Bernard Knight - Crowner Royal

De Wolfe sighed heavily. He knew Godard was referring to the harsh way in which a couple of months previously Hubert had quelled the popular revolt against taxation led by William fitz Osbert, known as ‘Longbeard’. The leaders of the rebellion had been cornered in the church of St Mary le Bow, which Hubert had set on fire, driving the rebels out to be dragged to an agonising death at Tyburn. Since then, his unpopularity over the increasing burden of taxes had been worsened by accusations that he had deliberately ordered the violation of sanctuary.

‘He appointed me on the orders of King Richard!’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘Are you challenging royal authority? That smacks of treason, sir!’

An expression of sullen obstinacy came over Godard’s plain face. ‘I’m challenging nothing — but the right to appoint one sheriff for London and another for Middlesex was granted by the first King Henry when he granted the city its charter. If you want to dispute that, then take the matter to the mayor, to whom I am responsible.’

‘I may do just that!’ rasped the coroner, his simmering anger now rising to boiling point. ‘But that will take time, and in this blistering heat that cadaver will start to stink, especially as it has already spent a night in this putrid river!’

The sheriff considered this for a moment, stroking his full belly with one hand as an aid to thought.

‘I’m a reasonable man, Sir John. I accept your point about the likely dissolution of the corpse in this weather,’ he said mildly. ‘Why do we not examine him together, then at least your mind will be assuaged about the cause of death?’

Somewhat reluctantly, de Wolfe grunted an agreement, but did not give in completely. ‘What about getting the fellow back to Westminster? He is in minor orders and deserves a proper funeral before he turns green!’

‘I still wish to hold my own enquiry, as is the city’s right,’ declared Godard pedantically. ‘After that, you can do what you like with him.’

De Wolfe managed to hold his tongue until after he had had the opportunity to look at the corpse. Then he intended petitioning the Chief Justiciar to kick a few backsides in the city of London, even if Hubert was out of favour with those belligerent bastards who lived in this swarming hive on the edge of the Thames.

The sheriff began walking to the cart, his two officers reluctantly moving aside to let the coroner’s team through.

Edwin once again identified the body to the sheriff, to legalise the enquiry that the Londoner was insistent upon.

‘You say he was stabbed, not drowned?’ demanded Godard, in his rather high-pitched voice. ‘I see no blood?’

‘He’s been washed in the damned river for the better part of a day,’ snapped John, his patience at breaking point. More calmly, he forced himself to explain the whole circumstances. ‘We happened to see the culprit running away, but we had no chance to catch or even recognise him,’ he added.

Almost automatically, Gwyn began to step forward to perform his usual task of removing the clothes from the body, but de Wolfe, with uncharacteristic tact, motioned him back. Instead, William stood forward and once again removed the canvas sheet.

‘There should be a wound in his chest or belly,’ said the coroner, as the sheriff bent closer to the corpse. After fiddling with the black garment that covered Basil of Reigate, Godard nodded his agreement. ‘Here, there’s a rent in the cloth, just below his breastbone.’

John peered more closely until his hooked nose almost touched the stiff wool, the sodden cloth having dried in the sun. As the sheriff pulled the material flat, he saw a tear something over an inch in length in the midline, about two hands’ breadth below the root of the neck.

William began to pull the long cassock up over Basil’s head, struggling against the stiffness of death that had set in more markedly since the body had been removed from the water.

Though this intimate examination was being held in the open air, the bailey of Baynard’s Castle was closed to all but those who had business there and there was no audience apart from a few curious men-at-arms who were kept at a distance by the gestures of William’s fellow watchman.

When the cassock was taken off, a thin undershirt of creased, damp linen was revealed and again there was a similar slit cut in the chest area. ‘Lift it up, man!’ ordered Godard and a moment later, he waved a hand at the pallid skin which so far was free from even early discoloration of corruption.

‘There’s your injury, coroner!’ He pointed a finger at the stab wound which was oozing a small amount of blood, but was careful not to touch it. De Wolfe had no such scruples and prised it apart with his two forefingers to look at the edges.

‘Blunt at one end, so it was a blade with one sharp edge and a flat back!’ he declared.

The sheriff looked at him cynically. ‘And how does that help you, sir?’ he asked. ‘There are probably ten thousand such knives within a mile of here.’

John ignored him and transferred his eagle-eyed inspection to the corpse’s face.

‘What are you looking for now?’ asked Godard. ‘The cause of his death is patently obvious!’

‘He slipped off the landing stage while he was still bleeding,’ snapped the coroner. ‘Roll him over on to his face,’ he ordered, forgetting his role as an invited observer. William looked at his master, but the sheriff just shrugged and the watchman hoisted up one shoulder of the corpse. As the dead clerk turned over, Gwyn and Thomas, knowing what to look for, bent to watch the face and were rewarded by a flow of pink frothy fluid from the nostrils and mouth.

‘Stabbed he might have been, but he went into the river alive and drowning finished him off,’ declared de Wolfe, with a note of satisfaction in his voice.

Godard of Antioch looked unimpressed. ‘Any wherry-man could have told you that!’ he said ungraciously. ‘What difference does it make? If he’d not been stabbed, he’d not have gone into the river and died, so your mysterious assailant is still a murderer.’

‘All information may be useful,’ muttered John obscurely, annoyed that the sheriff was undoubtedly correct.

They checked that there were no other injuries on the body and William replaced the canvas and wheeled the cart back into the mortuary shed, where at least it would be out of the direct rays of the sun.

‘Did he have a scrip on his belt?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘A small leather pouch with a purse inside,’ answered the sheriff’s watchman. ‘It held but two silver pennies, so I doubt that he was killed for his wealth.’

Apart from marvelling that someone had not already stolen the coins since the corpse was recovered from the river, there was nothing else John could do and he turned to the supercilious sheriff.

‘Do you still wish to continue with this matter?’ he barked. ‘I fail to see what you can learn here, when the crime was committed almost a couple of miles upriver.’

‘I can send my men to Westminster to question you people up there,’ retorted Godard stubbornly.

‘I doubt the Chief Justiciar would look kindly on that, sheriff!’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘In fact, I strongly suspect that he will wish to have words with you and your mayor over this apparent conflict of interests.’

Godard seemed unmoved by this veiled threat. ‘I will record my verdict in the usual way. After you have gone, I will assemble a jury and declare that this man Basil of Reigate was slain at Westminster on yesterday’s date, by persons unknown. That will be the end of the matter.’

‘Not for me, it won’t!’ shouted de Wolfe. ‘I will investigate it properly and discover who did this foul act upon a servant of the king. You have been wasting my time, sir — and your own!’