Bernard Knight - The Noble Outlaw

James Anglicus was aghast. 'That's not possible, my students will be back from their devotions at the cathedral in an hour,' he blubbered. 'Their instruction cannot be disturbed for some ancient corpse.'

De Wolfe glowered. 'Administering the king's peace is more important than gabbling Latin at a bunch of youths,' he snapped. 'If necessary, I will order the whole house to be cleared while we search it.'

The pedagogue stepped back a pace, conscious of the angry glint in the coroner's dark eyes, but managed to stammer a last feeble protest. 'My patron will be most disturbed to hear of this. The school is in its formative days and most vulnerable to adverse gossip.'

It was clear from de Wolfe's expression that this plea made little impression on him, but grudgingly he followed it up. 'What exactly is this place? And who is this sensitive patron of yours?' He knew that in recent years, seats of learning had been set up in a number of towns to offer a higher level of education than those provided by the cathedral schools, which were mainly concerned with teaching youngsters to read and write and with training older boys for the priesthood.

'I was appointed to lead this establishment three months ago, Crowner,' began James importantly. 'It is the most recent of the four schools in this road, chosen for its proximity to Priest Street, where so many of the cathedral clerics lodge. Most of our pupils are clerks in holy orders at various levels, the majority of them quite young men.'

De Wolfe nodded impatiently. 'And who is this patron of whom you speak? Does he own the school and run it like any other business?'

The magister was indignant. 'Profit is of little importance, sir. Naturally, each student pays fees, but the prime motive is the education of young minds. Our patron has expended much money and effort in setting up this temple of learning. Any breath of scandal might harm his ambition to attract more students.'

'But who is this paragon of virtue?' demanded John, weary of the teacher's long-windedness.

James Anglicus stared at him in some surprise. 'I would have thought you would be well aware of that, sir. It is your own brother-in-law.'

De Wolfe never gaped, but at this news, his jaw came close to sagging. 'Richard de Revelle!' he exclaimed incredulously. 'You're jesting with me, surely.'

'Indeed I am not,' exclaimed James indignantly. 'Sir Richard is a man of high academic ambition — he most earnestly seeks to establish Exeter as a seat of learning.'

And as a seat of profit for himself, thought de Wolfe cynically, though grudgingly he had to acknowledge that his brother-in-law was well-educated. In fact, Richard never failed to rub it in to John that while the latter was illiterate, Richard himself had attended the cathedral school in Wells, his parents having originally wished him to enter the Church. John shrugged and turned back to the body on the ground.

'It makes no difference to whom the place belongs, magister. There was still a corpse found on the premises and I have to deal with it in the usual way.'

A few flurries of snow were twisting in the cold breeze: both living and dead needed to find some shelter. John gestured to Gwyn and with little effort, the Cornishman picked up the flimsy bundle and carried it back through the wide doorway of the forge, kicking aside some tools and boxes to make space for it on the cluttered floor. John and the builder followed him inside, and Thomas and James Anglicus tagged along more reluctantly, together with a fussy, pompous fellow who the magister had earlier introduced as Henry Wotri, his servant and general factotum in the school.

'We can shut this door and leave the deceased here until my inquest,' announced de Wolfe, indicating the rickety collection of planks that hung on rusted hinges. 'Then you can carry on with your lessons in the house undisturbed for the time being.'

'When will that be?' quavered the master, his morose features looking even more depressed.

'Certainly not today; we first need to make some effort to discover who he was,' snapped the coroner. 'My officer and clerk will make some enquiries around the city and then I will probably call a jury together either tomorrow or Wednesday.'

He stared down at the twisted figure on the ground. 'At least we should do our best to put a name to him and avoid burying him in an unmarked grave, though I doubt we'll ever know how he died.'

For once, Sir John was soon to be proved wrong.

The coroner and his two assistants were in John's chamber in the gatehouse of Rouge mont, Exeter's castle built in the northern angle of the ancient town walls. It was a bleak room high in the narrow tower, a draughty cell with two unglazed window slits looking down over the city, as Rougemont itself was at the highest point of the tilted plateau that rose from the River Exe.

De Wolfe sat at a rough trestle table, which together with a bench and a couple of milking stools, was all the furniture in the room. Thomas de Peyne sat on one of these stools at the end of the table, copying out documents on to rolls of parchment, while Gwyn perched in his habitual place on one of the stone windowsills.

There was a metallic clatter from the table, as de Wolfe played with something on the boards in front of him. Thomas stared at the rusted object, a crudely shaped nail about the length of his little finger. One end was sharply pointed, the other fashioned into an irregular head.

After laying the corpse down in the old forge, the coroner and his officer had decided to make a closer examination in the hope of finding something to explain the death. Though they stripped the shrivelled body to examine every inch of its surface, they found no wounds at all until Gwyn looked at the back of the neck. Here skin and muscle had been lost so that some of the bones of the spine were exposed. Stained yellowish-brown by dust and dirt, they seemed unremarkable until Gwyn's sharp eyes noticed a darker brown nodule nestling between two vertebrae. Unable to remove it with his fingers, watched by the others he used the point of his dagger to lever at this alien lump, before drawing out a full three inches of metal that had been jammed between the bones. Now, as it rested on the table, John poked at it pensively with his forefinger.

'When men fall from a warhorse or a hayrick and break their backs, even when they survive, they often lose all feeling and motion in the legs — sometimes even arms as well,' he ruminated. 'So whatever is contained in the spine must be mightily important — and having this nail stuck through it must be a devilishly dangerous matter.'

Gwyn stroked his red moustaches, which hung down to his collarbones. 'When I worked as a slaughterman in the Shambles years ago, the poleaxe sometimes missed the back of the head and hit the beast high on the neck — but they seemed to drop dead just as effectively.' The sensitive Thomas winced and Gwyn, who could never resist baiting his little friend, turned the screw. 'Inside the neck was a thick white cord, joined to the brain. Very tasty it was, dropped in a stew with some turnips and onions.'

As the clerk blanched at the thought, de Wolfe picked up the nail and turned it in his fingers. 'This hammered through that white cord would kill, I have no doubt. If not immediately, then within a short time, as those who break their backs never survive for long.'

'Could it be an accident, Sir John?' asked Thomas, his mild nature hoping as always for an innocent outcome.

Gwyn laughed raucously. 'Accident? How the hell could he get an iron nail three inches deep into the back of his neck by accident? You'll be saying next it was suicide.'

'He could have fallen backwards, on to a plank that had a projecting nail,' hazarded the clerk stubbornly. 'So where's the plank? It's not still nailed to the back of his neck, is it?' jeered the Cornishman.