Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

‘Not if I tell Hubert that I object,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘This Fitz-Ivo is a drunken fool, he’ll be a disaster in the job.’

John’s contempt for Fitz-Ivo, the lord of a small manor just outside Torrington, a village in the north-west of the county, sprang from a short acquaintance with him in the Irish campaign of ’82. In the endless battles and skirmishes between the Norman invaders and the Irish tribes, many knights had tried to carve out land and loot for themselves, including de Wolfe and Fitz-Ivo. The latter, mainly because of his gross eating and drinking, proved a hopeless fighter, sometimes too drunk to stay on his horse, and left for home within a few months of arriving in Wexford. He had inherited the manor of Frithelstock from his father and, with the help of an able steward, managed to survive, if not actually thrive. A widower with no surviving children, his needs were small but, like Matilda, Theobald had an illogical urge to be numbered amongst the county notables. Becoming a coroner was one route to this social elevation and he had been petitioning de Revelle since he had heard of the vacancies. De Wolfe suspected that Fitz-Ivo thought the job was a soft option, as indeed it might be if it was not pursued with the grim dedication that de Wolfe applied to his royal appointment.

The sheriff gazed at his brother-in-law with a patronising, almost pitying expression. ‘Professional jealousy, John? D’you think you are the only one who can trot around the county and mouth a few words over a corpse at an inquest?’

‘There’s far more to it than that, Richard,’ began de Wolfe, ready to lecture the sheriff on the wide duties he had to perform.

But Matilda, silent until now, beat him to it. She glared across the table at him. ‘That’s enough, John,’ she snapped. ‘The bare fact remains that this county, one of the biggest in England, is supposed to have three coroners. It has only one, who can’t possibly cover such a huge area any longer. You know your leg is not as good since you broke it, you’re not getting any younger, and I’m tired of you being away most of the time, then coming back to treat our home as if it was a common lodging-house.’ She threw a piece of cheese rind on to the table with an air of finality and sat back to glower at her husband.

De Wolfe knew he was beaten — and, if the truth were known, he secretly agreed that the huge distances across Devonshire were becoming impossible to cope with. Last month, the trips he had made to the north had taken up days of hard riding, while other cases around Exeter had been neglected.

‘Very well, but when things go wrong, remember what I’ve said. I agree that at least one other crowner is needed — but Fitz-Ivo, for God’s sake! The man is an incompetent fool as well as a drunkard.’

Eventually, while they finished the remaining wine, de Wolfe grudgingly accepted that Fitz-Ivo’s name would be put forward at Winchester. If Hubert Walter had no objections, then he would give the man the benefit of the doubt and let him tackle the cases in the northern part of Devon. ‘But if he makes a mess of it, I’ll ride to Winchester or London myself to see that he’s ejected,’ warned John. Though far from arrogant, de Wolfe hated the thought of a job being done less well than he could do it himself. ‘And where’s he going to get an officer and clerk to summon juries and record on his rolls?’ he barked, as a last rearguard objection, when de Revelle was swinging his elegant green cloak around his shoulders, ready to leave Martin’s Lane.

‘He says that his steward and bailiff will assist him,’ answered the sheriff. ‘The steward can read and write, certainly.’

‘He means that they will have to do all the work, I suppose,’ grunted the coroner. ‘And who will run the manor for him? The folk in Frithelstock will be starving by this time next year, as I doubt that Fitz-Ivo will shift himself to organise anything. Mark my words, this is a big mistake.’

After the door had closed behind the sheriff, de Wolfe returned slowly to the hall and sat by the fire with a quart pot of ale to chase down the wine.

He waited for the inevitable crowing of success from his wife, who had plumped herself down at the other side of the hearth.

‘I’m glad you saw sense, John. We thought it was best for you, especially since your leg hampers your movements.’

‘It does nothing of the sort, woman!’ he snarled, sensitive about his alleged disability. ‘I get a few twinges in the damned thing, but that’s to be expected. It’s no more than a couple of months since the bone was mended. Anyone would think I’m a cripple, the way you go on about it.’

Matilda ignored his protests. She was still preening herself over her success in defeating his resistance to her plans. ‘Now you’ll be able to spend more time here. We can entertain a little, have some influential people in to dine now and again.’ She frowned as she recollected her last attempt at throwing a feast. On the eve of Christ Mass, a few months ago, her husband had been dragged out, not unwillingly, from the middle of her party to examine a cathedral canon, who was hanging by the neck in his own privy.

At the awful prospect of being more frequently incarcerated with Matilda, de Wolfe threw down the rest of his ale and stood up. ‘The southern half of Devonshire is still a big place, wife, so don’t expect too much of me. I’m off now to Chagford on the moor, and I’ll not be back tonight.’

As he marched out to the vestibule, he muttered under his breath, ‘And not tomorrow night either, if I can think of a good excuse.’

With a dry road and spring in the air it was a pleasant ride out of Exeter towards the moor, which was visible in the distance almost from the time they started from the West Gate. The trees were in leaf and the grass was greening up after the winter as the four horsemen trotted along the winding track westwards from the city. De Wolfe was ahead, sitting like a great black raven on the back of Odin, his grey destrier, a huge war-horse with hairy feet. Gwyn, wearing his usual boiled leather jerkin above worsted breeches, rode his solid brown mare alongside the bailiff’s roan gelding, and Thomas de Peyne bumped along behind on his pony, the peg of the side-saddle jutting somewhat obscenely between his thighs.

The road wound through the deep wooded valleys typical of that part of Devon, broken at intervals by villages where strip-fields and common land had been laboriously hacked out of the forest. Although it was only about fifteen miles to Chagford, John called a halt just over half-way, at the top of a steep slope rising out of the Teign valley. ‘Let them graze the verge for ten minutes and get their wind back,’ he ordered, sliding from Odin’s back and looping the reins over a budding beech sapling. While the beasts chewed at the new grass, the ever-hungry Gwyn produced half a loaf and a leather bottle of cider from his saddle pouch.

The travellers sat themselves in a row on a fallen tree-trunk, and as they tore at the bread and passed the bottle around, John took the opportunity to learn a little more about their destination. ‘I’ve not set foot in Chagford for many years, bailiff. It’s been a peaceful place, I presume?’

Justin Green considered this, then nodded. ‘We get little trouble, true enough. A few drunks at the coinage and ales, but nothing serious. Chagford being one of the three Stannary towns makes a difference, I suppose, as the jurates who represent us at the Great Court are strict in upholding the Stannary law.’

Gwyn wagged his bushy head in agreement. ‘It was the same in Cornwall. The tinners come down heavily on any of their own who step outside the rules. I should know — my own father was a tinner before he turned to fishing at Polruan.’