Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

Courteman decided that he needed an independent witness to hear Dame Madge’s verdict from her own mouth and sent his son Philip on Monday morning, with Joan’s mother as chaperone.

The trio left from the East Gate at around the eighth hour, the ladies jogging side-saddle on the palfreys they had brought from Chagford and Philip on a brown gelding. The road passed through St Sidwell’s, then through a mile of mixed farmland and woods to reach the foundation where six nuns dispensed spiritual and bodily help to the locals.

The buildings were small, all in wood apart from a new stone chapel, which Philip Courteman had ample time to study as he waited outside in the compound, adjacent to the West Range of buildings. The two ladies were escorted inside by a young novice, and half an hour later they emerged, Lucy with a broad grin and Joan with a faint smile of satisfaction on her usually inscrutable features. They were followed by a tall, grim-looking nun, who reminded Philip fleetingly of John de Wolfe. She advanced on him, her black robe swirling in the keen wind, her face framed tightly in a snow-white wimple and flowing head-veil.

‘If you are the lawyer, I understand that I am formally to confirm to you that the lady is indeed with child,’ she said, her long face looking as if it had been carved from a boulder of granite moorstone. Before he could answer her, the flinty face suddenly broke into a charming smile, almost as if a different person lived within. ‘And I can certainly do that, young man! God has granted her the gift of motherhood, and in five or six months, Christ’s family will have increased by one new member — unless she has twins!’ She smiled again, and raised her hand to make the Sign of the Cross in farewell to the three visitors.

Philip Courteman gallantly helped the two ladies up on to their saddles, and a moment later they were heading for the wooded track back to Exeter.

The distant cathedral bell had tolled some time ago for the mid-morning offices of Nones, Sext and Terce. De Wolfe and his clerk had just come from the Shire Hall in the inner ward of Rougemont, where a short session of the County Court had sentenced two thieves to mutilation, their right hands to be cut off in the undercroft by Stigand, the gaoler, and another two to be hanged. The sheriff was as uncommunicative with de Wolfe as he had been since the Lydford episode, and had stalked back to his chambers in the keep as soon as the cursing prisoners and their wailing families had been dragged from the court-house by his men-at-arms.

As usual, John was fretting about the chaotic system of law enforcement that had developed and the inability of the government to keep its promises for reform. ‘It’s damned nonsense to have manor courts, burgess courts, county courts and the King’s courts, all competing for the same business,’ he complained to Thomas, who had heard it all before.

‘There’s good money to be made by all of them,’ the clerk answered mildly.

‘And it’s my job as coroner to drive as much of it as possible into the royal courts,’ retorted his master. ‘That’s why Hubert Walter set them up, to trim the wings of sheriffs and barons. But how can he expect me to prevail against them, when his judges don’t come round the counties when they should?’

Thomas hurried to keep up with his master’s loping stride, his left foot dragging slightly from the old phthisis in his hip. ‘I heard from a visiting canon last week that the Eyre was in Wiltshire and should be here at any time now,’ he said breathlessly.

De Wolfe snorted as he headed back towards his chamber in the gatehouse. ‘How often have we heard that, Thomas? The Assize should come several times a year, but we’ve seen no sign of it since last summer, in spite of the Justiciar’s promise when he visited a few months back.’

His grumbling was cut short as they approached the arch of the gatehouse, under which the stairs to his office climbed steeply up from the guardroom. The sentry on duty at the top of the short drawbridge over the dry ditch was holding up his lance and waving his arm to stop a horseman who was cantering up the hill towards them, his steed frothing at the mouth. He clattered to a halt under the raised portcullis and slid from his saddle, almost into the arms of the sentry. Sergeant Gabriel emerged from the guardroom and joined the coroner and his clerk, who were waiting to see what this urgency was all about.

‘I must see the sheriff — or someone in authority!’ panted the messenger, looking almost as exhausted as his mare, even though it later transpired that they had ridden little more than a mile.

Gabriel, his grizzled features frowning under his iron helmet, strode forward and grabbed the man by his shoulder. ‘What’s all the panic, man? Who are you?’

The young fellow, whose rustic dress and odour suggested that he was a stablehand, was making the most of his moment of importance. ‘I’m a groom from Polsloe, sir. Sent to report a grievous happening, not more than an hour since,’ he wheezed.

The sergeant grabbed the reins of the mare and pushed them at the sentry, then half dragged the priory servant across to a rough bench set against the guardroom wall. ‘Sit there, get your breath and tell us what’s wrong,’ he commanded.

At the mention of Dame Madge’s abode, the coroner and his clerk hurriedly joined Gabriel in standing over the youth to hear what he had to say.

‘Two ladies and a lawyer fellow came to visit our sisters this morning — I don’t know their names or business. They left after a short while to return to the city, but not more than fifteen minutes or so later, the elder lady comes flying back on her pony, all dishevelled and screaming blue murder.’

The groom was determined to squeeze the last drop of drama out of his account, but de Wolfe was impatient. ‘Get on with it, lad!’

‘Several sisters came running out at the noise, then Dame Madge spoke to the lady and sent a couple of us from the stableyard helter-skelter back along the Exeter road, the women following on foot.’

He stopped for breath, then went on with his saga. ‘The forest, what’s left of it there, starts not two hundred paces along the track from the priory. Around the bend, within the wood, we came across two loose palfreys and a younger lady lying groaning at the side of the road. A few paces away, the lawyer fellow I saw earlier was stretched out across a bush, out of his senses and with blood coming from his head.’

He stopped and Gabriel shook his arm impatiently. ‘Then what?’ he shouted.

The stablelad shrugged, having almost run out of information. ‘We went to succour the pair, but a moment later, Dame Madge came running up — she’s a mortal strong woman,’ he added ruefully. ‘She told me straight away to ride fast to the castle here and tell either the sheriff or the crowner that there had been attempted murder and to send a posse right away. It seems the elder lady had told her that some footpad had burst out of the trees and attacked them. That’s all I know,’ he finished, rather lamely.

De Wolfe looked at the sergeant. ‘Get a couple of mounted men, Gabriel. This is no common highway robbery, so near the city. And I know the people involved. Something odd is going on.’ He swung round to Thomas. ‘Get up the stairs and rouse Gwyn from his second breakfast. Tell him to come over to the stables with us to get horses.’

Half an hour later, the posse from Rougemont had reached the scene of the outrage. At a bend in the track, almost within sight of the priory, the trees crowded close to the verge. A small area of flattened grass and scrub was being guarded by two servants from Polsloe. They pointed out blood splashes on the vegetation and where a line of beaten grass and weeds led off into the trees. De Wolfe suggested to Gabriel that he take his men to follow this trail, while he himself carried on to the priory. With Gwyn and the young stable-boy — for the feeble Thomas had stayed in Exeter — John rode the last quarter-mile at a full gallop.