The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

Thomas de Peyne, a most literate and knowledgeable fellow, knew all the details. ‘Our king sent a herald down to Berry Pomeroy as soon as he came home, to tell Sir Henry that his guilt was known,’ he recalled. ‘But Pomeroy stabbed the messenger to death, then ran off to St Michael’s Mount, where the castellan had already dropped dead of fright when he heard that the Lionheart was home!’

‘I didn’t know that bit of the story,’ said Roger. ‘What happened to him?’

‘I know this, for Cornwall is my land!’ broke in Gwyn, still grasping the sword. ‘He made his surgeon open the veins in his wrist, so that he bled to death, to avoid the vengeance of the king!’

John de Wolfe nodded his agreement. ‘Let’s hope the son has more sense-and loyalty!’ he grunted. ‘Walter, do we know where Pomeroy got this weapon?’

The armourer took the sword from Gwyn, who seemed reluctant to let it go. He drew the blade from the scabbard again and held it so that they could see its quality. ‘It’s far older than his generation. His son said it was handed down through the family and there was a tradition that it was used at Hastings when William the Bastard defeated Harold Godwinson.’

‘There’s an inscription on the blade,’ observed Thomas. He was the only one of the four who could read.

‘What’s it say?’ demanded de Wolfe.

Thomas squinted at the Latin words engraved down the length of the weapon and gave a rough translation in English. ‘It says that he who lives with falsehood, kills his own soul-and if he lies, he loses his honour.’

Gwyn shrugged. ‘Seems common sense to me,’ he growled.

After the coroner had taken the armourer aside for some haggling, they left Curre Street with Gwyn the proud possessor of a knight’s sword. His thanks to his master were brief, but heartfelt. John de Wolfe knew that after more than twenty years’ friendship, any effusive gratitude would have been misplaced.

When they returned to Rougemont, the Cornishman sought out Sergeant Gabriel and together they had an hour’s sword-play in the castle’s inner ward, so that he could get used to the feel of the hilt and the balance of the blade.

In the early evening, Gwyn made his way down to Milk Lane. Though almost in the centre of the city, its name was appropriate, as each of the dwellings had cows and goats on their plots, supplying milk to most of the townsfolk. His wife’s elder sister was Helen, a buxom widow who made a living from her five cows and four nanny-goats. Her two sons tended the animals, carrying in hay and grass for fodder, and hawked milk and cheese around the streets, while Helen did the milking and made the cheese in the dairy shed behind the cottage.

This evening, Gwyn ambled to their temporary home, eager to tell his wife of the coroner’s generosity, but Helen met him at the door with a worried expression.

‘Agnes is unwell, Gwyn. All this trouble with the fire and the boys has done her no good at all. The wise woman from Rock Street is with her now, but I’m afraid it looks as if she’s going to miscarry again.’

Next day was Tuesday, a hanging day. An unusually subdued Gwyn went with the coroner and his clerk to the gallows outside the city, along Magdalen Street. The coroner was required to record the event and to confiscate for the King’s Treasury any property that the felon left behind.

Today was a lean harvest, as two of the four being executed were captured outlaws, with not a penny between them. Another was an old woman who had poisoned her neighbour by mistake, intending only to kill her house-cow out of spite. She had no property other than a few sticks of furniture, hardly worth the trouble of selling for the Crown. The last was a boy of fourteen, convicted of stealing a goblet worth twenty pence from a shop in North Street.

Once the ox-cart had rumbled from under the crossbeam, leaving the victims dangling and kicking-and when the screams and sobs of the relatives had faded after they had ceased pulling down on the legs to hasten death, the coroner’s team walked back towards the city. Gwyn had told his master earlier about his sick children and his ailing wife.

‘I’m sorry to hear of your troubles, Gwyn.’ The deep voice of the coroner was sincere, though he rarely ventured into personal matters.

Thomas nodded in agreement, always a sympathetic soul. ‘You have had more than your share of worries this past day or so,’ he squeaked. ‘May Christ and the Virgin spare you any more problems!’ He crossed himself jerkily in his almost obsessional manner.

‘Troubles always come in threes,’ he grunted. ‘Let’s hope this is the end of them.’

‘What’s wrong with the lads?’ asked Thomas, solicitously.

‘Brother Saulf, the infirmarian from St John’s Priory said they have the jaundice,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘I noticed as soon as I got up today, that their faces and eyes seemed yellow. He said there’s nothing to be done, it seems that there are other cases in St Sidwell’s. The monk suspects it’s because the midden heap got washed into the well, when we had that flood a few weeks back.’

‘I’ll pray for them, but I expect they’ll soon recover,’ said Thomas reassuringly. ‘And may the Holy Spirit protect your good wife, too.’

‘She’s miscarried twice before-and we’ve lost three babes before they were a month old,’ said Gwyn sadly. ‘Let’s hope the two little lads will survive this.’ Though the frailty of young life was accepted philosophically as God’s will, John felt deeply for his henchman, as he knew how much he loved his family. To cover up the risk of showing any emotion, de Wolfe cleared his throat and marched on more briskly.

‘Must get on! The noon bell has rung, my dinner will be on the table.’

After he had turned off into Martin’s Lane, Gwyn and the clerk continued up to the castle. Here Thomas went to pray for his friend in the little garrison chapel of St Mary, while Gwyn continued to the keep, a squat tower on the far side of the inner ward. He intended eating in the hall with his soldier friends, but on climbing the wooden stairs to the entrance, he was confronted with a familiar but unwelcome figure.

‘There you are, you reckless savage!’ snapped Walter Tyrell, almost hopping with angry impatience. ‘Come with me, the sheriff is waiting.’

He grabbed Gwyn’s arm, trying to pull him towards a door at the side of the large hall, noisy and bustling with the everyday business of Devon’s administration. The coroner’s officer stood like a rock, becoming irritated by his former landlord’s persistence. ‘What the hell do you want, Tyrell?’ he growled.

Today the fuller wore a long yellow tunic under a dark blue mantle-which matched the colour of a large bruise on his left temple, where Gwyn had hit him the previous night.

‘I’m indicting you for both the loss of the house I leased you and for assault!’ he snapped. ‘The sheriff is going to attach you and demand sureties for your appearance at the next County Court!’

‘Don’t be so bloody silly, man!’ boomed the Cornishman, angrily shaking off Tyrell’s arm.

‘I’ve got witnesses, some of that rabble that was in St Sidwell’s last night.’

‘The same witnesses that will prove I asked you many times to fix the roof-and will say that you drew a knife on me!’

‘They’ll change their tune for the offer of a handful of silver pence!’ jeered Walter.

Gwyn was just about to offer to give the man a matching bruise on the other side of his head, when the door of the sheriff’s chamber jerked open. The man-at-arms on guard thumped the butt of his pike on the floor in salute as a slight figure stalked out, even more dandified in his appearance than his friend the fuller. Sir Richard de Revelle wore his favourite green, the tunic edged in gold tracery around the hem and neck. A light surcoat of crimson silk carried his family device of a blackbird on a green ground, embroidered on his shoulder. His light brown hair was brushed back from his narrow face, made even more saturnine by the pointed beard below his thin-lipped mouth.