The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

Advancing on the pair near the main door, he brandished a piece of parchment and thrust it at Tyrell. ‘Here, Walter, this is what you requested!’

Scowling at the coroner’s officer, whom he knew and despised as a loyal servant of his brother-in-law, he added ‘My clerk has prepared the writ you desired, so I’ll see this fellow in front of me in the next Shire Court.’

With that he turned and marched away before Gwyn could get out a word of protest. The fuller leered at him. ‘I’ve heard you’re fond of games of chance-are you willing to wager what the verdict will be before the sheriff next week?’

Though Exeter now had over four thousand souls living within its walls, the portreeves and burgesses who ran the city council still employed only two constables to keep the peace. One was Osric, a tall skinny Saxon, the other an older, fatter man called Theobald. Their headquarters was a tiny hut behind the Guildhall in High Street, left behind by the masons who had recently rebuilt the hall in stone.

The two men, carrying the heavy staves which were their only means of keeping order in the city, left together on patrol an hour before midnight and headed down Waterbeer Street. This was a lane parallel to the main street, which held a mixture of dwelling-houses, shops, taverns, two apothecaries and several brothels. One of their prime duties was to enforce the curfew, keeping an eye out for uncovered fires which might pose a threat to the still largely timber-built city, though dealing with unruly drunks staggering out of ale-houses was their other main concern.

Tonight, neither of these tasks occupied them as they walked down Waterbeer Street. Theobald discovered a corpse by the simple process of tripping over it in the gloom, as its feet were protruding from a narrow alley alongside a leather-worker’s shop. Osric held up his horn lantern, which contained a single candle, to shed its feeble light on the body and saw blood oozing from a terrible wound in the neck.

‘Someone’s down the alley!’ bleated Theobald in his squeaky voice and with surprising agility for one with such a prominent ale-belly, started off in pursuit of the rapid footsteps that they had both heard.

The Saxon knelt by the victim, but having seen many corpses during his time as a constable, he knew straight away that he was beyond help. The blood was no longer pumping, but merely oozing from the jagged tear that extended from below the left ear to just above the breastbone, indicating that his heart had already stopped. Osric opened the little door of yellow cow-horn on his lantern to get a better light and held it up above the face of the dead man.

‘God’s whiskers, it’s Walter Tyrell!’ he muttered to himself. The constables knew virtually every prominent citizen by sight, especially burgesses like the fuller. As he rose to his feet, Theobald came trotting back, puffing after his unaccustomed exertion.

‘Lost him in those back alleys!’ he gasped. ‘Not a sign of anyone in that rabbit-warren.’

Osric, who was senior both by length of service and superior brain-power, started to give orders. ‘You must raise the hue and cry at once. Knock up the four nearest households-in fact, make it six! Get the men from each to search all the lanes and streets around, seeking anyone abroad at this hour, especially anyone with blood on their garments or shoes. Then go around each of the gates and make sure they let no one out tonight.’

The corpulent officer looked slightly rebellious at this, especially after his recent gallop down the alley and back. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘The coroner will want to deal with this from the start, so I’m away to rouse Sir John from his bed.’

As he hurried away, he only hoped that de Wolfe was in his own bed and not that of his mistress, down at the Bush Inn.

‘A bloody great slash, Gwyn!’ observed the coroner, with professional detachment. ‘Right down to the bones of his neck.’

He rose from a crouch and stared down at the cadaver, from which a wide pool of blood had now seeped into the packed earth of the alley. ‘It could be from a large knife, a sickle, a hedging hook or a meat cleaver.’

‘Or a sword, Crowner?’

Something in Gwyn’s voice made John stare at him from under his beetling black brows. ‘Yes, it could well be a sword. Why do you ask?’

His officer grunted mirthlessly. ‘Because only last night, I offered to take off his head with my sword!’

He gave his master a detailed account of his altercation with Tyrell and the fact that only today, the fuller had got the sheriff to issue a writ for assault.

‘But that’s nothing, all you did was punch his head in self-defence against him drawing a blade on you! You’ve witnesses to prove it.’

‘And he boasted that he had already bribed others to say differently!’ Gwyn pointed to the body on the ground, visible in the flickering light of pitch brands held by a couple of residents of Waterbeer Street. They were part of a small crowd who had been roused from their beds by the constables and were now gawking at the drama, after unsuccessfully racing around the streets looking for the killer.

‘Those were just idle words of yours, spoken in the heat of the moment!’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘You can easily prove you had nothing to do with this.’

‘How can I do that?’ growled Gwyn. ‘I was not at home with my wife, because there is no room at her sister’s. I was walking back from Milk Street to Rougemont when this must have happened, as I’m bedding down in the soldier’s quarters there.’

The coroner gestured impatiently. ‘Nothing will come of this, Gwyn, it’s all in your imagination. Who on earth is going to accuse my officer of murder, eh?’

As the words left his mouth, he realized that one person would be delighted to do so. Gwyn, watching his face, knew that the thought had entered John’s mind.

‘Exactly, Crowner! And with the endless bad luck I’ve been having these past days, the sheriff’s very likely to try it on. Especially since this man Tyrell is one of his cronies and has already brought the assault to his notice.’

De Wolfe pondered for moment, the scowl deepening on his bony face. ‘Look, just to be on the safe side, you had better not become involved as my officer in this case. Though I’m sure no one will accuse you, it is wiser for you to keep out of it, to avoid any accusations of partiality.’

‘But how can you hold an inquest without my help?’ objected Gwyn.

‘I can get Thomas to do what’s necessary, just this once. If anyone notices, we can say that your family troubles are the reason. In fact, I think you should be with them at this difficult time.’

Grudgingly, the Cornishman agreed and stood aside as the constables arranged for the corpse to be taken away. Though a disused cart-shed in the castle was the usual depository for casual deaths, it was considered too degrading for a prominent merchant like Walter Tyrell. Instead, a mortuary shed in the churchyard of nearby St Pancras was thought more appropriate and soon the mortal remains of the fuller were carried away by four locals, using a detached door as a bier.

The hue and cry having failed to achieve anything, there was nothing for the coroner to do until morning, so he made his way back home, after trying to reassure his officer that all would be well. Gwyn was unconvinced, as he trudged back up the hill to Rougemont. He felt his new sword slapping against his leg as he walked and put a hand on the beautifully-crafted hilt to steady it.

‘You’ve not brought me much luck so far,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s hope you do better from now on!’

John de Wolfe arrived at the castle gatehouse an hour after dawn next morning, to be greeted by Sergeant Gabriel with a message from the sheriff, demanding his attendance upon him forthwith. The coroner delayed for another hour, to show his independence from Richard de Revelle and spent it up in his barren chamber with Thomas, giving him instructions about the inquest on the fuller. Eventually he loped across the inner ward to the keep and with a perfunctory nod to the man-at-arms outside, marched into the sheriff’s room without knocking. His brother-in-law was seated behind his parchment-strewn table and looked up in annoyance at John’s lack of deference.