Bernard Knight - Crowner Royal

With a face like thunder, he stalked off across the bailey towards his horse. His three companions trailed after him, leaving the sheriff and his men to their own devices. As John reached Odin and unhitched him from a rail outside the guardroom, the priest, who had remained silent throughout all the exchanges, came hurrying after them, as de Wolfe climbed into his high saddle.

‘Sir John, what about the corpse? You said it must be returned to Westminster.’ He was a small man, with a face lined with worry.

John looked down at him from the back of his patient destrier.

‘I will speak to the Keeper and perhaps the Chief Justiciar as soon as I return. They will arrange for the poor fellow to be collected.’ He wheeled Odin around to face the gate.

‘Meanwhile, keep him out of this damned sun or they’ll have to collect him in a couple of buckets!’

That evening, the coroner decided to have his supper in his rented dwelling, rather than in the Lesser Hall. The attraction of the delectable Hawise d’Ayncourt was strong, but he had an uneasy feeling that he might get himself into trouble if he let matters progress too far. He could not quite understand why she still used her own name, when she was married to Renaud de Seigneur, but he decided that was something it was not profitable to pursue.

Osanna, their obese cook, told them that their meal would not be ready for another hour, so John and Gwyn adjourned to an alehouse on King Street, to quench their thirsts as the heat of the day began to lessen in the early evening. A slight breeze came up the river with the rising tide, bringing with it cooler air, scented with sewage and rotting fish.

The tavern, alongside the palace gate, had the somewhat irreverent name of ‘The Deacon’, perhaps to offer a weak justification or even an alibi to a number of priests and clerks who often sidled in furtively. It was an old building, built of curved crucks of trees at each pine-end and a lattice of timbers supporting panels made from hazel withies plastered with cog, all in dire need of new limewash.

There was an upper floor where rooms were let to lodgers, and above that in the loft straw mattresses were rented out at a penny a night for those who wanted cheap communal accommodation. The ground floor was a single large room where ale, cider and cheap wine were dispensed and it was here that Gwyn and his master sat to swallow a quart of a rather indifferent brew. Two stools were placed at an open window, where the shutters were thrown wide to admit the cooler air; a rough plank that acted as a sill formed a convenient shelf for their pottery mugs.

‘Thank Christ you talked Osanna out of those eels,’ said Gwyn with feeling. ‘She says now she’s got a decent bit of pork for us.’

Food and drink figured largely in the Cornishman’s life, along with gambling and a good fight. De Wolfe nodded absently, his mind on other matters. ‘I hadn’t realised how jealous this city of London was about Westminster — though I suspect it works both ways,’ he said ruminatively. ‘When I spoke to the Keeper again this afternoon, you’d have thought that those across the Fleet river were as much our enemies as the bloody French!’

‘What’s he going to do about the corpse?’ asked Gwyn, wiping ale from his drooping moustache with the back of his hand.

‘He’s done it by now, no doubt. Sent a cart and a couple of palace guards to fetch it back here. He says it can lie in St Stephen’s Chapel tonight until it’s buried in the abbey cemetery tomorrow.’

‘What about an inquest — our inquest,’ asked his officer.

‘I’ll have to go through the motions in the morning, I suppose,’ replied John without enthusiasm. ‘I’ve already examined the corpse, but the jury will have to see it as well.’

‘Who are we going to get for the jury?’

‘I trust that Thomas has some names written down. There were those people on the landing stage and the sergeant of the guard, as well as the boy Edwin. We’ll have to make do with those.’

‘We don’t have a sheriff to inform here, not like Exeter,’ grumbled Gwyn. ‘It’s all so damned different. Who do you present the inquest roll to, after Thomas has written it?’

John shrugged. ‘It seems to me that this Verge business was launched without much forethought. The abbot seems to think he runs everything in Westminster, so does the Keeper — and those sods over in the city claim that we’re subject to the county of Middlesex!’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ demanded Gwyn. ‘There’s no point in our sitting on our arses here, with very little to do and no one seeming to care whether we do anything or not. I wish I was back home, to tell the truth!’

He took another swallow and added, ‘Especially having to put up with this horse-piss, instead of my wife’s or Nesta’s good ale.’ The mention of his former mistress sent John into a pensive reverie. He missed the gentle Welshwoman more than he cared to admit, even though he acknowledged that she had done the right thing by marrying the stonemason. They could never have been more than lovers, skulking to meet when his wife’s back was turned and with no prospect ever of a marriage between a Norman knight and a Welsh tavern keeper.

There was Hilda of Dawlish, of course, who he loved as well, but now she was on the other side of England — and Matilda, though equally distant, was still his wife, more’s the pity! He was forty-one years of age and felt as lusty as ever — but unless he went whoring, he would have to put up with the frustrations of celibacy. This depressing thought brought the image of Hawise d’Ayncourt into his mind again and he briefly wished that he had forsaken Osanna’s promise of roast pork for another meal in the Lesser Hall.

He was jerked out of his musing by Gwyn, who had been staring out of the unglazed window at the street outside.

‘What’s this? Here’s our favourite dwarf coming.’

His affectionate slander was directed at Thomas de Peyne, who a moment later sidled into the tavern with a guilty look. Though many clerics were as fond of drink and women as the next man, Thomas was a shy, reserved little fellow, who looked on alehouses as a halfway stop to Hades. His skinny body, slight limp and hunched shoulder made him unattractive to women, except those who wanted to mother him. He was content with a world that revolved around his beloved Church and books of history and learning. His skill with pen, ink and parchment was exceptional and his insatiable curiosity had given him an encyclopaedic knowledge.

‘What brings you to this den of iniquity, Thomas?’ asked de Wolfe. ‘Are you pining for our brilliant company or have you something to tell us?’

Gwyn reached out and dragged another stool for the clerk to sit on. ‘Do you want a cup of wine, Thomas?’ he asked solicitously. ‘It’s lousy stuff, the ale-wife says it’s from the Loire, but I think she means just taken out of the river there!’

His friend shook his head, declining to compound his visit to a tavern by actually drinking there.

‘I just called in to tell you something I heard about the dead man we saw today,’ he said earnestly. He dropped his voice and looked covertly about the taproom, though the other patrons seemed indifferent to their conversation.

‘At supper tonight in the abbey refectory, the death of Basil of Reigate was a favourite subject for conversation, as everyone knew that his body had been brought back for burial. Then afterwards, I took a turn around the cloister, as did many others to aid their digestion and gossip some more.’

‘Mary, Mother of God, get to the bloody point, will you!’ hissed de Wolfe, who was afraid that Thomas was getting as long-winded as Gwyn when it came to telling a story.