Crowner’s Quest

Chapter Five In which Crowner John visits a lady

In the late afternoon of the day after Christ Mass, a lone rider came through the West Gate and made his way up to Rougemont. He was unfamiliar with Exeter, having been to the city only once before. Unsure of where he should deliver his message, he dismounted at the drawbridge to the inner bailey and asked the guard for directions to someone in authority. The man-at-arms stuck his head into the door at the foot of the gatehouse, and Gabriel, the sergeant of the castle guard, soon appeared.

‘My name is Ulf, bailiff to Sir William Fitzhamon at Dartington, near Totnes, come to report two dead bodies in Loventor,’ declared the man. ‘Who should I speak to about them?’

Gabriel, a rugged old veteran of many campaigns, was glad of an excuse to visit his friends on the top floor and led the bailiff up the narrow stairs to the small upper chamber. Here, John de Wolfe was silently mouthing the Latin phrases set by his tutor for tomorrow’s lesson. Gwyn was squatting on his window-ledge, peeling an apple with his dagger, and missing the opportunity to bait Thomas, who was still in the Chapter House, searching for the missing parchment.

Gabriel announced Ulf as one of Fitzhamon’s bailiffs, then subsided on to Thomas’s vacant stool to eavesdrop on any news. The bailiff told his story about the sudden descent of the avengers upon Loventor’s attempt to repulse the assart-cutters. ‘Those men were professional soldiers, Crowner. They were well armed and cut down two of our men without warning. Though we wished to teach de la Pomeroy’s woodsmen a lesson, we only intended to cause some sore heads and a few bruises – but these men slew two of ours as you would swat flies.’

‘When did this happen? And what have you done with the bodies?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘This very morning, sir,’ replied Ulf, a heavily built Saxon with a hoarse voice. ‘Sir William’s steward knew that we have to report such violent deaths to the crowner so he sent me in haste to tell you.’

‘You’ve not buried them?’ growled Gwyn, knowing that the disposal of embarrassing bodies was usually a first priority of villages.

‘Indeed not!’ replied Ulf virtuously. ‘We have put hurdles around them to keep off the dogs, who showed a great interest in the smell of blood.’

‘Do you know who attacked your men?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘I was not there myself, but two reliable men who were leading the outlaws we hired said that one man was Giles Fulford, though the leader was a fellow with red hair, a darker shade than your man here. They did not know his name.’

The coroner looked at Gwyn enquiringly, then back at the bailiff. ‘Does the name Jocelin de Braose mean anything to you?’

Ulf looked blank. ‘No, never heard of him. Our men may have, but not me.’

After a few more questions, John arranged to meet the man early next morning to ride to Loventor, and Gabriel took him away, with the advice to seek a penny bed and meal at the Bush, the best inn in the city.

When they had gone, the coroner pondered the reappearance of Fulford in this incident, but felt it was impossible to relate it to the death of the canon.

‘This red-headed leader, Gwyn,’ he demanded of his officer. ‘We must discover if this man is Jocelin de Braose. Who would know if he has the same coloured thatch?’

The Cornishman lifted a hand to his own unruly ginger hair. ‘There are plenty of us about! But I’ll ask at the Saracen tonight to see if anyone knows him – his squire seems to visit the place often enough.’

As it was getting dusk, before long John trudged home to Martin’s Lane, to spend an evening of sullen silence with his wife, relieved only by mulled wine and dozing by the fire until it was time to stumble to bed.

In the grey light of dawn next day, the coroner rode his great stallion Bran down Fore Street to the West Gate, with Gwyn close behind on a big brown mare. The usual chill wind was blowing from the east, but there was no fresh snow. Both men wore heavy woollen tunics down to mid-calf, divided front and back to allow them to sit in the saddle. De Wolfe had a black leather hood, pointed at the back, over his long riding cloak, while Gwyn had a hessian sack wrapped around his head, the ends tucked into the frayed collar of his thick leather jerkin.

Ulf of Dartington was waiting for them inside the gate, which had just opened for the day. It was a hanging offence for a porter to allow any gate to be opened between dusk and dawn, except in some rare emergency sanctioned by the sheriff.

The three mounted men moved through the gate against a milling crowd pressing the opposite way. These were mainly countryfolk, laden with baskets of vegetables, eggs and chickens or pushing handcarts piled high with such produce. They came to sell to the city-dwellers, setting out their wares on the edge of the street or supplying the established stall-holders with fresh stock.

Once out of the gate, the riders crossed on to Exe Island, the marshy area reclaimed from the river, which supported mean huts clustered around the fulling mills for washing and preparing wool. At the other side of the island, de Wolfe led them into the cold water of the Exe, to splash across the shallows. There was a flimsy wooden bridge for travellers on foot, but the long stone bridge stood unfinished, as the builder, Walter Gervase, had again run out of funds.

Once up the opposite bank, they took the main highway west towards Plymouth and Cornwall. The going was good as the usual muddy morass had been hardened by the frost into a firm surface. Clipping along at a trot, they reached Chudleigh in less than two hours and turned off the main track southwards, to head towards Totnes on the river Dart.

Another hour or so brought them near the village of Ipplepen, when they branched off again on to tracks through the scrub and forest that lay between the villages. John knew this area well: he had been born and brought up at Stoke-in-Teignhead, a manor in a small valley south of the Teign estuary. Here his mother, brother and sister still lived and he resolved to call upon them on the way back to Exeter. Eventually they reached the hamlet of Loventor, where Ulf led them behind a tithe barn near the small wooden church. A few curious villagers trailed up to them as they slid from their horses and lashed the reins to a fence. Behind the barn, a leaning structure of wattle walls and a thatched roof, was some wasteground on which several hurdles of woven hazel-withies had been stuck in the ground to form a square against the back wall of the barn.

‘We kept them in here for you, Crowner,’ said Ulf proudly, aiming a kick at a scraggy dog sniffing at the enclosure.

The bailiff pulled aside a hurdle and ushered de Wolfe and his henchman inside. On the ground were two bodies, laid side by side. They were dressed in clothing so rough as to be little better than rags. ‘These were outlaws?’ The coroner’s remark was more a statement than a question.

‘They were. We gave them some food and a few pence to teach those woodcutters a lesson. They are always hanging about the villages along the edge of the moor and forest, looking either to rob and steal or to do some occasional work for a pittance.’

De Wolfe well knew that although outlaws were supposed to be hunted like vermin, they often crept back into society, either to perform casual labouring work or even to settle permanently and take up a trade. Officially they were outcasts, usually escaped prisoners, suspects on the run or sanctuary-seekers who had promised to abjure the realm but who had melted away into the forests instead of seeking ship at a port. Anyone could slay an outlaw on sight; in law, they were considered ‘wolves’ heads’, and a bounty of five shillings could be claimed for their amputated head, if brought as proof to the sheriff or coroner.

‘Were all your gang outlaws who attacked the assart-makers?’ snapped de Wolfe.

‘All but two, who were our own men, including the reeve. Sir William decreed it should be done, so his steward found the men.’

De Wolfe bent over the corpses and saw that the right arm of one had been severed at the shoulder – the bloody limb was lying on the grass alongside him. The other had a massive wound in the neck and the coroner unhesitatingly stuck his fingers into the slash to gauge its depth. He looked up at Gwyn. ‘The neck bones are chipped by the blade. It was a good blow, almost took his head off,’ he said conversationally. He considered himself an authority on methods of killing and maiming, after a score of years on a multitude of battlefields. He wiped his fingers on a tuft of frozen grass and stood up. ‘I suppose I must hold an inquest on them, Gwyn.’

The hairy assistant looked dubiously at the still figures on the ground. ‘Is there any need?’ he asked grudgingly. ‘If they are outlaws, they don’t even exist in the eyes of the law. Why bother?’

The coroner rasped a hand over his black stubble – he was due to have his shave tomorrow. ‘I’m not sure. Nor do I think that anyone else knows the answer. The instructions are far from clear as to the duties of coroners.’

The only mandate they had was a single sentence issued by the meeting of the King’s justices held in Kent last September. This merely said that, in every county, three knights and one clerk were to be appointed to ‘keep the pleas of the Crown’, which meant all legal events that took place in the county had to be recorded for presentation to the Justices when they made their visits, which were noted for their infrequency and irregularity. As part of this ‘keeping of the pleas’, the coroner had to investigate all sudden deaths, assaults, rapes, finds of treasure, wrecks, catches of royal fish, such as whales and sturgeon, and perhaps even robberies. He had also to attend all hangings, mutilations, ordeals, trials by combat and any other legal happening that might come along. Yet the instructions for how to deal with such matters were vague in the extreme. De Wolfe knew that if he tried to seek clarification as to whether he need investigate the deaths of non-persons such as outlaws, he would wait months for a response from the royal court, if the judges of the King’s council could be bothered to consider the matter.

‘Let’s do it, to be on the safe side,’ he muttered to his officer. ‘There may be some political aspect to this. I suspect that a couple of dead men are but a symptom of some feud between Henry de la Pomeroy and William Fitzhamon, over land tenure, apart from this assart business.’

As if some heavenly ear had overheard him, a diversion occurred. Gwyn’s head went up and he almost sniffed the air. ‘Horsemen, coming this way – at least three of them,’ he said.

It was a minute or so before de Wolfe’s less keen ear heard the hoofs, but soon horses appeared at the end of the track through the village and four riders cantered up to the tithe barn. ‘It’s Sir William Fitzhamon,’ said Ulf, hurrying out of the hurdles to pull his forelock to his master.

The leading horseman was a thin, erect man whom John had met somewhere in the past, but with whom he was barely acquainted. Fitzhamon dismounted, walked across to the coroner and greeted him abruptly, giving hardly a glance at the bloody cadavers on the ground. ‘This is my son, Robert,’ he said jerking his head at the lad, who had also slid from his horse, leaving two squires mounted to guard their rear. ‘I assumed rightly that you would come here this morning, in response to the message I sent with my bailiff,’ he said, with a touch of arrogance that irritated John. ‘These dead rogues are of no account in themselves, but I wanted official recognition of the harm and insult that Pomeroy has done to my estate.’

De Wolfe, half a head taller than Fitzhamon, glowered at the older man. ‘I gather this comes about from some land dispute?’

‘There is no dispute, Sir John. The land is mine and has been in our family for generations. It is flagrant robbery on the part of Pomeroy, who is trying to push back my boundary by several hides, hacking and burning my part of the forest where it abuts on to his land, between this village and Afton.’ He smacked his leg in anger with a riding crop. ‘It’s not the first time he’s tried this.’

He took the coroner by the elbow and pulled him away from the others, while his son followed uncertainly behind him. ‘I have a number of manors scattered over the western counties and I cannot be everywhere at once. But this has gone too far. I have threatened Pomeroy that I will petition the King if he does not stop cutting my trees and withdraw back to his own boundaries.’

‘The King is a hard man to petition, these days. He is ever abroad,’ observed de Wolfe, though without any hint of criticism of Richard the Lionheart’s disregard for England.

‘I know that, and resign myself to not seeing him in person – though I wish I was still young enough to assist him in his war against that milk-sop in France, the unspeakable Philip.’

De Wolfe’s heart began to warm to Fitzhamon, after their first cool encounter. Anyone who was such a staunch supporter of the King was a man to admire, in his eyes.

‘I can – and will – go to see the Justiciar over this,’ continued Fitzhamon. ‘I regret that I missed the chance to meet him last month when he was in Exeter, but I had a week of the bloody flux and could not get from my bed or the privy.’

‘Hubert Walter is a fair-minded man and would consider your complaints seriously,’ advised de Wolfe.

Fitzhamon gave a quick look over his shoulder. ‘I could tell him a few other things as well, beyond my complaints about my land boundaries, if I had a mind. Things he might well pass on to our sovereign.’

Intrigued, John tried to lead him into more detail, but Fitzhamon seemed to feel that he had said too much already and would not be drawn further. They walked back to the barn and Fitzhamon prepared to remount his horse. ‘I wished to bring these deaths to your notice in the proper manner, Crowner, so that Henry de la Pomeroy is in no doubt that he has done wrong in setting a pack of rogues upon my own men who are defending my land.’

As he swung himself into the saddle, de Wolfe went up to him. ‘Your bailiff said that a man called Giles Fulford was among those who attacked your men, but that the leader was a red-headed fellow. Have you any idea who that might be?’

Fitzhamon shook his head. ‘I am not acquainted with the mercenaries of this county, sir. I know that many hot-blooded young men are putting themselves at the disposal of those who need strong arms and long swords to further their ambitions. I myself was invited to join them, but I considered it infamous! But, as to names, I can’t help you. I leave that to my servants.’ With this arrogant snub, he swung his horse round and cantered off, his silent son and two guards close behind him.

The coroner stared after them, until they vanished around a bend in the track. ‘I wonder what it was he almost told me,’ he mused.

The inquest that followed was a simple, hurried affair. Gwyn rounded up the two Loventor men who had accompanied the outlaw pack that had attacked the woodcutters. The surviving outlaws had vanished: no forest-dweller was going to risk being in the proximity of the King’s coroner if he wanted to keep his head on his shoulders.

As Thomas was not there to pen a record on to his rolls, de Wolfe had to remember the few relevant facts so that he could relay them to the clerk when they got back to Exeter. With a handful of village men as a jury, the coroner rapidly recounted the circumstances of the killings. Though there was obviously no way to ‘present Englishry’ on a pair of nameless outlaws, he was reluctant to amerce the village with a murdrum fine, salving his legal conscience with the excuse that as the men were legally non-existent, it did not matter from what race they came.

Within ten minutes, the circle of uncomprehending men standing around the corpses had been told by the coroner to bring in a verdict of murder by persons unknown. They were allowed then to shuffle away, reluctantly going back to their tedious labours after this unusual diversion from the endless drudgery of village routine.

‘I had thought to name Giles Fulford as one of the killers,’ said John to his officer, ‘but there’s no proof other than the word of a villager – and little good it would do anyway. But we must keep a closer eye on Master Fulford when we get back to Exeter.’

It was gone noon when they left Loventor, and although they could have got back to Exeter before curfew closed the gates, de Wolfe took the opportunity to visit his family. Though they travelled through lonely countryside, along narrow tracks well suited to ambush, the two old fighting companions felt no threat from wayside brigands. John’s steed patently advertised the fact that he was a warrior, for Bran was a giant of a horse, his size and hairy feet proclaiming him for a destrier, a warhorse used to carrying the weight of arms and armour. As for Gwyn, it was the man rather than the brown mare that would have given any footpad cause to hesitate. The wild, hairy giant, with his leather cuirass, shoulders protected with metal plates, had a ferocious look that strongly suggested he would be quite happy to use the huge sword hanging from one saddle-peg or the hand-axe swinging from the other.

An hour and a half took them the nine miles from Loventor, through Kinkerswell to Stoke-in-Teignhead, a well-ordered village with a neat manor house, nestling in a green valley a mile or so from the sea. The house was solidly built in stone, one of the last acts of his father, Simon de Wolfe, before he went off to the Irish wars where he was killed. Years of peace had allowed the defences of the house to be relaxed, and though there was a wooden stockade around the yard, its drawbridge had not been raised for as long as John could remember. They clattered across it to be greeted with genuine pleasure by the servants, some of whom had known John since he was a child. Gwyn was also a favourite, as he had been there many times. Both serving-wenches and the men enjoyed his boisterous good humour, which gave the lie to his wild looks. He went off to the kitchens to pinch the cook-maids’ bottoms and be fed until he could eat no more, while de Wolfe went in to his family.

The steward, an old Saxon called Alsi, met him on the stairs from the yard, beaming his pleasure at the visit. ‘Your brother is at Holcombe today, Master John, but your mother and sister are up in the solar.’

The rest of the day was spent in eating, drinking and gossiping around a roaring fire in the hall. His mother, Enyd de Wolfe, was a sprightly, still attractive woman of sixty-three, with auburn hair, which now, however, contained some silver threads. Small and dainty, her vivacity made everyone love her, from the lowest servant to her three children. The eldest was William, today at their other manor a few miles north along the coast at Holcombe, near Dawlish. He was two years older than John, but looked much like him – tall, dark and lean, like their father. But William’s nature was different: he had no interest in travel, fighting or foreign wars. His passions were farming, sheep-rearing and running the two manors. When their father had died, he had inherited the estate, but equal shares of the income came to Enyd and the two other children, the third being Evelyn. She was the baby, now thirty-four, an amiable, gossipy woman. Evelyn had wished to become a nun, but after her father’s death, Enyd had asked her to stay at home and help run the household.

This cold evening, they delighted in fussing over John, extracting all the news and Exeter gossip that they could get from him – even that concerning Matilda, whom they disliked as much as she disliked them. Privately, Enyd always regretted her son’s marriage into the de Revelle family, which had been engineered by his father as a socially advantageous move that would enable John to become a county notable. However, Simon had not foreseen his own early death – nor that John would spend two decades away from Devon at the wars, mainly to keep away from his unpleasant wife. That his mother was Celtic, with a Welsh mother and a Cornish father, was anathema to Matilda, to whom anyone less than full-blooded Norman was on a par with the animal kingdom.

Eventually, almost dizzy from too much food, wine and chatter, de Wolfe stumbled off to a mattress stuffed with goose feathers set out for him at the side of the hearth and slept as well as Gwyn, who had a blanket thrown over a pile of hay in the warmth of the kitchen hut.

In the morning, the twenty-eighth day of December, after a huge breakfast, they left Stoke and rode gently up to the mouth of the Teign. At low tide they waded their horses across the narrow river where it passed the sand-bar to reach the sea. On the other side, John led the way up the coast track, then turned slightly inland to reach the village of Holcombe. Here he found his brother supervising the building of a barn, part of which was to store the wool from an increased flock of sheep that helped to sustain de Wolfe’s income.

William came down a crude ladder to greet his brother, and the two men embraced warmly. ‘I couldn’t pass by without giving you my wishes for a prosperous New Year, brother!’ exclaimed John. ‘Especially as my own prosperity depends so much on your efforts.’

They talked for a while about the manors and the wool trade, which was the economic strength of England. Gwyn watched from a polite distance, marvelling again at the similarity in the appearance of the brothers, and in the difference between their personalities. After family talk had been exhausted, William asked about the coroner’s work, which seemed to fascinate him. De Wolfe related his current problems, then asked if his brother knew anything of Giles Fulford and Jocelin de Braose, but William had never heard of them.

Gwyn waited patiently for half an hour until the two men had had their say. Then, after mutual slaps on the back, de Wolfe climbed aboard his great horse and they set off again northwards. It was not yet mid-morning as they cantered along the coastal track towards Dawlish, a few miles further on. They could have reached Exeter by early afternoon, but from past experience Gwyn suspected that they would just make the city gates as they were closing at dusk.

Fishermen’s huts along the beach indicated that they were in Dawlish, though the centre of the village was a little inland, up a small creek where boats were beached on the banks. John slowed Bran to a walk as he turned up the path alongside the little river and seemed to be staring intently at them as if seeking a particular vessel. Then he prodded the stallion into a trot and moved up the track to where a number of houses, both wooden and stone, formed the nucleus of the hamlet. He reined up outside a new dwelling, built of grey stone with two round arches facing the road, enclosing a sheltered arcade in the Breton style. He turned in his saddle to speak to his officer. ‘Gwyn, I have a call to make, so find yourself the alehouse and have some food and drink. I’ll see you later.’

The Cornishman grinned under his bushy moustache: his earlier prophecy had been confirmed. As he plodded away for some welcome meat and ale, de Wolfe dismounted and tied his horse to a rail at the side of the new house. There was a closed door at the front, under the arches, but he walked down the side towards the yard at the back, seeking the rear entrance.

‘Are you a thief who tries to sneak into my house unobserved?’ came a voice from behind him.

He swung round and a smile of pure pleasure transformed his usually sombre features. An attractive lady was standing there, having slipped out of the front door and followed him round. ‘Hilda! By God, you look more lovely every time I see you.’ The sincerity of his greeting brought colour to her cheeks and she stepped forward to kiss his lips. Her oval face was made brilliant by two large blue eyes and a full red mouth, but her glory was the cascade of pale blonde hair that fell below her shoulders. The usual cover-chief of white linen was absent and her long neck was bare of any wimple, though it carried a heavy-linked gold chain. She wore a simple kirtle of cream linen with blue embroidery around the high neck-line. A blue cord was wound twice around her waist, the long tasselled ends falling almost to her feet.

She linked her arm in his and pulled him towards the gate into the yard. ‘You may as well come in by the servant’s entrance, if you were so reluctant to use the front door,’ she teased.

‘I couldn’t see Thorgils’ boat in the river, but he might have changed it, for all I knew,’ he explained sheepishly.

As they made for the back door, she told him that her husband was away. ‘As usual, so I see him about one day in twenty. He has taken wool to St Malo and will not be back until next week.’ Probably some of my own wool, thought de Wolfe, as he had both the partnership with his brother and another with one of the Exeter portreeves, Hugh de Relaga.

The ground floor of the house, which was large by local standards, was a storeroom for Thorgils’ trade and was piled high with bales, boxes and casks. A girl was searching for something among them, and smiled archly at John and her mistress as they made for the stairs to the upper floor. Hilda gave her a light clip around the ear and ordered her to bring some food from the kitchen for her guest. Grinning even more widely, the girl scuttled out to take the latest gossip to the other servants.

The upper floor was the living quarters, with a stone chimney, a table and chairs and a sleeping area with a large palliasse covered in sheepskins. The room was warm from a glowing fire and Hilda struggled to pull off John’s cloak and hood. He released his clumsy sword scabbard and dropped the massive weapon with a clang on to the floorboards. He sank down thankfully on the edge of the palliasse and waited for her to pour some wine from a stone bottle into two shallow cups.

As they drank, the pert serving-maid came carefully up the steep stairs with a board carrying bread, meat and fish. She put it down, then left, and, for the next few minutes, the blonde woman watched him eat, as they caught up with each other’s news.

De Wolfe had known Hilda since she was a child, as she was the daughter of the former manor reeve in Holcombe. He was eight years older than her, but even before he left home for the wars when he was seventeen, she had been a budding beauty. At every homecoming afterwards they would flirt and by the time she was fifteen they were lovers. Both knew that it would never progress beyond happy tumbles in the hay, as she was from a lowly Saxon family who served the Norman lord of the manor and his family, of which de Wolfe was a member. One day, when John returned from France, he found that Hilda had been married to a much older man, Thorgils the Boatman in nearby Dawlish. She was not unhappy at that: he was a good man with an excellent business who could give her most things in life – this new house was evidence of his prosperity. De Wolfe thought that, years ago, he might have been in love with Hilda, but long separations and her marriage had rendered his feelings to genuine affection and a healthy lust. He suspected that Thorgils knew he was being cuckolded – and maybe by others than himself – but nothing was ever said. Perhaps the sixty-year-old mariner accepted that leaving ashore a beautiful wife half his age carried inevitable risks.

Hilda poured more wine and sat down next to him on the bed. He told her of the current goings-on and the problems with both the dead canon and the land dispute not far away in Loventor. When he mentioned Giles Fulford, her face darkened. ‘That man and his master – they are a pair of lecherous swine!’

John looked at her in surprise. ‘You know them?’

‘Hardly know them, but they came here some weeks ago, to meet Thorgils’ boat when he returned from Caen. He was two days late because of contrary winds so they stayed in the village. Both of them tried to seduce me – to pass the time, it seemed, even though they had their own doxies with them.’

‘What was his master like? You know his name?’

‘Of course. It was Jocelin de Braose. Those two were more like brothers than lord and squire. I suspect they took it in turns with the same women. One was a black-haired harlot – Rosamunde of Rye, they called her.’

‘What does he look like, this Jocelin?’

Hilda leaned back to look at him quizzically. ‘Why are you so interested, John? Are you going to challenge them for trying to lie with me?’

‘We know this Giles is involved in several dubious escapades, but de Braose is more elusive. What’s he like?’

‘Good-looking, I must admit, though he has none of your mature charms, John.’

He tapped her shapely bottom in rebuke. ‘I asked what he looks like.’

‘Red hair – a dark auburn, in curls. Quite a lady’s man, if you fall for that sort of pretty boy.’

‘By all accounts he’s pretty handy with a sword. Yesterday I held an inquest on two men he and his friends had hacked to death.’ De Wolfe threw back the rest of his wine. ‘Why should they want to see Thorgils, anyway?’

She tossed her long hair with an elegant swing of her head. ‘He was bringing half a dozen men from France. They came to meet them from his boat.’

‘What sort of men?’

‘Soldiers, I’m sure. Not ordinary men-at-arms, but well-dressed, well-armed knights. They were Normans – I mean, men from Normandy itself, for they had not a word of English between them.’

‘Has this happened before?’

‘Yes, both Thorgils and some of the other boatmen along the coast have been ferrying such men for the past couple of months. I don’t know where they go, but someone brings spare horses for them and they gallop off into the countryside somewhere.’

She put down her wine cup and snuggled closer to de Wolfe. ‘I’m tired of talking about my husband’s cargoes. Are you only here to spy on me, John, and wheedle out the secrets of Dawlish?’

He grinned his rare grin again, and held her by the shoulders to look at her smooth, lovely face. A purist might have thought her nose a trifle too long, but for a woman of thirty-two she was as near perfection as any man could want.

He leaned forward and they kissed again, then slowly slid sideways on top of the sheepskins.

As Gwyn had predicted, they reached Exeter with little time to spare before the city gates creaked shut. Gwyn carried on outside the walls to reach his hut in St Sidwell’s, while the coroner plodded his tired stallion up to the livery stables in Martin’s Lane. When he had seen Bran safely fed and watered, he walked across to his own house and cautiously entered the hall. There was no sign of Mary to give him early warning of any domestic strife so he had to cross the flagstones to the hearth, where he could see a pair of feet projecting from one of the cowled monks’ chairs.

‘You’ve deigned to come home at last, have you?’ a high, hard-edged voice snapped. Matilda was huddled against the draughts with a woollen shawl over her kirtle. ‘You stay away for two days and a night with no message for me whatsoever. How am I supposed to know where you are and when you’ll be back?’

‘Does it matter?’ he grunted. ‘You’d never have a meal waiting. If it wasn’t for Mary, I’d starve to death in this miserable house.’

‘That’s what serving-girls are for, you fool. Though perhaps you can find other uses for them, that Saxon included!’

For a moment, he thought she meant Hilda, whom he hoped was still unknown to his wife – but then he realised that her remark had been directed at Mary, whose mother was a native.

‘You’ve been in every tavern in Devon, I suppose, since I last saw you.’

This rankled with de Wolfe, as he had not set foot in an inn since Christ Mass. ‘I have been to see two dead outlaws, then stayed with my family, held an inquest and then travelled home.’ He reversed the order of the inquest and his visit to Stoke to account for the time spent that day, but whatever he said, Matilda would use it as grounds for complaint.

She ranted on for a few more minutes, managing to get in a few spiteful remarks about his family, then grudgingly gave him a message. ‘That evil little clerk you employ is sitting in the kitchen, as far as I know. He came here two hours ago, pestering us to know where you were. He says he has an urgent message for you – though what can ever be urgent in your business is quite beyond my understanding.’

Eager both to escape her and to hear what Thomas de Peyne had to say, de Wolfe loped away to the vestibule and turned down the earth-floored passageway to the backyard. In the lean-to shanty on the left, which was both the kitchen and Mary’s home, he found his crooked clerk perched on a stool. He was eating heartily, for the motherly Mary, suspecting that the little ex-cleric was half-starved, was stuffing him with good food.

When Thomas saw his master, he gulped the last mouthful and slid off the low stool next to the cooking fire. ‘Crowner, I have some news from the Close. Canon Roger de Limesi’s vicar came to me this afternoon at his master’s behest. The man Fulford has sought Langton, and demanded that he hand over the parchment that reveals the site of the main treasure. He threatens to kill de Limesi if he fails to deliver it. The canon does not know what to do, as he has no such document, as we know.’

The coroner adjusted his mind to this new and unexpected turn of events. ‘Does the Archdeacon know of this?’

Thomas nodded. ‘The canon went directly to see him, in fear for his life. I think the Archdeacon is awaiting your return to discuss what is to be done.’

De Wolfe rasped a hand thoughtfully over his chin, the stubble now well overdue for attention. ‘Go to the Close, arrange for Roger de Limesi and his vicar to attend upon John de Alencon at his house at the seventh hour, then go to the Archdeacon and say that we will all be there at that time.’

The little clerk hurried away self-importantly, and the coroner turned to Mary, who had been silently listening to these exchanges.

‘I’ll have something to eat out here, my girl. The atmosphere in the hall is colder than an easterly gale.’

He failed to mention that he did not feel like going to the Bush for a meal that night: there, he would have to meet the landlady’s eye after his visit to Dawlish that day.

The Archdeacon lived in Canons’ Row in the same way as many of his fellow prebendaries. Among the twenty-four priests some had specific appointments and duties, but this gave them no special privileges. There were four archdeacons – John de Alencon for Exeter itself, the others for Cornwall, Totnes and Barnstaple. There were also the Precentor and the Treasurer, but all had similar houses and lifestyles, either in the Close or in houses elsewhere in the city.

De Alencon, named after the town in Normandy from where his family originated, resided in the second house in the Close from St Martin’s church, almost within a stone’s throw from the coroner’s dwelling. After he had finished a hot, filling meal quickly provided by Mary, de Wolfe had made a token visit to the hall to emphasise to Matilda that he was going out on duty, to meet senior members of her beloved priesthood.

He walked across to the Close and found Thomas waiting for him, shivering in his thin cloak outside the Archdeacon’s house. Inside, Roger de Limesi and his vicar Eric Langton were already there, both looking subdued and uneasy. Indeed, the canon was afraid for his very life after the murder of de Hane and the threats of Giles Fulford.

The room in which they met was almost as spartan as Robert de Hane’s bare chamber further down the road. John de Alencon was another austere priest who took the Rule of St Chrodegang literally, as far as worldly goods and comforts were concerned. They sat around a bare table on rough benches, the only light coming from three tallow dips hung on the wall, which also carried a large crucifix.

‘We could have this villain seized by the sheriff, I’m sure,’ began de Alencon. ‘Richard de Revelle would be happy to indict him on the sworn evidence of Langton and the canon here. Threatening the life of a man of God – or anyone else – must surely be a hanging matter?’

Remembering his brother-in-law’s strange attitude to Fulford, de Wolfe was not so sure, but kept his tongue still on that matter. He said, ‘Maybe, but what would it achieve? There is not the slightest proof that he was involved with the death of Robert de Hane, though the circumstances point that way.’

‘De Revelle is not noted for his affection for proof,’ said the Archdeacon wryly.

‘No, but it would be far better to catch this man red-handed, for it may also trap any associates he may have. His master is a knight called Jocelin de Braose, and I have good reason to think that both of them were involved in some other bloody venture. Maybe this de Braose is in on the treasure hunt as well.’

‘So what do we do, John?’ asked de Alencon. ‘We have no map or directions to give him.’

John looked sideways at his stunted scribe. ‘But we could always manufacture one. How would he know the difference?’

De Limesi’s small eyes had almost vanished into his podgy cheeks. ‘Surely he could tell an ancient parchment from a new one? It’s my life that’s in danger if he suspects he is being hoodwinked.’

Thomas spoke up. ‘I could use a piece of old parchment taken from some of the blank skins that abound in the archives. I can thin my ink to make it faint like old writing. And remember, he cannot read.’

‘So how does he hope to find any treasure, if he cannot decipher the directions?’ asked the Archdeacon, reasonably.

‘This vicar will have to translate it for him. Is that what happened last time?’

Eric Langton nodded. ‘He committed what I said to memory. It was not difficult, only a number of paces and a landmark or two.’

The coroner looked grimly at him. ‘You’ll have to go with them this time, to interpret the instructions on the spot.’

As he realised the hazards, the vicar paled. ‘When they find there is no hoard, they will undoubtedly turn nasty,’ he stuttered.

‘That can be part of your penance, brother,’ observed de Alencon drily. ‘Albeit a very small part, considering the evil you have done.’

De Wolfe brought the meeting back to practical matters. ‘My clerk will produce a false parchment. Thomas, it should have complicated instructions, so that Langton will inevitably have to go with Fulford to translate them. Otherwise, we have no means of knowing when they will attempt to recover the treasure.’

He looked at John de Alencon. ‘We need to ambush these fellows and catch them in the act. For several reasons, I do not wish to involve the sheriff at this stage. Afterwards though he will need to take into custody any perpetrators.’

‘What are you asking, John?’ responded the Archdeacon.

‘We don’t know how many adventurers or ruffians Fulford will bring into this escapade. I have only one fighting man to assist me so we need a few strong arms to capture anyone who tries to dig for this treasure. Can you help there?’

There was some discussion between the two canons, and it was arranged that several of the younger servants from the Close would be recruited, including David from de Hane’s household. Thomas would go straight away that evening to the Chapter House library and write some fictitious account of where the main hoard could be found in the vicinity of Dunsford church. Eric Langton would take this to the Saracen late that evening; if Fulford was not there, he would try again tomorrow, insisting that he had better be present at the digging, to interpret the instructions accurately.

With much misgiving on the part of both Roger de Limesi and his vicar-choral, the meeting broke up so that the priests could prepare for their nightly services, and de Wolfe could go home to his frosty welcome at his own fireside.