Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

As the two Johns left the little priory together, the coroner said how glad he was to see such an improvement in his clerk’s melancholy.

De Alençon smiled, his blue eyes twinkling in his lean, ascetic face. ‘Though I truly believe that such escapes are ordained by the Almighty, I must admit to labouring the point somewhat to my nephew. His conviction that his miraculous deliverance is a sign from above has greatly lightened his mind.’

The coroner gave his friend a lopsided grin. ‘Thank God for that — and I mean that literally, John. But is there no real hope of his ever being accepted back into Holy Orders?’

‘Not for some time — and certainly not in Exeter as long as the present chapter contains certain people.’

‘Speaking selfishly, though I am sorry for Thomas, I would be lost without his skills,’ mused de Wolfe aloud, ‘so let’s see what a year or so might bring. Perhaps eventually he could return to Winchester.’

They parted at Martin’s Lane, where the coroner collected Odin and rode out of the city to the gallows beyond Magdalene Street. Here he witnessed two Friday executions, one of an outlaw who had been caught robbing a travelling merchant of his purse holding fourteen pennies, two more than the statutory shilling that meant a felony and the death penalty. It had been a toss-up as to whether to behead him for being a captured outlaw or hanging him for the felony, but the Shire Court, under Richard de Revelle, discovered that the fee for hanging was less. As the man had no property, John had no interest in the matter, other than eventually to record the event on his rolls.

The other execution was of a weaver who had tried to strangle his wife in a fit of anger when he discovered that she had committed adultery with his brother. De Wolfe had tried hard to delay the trial until the King’s justices came for the Eyre of Assize, but as the usual waiting stretched into months with no sign of their arrival, the sheriff and the burgesses had insisted on summary conviction in the Shire Court. As the weaver had a house and a workshop, John would have to assess his property and record it for the judges, who would decide how much to confiscate for the Crown and how much — if any — to leave for the family of the sinful widow. But with Thomas out of commission, there was little he could do for now: his own skills with a quill and ink were still negligible.

On the way back from the gallows, he passed by the South Gate and went through the fields and garden of Southernhay to reach the Water Gate, which had been driven through the angle of the city wall, at the top of the slope leading down to the quay. From there he went to the house of Matthew Knapman and found the tin-merchant in his ground-floor warehouse, with Peter Jordan and a burly Saxon workman. They were stacking and tallying bars, some of black tin, which had just arrived from yesterday’s coinage at Chagford. Others, kept separate, were the cleaner, shinier ingots from the re-smelting, ready for export.

Matthew, stout and red-faced, put down the notched tally-stick and his knife and waved the workman out into the backyard. ‘Is there any news from Chagford or Dunsford?’ he asked anxiously.

The coroner shook his dark head. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me something. I wondered if your brother’s testament had shed light on who would gain most from his death.’

Peter, dressed in a neat brown tunic with a long leather apron tied around his waist, answered for his master. ‘We went to see Robert Courteman, the lawyer, but he would tell us nothing. We must wait until all the family are present.’

‘And when might that be?’

‘We hear it should be on Sunday, for the widow is now said to be coming to Exeter for that very purpose. No doubt she will bring her damned brother and her mother,’ he added, with ill-concealed bitterness.

De Wolfe noticed that he called his stepmother ‘the widow’, rather than use her name. This was a family ridden with antagonism, he thought, all vying with each other for the best share of the spoils. To give Matthew credit, he seemed outwardly more concerned with the hunt for Walter’s killer than with the will, but de Wolfe had no news for him on that score. ‘I have left my officer in Chagford to pick up any news that may be dropped during the coinage. He’s due back tonight, so I will let you know if anything more has happened.’

Back in his cramped, draughty chamber at the top of the gatehouse at Rougemont, de Wolfe laboriously wrote a few words on a scrap piece of parchment, putting down the names of the two hanged men and the victim of the ox-cart accident so that he would not forget them by the time Thomas came back and he could dictate a full account. By now it was late morning and rain was still falling from the leaden sky. Going to the niche in the rough stone wall, he took an earthenware mug and filled it from Gwyn’s gallon jar on the floor. Without his two assistants to visit the stalls, there was no bread, meat or cheese, and as he sat alone in the bare cell, drinking sour cider, he realised that he missed their company, much as their bickering often irritated him.

He hoped fervently that Thomas would soon be back on duty; without proper records, the coroner’s business would become chaotic and, indeed, futile, for de Wolfe’s main function was to record all these legal events for the royal courts. He went on to wonder how the new coroner, Theobald Fitz-Ivo, was managing, with no experience and, in de Wolfe’s opinion, a severe shortage of brains and common sense.

His drink finished, de Wolfe sat hunched over his table, fingers drumming idly on the rough boards. There was nothing else he could do without Thomas and the cider had merely reminded him that his stomach was rumbling for want of food. The prospect of sitting opposite Matilda for dinner in his own hall did not appeal and a devil came to sit on his shoulder to whisper ‘The Bush’ in his ear.

Leaving Rougemont, his feet took him almost unbidden down to Idle Lane, but when he came to the edge of the barren plot on which the tavern stood, he hovered uncertainly. For a man of such single-minded determination, used to quick, firm decisions, this wavering was foreign indeed. One part of his mind cursed the affairs of heart and flesh for so undermining his usual strength of will. Standing on the wet road, like a lanky black heron, he stared across at the Bush, willing Nesta to come out alone so that he could talk to her without curious eyes watching them and the bold face of Alan of Lyme grinning in the background. But though a customer or two came and went through the low front door, there was no sign of his former mistress — as was to be expected, he told himself angrily. She always had business inside, in the kitchens or the ale-room or on the upper floor. The thought of the little upstairs room and the thrice-damned Alan occupying the French bed he had bought, made him grind his teeth in jealous rage.

After five minutes of lurking in the street like a lovesick youth, de Wolfe shook himself back to his senses and walked slowly past the inn, hoping that Nesta would appear and fall into his arms as he passed the door. Nothing of the kind happened and, feeling foolish, he walked on to the other end of the lane, then turned and slowly repeated the process. By the time he got back to his original spot, he was in a cold rage, mostly with himself for his foolish, adolescent behaviour. A knight of the realm, a senior law officer and a veteran of countless wars, skulking in a back-street to stalk a lover who had rejected him!

‘To hell with it,’ he muttered aloud, to a startled rat snuffling in the garbage at his feet, ‘I’m going to eat at the Golden Hind.’

A large meat pie and two quarts of ale later, he felt slightly better and in the mood to write off the Welsh redhead as water under the bridge. His thoughts were already straying to Dawlish and the fair Hilda — he even wondered if he might engineer a visit soon to Salcombe, where another pleasant widow had not had his attentions for six months and more.