloody have gone, so there's no use regretting it.'

A man sitting opposite joined in. 'They'll be back as that cog belongs here, she's not just a visitor to the Axe.' He was a beefy mariner, with a short tunic which looked as if it had been made from a spare sail.

'When is she likely to return?' demanded de Wolfe. The sailor shrugged. 'They've gone to Calais, but it doesn't mean they'll sail straight back. They might find a cargo for the Rhine or back down to St-Malo. Could be ten days, could be a month.'

The man next to him sniggered. 'Depends on who they meet out in the Channel!' He was a foxy little fellow with a bad squint. The first shipman glared at him, and John had the impression that he had kicked Foxy hard on the leg under the table, as the smaller man jerked and winced.

'Who's the shipmaster — and who owns the vessel?' asked Gwyn.

'The master is Martin Rof, who lives in this vill. As to the owner, I've no knowledge; you'll have to ask Northcote or Elias Palmer.'

He rose rather abruptly, leaving half his bread on the table, as if he was unwilling to answer any more questions. As he left, he gestured sharply at the squinting man, who followed him sheepishly out of the door.

'What was all that about?' growled Gwyn. 'I say again, there's something odd about this place.'

The coroner turned to his clerk. 'Thomas, did you learn anything from your ecclesiastical friend yesterday?'

His clerk confessed that Henry of Cumba had nothing solid to tell him, though Thomas had sensed that all was not well in the town of Axmouth.

'It was clear that the Prior of Loders had a strong grip on the place and dictated much of what was done there,' mused the clerk. 'The parish priest is but a vicar employed by the priory for parish duties. This bailiff Edward Northcote seems an iron-handed master and acts more like a manor-lord than a servant of the priory.'