Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

‘Will you really speak of him to the Justiciar?’ enquired Gwyn, tenderly touching his swollen eye and bruised face.

‘I’m certainly going to tell Hubert to watch who becomes coroner when vacancies arise in the counties. And a close look is needed at the Stannary organisation. 1These tinners are getting above themselves! They seem to think that they live above the King’s laws, and they’ve grown more arrogant since the King needed all the metal they can produce. If we had a decent Warden, instead of a scheming rogue who only wants to line his own purse, they’d be much better served.’

The group of horsemen made steady progress, hour after hour, stopping a few times to rest and water their horses at inns in Okehampton and Whiddon Down. Here they drank some ale and ate sparingly at a tavern, the soldiers eating from the hard rations they carried in their saddle-pouches. The sheriff pointedly ignored de Wolfe, and as he was above socialising with Gabriel he ate and drank in aloof solitude.

On the last leg of the journey in the late afternoon of that Saturday, the conversation between the coroner and his henchman turned back to the unresolved affair at Chagford.

‘Before they strung him up, it seems that Aethelfrith confessed readily to the slaying of Henry, the overman,’ observed Gwyn. ‘He seemed quite proud of it, saying how he had done it with an old Danish battleaxe that had belonged to an ancestor, who was in Harold’s army and survived the battle at Hastings.’

‘Why should he have suddenly turned to murder?’ asked de Wolfe, intrigued by the story.

‘He said that Henry of Tunnaford was the spokesman of the jury that condemned his only son to be hanged twenty years before. It seems he was accused of stealing a sheep on the moor — falsely, according to Aethelfrith, as they really wanted to stop him trying to stake a claim on a small tin-stream way out on the moor.’

De Wolfe rode on in silence for a while. ‘So it seems that the tinner’s death is unconnected with that of Walter Knapman. The Saxon didn’t admit to that, did he?’

‘He was scornful of the notion when the tinners accused him of it.’

‘It’s what I felt in my bones all along — Dunsford was well out of Aethelfrith’s territory, anyway. So we still have that problem on our hands. It has to have been someone who would profit by Knapman’s death. It was no stray outlaw killing, I’m sure.’

Gwyn winced as the mare stumbled, jarringhis bruised ribs. ‘There’s a damned wide field of suspects to choose from, Crowner. That brother of the widow seems the most likely to me, a villain if I ever saw one. All he wants is to get a piece of Knapman’s empire through his sister.’

De Wolfe grunted, keeping his eye on the sheriff’s back to make sure he was far enough ahead not to hear their conversation. ‘That applies to others in the family, too. Matthew and the stepson have been worrying themselves stupid over the will, ever since Walter died.’

‘What about Stephen Acland? He’s after the widow — and not only for her beautiful body, I reckon.’

John had still failed to size up Acland. ‘But would he kill for it, I wonder? Where was he when you had your bit of trouble in Chagford yesterday?’

‘Not a sign of him — not even at the coinage, where a goodly part of the metal belonged to him.’ Gwyn’s blue eyes twinkled — or, at least, the one that was still visible did. ‘I suspect he was away holding the fair Joan’s hand — or some other part of her, perhaps.’

‘At least you can’t accuse him of wanting you hanged,’ said de Wolfe, with a wry smile at his henchman. ‘But he still has to stay as a possible candidate for Walter’s killing. He’s got a double motive.’

‘I suppose we can exclude the fat priest, Smithson — he’s hardly likely to slay Walter, as part of his living came from Knapman’s purse, so he wouldn’t want to risk that drying up.’

There was a comfortable silence between them as another few miles of track passed beneath their horses’ legs. The weather had improved, and as they neared Exeter and the coast, the snow vanished from the countryside, and fitful patches of blue sky appeared between the clouds as the east wind dropped.

De Wolfe had earlier told Gwyn of their clerk’s dramatic but futile attempt to end his life, and the big man had been noticeably upset, vowing never to tease the little fellow again — a promise that de Wolfe doubted he would be able to keep. ‘He seems much more contented, now that John de Alençon has convinced him that his deliverance was miraculous,’ said John, when the subject came up again.

Soon the tops of the great twin towers of the cathedral came into view, as Exeter’s northern crag appeared on the horizon. De Wolfe rehearsed his excuses to Matilda for his intention to report her brother’s further misconduct, as well as his unseating of Theobald Fitz-Ivo from the coronership, after she and Richard had connived at his appointment. ‘She’ll have the same old stick back to beat me with,’ he grumbled to Gwyn. ‘The one that says that being the only coroner means I’m always away from home, neglecting her.’

He realised again, sadly, that he no longer had the Bush Inn as a bolt-hole.

The lawyer’s musty office was hardly big enough to hold those who crowded in to hear Walter Knapman’s last testament read early on that Sunday afternoon. Robert Courteman was squeezed behind his table, with his son standing at his shoulder, pressed up against the shelves of parchment rolls lining the wall behind him. In front, a motley collection of stools and benches brought from the nether regions of the house was occupied by the Knapman family and their hangers-on.

The widow Joan sat directly in front of the lawyers, immaculate in a deep blue silk kirtle, its dark colour a gesture to her gradual, if rapid, shedding of funereal black. Instead of a white cover-chief and wimple, her black hair was neatly braided into two spiral rolls, held in place over each ear by fine gilded nets. Her hands rested demurely on a fur-lined woollen cloak, which lay across her lap. The new widow kept her eyes on her fingers for most of the time, but now and then she stole glances around the room from under her long dark lashes, trying to interpret the mood of the others at this crucial time.

On her left, her brother Roland sat in an almost aggressive pose, his big hands on his knees and his heavy features jutting pugnaciously towards Courteman, as if ready to challenge anything he said. As with all tanners, a faint but perceptiple aura of something rank hung about him, no doubt derived from the vats of dog droppings that were used to cure the leather. Fidgeting on Joan’s other side was her mother Lucy, skinny and bird-like in a grey gown, her hair hidden under a linen coif tied tightly under her chin. Behind them, Matthew Knapman perched uncomfortably on a rickety bench, his florid face bearing a worried expression. He picked nervously at loose skin around his fingernails, until his wife jabbed him in the side with her elbow.

Next to her Peter Jordan and his wife shared another short bench. The young man seemed calm enough, but Mistress Jordan glared indignantly at the backs of the trio in front of her, as if challenging their right to be there solely by virtue of Walter’s recent marriage.

The last person squashed into the small chamber was Paul Smithson, present seemingly as spiritual supporter of the widow, but interested, too, in anything that Knapman might have bequeathed to his church.

The only person not there who might well have been concerned at the outcome was Stephen Acland — but he could hardly have used his role as the widow’s paramour to justify his presence.