Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

A collective growl of concern rolled over the assembly, and Knapman held up both hands for quiet. ‘I am offering a bounty of twenty marks to anyone who can give information that leads to the capture of whatever foul villain committed this atrocity. If anyone knows anything — anything at all — he can tell me or the coroner, who is with us here today.’

‘The first to be told should be me!’ snapped de Revelle, reacting to the snub from Knapman. ‘I am both your Lord Warden and the sheriff of this county.’

Without so much as looking behind him, Knapman ignored the interruption and carried on. ‘I can only think that this slaying of one of my most valued workers was meant to be a direct threat to my tinning interests — and I can only assume that someone is trying to destroy my business. I have had stream-works damaged before and now one of my best men is beheaded!’

He was answered by another growl from the crowd, many of whom had known and respected the dead Henry.

But another reaction came from closer at hand. Stephen Acland, his face red with anger, pushed nearer to Knapman, though the latter’s supporters still formed a barrier. ‘Are you accusing me yet again, damn you?’ he yelled.

Walter looked stonily at the younger man. ‘Did I accuse anyone?’

‘We all know what you’re insinuating! You did at the crowner’s inquest, now you’re repeating it.’

‘If the cap fits, Acland, wear it!’ roared Knapman, his anger getting the better of his tongue.

One of Knapman’s jurates made an obscene sign to the Acland supporter in front of him and received a violent push in the chest for his trouble. Immediately, an affray developed between the rival jurates, with pushing and fists flying. The spectators in the outer ring surged forward ready to join in.

Gabriel leapt down from the stony ledge, waving his men to follow, and set about the fighting tinners with his stave. The men-at-arms had not come to Crockern Tor in battle array, so wore leather jerkins rather than chain-mail hauberks. Though swords hung from their baldrics, they had exchanged their lances for stout sticks, and with these they laid about the dozen jurates who were fighting. Within minutes, the squabble had subsided, and Gabriel and his men had pushed apart the warring factions, who stood nursing their bruises and muttering abuse at their rivals and the soldiers.

All through the skirmish Richard de Revelle had been yelling ineffectually for order and now admonished the jurates for their unseemly behaviour. It seemed to de Wolfe that the tough band of tinners found nothing unusual about a brawl during the Great Court and it had subsided as rapidly as it had arisen — though Knapman and Acland continued to glower at each other over the heads of their supporters. Before the proceedings started again, de Wolfe took advantage of the lull to stride out to the spot from which Knapman had addressed the throng and barked at the assembly in commanding tones. ‘You have heard Walter Knapman offer a reward for information about the death of his man, and that he recommends anyone to bring such information to me — or to the sheriff,’ he added, as a conciliatory afterthought. ‘But I have no reward for you, save that of reminding you that you help to keep the peace of our sovereign King Richard. One suspect is said to be the madman of the moors, this Aethelfrith. He cannot be found, so if anyone knows of his whereabouts, let him speak, now or later.’

Suddenly, as the tall, hunched figure in black was casting his baleful glare over the congregated tinners, a smaller figure advanced towards him from the outer ring of men. ‘Crowner, I have something you may wish to see.’

A wiry man, poorly dressed in a hessian tunic and coarse breeches, skirted the group of jurates and advanced to where the coroner stood. He carried a bundle wrapped in a sack, which he placed at John’s feet.

‘Why should I want to bother with you now, fellow?’ snapped de Wolfe, annoyed at being interrupted in mid-flow. ‘Who are you? Do you know anything of this killing?’

‘I have just arrived, sir. I am Simon, I work at one of Walter Knapman’s blowing-houses near Chagford. As to Henry’s death, Crowner, maybe you should see this.’ Bending, he took the bottom corners of the old sack in each hand and up-ended it.

Out rolled what John took to be a large ball — until he saw the blood-soaked grey hair and pallid face above the ragged stump of a severed neck.

Much against his will, Thomas de Peyne had been dispatched on his pony to Chagford, with the sack containing the head of Henry of Tunnaford bumping against the other side of his saddle. He had orders from the coroner to deliver it to the vicar of the church of St Michael and have the sexton reunite it with the rest of the body in the recently dug grave.

After the shocked uproar caused by the production of Henry’s head had subsided, Richard de Revelle called another interval. Those who had the stomach for it — and there were many among the hardy tinners — began again to eat and drink, with plenty to talk about during their unexpected break.

Meanwhile, the sheriff, the coroner and the two manorial lords gathered around the craggy throne. The soldiers, clerks and the coroner’s officer were in close attendance and the jurates, still divided into their two factions, hovered nearby, just out of earshot.

The man Simon stood before them, Sergeant Gabriel’s horny hand firmly gripping his shoulder. ‘I found it last evening, hidden under a slate slab behind the blowing-house,’ he explained nervously. ‘I was coming to the Great Court anyway, so I thought it best to bring it and give it to someone in authority.’

De Wolfe stared down at the man, a stringy fellow of some thirty years, who looked ill. A hacking cough suggested that his life expectancy was not great, probably from phthisis of the lungs, the coroner decided.

‘You said Walter Knapman was your master, so which of his blowing-houses was this?’ demanded de Revelle, in his best Shire Court manner.

Simon shook his head. ‘It wasn’t ours, sir. I called at another to collect a friend, who was also walking here to Crockern Tor. Before he arrived, I went behind the hut to relieve my bowels. As I crouched, I saw blood on some weeds alongside a flat stone. When I moved it aside, that awful thing was there.’

‘So whose blowing-house was it?’ asked Geoffrey Fitz-Peters harshly.

‘It was one near Shapley, on the way from Chagford to the track over the moor that comes to here. It belongs to Stephen Acland.’

The eyes of all those in authority flicked briefly at each other to test their reactions. The sheriff was first to react. ‘Acland! Come here — and you, Walter Knapman!’

‘Don’t be too hasty, Richard,’ grunted John quietly, as the men advanced. ‘You’re too fond of jumping to convenient conclusions.’

His brother-in-law ignored his advice and glowered at Stephen Acland. ‘What have you to say about this, both of you?’

Knapman looked shaken, as might be expected after the face of an old acquaintance had been produced in such a macabre manner. ‘I have nothing but revulsion for this foul act — and sorrow for my man,’ he said. ‘I have known Henry of Tunnaford for most of my life. He worked for my father years ago, when we only had two stream-works.’

The sheriff turned his haughty face towards the other tin-master. ‘And you? This relict was found on your property, so what do you say?’’

Stephen Acland reddened with anger — an emotion that John observed was easily aroused in the man. ‘What should I say? This fellow says he found it behind one of my blowing-houses, but that means nothing at all. It had to be somewhere! It might as easily have been behind any cowshed or barn.’ He glowered at Knapman, who stared stonily back at him. ‘Again I’m being put in the wrong,’ roared Acland. ‘Walter of Chagford thinks he owns the whole industry. Any challenge he takes as a personal insult.’