Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

The tavern-keeper indicated the gloomy corner and the young priest hurried over. ‘Crowner John? I come from my master, the Archdeacon. He sent me to find you and to bring you to him urgently.’

De Wolfe raised his head and gazed blearily at the eager young face. Though he had a head almost as hard as Gwyn’s when it came to drink, the fatigue of travelling and the emotion of the evening had left him a little fuddled. But the youthful vicar’s next words rapidly cleared his head.

‘Your clerk, the little man with the humped shoulder, he’s tried to kill himself!’

Brother Saulf bent solicitously over the pallet that lay on the floor of the infirmary cell. He pulled up the coarse woollen blanket and tucked it gently under Thomas’s shoulders against the chill night air of the dank room. It was in the tiny priory of St John, in a side lane just within the East Gate. The five brothers there were dedicated to treating the sick and the few pallets they had were the only hospital in Exeter, the next nearest being the nunnery of St Katherine’s at Polsloe, a mile outside the city, which catered mainly for women.

Thomas de Peyne had been carried there by two of John of Alençon’s servants. They bore him on an unhinged door, with the coroner and the Archdeacon stalking alongside. During the five-minute journey, the little clerk groaned pitifully, which de Wolfe took as a good sign — at least he was not unconscious.

‘He should be fully recovered by tomorrow,’ said Saulf, a tall Saxon who was the most experienced of the healing monks at St John’s. ‘He’ll be black and blue with bruises and have some nasty grazes that will weep and maybe turn purulent but, thank God, he’s no broken bones and his head seems sound.’ He ushered them out of the room into a cramped corridor, dimly lit by a tallow dip on a ledge. ‘How did he come by these injuries, sirs? I was told only that he had a fall.’

The Archdeacon looked at de Wolfe, hoping that he would reply.

‘He certainly fell! About forty feet from the parapet of the cathedral,’ explained the coroner grimly.

The gaunt monk looked amazed. ‘Forty feet? It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed!’

‘It’s not a wonder, it’s a miracle,’ said the senior canon gently. ‘It seems his tunic caught on a projecting waterspout half-way down the wall. A beggar in the Close saw him hanging there for a moment, then the cloth ripped and he fell the rest of the way on to a pile of soft earth dug from a new grave.’

Saulf crossed himself, which reminded de Wolfe of Thomas. Suddenly a lump came to his throat, as he realised that he would have sorely missed the little man if he had died, in spite of the scorn that he and Gwyn habitually heaped on him.

‘How came he to fall from the cathedral? Is he a priest? He always looked like one when I saw him in your company, Crowner — and he had a flair for pen and ink.’

Again the other two men exchanged glances — they did not want to spread this abroad more than they could avoid, even though Saulf had the double obligation to secrecy of a priest and a healer.

‘He was once,’ said de Wolfe evasively. ‘When will he be in a fit state to tell us what happened?’

The monk shrugged. ‘He’s not too bad now. I’ve other patients to attend, but you can go back in and see if he’s ready to talk, if you wish.’

The two friends entered the cell again, and by the light of a candle burning below a wooden cross on the wall, squatted one on each side of the straw mattress.

‘Thomas, can you hear me?’ asked the coroner.

The clerk opened one eye. His cheek and forehead were grazed. ‘Yes, Crowner, miserable sinner that I am.’

John de Alençon laid a hand gently on his other shoulder and Thomas winced with pain. ‘Thomas, tell us what happened,’ he said. ‘This is not the confessional, just your uncle and a good friend wanting to help you.’

De Peyne opened his other eye and swivelled both towards the Archdeacon. ‘I have committed a mortal sin, Father. I tried to end my life — but I am so useless that I could not even make a success of that.’

Tears welled up in the bloodshot eyes, and the kindly Archdeacon was moved to pity for his unhappy nephew. ‘I have just told Brother Saulf that your deliverance was a sign from the Almighty that he needs your life on this earth now and not yet in the next.’

A glimmer of hope appeared on Thomas’s battered features. For such a senior member of the Church to believe that even a minor miracle had been wrought was a life-raft for him in the sea of despair in which he floundered.

‘How came this to happen, Thomas?’ asked the coroner, gruffly enough to cover his own emotion.

The clerk moved slightly in the bed and grimaced as his bruised body screamed in protest. ‘After the Archdeacon called me in and told me that there seemed no hope of my being received back into Holy Orders, I went out thinking that my life was now meaningless and without purpose. I should have let myself perish from starvation when I left Winchester two winters ago.’

John de Alençon’s ascetic face moved closer to Thomas’s. ‘I had no choice but to tell you the truth as its stands now here in Exeter. That does not mean that elsewhere, in the future, matters might change. Take your deliverance as a sign, Thomas.’

De Wolfe was more keen to discover what had occurred that evening. ‘Where did you go when you left the canon’s house?’

‘I wandered along, then went into St Martin’s to pray.’ This was the tiny church almost opposite the coroner’s house. ‘But I felt nothing, as if my prayers were hitting a stone wall. I felt that God himself had rejected me as a useless, misshapen creature.’ Tears sprang up again and trickled down his damaged cheeks. ‘I ran from there and went into the cathedral. I intended prostrating myself on the chancel steps, to try to seek some sign from our Saviour, but as I neared the quire screen, I saw another sign — an open door in the gloom.’

‘A door?’ queried the canon.

‘I thought it led into the north tower and I felt the desire to fling myself into oblivion. I ran up the stairs in the thickness of the wall, but after a few turns I came to a locked door, which must have gone further up the tower. An arch to the side of it led on to an outside gallery along the nave.’

‘That’s one the builders use,’ confirmed Alençon.

‘I looked down, and though the tower rose far above me, it still seemed a long way to the ground, surely sufficient for my purpose. Without further thought, except a plea to God to save my soul, I threw myself off the edge.’

He made a move as if to cross himself, but the tight blanket and the pain in his arms made him give up the attempt.

‘I fell, then there was a great jerk and I slammed against the wall. I thought that was death, but then there was a rending sound and I fell again, into a heap of mud.’ He sobbed and struggled to hide his face in the hard pillow.

The Archdeacon patted his shoulder, and as Thomas’s eyes turned back to him, the priest made the Sign of the Cross over him and murmured the Latin words of a blessing.

The clerk seemed to calm himself and closed his eyes, as the canon motioned to de Wolfe to come out of the room.

‘We’ll see you in the morning, Thomas,’ said the Archdeacon. ‘Get some sleep to help mend your body and your mind.’

As they walked together back to the cathedral Close, de Wolfe asked his friend what had transpired from their efforts to have the clerk taken back into the Church.

‘I fear it was hopeless — and I also grieve to think that maybe it would have been better for him if neither of us was involved.’

John was puzzled by his companion’s words. ‘How so?’ he asked.