Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

As he fondled Brutus’s smooth head while he waited for Mary to bring him his drink, the thought of ale gave him a sudden stab of guilt over his enforced absences lately from the Bush Inn. He had only seen Nesta once in the past five days, and after his long trips away from Exeter during the past month, he hoped that his mistress was not feeling too neglected. Maybe the installation of Fitz-Ivo might be bearable, he thought, if it gave him more time for dalliance at the Bush. And maybe he would even find time to get down to Stoke-in-Teignhead to see his family. With another twinge of guilt, the thought that Dawlish was on the road to Stoke came into his head — Dawlish, the village where the delectable Hilda lived.

The aspiring new coroner for the north of the county was already in the sheriff’s chamber when de Wolfe arrived. The obese knight was squeezed into a leather-backed folding chair, which looked in imminent danger of collapse as he leaned back dangerously when John entered.

Theobald Fitz-Ivo was obviously slightly drunk after washing down his dinner with too much wine. His circular face, which bore a rim of blond beard that matched his close-cropped hair, was flushed a bright pink and he greeted de Wolfe with unctuous familiarity. ‘Ah, John! I’ve come to your rescue. Richard here has been telling me how hard pressed you’ve been lately.’

Even the sheriff, who had championed Fitz-Ivo, winced at the man’s slurred heartiness.

‘You understand what’s involved, do you?’ growled de Wolfe, propping himself against the stone fireplace where a few logs glowed feebly. ‘This job is no sinecure. You have to get out and about, investigating a whole host of matters.’

Fitz-Ivo waved a hand with unsteady airiness. ‘I’ll soon get into the swing of it, John. My bailiff William is good at reading and writing — never had time for it, myself.’

The coroner sighed. ‘He had better be good, for everything must be recorded on the rolls for presentation to the King’s justices at the Eyre of Assize — and the General Eyre, if it ever arrives in Exeter in our lifetime.’

The podgy knight from Frithelstock looked at him blankly. John hoped that the complexity of a coroner’s functions was dawning on Fitz-Ivo, but he had his doubts. ‘You do understand what your duties will be, I trust?’

‘Oh, it’s mostly looking at corpses and taking presentments, eh?’

De Wolfe groaned inwardly. It would be easier to carry on doing all the work himself than to instruct this dolt — and, no doubt, clear up the mess he was inevitably going to make. He walked across to the sheriff’s heavy table and perched on one corner to stare down at the rubicund Theobald. He decided that the fool should be told a few basic truths. ‘I’d better start at the beginning! The essential duty is the keeping of the pleas of the Crown.’

He was rewarded with a glassy stare from the pale blue eyes that looked back from the red face, which carried an even redder, bulbous nose laced by fine purple veins.

‘What exactly does that mean, eh?’

The scowl on de Wolfe’s dark face deepened. ‘It’s what gives the office its name, for God’s sake!’ he snarled, in exasperation. ‘Why d’you think we’re called coroners? From custos placitorum coronas , keeper of the pleas of the Crown! But we keep them, not hold them. We’re not judges.’

Theobald made an effort to comprehend. ‘So what does keeping entail, John?’

‘It means directing the trial of all serious crimes and legal suits to the royal courts, rather than letting them be dealt with by the burgess court, the sheriff’s Shire Court or the manorial courts.’

‘Damn nonsense!’ cut in the sheriff, who could restrain himself no longer. ‘Our courts have managed well enough for centuries.’

Richard de Revelle was in a difficult position: on the one hand he wanted to put John down by appointing Fitz-Ivo, so limiting his power over the whole county, yet on the other he disagreed fundamentally with the new post of coroner, which curtailed his own freedom to practise autocracy and corruption.

De Wolfe turned slowly to his brother-in-law. ‘Perhaps you would like to express that opinion to the Justiciar when you take the Devon farm to Winchester next week. Hubert Walter will be happy to relay your condemnation to the King when he next visits Normandy — especially as part of the reason for the new system was to increase the royal revenues to pay for the King’s ransom and his campaigns against the French.’

De Revelle ground his teeth in frustration, but he was in no position to defy John too openly, given the cloud of royal disapproval under which he laboured.

De Wolfe turned back to Theobald, who sat uneasily now, wondering if he really wanted the appointment. He was dressed gaudily in an elaborately embroidered tunic of green wool and a surcoat of scarlet brocade, which, although originally of excellent quality, were now slightly threadbare and definitely grubby. A wide leather belt sagged below the bulge of his corpulent belly and red breeches ended in pale tan leather boots with very pointed toes. A greater contrast with the lean, ascetic de Wolfe, clad all in grey and black, was hard to imagine.

John continued to rub salt into Fitz-Ivo’s wounds with an catalogue of coroner’s duties. ‘You must attend every sudden or unnatural death, every rape, every serious assault and burglary that is reported to you by the bailiffs or the constables. Go to every fire of house or barn, whether they cause death or not … attend every hanging, mutilation and trial by battle or ordeal, every catch of royal fish, the sturgeon and the whale, every find of treasure trove. You take confessions from sanctuary seekers and organise abjurations of the realm, hear the pleas of approvers who wish to save their skins by giving evidence against fellow conspirators, and appeals from those who wish to start proceedings in the royal courts. And you must have a jury assess the value of all deodands and decide where that value is to be lodged.’

‘What’s a deodand?’ asked the fuddled Theobald.

Restraining his impatience with difficulty, de Wolfe explained, ‘Anything that causes a death — a knife, a cart, even a mill-wheel.’

By now, Fitz-Ivo’s ruddy complexion had paled considerably, but John was not finished. With almost sadistic enjoyment, he continued, ‘You are an officer of the King’s justices and your main function is keep a record of every legal event within your jurisdiction to present to the judges when they arrive. You must amerce any miscreant or those who fail to carry out the legal procedures, and though you do not collect the money yourself, your assessment of the fines must be presented to the justices, at penalty of your own pocket.’

At the mention of loss of money, Fitz-Ivo’s moist, flabby lips quivered. ‘What about recompense for my labours, then?’

De Wolfe scowled at him fiercely. ‘Surely you’ve been told that you are forbidden to receive any fee. You must have proved already that you have an income of at least twenty pounds a year, in order to be aloof from any temptation to profit personally from your appointment.’ Here he paused to look pointedly at his brother-in-law, whose reputation for embezzlement was unparalleled west of Bristol.

‘But expenses? Surely there is some refund of costs in all this labour?

De Wolfe nodded. ‘You may pay your clerk a reasonable sum for his work, up to a few pence per day, and you may recover the cost of lodging and horse fodder when you are away from home. This may be raised from the sale of deodands, but strict accounts must be presented to the judges or you will find yourself locked in the cells here below our feet.’

He took such a malicious delight in frightening his would-be colleague that the sheriff felt obliged to reassure Fitz-Ivo. ‘John puts the worst face upon it, Theobald. I fear that sometimes he has a strange sense of humour. You will fill the post admirably, I’m sure. Let us agree to a trial period — say six months — to see how you fare.’