The Manor of Death

CHAPTER SIX

The Saturday of the Easter festival was a neutral sort of day, between the tragic sadness of Good Friday's Crucifixion and the triumphant drama of the Sabbath's Risen Lord. People went about their business to some extent, as food had to be bought from the stalls, bread had to be baked, animals had to be fed and meals prepared.

For one man — and his much less enthusiastic clerk — the day was to prove considerably more active. Sir Luke de Casewold, Keeper of the King's Peace for Axminster and a wide area around it, decided that he would pursue his suspicions about Axmouth by checking on the activities of the officials there and the contents of the barns and storehouses along the estuary.

He rose early and left his house in Axminster to rouse Hugh Bogge from his nearby cottage. They collected their horses from his stable and covered the five miles to Axmouth in less than an hour. There were six vessels moored along the bank below the village and several more were to be seen on the opposite side at Seaton. Where possible, the shipmasters had arranged their voyages so that they would spend Easter in port, but the Keeper soon discovered that The Tiger was not one of them.

'We'll call on that rascally tally-man first,' announced Luke, trotting his mare to a cottage halfway between the village gate and the sea. It stood between two large thatched sheds with high doors like hay-barns, though. these were firmly closed with long bars across the front, each secured with a massive iron padlock.

A crude fence around the croft hemmed in two goats, a sow, several chickens and two small children contentedly playing in the mud. De Casewold dismounted and stood at the wicker hurdle that served as a gate and yelled for the Customs official.

'John Capie! I need to talk to you. Get yourself out here!'

A woman's head poked out through the open doorway, then was quickly withdrawn after she had screeched at the infants to come inside. As they scuttled to obey, a man appeared, looking dishevelled and obviously not long risen from his bed. He was about thirty, thin and with a long sallow face, with hollow cheeks and an unshaven spread of black stubble around his jaw. His hair, which looked as if a tempest had just blown through it, was of the same dark colour, and he futilely ran a hand through it to try to tame it into submission. He wore the same short dun-coloured tunic and green breeches that Luke had seen on him at his last visit.

Capie peered sleepily at the visitor and groaned as soon as he recognised who it was. 'God's guts, Keeper, don't you know it's Easter?' he complained.

'The king's business must be attended to every day, Capie,' he said pompously. 'I need to talk to you — right now!'

The tally-man looked anxiously over his shoulder at the open door, from where children's cries and his wife's exasperated scolding could be heard.

'Not in there. It's bloody chaos with those brats,' he muttered. Scratching himself under both armpits, he came to the hurdle and lifted it out of the way, then replaced it quickly as the goats tried to escape.

'Come over here, if you must,' he suggested grudgingly and led the way over towards the nearest storehouse. He leant on one of the large doors and scowled at Luke de Casewold and his clerk. 'So what is it you want to know so urgently that brings you here to disturb me on this day?'

The Keeper glared at him for speaking rudely to a royal officer. 'I want to know if you have had a hand in any irregular dealings in this port, Capie. I strongly suspect that much of the cargo that goes both inwards and out of here escapes the tax due to the royal Exchequer! '

The tally-man folded his arms and glowered back obstinately. 'I do my best, but I can't be expected to watch every crate and keg that is landed or loaded! This wharf extends for almost three furlongs, and you can see for yourself how many vessels might be here at any one time.'

He flung up an arm to encompass the line of cogs leaning against the river bank. 'If the king or his damned ministers want to collect every half-penny of Customs dues, then they had better employ a couple more tally-men, for I can't cope with it all!'

His aggrieved tone sounded more than a little false to Luke, as Capie had never complained to him or the sheriff about getting additional help. However, the Keeper was craftily working around to a more sinister problem than Customs evasion and adopted a more conciliatory approach.

'That may well be true, Capie, so tell me how you go about your work. That ship there, for instance: how would you deal with that when she arrives?' He pointed to the nearest cog, which seemed deserted at the moment.

Mollified, John Capie explained that as soon as a new arrival moored herself to the stout tree-trunks buried along the bank, he would question the shipmaster as to the name of the vessel, where she had come from and what the nature of the cargo was. Being unable to read or write, he would remember this and hasten up to the portreeve's house to tell him of the new arrival, while the ship prepared to unload her contents on to the quayside. Capie would then return and, with a selection of knotted strings and hazel rods that he notched with a knife, would keep count of the items that were carried down the gangplank.

'But how do you know which goods belong to which string or tally-stick?' demanded Hugh Bogge.

'The cords are of different colours and the tops of the sticks are marked with my own code,' snapped Capie. 'A notch for cloth bales, half a ring for wine kegs and so on. I go back to Elias Palmer as soon as the hold is empty and he writes it all down on his parchments.'

'What if there are two or more cogs unloading at the same time?' objected Luke. 'You can't keep all that in your head.'

'Mother of God, isn't that what I just complained about?' exclaimed the tally-man. 'I try to keep them separate by forbidding the shipmaster to start unloading until I've dealt with the previous vessel, but half the time they take no notice, as they either want to get to the nearest alehouse or catch the next tide to get back out to sea.'

The clerk pushed himself back into the discussion. 'What about goods that are being taken out of the port?' he asked.

John Capie shrugged. 'Not so important, as far as I'm concerned. Wool is the main problem, since our beloved king put a tax on its export. We don't get much tin through here these days; all the refined metal goes out through Exeter or Topsham, as the second smeltings and the assays are done there.'

The Keeper came back into the dialogue. 'So you tally up the bales of wool and report the number to the portreeve, is that how it works?'

'Yes. Elias is the linchpin of the system, being the only one who can write; other than the priests.'

Luke noticed his use of the plural. 'Priests? Is there more than one, then?'

The Customs man stared at him. 'Only old Henry of Cumba actually lives here — but the cellarer's man from the priory is here every week, keeping a very close eye on what's due to Loders.' The priory was just beyond Bridport, some ten miles over the border in Dorset.

'And what is due to them?' demanded de Casewold. John Capie looked at him as if he was a backward child. 'What's due? Jesus, they own the bloody manor, don't they! They claim a fifth of everything that is collected for the king, to go into the coffers of the prior.'

'Are you saying that they rob the royal Exchequer of a fifth of the king's dues?' squawked the Keeper indignantly.

Again Capie gave him a look that he usually reserved for the village idiot. 'Of course not! The king's tax is used as a measure — and then a fifth of that is added on for Loders.'

Hugh Bogge muttered something under his breath, which his master failed to catch. It was just as well, as it was a seditious comment about government and ecclesiastical extortion.

'So how is this money collected?' Luke wished to know.

The tally-man shrugged again. 'Don't know; nothing to do with me! I think Elias sends a list up to the sheriff, who collects it as part of the county farm from all the merchants who import and export.'

The 'farm' was the six-monthly accumulation of taxes from every part of Devon, which the sheriff had to take to Winchester in person, in bags of coin in the panniers of packhorses. Here it was paid into the Exchequer, which got its name from the chequered cloth on the treasury clerks' table that was used to facilitate counting the silver pennies that were the only form of currency. The size of the farm was set annually by the Curia Regis for each county — and if the sheriff could collect more than that, he was entitled to keep the difference, which made the post of sheriff so much sought after by barons and even bishops. Some even held multiple shrievalties in several counties at once. However, after the depredations of his predecessor, Richard de Revelle, old Henry de Furnellis was hard pressed to collect the minimum required.

'So it's all down to Elias Palmer as to how much he enters in his accounts,' said the Keeper, cynicism oozing from his voice. 'You can't read, so you've no idea what he's writing down in his accounts.'

'Not my problem, sir! I'm paid a pittance to record as much as I can manage — what happens after that is none of my business, and I don't want it to be.'

De Casewold changed the subject somewhat, waving a hand at the locked doors behind the tally-man. 'So what exactly is kept in these sheds?' he demanded.

Capie moved away from the doors and looked at the barn-like structures as if he had never noticed them before. 'In here? Why, the goods that have either been unloaded and not yet been delivered to the owners — or the stuff that is waiting for the cog that is to carry them abroad.'

Luke de Casewold looked dubious at the explanation. 'A complicated task, sorting all that. Who is responsible for it?'

'The portreeve, of course. No one else can check the goods against the manifest lists, for only he can read them. Tally-sticks and knotted cords are no good for identifying a pile of kegs or bales.'

The Keeper felt that Elias Palmer was in a position to make or break the administration of Axmouth, as he seemed in a position to control every aspect of the trade there.

'I want to have a look in there, so open them up for me!' he snapped.

Capie shook his head obstinately. 'Can't be done, Keeper. I don't have a key. Only the portreeve and the bailiff can unlock them.'

Luke puffed out his cheeks and blew in annoyance, feeling that he was being deliberately frustrated in his search for the truth.

'Then I'll go up and get them to show me what's in there,' he promised, but turned the subject once again. 'Now then, Capie, I want an honest answer and be sure that if I find you are lying, you'll end up in chains before the courts. Do you know anything about goods coming in here as the spoils of piracy out at sea?' He glared at the tally-man and rattled his sword in its scabbard to emphasise his threat.

John Capie stared sullenly into the middle distance and shuffled his dirty shoes on the ground. 'I know nothing of such things!' he protested. 'How could I know? I just count items of cargo as they get carried off the cogs. Where they came from is not within my knowledge. '

His words and demeanour were totally unconvincing, and de Casewold leant towards the man and breathed his foul breath into his face as he spoke. 'Come, Capie, you are the man most involved with these ships and their crews! If anyone heard any gossip about certain vessels pillaging others, it would be you!'

The tally-man suddenly backed away, holding up his palms as if warding off the devil himself. 'I know nothing of such matters, Keeper! Don't ask me. I don't want to get involved in any gossip. I'm a simple man who does a job and just wants to live quietly with my family!'

'You sound afraid, John Capie!' exclaimed Luke. 'Has someone been threatening you if you speak out?'

The tally-man stumbled back even further. 'I don't know what goes on out at sea — and I don't want to know! Go and ask someone else, if you must, but leave me out of it, d'you hear!' The last words had risen into a screech as Capie turned and lurched back to his cottage without so much as a backward glance.

'There's a man with something to hide,' observed Hugh Bogge as they watched him hurry into his cottage and quickly shut the door, which screeched as the wood scraped the uneven threshold.

'I'll have him eventually,' crowed de Casewold vindictively. 'But I want to see what's in these storehouses, so we'll tackle the bailiff and Elias next.'

Entering the harbour gate, they passed the church, where a bell was tolling mournfully for some service, a trickle of villagers gravitating to it through the churchyard. Further up the main street they entered the garden of the bailiff's house and through a wideopen shutter saw him and the portreeve bent over a table. The Keeper went to it and called through the window-opening.

'Edward Northcote! I need to talk to you — and to your portreeve.'

The two men inside swung around and groaned when they saw who it was. 'What in God's name do you want, Casewold?' bellowed the bailiff.

'To ask you some questions — and to inspect those warehouses on the wharf.'

'Go to hell, you interfering busybody!' roared Northcote, coming across to the window-opening and thrusting his large, flushed face right into that of the Keeper. 'It's Easter and we have better things to do than waste time with you.'

Behind him, the portreeve nodded nervous agreement but said nothing.

'Have a care, Northcote. I am a king's officer!' threatened Luke. 'I can have you attached to the next county court — or have you dragged off to Axminster gaol.'

'Indeed! And who is going to do that?' sneered the bailiff, his anger rapidly coming to the boil. 'Is that fat clerk of yours going to haul me off by the scruff of the neck? Or are you' going to prod me with your little sword all the way to Axminster?'

'Perhaps not — but a sheriff's posse might!' retorted the indignant Keeper.

'Don't talk such bloody nonsense, man!' was the scathing reply. 'You are a damned nuisance, but what is it you want to ask?'

Slightly mollified by Northcote's grudging agreement, Luke leant his hands on the sill of the window. 'Several matters, bailiff. Do you know when The Tiger is due to return?'

'No, I don't. What about you, Elias — you're the harbour master?'

The skinny portreeve shook his grey head. 'Shouldn't be too long; it was supposed to be a quick voyage over to Normandy. But I can't tell when she's due; she may have sunk for all I know!'

'Or been scuttled by pirates!' snapped de Casewold. 'That was the other thing I need to know. I suspect that goods seized with the blood of innocent shipmen have passed through this port. Do you know anything of that, eh?'

Edward Northcote prodded the Keeper in the chest with a large forefinger, hard enough to make him step back a pace. 'Oh yes, I forgot. We had a few bloodstained casks in last week! And the portreeve here saw several bales of Flemish cloth smeared with gore, didn't you, Elias?'

The heavy sarcasm served only to inflame de Casewold's own temper, and he banged his fist angrily on one of the shutters hinged back against the wall.

'Don't you mock me, damn you! I am charged with keeping the king's peace, and murder, theft and piracy rank high amongst felonies! I want to see what's inside those sheds on the wharf and to check the contents with the lists that I am told the portreeve holds. My clerk is quite capable of verifying that all is in order — or if it is not!'

The bailiff's florid face, with its rim of black beard stretching from ear to ear, again jutted towards the Keeper. 'I open those doors only for the merchants to whom the goods belong — and to the shipmen and porters who have to load and unload them.'

'Or the prior's emissary, the cellarer's man from Loders,' added Elias Palmer. 'He has a legitimate right to check that the priory is getting its full commission in return for the ships and merchants having the use of its port.'

'Well, I have even more of a legitimate right,' shouted Luke. 'The right of a king to send his officers to investigate the activities of his subjects!'

For answer, Edward Northcote leant out of his window and seized a shutter in each of his large hands. As he began pulling them shut, forcing the Keeper to stand back to avoid being crushed, he made a final suggestion.

'Come back next week, when the quayside is working again — and maybe we'll let you have a glimpse inside.' With that, he slammed the hinged boards shut and dropped an iron bar across the inside, leaving a fuming de Casewold isolated outside.

As he moved back to the table with Elias, he muttered to him in angry tones. 'We'll have to keep a close eye on that nosy bastard!'

The Easter period passed, with John de Wolfe making several duty visits to both the cathedral and St Olaves Church, accompanying Matilda in her ceaseless devotional perambulations. The Monday was a holiday, celebrated more in the rural areas than in the city, though apprentices and many servants were given a day's respite from their usual work.

The following day there was an unusual call for the coroner's services, which took him at an early hour down to Topsham, the small port fives miles downstream on the estuary of the Exe. He left Thomas behind to say his Masses in the cathedral and, with Gwyn, followed the bailiff of the Exminster Hundred who had called them out. John knew him quite well, as that hundred included his brother's other manor of Holcombe, where Hilda's father was the reeve, as well as Dawlish itself.

They crossed with their horses on the small rope ferry and landed on the marshy area on the other side of the Exe. Riding down alongside the river, they came to the tiny fishing hamlet of Starcross, where they climbed aboard a small fishing boat that went down with the ebbing tide the last half-mile towards the mouth of the river. Here a long tongue of sand stuck out eastwards from the huge area of dunes and scrubland that was Dawlish Warren.

On the wide beach in the lee of this tongue, they saw a group of men standing around a large grey object, and when they came close enough to jump out and wade ashore they saw it was a small whale.

'It was still alive last night, moving its fins a little,' said the bailiff.

As they reached the scene, Gwyn, a former fisherman from Polruan in Cornwall, shook his head sadly. 'Poor thing's stone dead now. Once they get beached, they've not much chance.'

A whale was one of the two 'royal fish', the other being the sturgeon, which by right belonged to the Crown, and one of the coroner's duties was investigating catches and strandings, so that the fish — or more usually its monetary value — could be seized for the king. Half a dozen men and a couple of women and children were standing around, fascinated by the dead animal. About twenty feet long, it lay motionless on the sand, left high and dry by the receding tide.

'It's been swimming up and down for two days,' volunteered one of the younger fishermen. 'Seemed too stupid to know how to get back out to sea around the sand-spit.'

An older one shook his head. 'I've seen a few strandings in my time. Reckon they are usually sick and come close inshore, then are too weak to find their way out again.'

'What's to be done about it, Crowner?' asked the bailiff, a practical man. A whale, even a small one like this, was worth a considerable sum, as the fat rendered down from the blubber was first-class lamp oil, as well as being used for other purposes. If taken fresh, the meat was palatable enough for hungry villagers, and even parts of the skeleton could be used for various purposes.

'It belongs to King Richard,' said de Wolfe. 'Though I doubt we could get it to him in Normandy before it stinks!' he added with an attempt at levity.

'I heard tell that the head goes to the king and the tail to the queen,' countered the bailiff. 'But it sounds a fairy tale to me.'

De Wolfe shrugged. 'I've never heard that before,' he admitted. 'But true or false, I have to dispose of all this beast as soon as possible, before it starts to become foul.'

He looked at the dozen or so people gathered around, some staring expectantly at the dead monster. 'Can you deal with it here? Remove the flesh and the grease?'

The bailiff called over an elderly man, still powerful in the limbs. It was the reeve from Dawlish, whom John knew by sight. After greeting him, the man said that he could soon organise a party to flesh the whale and boil the blubber in pans over fires lit on the beach, taking as much of the meat as they could back to the nearby villages. After discussing the details, the coroner came to a rapid decision.

'In that case, I declare that the whale is seized as the king's property, but that the beast is released to the hundred in the sum of three marks. That will have to be confirmed — or even altered — when presented to the judges at the next Eyre.'

The bailiff nodded his agreement, as though three marks was four hundred and eighty silver pennies, the value of a large quantity of whale oil, plus the meat and whalebone, made it a worthwhile bargain, especially as the money did not have to be paid until demanded at the next Eyre in Exeter, which might be many months away — or even a year or two, if the judges were delayed.

The business being rapidly concluded, John and his officer declined the offer to be rowed back upstream and walked along the beach to fetch their horses. Gwyn knew only too well what was coming next.

'As we are so near Dawlish, it seems a pity not to call there and see if our shipmasters have any news.' John almost convinced himself that this was his only motive. Grinning under his luxuriant moustache, Gwyn hoisted himself on to his brown mare and they trotted off across the sandy scrubland towards the port, only two miles distant.

Almost as if fate was conspiring to assist John's conscience, when they arrived at the small town Gwyn saw at once that another of the cogs belonging to de Wolfe's partnership was beached in the inlet. This was the St Peter, whose shipmaster was Angerus de Wile. When they hailed a young lad sitting alone on the tilted deck, they learnt that his captain was in the nearest tavern with the ship's mate.

Gwyn was, of course, delighted with the news and almost fell from his horse in his haste to reach the alehouse for some refreshment. Inside the low taproom of the Ship Inn, they found a group of sailors standing around a large upturned barrel, drinking their ale and cider. One was the shipmaster, Angerus, who looked startled to see one of his employers appear unexpectedly but rallied and introduced his crew to Gwyn and the coroner.

'We made port only on the last tide, sir!' he explained. 'So ale was the first necessity after a trip up from Dartmouth.'

He called for drinks for the new arrivals, as de Wolfe explained what had brought them to the neighbourhood. 'I came hoping to see you or Roger Watts again, to see if I could get any more news of what may have been going on in Axmouth.'

Angerus de Wile, a stringy man approaching thirty, had a prominent projecting lower jaw that made him look a little like a pugnacious bulldog. He had not yet had time to speak to his older colleague, Roger Watts, so did not know of John's previous visit to seek information about smuggling and piracy. When the coroner explained, there were murmurs from his shipmates and Angerus put them into words.

'Crowner, it's damned strange that you should be asking about this, for not more than a month ago we picked up a man floating on some wreckage, nearer the French coast than ours. He was half-drowned and had a great slash across his head. Poor fellow died before we could land him in Rouen, but he was the only survivor — if you can call it that — of a pirate attack.'

The ale-jugs arrived and John waited impatiently while thirsts were quenched. 'Did he tell you anything?' he demanded.

'The man could hardly speak — and that not for long until his wits failed completely. A Fleming he was, crewing a Dunkerque ship, carrying cloth and wine out of the Rhine, bound for Southampton.'

He stopped for a swallow and his ship's mate, a rotund older man, took up the tale. 'Hard to understand, he was, what with the foreign language and his weakness — but it seems that a faster cog had appeared in mid-Channel and boarded them, killing the crew, then scuttling the vessel after ransacking her.'

Angerus nodded. 'This fellow was struck with a sword and thrown overboard but managed to cling on to dunnage boards that floated free when the ship went down. The pirates sailed off without noticing that he wasn't yet a corpse.'

'Did he say what vessel attacked them?' asked Gwyn, wiping ale from his moustache with the back of his hand.

To de Wolfe's great chagrin, Angerus shook his head. 'It was just another cog. He couldn't read, even if he had the time and wits to see a name on the bow. But he said the assailants shouted in English, he was definite on that!'

'Damn it all!' muttered John. 'Have you any ideas where the vessel may have come from?'

The shipmaster looked around his crew, but they all shook their heads dolefully. 'Could be any port along the south coast — or even up the east or west, come to that,' said the mate. 'The worst bastards are those in Lyme, though maybe blaming them first has become a habit.'

'You've never been attacked yourself?' asked de Wolfe.

'No, thank Mary Mother of God!' said the shipmaster fervently, crossing himself. 'But Gilbert here had a narrow escape some years ago.' He prodded his mate in the ribs. 'Tell the coroner what happened.'

The fat man, who had features like a pickled walnut, banged his pot down on the barrel as he prepared to tell his story for the hundredth time.

'Coming over from Barfleur we were, in a cog belonging to a Dartmouth owner. This vessel comes beating up behind us, too close to be normal, and eventually we decided the bastard was trying to board us!' He cowered down and put his hand to shade his eyes in a dramatic reconstruction of the event. 'Our master was a cunning devil, thank Christ, for at the next tack he foxed the other one by going in the opposite direction. We were faster downwind than the pirate and gained on him so that after an hour he gave up and sailed away. Made us a day late getting into the Dart, but saved our necks, no doubt.'

'Did you recognise the other cog?' demanded Gwyn.

'It was English, no doubt of that, not a Frenchie,' replied' Gilbert. 'The cut of the rigging could be nothing else.'

'Any idea where she came from?' asked John.

'Not then, but a funny thing, a year later I saw a vessel berthed in Dover that I swear was the same one. I even went snooping around her and was told she had changed hands several times. You mentioned Axmouth just now, Crowner — well, the owner before the last one had bought her there.'

De Wolfe and Gwyn exchanged glances, eyebrows raised. 'I wonder who had sold her there?' musedJohn.

'Doesn't necessarily signify that she came out of Axmouth at the time she tried to board Gilbert's vessel,' cautioned Angerus. 'She might have been sold before then.'

'Did you get the name of the cog?' snapped the coroner.

'I can't read, but the lad I questioned said it was the Apostle Thomas.'

Most ships had names with religious connotations, as tokens of protection from the perils of the deep, but Gwyn pointed out that they changed these as often as women changed their kirtles. 'Could have been a totally different, name when she was sold from Axmouth,' he grunted.'

Some more discussion produced nothing of help to the coroner, except that Angerus de Wile was of the opinion that Martin Rof, the shipmaster of The Tiger at Axmouth, was 'a hard bastard', to quote him exactly. 'I've heard that he has flogged men in his crew to within an inch of their death,' he said sourly. 'That's no way to get your men to work properly!' There were growls of assent from those around the barrel.

'Could it have been his ship that chased you?' de Wolfe asked Gilbert.

The mate shook his head. 'Impossible to say. I don't know what Rof's cog looks like — and they never got close enough to see faces, thank Jesus. '

'Where are you and Roger Watts taking your vessels next?' asked de Wolfe. Hugh de Relaga and his clerks were the ones who ran the practical side of their business, and John was content to sit back and receive a bag of money at regular intervals.

'Now that April's here, we can start sailing long distance,' answered de Wile. 'Both of us are taking the cogs round to Exeter next week to load. I'm taking finished cloth down to St-Malo, and Roger is hauling tin over to Honfleur for the king's army, then up to Antwerp for more cloth.'

It was an open secret that Richard the Lionheart, hard-pressed for money to pay his troops, was diluting the silver coinage with Dartmoor tin.

Soon, John became restless and, muttering something about conferring with his partner about how the business was progressing, left Gwyn to continue drinking with his sailor friends, all of them following his departure with knowing grins.

At the imposing house behind the main street, John found Hilda on her doorstep, just returning from an errand of mercy. Some months earlier, assassins had slain the whole crew of one of their ships. Since then, Hilda had made it her business to see that the bereaved families of the shipmen lacked none of the necessities of life, and she had just been taking some child's clothing and a few pennies to one of the widows. Her face lit up when she saw John coming along the lane, and when her maid Alice opened the front door she ushered him inside, offering her cheek for a chaste kiss as soon as they were off the street. Though she was now an eligible widow, he was a married man and she did not want to provide scandal for anyone who might be peeping in the street.

'You look well, Hilda,' offered John gallantly as they followed Alice up the stairway to the solar. She did indeed, he thought, seeing her in more formal attire than on his previous visit, a light green mantle over her cream kirtle and a snowy linen cover-chief and wimple framing her beautiful face.

The maid took her cloak and they sat opposite each other, Hilda sending Alice for the inevitable wine and pastries. In spite of John's claim to a business visit, he disposed of his conversation in the tavern in a few sentences and settled down to enjoy her company, free from any need to interrogate or make plans.

They reminisced about their childhood and adolescence in Holcombe, their families and their youthful escapades, Hilda coming near to blushes as they skirted the memories of amorous adventures in hay-barns and woods. These had gone on intermittently for years after John had taken up the sword, until his long absences had caused her to seek a husband in Thorgils — and even a few times after that. When alone with a pretty woman, the coroner was a different man from the stern, almost grim law officer that most people knew.

A dozen years seemed to drop away from him in her company. His back straightened, his features lightened and an almost roguish smile crept across his usually taciturn face. As with Nesta, and several other ladies who had now faded into his past, the presence of an attractive woman like Hilda seemed to act as a catalyst, softening his habitually severe manner.

After Alice had brought the refreshments, Hilda waved her away, needing no chaperone in the privacy of her own home, and John's personal devil had a fine time, dancing merrily on his shoulder as the pair leant towards each other, chatting and smiling. With an effort, de Wolfe kept his distance, though every fibre in his body yearned to seize her and smother her in kisses!

Hilda knew this only too well and had difficulty in keeping her own instincts in check, especially as after so many months her lonely bed had become increasingly hard to bear. But she knew of John's longstanding liaison with Nesta, and her innate sense of propriety made her suppress her longing — and dampen down any bursting of passion on his part.

His only chance to relieve his feelings came as they eventually parted, when a goodbye embrace somehow turned into a bear-like hug and a prolonged kiss that left her breathless.

As they left the solar, his arm around her waist, they saw Alice sitting on the lower step of the stairs, gazing up with an impish expression identical to that on the face of his shoulder-devil.

Two days later the coroner's team rode once again to Axmouth. The previous evening a carter had left a message at the castle gatehouse from Luke de Casewold, to the effect that the cog The Tiger had arrived that day. As she was likely to sail again very soon, the coroner should make all haste to get down to the harbour, where the Keeper would meet him by noon on Thursday. In fact, he was waiting for them at the crossroads outside the village when they trotted in from Colyford, with the clerk Hugh Bogge alongside his master.

The group walked their horses down to the upper gate ofAxmouth, Luke telling the coroner that Martin Rof had unloaded his vessel the previous day and was now taking on wool for Calais.

'I've already had words with him, but the bloody man will say almost nothing, except to tell me to mind my own business,' complained the Keeper. 'But I have threatened the bailiff here that unless he allows me a view of one of those storehouses, I will petition the sheriff for a troop of men-at-arms to come down and force it open.'

De Wolfe thought that the chances of Henry de Furnellis agreeing to that were remote, but Luke's next words surprised him.

'After that threat, Edward Northcote has agreed to let me see inside one of them, which he says contains goods belonging to Robert de Helion, the Exeter merchant. I'm going in there this afternoon, if you want to see for yourself.'

As they went down the main street towards the gate to the wharf, the village seemed almost deserted, though they received a few scowls and stares from people standing at their doorways to watch them go by. There was no sign of the bailiff or portreeve as they passed their houses, but when they came out on to the bank of the estuary there was much more activity. Four cogs were tied up along the wharf, the furthest being The Tiger, identified by an animal head crudely painted in yellow on each side of the prow. Men were carrying large bales across the gangplank, bringing them from an open warehouse on the other side of the road, beneath the slope of the hill behind.

'That's the shed I am going to inspect,' said de Casewold proudly, as if he had beaten the bailiff and portreeve into submission over the issue. He marched across the track to the large open doors, where the Customs tally-man, John Capie, was standing with notched sticks and knotted cords in his hands.

'I demand to see inside this building,' bleated Luke, as if he expected yet another angry refusal. The tallyman shrugged and waved a handul of cords towards the entrance. 'Help yourself — best hurry or it'll be empty, the rate these lads are loading the ship.'

Somewhat deflated, de Casewold strutted into the storehouse like a bantam cockerel, staring around him pugnaciously. On the left of the large shed there were a score of big bales of wool, trussed in cord, but most of the space had already been emptied. On the opposite side of the doorway a large bay held more bales, but to one side was a pile of kegs and bundles reaching to twice the height of a man. Hugh Bogge and Thomas, the only literate members, wandered over and read out some of the crude lettering burnt into some of the kegs with a hot iron.

'Wine from Anjou, Bordeaux and the Loire,' announced Thomas. 'And other barrels seem to have dried fruit.'

'What's in those other bales, the ones wrapped in hessian?' demanded the Keeper.

'They are full of finished cloth, good English wool coming back from the weavers in Flanders.'

The voice came from behind them and, turning, they saw that the bailiff, Edward Northcote, was standing there, with Elias Palmer and another man.

'And it all belongs to my master, Robert de Helion,' snapped the stranger, a thickset man of about forty, with a pale, puckered scar running from eyebrow to chin down his leathery face.

'Who might you be?' demanded John de Wolfe, glaring at the newcomer.

'I am Henry Crik, one of Sir Robert's agents. Why are you nosing into his property?'

The coroner took a long step towards Crik. 'Watch your tongue, agent! I am on the king's business and I need give you no excuses!'

Henry Crik flushed, and the scar looked whiter by contrast. 'This is private property and you have no right to look here.'

John moved even nearer and looked down into the agent's face, almost nose to nose. 'I will look up your arse if I so choose, Crik! Obstruct me and you'll find yourself answering my questions in the undercroft of Exeter Castle!'

The man seemed to get the message and stepped back, muttering under his breath. The coroner turned to the bailiff and pointed to the pile of merchandise. 'How do I know that all this is legitimate import — and has been tallied for Customs duty?'

Northcote shrugged and waved a hand at Elias Palmer. 'Ask the portreeve. He keeps all the records. And the tally-man — it's his job to check it all.' He bellowed for John Capie at the top of his voice, and the skinny official hurried in. 'When did this lot arrive?' demanded Northcote. 'Tell the coroner what you know about it.'

'It has been here a sennight, sir. Came in from Caen, off-loaded from the cog St Benedict. I checked it all and gave the tallies to the portreeve, as usual.'

Luke de Casewold bobbed around to Elias. 'Can you confirm that, portreeve?' he snapped.

Elias looked back at him calmly. 'No doubt I could, if I had my manifests with me. They are in my house, if you wish to check them.'

De Wolfe had the distinct feeling that if they were checked they would be in perfect order — and he further suspected that they had been allowed into this particular shed because the contents were quite legitimate. He further had the suspicion that Elias was crafty enough to be able to produce parchments to legitimise anything that became the subject of investigation.

'When will this stuff be moved?' he asked Henry Crik. 'Does it all go to your master in Exeter?'

The agent shook his head sullenly, chastened by meeting a stronger will than his own. 'Some will end up there, but much will be taken to various places. That is why I am here, to leave instructions for the carters to take these and other goods to different destinations — Bridport, Taunton and even Dorchester.'

De Wolfe suddenly felt that he was wasting his time here. If the damned Keeper wanted to persist in hounding down those who might be fiddling the Customs duty, that was his affair, but the coroner's business was murder.

'Gwyn, Thomas! Come with me, we need to talk to this ship master.'

He marched out with his officer and clerk in tow, and after a brief hesitation Luke followed him across the road to the large cog that was sitting upright on the mud that was revealed at low tide. Men were still humping bales aboard and others were packing them tightly in the single hold. De Wolfe stalked to the edge of the river and looked across at the stern of the vessel, where a raised platform carried the steering oar and roofed over a shallow shelter where the master and mate slept, the rest of the crew cowering under a similar structure forming the forecastle.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, he yelled at the top of his voice, 'Martin Rof! Are you there?'

A figure emerged from the aftercastle and stared around to see where the shout came from. He was a burly man, broad and tall, with close-cropped fair hair and a ragged beard and moustache of the same yellow hue. Dressed in a short tunic of faded blue serge, he had breeches that ended above his ankles, his bare feet splayed out on the deck.

'Who wants him?' he demanded when he identified the caller amongst the group on the bank.

'Sir John de Wolfe, the king's coroner! Come on down here. I want to talk to you and I'm not clambering along that bloody plank.'

For a moment Thomas thought that Rof was going to refuse, but the coroner's tone was one that offered no compromise. The rough-looking sea-captain jumped down to the main deck and padded down the gangway to where they were waiting.

'What the hell do you want? I'm a busy man. I want to sail on the next tide.'

'That depends on what you have to tell me about the death of Simon Makerel. You may be sailing a horse to Rougemont Castle,' snapped John, repeating the threat he had made to Henry Crik.

'Simon Makerel? What in the Virgin's name do I know about him?' snarled the shipmaster. 'The bloody boy left my vessel at the end of the voyage, so how should I know what happened to him?'

'Did anything occur on that voyage that might have led to his murder?'

Martin Rof turned to spit contemptuously into the river mud. 'I don't know what goes on in the forecastle, man! Maybe one of the crew had some sport with the pretty lad — how would I know? He left the ship with his voyage money and was due back two days later, but he never showed up. We had to find another shipman to take his place … not that he was much bloody use, anyway.'

'What d'you mean, not much use?' snapped de Wolfe.

'He was not cut out to be a sailor! I heard tell he wanted to be a flaming priest! Soft he was, seasick half the time and too afraid to climb his own height up the rigging! Just as well he never came back, he was a dead weight.'

'He was soon dead, right enough,' retorted de Wolfe. 'Strangled and buried! Now, let's have it straight, did anything happen on that trip to make him a target for some killer? We know he was upset and acting strangely when he got home to Seaton after leaving this vessel.'

Martin shrugged indifferently. 'I told you, I'm a shipmaster, not a bloody nursemaid! I don't know — nor do I care — what goes on amongst the crew.'

John made one last effort to get some information. 'Where did you come from on that voyage?'

Rof's pale blue eyes glared at the coroner. 'What's that got to do with anything? We took wool out of here to Dunkerque, then called at Barfleur on the way home to pick up some wine, though we had a very light load returning — didn't earn us much money. Satisfied?'

De Wolfe was far from satisfied, but short of getting Martin Rof put to the torture under the keep of Rougemont there was little more he could do. He made a final effort. 'What about your crew? Are these the same ones who sailed with Makerel that time?'

'They are indeed!' boomed the captain. 'You can ask them the same silly bloody questions if you like,' he sneered. He turned and yelled at his men in a voice like thunder, calling each by name. Half a dozen came to the bulwarks or stopped carrying bales up the plank to listen to what their master had to say.

'Tell the crowner here what he wants to know, lads,' he said in a jeering voice. 'Did any of you upset young Simon? Maybe somebody bent the ship's boy over the rail for bit of fun, eh?'

Their coarse laughter was cut off by de Wolfe's voice, which easily matched Rof's for volume and carried a sting like a whiplash. 'Enough of that, damn you all! This is serious — a young lad came to a shameful death! Now, do any of you have any knowledge of what may have happened to him, either before or after he left this ship?'

There was a silence, in which each man looked at his fellow and shook his head. They were a ruffianly bunch, even for shipmen, and John could sense straight away that even if they had anything to tell, he would never hear it from them. With a gesture of disgust, he turned away, with a valedictory threat. 'If I find that you are concealing anything from me, it will be the worse for you. So think on that!'

He stalked away and, feeling the need for some sustenance, led the way to the Harbour Inn, just inside the lower gate, opposite the church. A surly innkeeper sold them some indifferent ale and cider and put two loaves, butter and cheese on a table, along with a wooden board carrying a half-eaten leg of mutton. De Wolfe had the distinct impression that the king's law officers were unwelcome in Axmouth.

The five men sat around the food in the dingy taproom, ignored by the half-dozen others who crouched on stools or leant against the lime-washed walls. They hacked at the bread and meat with their eating knives and discussed in low voices their lack of progress.

'Now that we are here, I'm going across to Seaton to see if that widow has any further idea what was ailing her son before he died,' said John. 'Thomas, you can tackle that parish priest over there once again. Someone must know something, for Christ Jesu's sake!' His voice betrayed his exasperation at the wall of silence that seemed to surround this village.

'Looking in that warehouse got you no further,' observed Gwyn to Luke de Casewold. He was fond of baiting the choleric Keeper, who he thought was a rash idiot.

'I doubt that anything in the other buildings would tell us anything either,' replied Luke. 'False listings are easy to make and I suspect that the portreeve is an expert at deception. Looking at a pile of goods tells us nothing, it seems. All of it may have been pillaged out at sea and brought in in the guise of legitimate cargo.'

As they finished the last of the food, de Wolfe asked the Keeper what he intended to do next, now that all his avenues of enquiry seemed to have run dry.

'That pedlar who was killed — he must have fallen foul of an illicit load of goods,' exclaimed de Casewold. 'They have to move all their loot out of this village or it is worth nothing to them, so I'm going to lie in wait and see what trundles out of this cursed place at dead of night — and where it ends up.'

The coroner was worried that the fellow might rashly stick his nose into a wasps' nest and come to serious harm.

'Have a care, de Casewold! Someone has already seen off a shipman and a pedlar, with little compunction. Why don't I suggest to the sheriff that he sends a few men-at-arms to back you up?'

Luke made a deprecating gesture. 'I can spy out the situation first, Sir John. Then if I detect a pattern, maybe your idea might be the answer. Set up an ambush with king's men and catch the bastards in the act!'

Their uninspiring meal over, de Wolfe gave the sullen landlord a couple of pennies and they left the alehouse, where Luke and his clerk took themselves off up the valley towards Axminster. John and his companions made their way to a rickety wooden jetty just outside the wharf gate and spent another half-penny on a ferry-ride across to Seaton. The tide had just turned, and the old man who rowed the flat-bottomed boat had to pull manfully to broach the incoming flood. On the other side of the wide estuary, the village of Seaton stretched down to a stony beach, where fishing boats were pulled up on the pebbles. Thomas went off to the whitewashed church to seek the priest, while Gwyn asked directions to the cottage of Widow Makerel.

This turned out to be a small hut near the strand, with a roof of flat stones to ward off the winds that swept in from the sea. Behind, they could see the chalk cliffs of Beer, riddled with quarry caves from which came the white stone that formed much of Exeter's cathedral.

In the cottage's single room they found Edith Makerel gutting some fish that a neighbour had given her, while the fat girl who had been Simon's betrothed was carrying in wood for the fire that glowed in a pit in the middle of the room. Against one wall a young man lolled on a bench, which together with a table and a couple of stools formed the only furniture in the house, the corner beds being bags of hessian stuffed with ferns and feathers.

The family looked anxious when the two large men appeared but hospitably offered them the bench, the man who was Simon's elder brother moving off to make way for them.

John politely accepted some ale, and the thin brew was poured by the girl into two misshapen mugs of coarse earthenware.

'I dislike disturbing you and reminding you of your great sorrow, mistress,' he said in a voice that was unusually soft and gentle for him. 'But we must get to the bottom of this tragedy, one way or another. I wondered if you have any fresh recollections of what may have been troubling your son when he came home from the sea?'

Edith Makerel, a gaunt woman dressed in a black kirtle with a crumpled linen apron over it, dropped on to a stool and began nervously twisting the cloth belt of her apron. 'Thinking back on it, sir, I am more convinced than ever that it was the pangs of conscience that preyed on his mind. Something he had done or even witnessed, was my guess — though he would not admit it, even to me, his mother.'

De Wolfe listened gravely, quite willing to believe that a woman's intuition was to be relied upon, especially when it concerned her son. 'Have you no idea what this thing might have been? Did he have the marks of a fight or of some injury he could have sustained?'

The widow shook her head sadly. 'He would say nothing, Crowner. He just sat and stared at the fire, seeming mostly bereft of speech. Not like him at all; he was usually a pleasant, cheerful lad. It was going on that damned ship that ruined him.' Edith sounded bitter, as well she might be.

John questioned both the dumpy girl, whose name was Edna, and the elder brother, but they had nothing to add, just confirming the mother's opinion.

'Was there anything else that was out of the ordinary?' asked John, desperate to avoid the usual blank wall that seemed to face him when he made enquiries into this case.

'He seemed to have more money that usual,' said Edith Makerel slowly. 'He gave me ten pence and told me to buy some good food. On his first voyage, he came back with only a shilling for all those days at sea.'

The girl and the brother confirmed that Simon seemed to have more money. 'He gave me six pence and told me to buy a new shift,' said Edna with a tearful sniff. 'He said the coins might as well be put to some use, as he couldn't give them back. It seemed an odd thing to say.'

'He brought nothing back with him from the voyage?' asked Gwyn. 'No trinkets or a flask of brandywine or suchlike?'

There were puzzled shakes of the head, and soon John realised once more that they had exhausted what little there was to be learnt. They left the sad little family and went out into the spring sunshine, as the weather had improved again.

'We'd better wait for the little fellow,' said Gwyn. 'Let's hope he has better luck with the priest.'

They walked down to the beach and squatted on the pebbles, watching the gulls wheeling over the small boats pulled up on the stones, where men were stacking fish into wicker baskets, ready for carting to markets as far away as Exeter and Yeovil. A small island of sand and stones projected from the sea just in front of them, looking like another whale about to surface.

'We've not learnt much about this lad's death in two weeks,' complained Gwyn, throwing a flat stone to skim across the calm sea before them.

John rubbed his bristly chin, which was again overdue for a shave. 'He comes back from his sea trip different from the one before, as then he seemed quite happy,' recounted the coroner. 'But this time he is anxious, worried and depressed, as if something lies heavy on his conscience.'

'And he has considerably more money than before,' added Gwyn. 'So what was different about the second voyage?'

There was a long silence, then de Wolfe offered his opinion. 'I reckon he witnessed something violent or shocking. And that something was lucrative, as even though he was a lowly ship's boy he gets a hand-out as a part-share in whatever happened.'

Gwyn threw another stone and a seagull rose, screaming indignantly. 'And though smuggling might pay well, it's hardly likely to upset him — so what else is most likely?'

The two old friends looked at each other as they sat on the pebbles.

'Piracy!' snapped John. 'He must have seen some bloody deeds, and a sensitive lad, aiming for the cloister, might well be shocked and revolted.'

His officer nodded his agreement but still had some doubts. 'But why strangle him much later onshore? If he had kicked up a fuss at the killing of another crew, they could have just slit his throat and chucked him overboard. I'm sure that bunch of ruffians on The Tiger would do that without a second thought.'

The coroner climbed to his feet. 'There must be a reason, but we just don't know what it is — yet! Let's find this damned clerk of ours and see what he has to offer.'