The Medieval Murderers: Sword of Shame

The two men climbed laboriously up the steep treads to the second floor and pushed through a crude curtain of sacking which attempted to reduce the draughts. Two narrow window openings allowed the wind to whistle in from above the streets far below, as Rougemont was built at the top corner of the sloping city, in the northern angle of the old Roman walls.

As they entered, a skinny young man, dressed in a threadbare black cassock, got to his feet from a stool at the table and made a jerky bow to his master. He had a narrow, peaky face, with a receding chin and a long thin nose which always seemed to have a dewdrop on the end. Before him on the table were rolls of parchment, a pot of ink and some quill pens.

‘God be with you, sir,’ he squeaked, crossing himself quickly in an almost automatic gesture. ‘I was just copying yesterday’s inquests for the next visitation of the Justices.’

John de Wolfe grunted, his favourite form of reply, and went to sit on the only other item of furniture, a bench on the opposite side of the trestle table. Gwyn parked his vast backside on a window-ledge, his usual resting place, where he stared again at his useless sword with morose concentration, until his master spoke to him.

‘How long have you been my squire and companion, Gwyn?’ he snapped.

The Cornishman frowned in concentration as he tried to work it out. He tugged at the ends of his ginger moustache that hung down almost to the collar of his scuffed leather jerkin, which had a pointed hood hanging down the back.

‘In ’seventy-four, it was, Crowner!’ he decided eventually. ‘The year we first went to Ireland to fight for Richard Strongbow.’

‘Twenty-one years, eh?’ mused de Wolfe, leaning his elbows on the table. ‘I think that deserves some mark of recognition.’

‘What d’you mean?’ grunted Gwyn, rather suspiciously.

‘It means I’ll buy you a new sword, you hairy oaf! Meet me at the armourer’s yard in Curre Street, straight after dinner.’

At noon, the coroner went home to his house in Martin’s Lane, a narrow alley that joined High Street to the cathedral Close. He sat in his gloomy hall, his wife at the other end of the long table, while their cook-maid Mary served them. Boiled salt-fish and a grilled fowl appeared, with beans, onions and cabbage. These were speared or shovelled with a small eating-knife and a horn spoon from pewter bowls on to trenchers, slabs of yesterday’s coarse bread which acted as plates.

Matilda de Wolfe, a stocky, pugnacious woman of forty-four, was in a bad mood and uttered not a single word during the whole meal. Mary winked at John as she passed behind her mistress with the wine-jug and grimaced to indicate that Matilda was in a touchy state of mind. He took the hint and held his tongue, knowing from bitter experience that anything he said would be turned against him, even if it was only an observation about the good spring weather.

As soon as the dessert of honeyed, boiled rice and dried apricots from southern France was finished, he muttered some excuse about attending a suspicious death and made his way out of the hall into the vestibule. This was a small area behind the street door, where cloaks and boots were kept. As he sat on a bench to take off his house shoes, Mary came around the corner of the covered passage that led to her kitchen hut, which shared the backyard with a wash-house, a privy and a pig-sty.

‘What’s her problem today?’ he asked quietly, with a jerk of his head towards the hall door.

Mary, a handsome dark girl in her twenties, rolled her eyes. ‘That maid of hers, Lucille, she trod on the hem of the mistress’s best gown and ripped open a seam, just as she was going to St Olave’s to pray! I’ve never heard such language from a lady!’

De Wolfe grinned and gave Mary a quick kiss as he opened the front door. They had been sporadic lovers in the past, but Matilda’s suspicions had become too acute for it to continue.

‘I’m off to buy Gwyn a new sword,’ he explained. ‘But don’t let her know, she can’t stand the sight of him.’

Curre Street was only a short distance away, a lane on the opposite side of High Street that ran towards the north wall of the city. It had a mixture of houses and shops, the buildings being mostly of wood, though some were now being replaced by stone. Exeter was thriving on its trade in wool, cloth and tin, which were exported not only over all England, but as far away as Flanders and the Rhine. Halfway along Curre Street, there was a substantial timber house with a roof of stone tiles, which had a yard at the side, from which came the sound of hammer on anvil.

Gwyn was there already, with their clerk Thomas de Peyne also in attendance. Though an unfrocked priest, the little man had an insatiable curiosity for all sorts of things and wanted to see where swords were bought and sold.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, Crowner?’ Gwyn asked uneasily. ‘A good sword is expensive these days.’ A gruff, independent character, the Cornishman did not want to be obligated to his master.

De Wolfe clapped his officer on his shoulder, a sensation similar to slapping a stone wall. ‘How are you going to save my life next time, without a good blade?’ he replied with rare jocularity, for the coroner was not renowned for his sense of humour.

They passed through a gate into the yard and skirting the forge where two men were sweating over a furnace and anvil, went to a hut where the owner displayed his wares. Roger Trudogge, himself an old soldier, sat at a bench, carefully sewing an ornate leather sheath for a dagger, but put it aside as soon as he saw Sir John. They had known each other for years and soon they were picking over his stock, laid out on trestles at the sides of the hut. Thomas followed them around, his eyes wide at the sight of all these instruments of injury and death-chain-mail hauberks, shields, lances, daggers, maces, axes and swords.

It was soon obvious which weapon had caught Gwyn’s critical eye. He kept returning to a sword with a handsome scabbard, that lay at the end of the display. Pulling the blade out, he hefted it to test the weight and balance, looked closely at the metal work of the hilt and pommel, then put it back. De Wolfe watched him with half-concealed amusement, as the big red-head made a show of looking at other swords, before drifting back yet again to his favourite. This time he drew it out and made some slashing motions in the air, both single-handed and with both of his great fists. Then with a sigh, he put it back into its sheath and laid it back on the table.

‘That looks like the one you favour,’ observed the coroner. ‘It’s even got hounds’ heads on the hilt.’ His officer had a marked affection for dogs, with whom he seemed to possess a strange empathy.

‘It’s a beautiful piece of work, right enough,’ Gwyn answered longingly. ‘And no doubt the most expensive of the lot.’

Trudogge, a burly man with a severe hare-lip, shook his head. ‘Strange to say, it’s not! One of the best blades I’ve ever had in my shop, but people are not keen on its history, so I’m selling it for less than it’s worth.’

‘What’s wrong with it, then?’ demanded Gwyn, suspiciously.

‘Nothing wrong with the sword! It’s who it belonged to, that puts folk off.’

The armourer explained that he had recently bought the weapon from the eldest son of the late Sir Henry de la Pomeroy, who wanted to get rid of everything that reminded him of his father. The coroner and his assistants immediately realized what the problem was, as they had been partly responsible for bringing it about.

‘That was that bastard from Berry Pomeroy Castle,’ exclaimed Gwyn. ‘The traitor who turned against our king as soon as his back was turned!’ When Richard the Lionheart had been captured by Leopold of Austria on his way home from the third Crusade, his younger brother Prince John had tried to seize the throne while Richard had been imprisoned in Germany for well over a year. Many of the barons and senior clerics had sided with John, including the Bishop of Exeter and Henry de la Pomeroy. However, as soon as the dramatic message ‘ The devil is loose ’ had reached England just before Richard was released, many of the rebels panicked, suddenly regretting their dalliance with treason.