Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

Gwyn’s sight returned, though he had a bright flare inside his eyeballs for the next five minutes. As he gaped at the smoke, blown down on to the street by the gusting wind, de Wolfe grabbed his arm. ‘Come on, someone’s thatch has been struck. This is coroner’s business.’

They hurried along with the rest of the crowd, down to the junction almost opposite Martin’s Lane, but on the other side of the main thoroughfare. The narrow entrance to Curre Street was blocked with curious townsfolk, but Gwyn pulled them aside unceremoniously, yelling for the King’s coroner to be let through. Fifty yards up on the right, the roof of one of the narrow houses was well alight, belching grey smoke into the sky, flames fanned by the high wind licking around the lightning strike in the centre of the thatch. Although the surface was wet from the rain, the underlying straw, almost two feet thick, was dry from the recent good weather. The ground floor of the house was a shop, its front shutters opening horizontally to form both a protective overhang and a lower counter for the shoes and leather goods the merchant sold. He was capering about in the road, screaming hysterically. There was a strong prospect that his house and business would vanish in the next few minutes.

Johnpushed through the remaining crowd, with Gwyn at his heels. ‘Anyone still inside?’ he demanded, grabbing the shoemaker by the shoulder to keep him still.

The man shook his head, his eyes rolling. ‘No, thank God, they’re all here in the street. But what can we do, sir?’

Recognising authority had steadied him, but de Wolfe could offer little useful advice. ‘Pray for a deluge, that’s all,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘If you have valuables or stock in the downstairs rooms, get them out now, before the fire burns through from the upper storey. But come out as soon as any smoke comes down.’

The merchant yelled at several young men, apprentices or sons, and they dashed into the back of the shop to recover what they could before the fire spread.

‘I’ll give them a hand, poor souls,’ said Gwyn and followed them inside. As he left, another voice spoke at de Wolfe’s shoulder.

‘He’s a member of my guild, the Cordwainers. Pray God he doesn’t suffer too much damage.’

It was Henry Rifford, a wealthy leather merchant and one of Exeter’s two Portreeves, leaders of the city council elected by their fellow burgesses. He was a humourless, pompous individual and de Wolfe was not over-fond of him. They stood and watched as the smoke and flame increased above them, but as yet there was no sign of it leaking through the shutters of the two upstairs window openings.

‘I’ve pressed the burgesses to ban any more thatch inside the city, but we can do nothing about these older buildings with straw or reed roofs,’ complained the portreeve. ‘Many other towns prohibit them — but who is to pay for slating the dwellings instead? The owners or landlords are unwilling or unable to afford it.’

Thunder rumbled overhead again as de Wolfe said, ‘If these fires spread and burn down the city, it will cost a lot more. And the loss of life must be considered, too. Both these issues bring town fires under the coroner’s jurisdiction — though I can hardly bring in an inquest verdict against the Almighty for sending a flash of lightning.’

Someone must have been praying very hard indeed, for at that moment the dark clouds overhead opened up and a tremendous deluge fell from the heavens. The wind dropped as the storm centred itself overhead and an almost vertical wall of water hammered on to the city. Everyone dashed for shelter, de Wolfe and Rifford included. They ran across the narrow street and huddled under the arcade formed by the wooden pillars that supported the projecting upper storey of the shop opposite. The downpour continued without a break, and clouds of steam began to rise from the thatched roof across the road.

‘This will help save Martin,’ cried Rifford, as the flames around the edge of the large hole in the roof subsided into an angry hiss. They watched as the relentless rain washed a sooty waterfall over the edge of the roof, bringing down blackened straw into the street.

‘Whatever’s on the upper floor will be ruined by the water if not the fire,’ growled de Wolfe, ‘but that’s better than losing the whole house — and maybe the whole street.’

The cloudburst had them pinned into their shelter for a time, and as they watched the conflagration extinguished by God’s own hand, their conversation turned to other things. De Wolfe felt obliged to enquire after Rifford’s family and learned that the Portreeve’s daughter Christina had recovered slowly from the rape she had suffered last year and had decided to continue her plans to marry the gangling Edgar of Topsham. Rifford went on to talk of the campaign amongst the burgesses to have a mayor in Exeter, instead of two Portreeves. ‘Just aping the bigger cities, I say. They’ll want a commune next, as well as a mayor — just to be like London.’

He was angry at the thought of losing his position and de Wolfe steered him away from the subject. ‘Talking of communes, I’ve had some dealings with the Chagford tinners lately. I met Walter Knapman — they say he has a brother in the same trade here in Exeter.’

‘Yes, Matthew, he’s his twin, though he looks nothing like him. I don’t know him well, as the tinners reckon they don’t need guilds like the rest of us.’ Rifford shook the rainwater off his expensive otter-skin cape.

‘Is he in business with his brother?’ De Wolfe had learned in the past that the two portreeves were a fount of information about the commercial life of the city.

‘I understand that Matthew arranges the sale of the tin after it has cleared the second smelting. Most of it goes by ship, either direct from the quay or on barges for transhipment at Topsham. He has a few men working for him — one is the stepson of Walter, I believe, a young fellow called Peter Jordan.’

They talked on as the heavy rain continued unabated for another quarter of an hour. The thatch opposite was now a sodden, steaming mass, beginning to disintegrate as the thin rafters smouldered through and collapsed under the weight of saturated straw. The risk of a fire-storm in the city had vanished and when, a few minutes later, the rain eased to a steady drizzle, the shoemaker and his family, with helpful neighbours, began salvaging what they could from the upper floor.

Gwyn came across, from where he had been sheltering and gossiping with a couple of soldiers, to see if his master was ready to go up to Rougemont. When they reached the castle, the perverse weather had changed once more, and though the wind had blown up again, the clouds had cracked apart to show blue patches here and there, though gusty showers still lashed down at intervals.

They trod through the mire of the inner ward to reach the Shire Hall, a bare stone box on the left of the main gate, more like a barn than a court-house. It had a slated roof, as thatch inside a castle was always a target for fire arrows when under siege. There was a single large doorless opening on one side and few bare slits high on the walls to let in more light. Inside, the earthen floor was bare, apart from a low wooden platform along one end wall, on which were two trestle tables, a bench, a wooden armchair and a few stools.

A couple of the sheriff’s clerks were setting out their writing materials at one table, at the end of which Thomas de Peyne was already hunched on a stool, glumly cutting a new point on a goose quill with a small knife. In the body of the hall, a few men-at-arms ambled among the few members of the public who had come to see the proceedings. This was a routine session and probably all the spectators were relatives or victims of the main players.