The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

‘You and Gwyn go east towards Somerset,’ suggested Ralph Morin, ‘and I’ll send Gabriel and a couple of men down the Plymouth road towards Buckfast. This fellow is on foot, so horsemen should catch him up, even though he may have had two days’ start.’

John spent a restless night, even though he knew Nesta could come to no harm in the castle, with the sheriff away and the sergeant’s wife pledged to look after her. Matilda was as surly as usual and made no mention over supper of her unexpected intercession on the Welshwoman’s behalf. Once again, John realized how little he understood Matilda, who was capable of surprising him with acts of kindness, even though she maintained her grim façade most of the time.

After a quick but substantial breakfast in his maid Mary’s cook-shed in the yard, the coroner went across to the stables opposite, where the farrier was saddling up the patient Odin, and a few moments later he rode out to meet Gwyn at Carfoix. They had agreed to leave Thomas behind, as his reluctant efforts at riding side-saddle on his miserable pony would only slow them down-and he was needed at Rougemont to write down the confessions of the two outlaws now incarcerated in the foul cells below the keep.

Gwyn was waiting cheerfully on his big brown mare, ready for anything the day might bring. As they trotted out of the South Gate and along past the empty gallows on the Honiton road, the coroner’s officer debated their chances of finding Simon Claver.

‘If he went westward, then he would have reached Buckfast by now, even on foot. But Gabriel and his men should still get news of him there.’

‘We have the better chance, if he’s making for Glastonbury or Wells,’ called de Wolfe, over the clip of the hoofs. ‘Few men will cover more than fifteen miles in these shortening days.’

Their fear was that, after Honiton, Simon might have turned off towards Bridport and Dorchester, if he was aiming for the abbeys and cathedrals of the south-east. But Somerset was still the best bet, thought John, and they kept on doggedly for the next few hours. The rutted track of the high road was in its best condition in this cold, dry weather, and they were able to put a good many miles behind them before dusk fell. They found an alehouse in a village beyond Ilminster and endured a poor meal there, before finding a heap of hay in a nearby tithe barn for a night’s sleep. The coroner and his officer had slept in far worse places during their campaigning days and were quite content with their accommodation.

The next morning, after some stale bread and hard cheese from Gwyn’s saddlebag, they were on their way again, John still anxious about Nesta, now that Richard de Revelle might have returned to Rougemont from his marital duties at Tiverton. They passed the usual thin stream of travellers going in both directions-pilgrims, merchants, ox-carts, flocks of sheep and a few pigs and goats, as well as the occasional chapman and pedlar to remind them of the relic dealer’s fate. An east wind now blew a fine powdering of snow on to the grey countryside, and John huddled deeper into his wolfskin cloak and pulled the hood up over his head. Gwyn now sported a leather shoulder cape with a pointed cowl, under which he wore an old barley sack wrapped around his neck.

They trotted on for another couple of hours, staring suspiciously at every traveller they passed, trudging along the highway. At an alehouse in a small hamlet, they stopped for some bread and meat, warming themselves with a pot of ale which the landlord mulled with a red-hot poker. They enquired whether any man with a rotted nose had called there in the past day or so, but no one had seen such a traveller.

When they went on their way again, under a leaden sky that promised more snow, Gwyn voiced a question that had been in de Wolfe’s mind.

‘How long are we to keep going, Crowner?’ he asked.

‘Until nightfall. We’ll turn back in the morning,’ grunted John. ‘By then we’ll have outdistanced him on foot. If we don’t see any sign of the swine, it means he must either have gone west or turned off to Dorchester.’

‘Then let’s hope Gabriel had better luck at Buckfast,’ prayed the Cornishman. But a mile farther on, the luck turned out to be theirs.

Here the road passed between dense woods on either side, the trees coming right down to the edge of the track. A cart laden with straw passed them in the opposite direction, and on the empty road ahead, they saw a lone figure trudging along, a long staff in one hand. As they came nearer, they saw that he wore a shabby grey mantle with a hood and that he was limping slightly. From the back, he looked little different to scores of others they had encountered, but on hearing the clip of their horse’s hoofs, the man turned his head. Being an Exeter man, living near the Bush, he recognized the coroner immediately. Throwing down his staff, he ran for the shelter of the trees, only a few yards away. With a roar, Gwyn spurred his mare after him, but he was too late to reach him before the man vanished into the undergrowth that choked the spaces between the tall trees.

De Wolfe was only inches behind, and with a curse he slid from Odin’s back as Gwyn leapt from his own saddle and plunged into the forest after the fugitive. Though most of the leaves had fallen, there were tangled masses of bramble and bracken between the first trees, but once they were in deeper, the ground was almost bare and the three men pounded along, weaving between the trunks. Though Gwyn had a start, he was heavier than the wiry coroner and de Wolfe rapidly caught him up.

The man ahead seemed to have forgotten his limp, as fear of inevitable death gave him wings, but the long legs of the coroner defeated him in the next hundred yards. With a final yell, de Wolfe threw himself at the man’s back and brought him down, with Gwyn hard on his heels to make sure that he stayed there.

Panting with exertion, John drew his dagger and held it at the fugitive’s throat as soon as Gwyn turned him over. The grotesque corrugations on one side of the man’s nose removed any doubt that they had caught Simon Claver, who stared up at them in abject terror and the firm expectation that he was about to die.

The coroner reached Exeter around noon the next day, having pushed his heavy warhorse as fast as he could, though Odin was no sprinter. In his haste to get back to secure Nesta’s safety, de Wolfe had left Gwyn to ride back more slowly, as he had Simon Claver walking behind his mare, his bound wrists roped to the saddle-horn. It would be another day before they arrived, but de Wolfe wanted to get his mistress out of custody as soon as possible. His task was not helped by the fact that Simon had stoutly denied killing Gervase, even though they had found the faded gilt relic box in a pocket of his mantle.

On arrival at the castle, he hurried to the keep and found Ralph Morin in the constable’s chamber off the main hall.

‘He’s in a foul mood, John,’ were his first words as the coroner entered. ‘Lady Eleanor must have given him a bad time and he’s highly incensed that we took a raiding party into the forest against his wishes. You’ll have a hard task persuading him to release Nesta.’

De Wolfe told him of their successful capture of the outlaw and the recovery of the holy relic. ‘But the bastard resolutely refuses to confess to killing Gervase-he says he met him after he had been to St Nicholas Priory and Gervase agreed to let him take the thing to Glastonbury to sell, whereupon they would split the proceeds.’

Ralph gave a cynical snort. ‘A likely tale! But de Revelle will seize upon it, never fear!’

He was right, for when John went down the hall to the sheriff’s chamber, he was met with a mixture of anger, sarcasm and sheer spite.