The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

The coroner considered this, even though it did not prevent him from massaging a shapely breast while he did so.

‘Every bit of information helps,’ he murmured. ‘Though would anyone kill for something like that?’

‘There’s more,’ said Nesta. ‘While we were talking, Henry Ockford, the carter, said that there was gossip about Serlo and his sister-in-law.’

‘That Christina?’ grunted John. ‘I’d not be surprised. She seemed hardly grief-stricken at the sight of her husband’s bloody body, even though she put on a great act when de Revelle showed his stained kerchief. As for Serlo, he couldn’t keep his hands off her at the inquest.’

Nesta rolled towards him and put her arms around his neck. ‘I know someone else who can’t keep his hands off a lady!’

Further discussion about the problem was postponed for some time.

‘It’s the Bush’s best ale-and Nesta made the pasties herself,’ said Thomas anxiously, as he watched Gwyn wolf down the basketful of food that he had brought into the little church. He came faithfully twice a day to keep the big man fed and to offer him some company.

‘Your wife is well and so far there are no signs that she has miscarried,’ he added comfortingly. ‘She says she will visit you as soon as she is able-and bring the lads with her, for hopefully, they should soon be on the mend.’

Gwyn looked up from where he sat on one of the stone benches that ran around the walls. ‘How long am I going to be stuck in here, then?’ he asked, between mouthfuls of mutton pasty. ‘Two days already seems like two months!’

‘The Crowner is doing his best, but he needs to discover the real killer.’

The Cornishman nodded. ‘I know-and I’m grateful to you all! I only wish I could be out of this place to help you.’

He glowered around the bare chapel with its earthern floor and simple altar that carried only a brass cross and two wooden candlesticks.

‘It’s better than the gaol at South Gate, but only just,’ he growled, but then cursed himself for his ingratitude and apologized to the little clerk. ‘Forgive me, Thomas, I’m in low spirits today. Ever since I got that damned sword, everything seems to have gone wrong.’

The former priest nodded his understanding. ‘Perhaps it carries the taint of its former owner, the treacherous Henry. And who knows what shameful deeds it performed before that?’

They went on to talk of the escape, the bribed gaoler pretending to be overpowered by the five men in one cell, when he undid the crude lock to pass in their stale bread and tainted water. ‘I may have hit him a bit harder than I needed, especially as he was a Cornishman like me, but it had to look realistic, for his sake!’ Gwyn said with a grin, as he finished the last of the food and ale.

‘Sir John says he’ll come in to see you as soon as he can,’ said Thomas, putting the remains back into Nesta’s basket. ‘He doesn’t want to make it too obvious, as the sheriff is rightly convinced that the crowner organized the whole affair.’

Gwyn settled back on to the stone ledge, the only seating provided for the elderly and infirm of the congregation. It also had to serve as his bed, softened with a blanket provided by the kind landlady of the Bush.

‘The parish priest here seems quite content to let me stay here,’ he commented. ‘Not like that fat bastard down at St Olave’s, when he had that real murderer sheltering in his church.’

‘He doesn’t have any choice,’ observed Thomas. ‘Sanctuary is a merciful privilege given by God, not the clergy. But we chose St Martin’s for you as Father Edwin is one of the very few Saxon priests in Exeter. He’s a bit of rebel and no lover of the Norman aristocracy, which includes the sheriff!’

‘Good for him!’ muttered Gwyn. ‘But I wish he’d put padding on this ledge-my arse will be covered in blisters after forty nights of this!’

John de Wolfe decided to start his investigation by following up the rather tenuous motives suggested by Nesta’s tavern gossip. If the two Tyrell brothers had any dispute, then the obvious place to begin was the fulling mill.

Next morning he took himself off down to the West Gate and strode out on to the large area of marshy ground along the river that was known as Exe Island. Cut through by ditches and reens, it flooded when there was heavy rain up on distant Exmoor, but was an ideal place for the mills, of which there were at least a dozen. They needed copious quantities of water for washing and processing the raw wool, which was the main foundation of Exeter’s-and indeed, England’s-wealth. The Tyrells had two of the mills side by side, rather ramshackle wooden buildings with short canals bringing water directly in from the river. There was a ragged collection of huts around them, mostly for storage of the fleeces and the finished wool.

De Wolfe enquired for Serlo Tyrell, but was told he was away buying raw material at Buckfast Abbey, the large Cistercian monastery fifteen miles way, which had the largest flocks of sheep in Devon. Instead, he was directed to a shed where he found a harassed clerk poring over a confused mass of parchment rolls. The man looked up in irritation at being disturbed, but when he recognized the King’s Coroner, he jumped up and bowed his head obsequiously.

‘How can I be of assistance, sir?’ he gabbled. ‘This is a terrible business.’

John whimsically assumed he meant the death of his employer, not the state of the fulling industry. ‘I want some information, which may help in discovering who killed your master.’

The man’s eyebrows went up in surprise. ‘I thought this was already known, sir!’ Then he appeared to recollect that the assumed culprit was this knight’s own squire and managed to look embarrassed.

The clerk, who looked about John’s own age of forty, was a pasty-faced, overweight man, with thin, fair hair cropped short at the sides and back. He had rather full, pink lips, which covered uneven and badly discoloured teeth. A nondescript brown tunic had splashes of ink on the front and his fingers showed the same trademark of a scribe.

‘I am Martin Knotte, sir, chief clerk to the Tyrell mills. What can I tell you?’ Without any real justification, the coroner had taken an instant dislike to the man after only half a minute in his company. There was something distasteful about his fawning manner and his moist, mobile mouth. Aware that this snap judgement was quite unfair, John pressed on with his questions.

‘You were clerk to both Walter and Serlo Tyrell?’

‘I had the honour to serve them both, Crowner. There is a second clerk at the other mill, but he is merely a junior who works under my direction.’ He said this with a disdainful air, like a bishop referring to a choir-boy.

‘The two brothers were partners, I understand?’

‘Yes, but Walter had the bigger share, as he was older and inherited from their father when Serlo was little more than a boy.’

De Wolfe decided to get to the nub of the matter without delay. ‘Did they get along harmoniously, or was there any friction between them?

Martin looked slightly affronted. ‘I am a steward, sir, my only concern is the smooth running of the accounting and the other chores of running a busy mill.’

The coroner was in no mood for fencing with clerks. ‘Come now! I am enquiring into a murder. I have no time for the niceties of polite behaviour. Chief clerks always know more of what goes on than anyone else.’ His stern tone and perhaps the slight flattery about the omnipotence of trusted servants, loosened the clerk’s tongue.

‘Well, between you and me, sir, Master Serlo has chafed somewhat at always being the follower behind Walter’s leadership. He has had many notions of improving the working methods and expanding the business, but his brother always over-ruled him.’