The Poisoned Chalice

Chapter Fourteen In which Crowner John interviews an apothecary

Later that Tuesday afternoon, John went down to the Bush for an hour’s relaxation. His red-haired mistress was busy with the many guests who filled her upstairs accommodation, these being the lower orders of the Justiciar’s entourage, who were distributed around the town. They were all leaving in the morning and Nesta was making sure that she had collected the rent for their bed, food and drink.

While she bustled about with her two serving wenches and Edwin, the old potman, John took his ease by the fire with a jar of ale, gossiping with two old men who had once been in the Irish campaigns. He knew them well, though he had not been across the Irish Sea at the same time. One had been on the first expedition from Pembroke in 1169 and the other had been with Strongbow, the Earl of Clare, in later campaigns. They had plenty of old soldiers’ tales to tell and the warmth of the big room and Nesta’s best ale induced a rare sense of well-being in the coroner that he never experienced at home.

Outside, the snow had gone, but the sky was dark and cloudy. There were gusts of wind and fitful showers of cold rain, which made the inside of the Bush a good place to be. He saw no chance of bedding Nesta today, but he was philosophical about that as later he had to go home and dress up to take Matilda to the final banquet for Hubert Walter at Rougemont, another event that was improving her state of mind to a point almost approaching benevolence. He feared that the anti-climax of sinking back into humdrum routine later in the week would set her off into her usual cantankerous mood.

Eventually, Nesta found a few moments to come and sit close to him on his bench, the two old soldiers tactfully moving off in search of Edwin for refills. She pressed her soft hip against him and laid her head against his shoulder. ‘Thank God the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t come to Exeter too often,’ she said. ‘Though the money is welcome, the work is just too much, without an able man about the house.’ She looked up at him mischievously. ‘Any chance of you changing the post of King’s crowner for tavern-keeper, John?’

He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to him. ‘Don’t tempt me, lady. The way these deaths and assaults are piling up, I might consider it. Rather than lose you, I’d certainly leave home – but as for being an innkeeper, I might drink all the profits.’

They flirted and joked for a few moments, until a yell from upstairs brought Nesta to her feet to scream back at one of her maids, who was complaining that one of their lodgers was lying dead drunk and vomiting on one of their palliasses. ‘I’d better go and put the silly fool to rights!’ she snapped, and ran off to settle the girl’s problems.

Almost immediately, the door to Idle Lane opened and Gwyn and Thomas came in, looking damp and cold from the inclement weather outside. The little ex-priest, dressed in a frayed brown cloak, went off to order some food from Edwin, while Gwyn came and sat in the place just warmed by Nesta’s bottom.

‘Did you find Bearded Lucy?’ demanded the coroner.

The Cornishman held out his hand towards the fire and rubbed them together vigorously. ‘We did indeed – and she improved on what she told us last time.’

‘You didn’t do her any damage, I hope?’ asked John, knowing of Gwyn’s frequent over-enthusiasm.

‘No, I didn’t lay a finger on her. Didn’t want to catch her lice, for one thing.’

‘But he threatened to push her hut into the leat if she didn’t talk,’ said Thomas, who had appeared with two wooden dishes of pork leg and bread. Edwin hobbled up behind with a quart of ale for Gwyn and a smaller jar of cider for Thomas, who claimed that ale tasted like donkey’s water.

Thomas sat at the end of the bench while Gwyn told his tale. ‘The old hag stuck to her story at first, that she had sent Adele de Courcy away the second time, when the pills she gave her didn’t cause a miscarriage.’ He tore a piece of pork from the bone and spoke through a mouthful of meat. ‘I persuaded her a bit then, suggesting she might like to spend a week or two in the South Gate gaol before being tried as a witch and burned at the stake. That didn’t seem to worry her too much.’ He washed down the pig meat with a great swig of ale. ‘Then I punched my fist through the front wall of her miserable dwelling, probably frightening the rats inside. When I suggested that a good push would probably send it all floating down the Exe, she decided to talk.’

John was used to Gwyn building up his story to a satisfactory climax and avoided the temptation to hurry him. ‘So eventually, with bad grace and many vile words about my character, she admitted that she had directed Mistress de Courcy to someone who might help her more directly in getting rid of the unwanted burden in her belly.’

‘And who was that?’ asked John, sensing that the dénouement had arrived.

‘Our favourite leech, Nicholas. It seems that he had a reputation for helping such ladies in Bristol some years ago, but one almost died and the Guild of Apothecaries there forbade him from practising his trade.’

John turned this over in his mind with interest. Nicholas might then have been the cause of Adele de Courcy’s death, though it would be almost impossible to prove without his confession. If he had introduced the slippery elm into the neck of her womb, then undoubtedly, according to Dame Madge, the fatal bleeding had been a direct consequence. ‘Drink up and eat your food. We’ve another call to make at the leech’s shop.’

While they were hurriedly finishing their refreshment, John went to the foot of the ladder to the upper floor and called for Nesta. She came down and he related what Gwyn had told her. ‘Have you ever heard of Nicholas of Bristol being involved in performing miscarriages?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘No, but I suspect that any leech might help a woman out on occasions, either for money or for pity. So it doesn’t surprise me.’

He kissed her, and then hustled his two assistants out into the lane. They made their way through the narrow streets with their jumble of wooden and stone houses and crossed the road leading down to the West Gate to reach the leech’s shop.

A man with a huge abscess on his face, which closed one eye and puffed up the whole of his cheek, was buying a pot of salve as they entered. ‘Give that one more day and I’ll lance it for you,’ ordered the apothecary, as the man, groaning with pain, felt his way to the door. When it had shut behind him, Nicholas produced the tray with the platter of food, the wine flask and the silver chalice from Fitzosbern’s house and placed them on his counter. Then he went into his store room behind and returned with two small wooden cages, one containing a brown rat, the other, a cat, which he also put on the bench.

John, who had come mainly to accuse him of manslaughter, was momentarily nonplussed. ‘What’s all this?’ he demanded.

Nicholas wiped saliva from the sagging corner of his mouth with a rag. ‘My examination for poison, as you requested, Crowner. I find no evidence at all. Look at these.’ He poked a finger between the withies that formed the bars of the cat’s cage. The scrawny tabby looked at him fearfully. ‘I gave it a large piece of the fowl from the platter and then forced down more than an egg-cupful of the wine.’ He turned to prod the smaller box containing the rat, which sat unconcernedly preening its whiskers. ‘The same for this, though it was more difficult to get wine down its throat.’

Gwyn looked at the two animals. ‘You mean they suffered no ill-effects?’

‘Nothing, they seemed glad of the sustenance.’

The quick-witted Thomas questioned the results. ‘How long ago did they eat the food – and how do we know that such beasts are as susceptible to poison as men?’

The apothecary lifted the two cages back to the floor behind the counter. ‘I gave it to them within an hour of your coming this morning, so they consumed it at least six hours ago. Ample time for it to affect such small animals. As to the effects on humans, there is only one way to test.’ He grabbed the chalice from the tray and before they could protest, drained the wine that had half-filled the goblet. ‘There! If I collapse and die, then you know that I was wrong.’ The trio was silent for a moment. Thomas crossed himself and watched Nicholas intently, as if to detect the first sign of his dropping into a twitching coma.

‘So what was wrong with Godfrey Fitzosbern?’ grated the coroner.

Nicholas shrugged. ‘Either he had some poison from elsewhere, maybe other rotten food, or his affliction was an Act of God, an apoplexy or some other natural disease. It can happen.’

This was what Brother Saulf had said, John recalled, even though he considered it unusual. ‘Fitzosbern may tell us himself soon, he seems to be recovering his senses,’ he said somberly. ‘Now then, Nicholas of Bristol, I have another serious matter to put to you.’

‘Of course, he flatly denied it, it’s to be expected.’ John was telling Matilda of the events of the day, as they got ready for the banquet at Exeter Castle. Once again, his wife had been attended for half the day by the ferret-faced Lucille and was now arrayed in a new kirtle of yellow silk, the round neck revealing a chemise of white lawn. Huge sleeves, tight at the armpit and bell-shaped at the wrist, had tippets hanging almost to the ground. Tonight Matilda wore a white linen wimple at her throat, which framed her face under a cover-chief. This was a large head veil held around her forehead by a barbette, a linen band made popular by the old queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

‘Did you arrest him?’ she demanded, her attention torn between the latest scandal in the town and the need to titivate herself for the great occasion at Rougement.

‘I’ll talk to your brother about it in the morning. He’s set on squeezing a confession from Edgar, but maybe it’s the apprentice’s master who needs a little persuading.’

‘Is there any other evidence apart from that old crone’s allegation that he may have tried to get rid of Adele’s baby?’

John was reluctantly struggling into a tunic of dark red worsted, which had that fitted him two years ago but was now dangerously tight around the belly. ‘After I accused him, I got Gwyn of Polruan and my clerk to search his shop. That was a hellish task, as any apothecary’s is a mass of bottles, boxes, drawers, vials and strange bits of apparatus.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘In one of the little drawers there was a supply of those slips of elm bark, in a dry state. The same that Dame Madge explained were meant to swell and open up the neck of the womb.’

‘What did the leech have to say to that?’

‘He seemed unconcerned. Claimed that every apothecary would have such devices, because they were used for treating severe costiveness of the bowels. He says they are pushed up the fundament to help open the obstructed gut.’

Matilda looked faintly disgusted. ‘I’ve never heard of that. You’d better check with some other leech that he’s not just making some excuse.’

John had already thought of that, but he meekly thanked her for her good advice. She was in an excellent mood, having both the invitation to the banquet and plenty of material to gossip about with her wag-tongue friends at St Olave’s.

The celebration at the Shire Hall in the inner ward of Rougemont went according to plan and Sheriff Richard was relieved that his lengthy preparations had led to a crisis-free event. The food was good and plentiful, the drink was copious and the general atmosphere was cordial. Musicians and mummers came to entertain the guests after the food had been cleared away, and at midnight the party was still in full swing.

People were moving around from bench to bench and table to table, so John had a chance to speak again to Hubert Walter, albeit briefly. The sheriff was attending on Bishop Marshall, so Hubert could speak frankly to de Wolfe. ‘This problem with de Revelle is by no means unique. Several coroners and sheriffs are at odds with each other for the same reasons,’ he confided. ‘All I can suggest is that you tread carefully and let him have sufficient cases to soothe his pride.’

John nodded as he bent over the Justiciar at his place at the top table. ‘I will do my best, but it can be difficult when he always takes the easiest road to settling a crime. We have such a situation in Exeter at this very moment.’ He briefly outlined the rape, abortion and suspected poisoning, which de Revelle was trying to clear up by summary trial and wringing confessions by torture. ‘These should be brought before the King’s justices, but God knows when they will arrive next in Devon,’ he concluded.

The Justiciar promised to do what he could to speed up the perambulation of the assize, but John suspected that he was pessimistic about much improvement.

The night wore on and John was glad that no one came to drag him out again to some mortal emergency. In the early hours, the guests streamed away in various stages of intoxication and Matilda took John’s arm to be led back to Martin’s Lane, for once happy with her lot.

Her husband, equally glad of her good mood, looked forward to a busy day ahead, wondering what fresh problems it would bring.

The first arose an hour after dawn, when the coroner went up to the sheriff’s chamber to discuss the most recent developments in the Fitzosbern intrigue. He had called at St John’s on the way and found that the silversmith was now almost fully recovered, though he was still very weak, had palpitations of the heart and strange tinglings in his feet and hands. He could speak now, but he had nothing much to say. All he could recollect was eating his meal, prepared as usual by his back yard cook. He had difficulty swallowing, as his infected throat wound was becoming more painful, but he managed to get down some of the roast fowl. Within a few minutes, he felt a numbness and tingling in his mouth and throat, which spread as a burning feeling in his belly. Then his heart began to flutter, his fingers felt numb, and he started to sweat and feel faint. That was all he remembered until he woke in the priory.

Brother Saulf stopped any further questioning at that point, but said that perhaps by the evening or next morning Fitzosbern might be well enough to be taken home on a litter to his own bed.

Now John was back in the castle keep, trying to catch Richard during his last hectic hours before Hubert Walter’s procession went on its way, back to London via Southampton and Winchester. A solid phalanx of clerks and soldiers was clustered into the sheriffs chamber and even the coroner failed to push his way inside.

As he waited in the main hall of the keep for the crowd to thin, a tall figure shoved its way towards him, manhandling aside anyone who stood in his way. It was Joseph of Topsham, followed by Eric Picot, and both were in a state of agitation.

‘What in Christ’s name is going on, de Wolfe?’ bellowed the usually serene ship-owner. ‘You sent me word about my son last evening and I came as soon as the town gates were opened. Is it true that this madman of a sheriff has arrested him on suspicion of murder?’

John explained what had happened and that he was there now to talk to Richard de Revelle about the matter. Fitzosbern was rapidly recovering and there was no real proof that he had been poisoned, according to the apothecary, although the symptoms and circumstances certainly pointed to it.

The thin, grey-bearded merchant grabbed John’s arm. ‘I must see Edgar! His mother is beside herself with worry. You are the crowner, you can take me to him. He is down below us, I suppose, in that hellhole they call a prison.’

John sensed that Joseph was in no mood to be challenged and, as one of the most powerful of the trading class in the area, he deserved attention. With a glance at the throng still milling around the door to the sheriff’s office, he led the way outside and went down the wooden staircase to the ground. A few yards away were stone steps leading down into the undercroft of the keep, which was partly below ground level.

‘What happened to that bloody man Fitzosbern?’ asked Eric Picot as they went. ‘We only have half a story.’

John told them all he knew, leaving out the allegation against the apothecary himself concerning Adele de Courcy.

‘I wish whatever it was had killed the bastard, whether it be food, poison or apoplexy,’ snarled the wine merchant, with a viciousness that surprised the coroner.

John stopped at the arched entrance to the cavernous basement and looked at Picot. ‘Where was Mabel Fitzosbern when he was taken ill?’ he asked sternly.

The dark-haired merchant laughed easily. ‘Nowhere near her husband, if that’s what you’re thinking. Though she had good cause to kill the swine, after all the suffering he’s caused her, but she was far away.’

‘I heard she went to her sister’s house in the town?’

‘Only for a night and a day. Then I took her back to my house at Wonford, well outside the city, where she could be rid of him. Her maid and my sister are with her, so she’s well chaperoned,’ he added pointedly.

John, who was quite indifferent to the morality of Mabel leaving her husband to stay with Picot, turned and went into the gloomy undercroft. The main area was empty, the damp floor of beaten earth glistening under the light of a few pitch torches burning in iron rings fixed to the walls. The further part was walled off and a low arch with a gate of metal bars guarded the entrance to the castle gaol. John loped up to the barrier and rattled the bars violently to attract the attention of the gaoler. ‘Where are you, Stigand, you fat bastard?’

There was a clinking of keys and mumbling, then a dirty, grossly obese man dressed in a ragged smock shuffled up to the other side of the gate, peering through at the new arrivals. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded.

‘It’s the coroner – or are you too drunk to see straight?’ snapped John. Stigand, a Saxon who previously had been a slaughterman in the Shambles, was not one of his favourite people. ‘Let us in, I want to talk to Edgar of Topsham.’

Grumbling under his breath, the gaoler unlocked the gate and pulled it open with a screech of rusted hinges. Wheezing with the effort of moving his ponderous body, he tramped back up the dark passage beyond the gate. ‘He’s there, on the left,’ he grunted, waving his bunch of keys to one side.

Off the passage, half a dozen narrower gates led into tiny cells. At the further end was a larger cage, with about a dozen wretches penned in together. John recognised the reeve and two men from Torre, who stared at him with undiluted hatred.

He waved at the cell on their left. ‘Open it up, damn you!’ he commanded, and slowly the gaoler unlocked and pulled back the gate. Inside, Edgar sat dejectedly on a stone slab that served as a bed, below a narrow slit that admitted a sliver of daylight on to the filthy straw on the floor. The only other furniture was a leather bucket.

The apprentice jumped up and ran to embrace his father, then clasped the arm of Eric Picot, whom he looked on as an uncle. There was a torrent of speech between them all, with Edgar loudly declaiming his innocence and the other two denouncing both Richard de Revelle and Fitzosbern.

When the hubbub died down a little, the coroner managed to get in a few words. ‘Did you have anything to do with poisoning Fitzosbern, if that was the cause of his collapse?’ he demanded.

Edgar, already dirty and dishevelled from his hours in prison, was hotly indignant. ‘Of course not, Sir John! I wish him dead, I admit, but I would try to kill him openly in a fair fight, not by poison, which is against my apothecary’s oath.’

There was more in the same vein and John could not but be impressed by the lanky apprentice’s sincerity. Then, rather to the coroner’s surprise, there was a clanking of a sword scabbard in the passage and Sergeant Gabriel escorted the sheriff into the cell. ‘I heard you were here. I came to see that no impropriety takes place,’ snapped Richard imperiously.

That made little impression on Joseph of Topsham, who stepped up to de Revelle and prodded him in the chest. ‘What nonsense is this, Richard? You have no right even to accuse my son, let alone drag him off to gaol like a common criminal. Where is your proof?’

The sheriff deflated a little, as the ship-owner from Topsham was a powerful man in the merchant community. But he tried to bluster on for a while. ‘He attacked Fitzosbern the other night and has threatened to kill him. Being a puny youth, he could not do it face to face so he used his leech’s art to dispose of him by stealth.’

Joseph pushed his grey beard almost into Richard’s face. ‘Rubbish! That’s pure speculation, to make your task easier. Tell him, John, what the apothecary found.’

De Wolfe explained, not without some satisfaction, that Nicholas had tested the food and wine on animals, had even drunk the rest of the wine himself, all with no ill-effects. ‘Both he and Brother Saulf at St John’s Hospital say that it could have been some natural apoplexy,’ he concluded.

Richard coloured and huffed and puffed, but then John motioned him outside the cell and took him by the arm to the other side of the dank passage. ‘There is something else, brother-in-law, that they had better not know yet. I now have reason to believe that Nicholas of Bristol is the one who procured the fatal miscarriage on Adele de Courcy. If he committed the one crime, maybe he is a better suspect for the other.’ He did not believe this for a moment, but he saw no reason not to use it temporarily to take the pressure off Edgar.

The sheriff stared at John, who could almost hear the wheels going round in his head, as he set this information against the other powerful factions involved, such as the Ferrars and de Courcy. ‘This must be pursued with vigour,’ he muttered.

They went back to the cell and immediately Joseph went on the attack again. ‘Unless you release my son, and certainly lift any evil threat of torturing a false confession from him, I will seek out the King, wherever he is. I shall use one of my own ships to go straight to France to petition him – and I will refuse you all my taxes and stop my ships from exporting the wool from Devon, even if it ruins me. It will certainly ruin you, when you have to account to the Westminster Exchequer for the collapse of the county revenues! And I shall seek out the Chief Justiciar to tell him what I have done.’

Richard knew that the senior trader was in deadly earnest. Not only would the taxes collapse if the main cross-channel transport was withdrawn, but Richard would personally lose money as, like John de Wolfe and many others, he had a considerable private stake in the wool-export business, which was the backbone of the local economy. He put the best face on it that he could.

‘This claim of the apothecary, together with other information I have just been told, allows me to be lenient for the moment. You may take your son, but he must not leave Exeter until this matter is finally settled.’

He turned on his heel and marched stiffly away, his pointed beard jutting out like the prow of a ship. As Gabriel followed him, he risked giving John a slow wink.

When the last of the Justiciar’s rearguard had vanished over the brow of Magdalen Street, the eastward road out of the city, Exeter seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief, as life got back to normal. The sheriff and his constable had gone off with half the castle garrison to escort the long cavalcade as far as Honiton, but would be back by nightfall.

In the meantime, the coroner had an unusual function to perform that afternoon, a first for him. The remnants of the cargo of the ship Mary of the Sea had been trundled by wagon from Torre and were stored in a warehouse on the quayside, outside the Water Gate.

As coroner, he was also Commissioner of Wrecks and his duty was to view the remains of the stricken vessel, which he had done at Torbay, even though only a few planks were to be seen. Then he had to claim any salvage for the Crown, make a valuation and get a jury to decide where the proceeds were to go – though John had already made up his mind to return it to the obvious owners.

‘What about the killing of those sailors?’ asked Gwyn, as they strode down from the Bush to the quayside, Thomas limping along beside them on his short legs.

‘That forms no part of this enquiry,’ replied John. ‘That was homicide and as the perpetrators are well-known, I suppose I must let the sheriff have his way, as they are already in his gaol. My only dealings with them will be to record their hanging and confiscate their property, they being felons.’

He was still uneasy about this as, originally, the miscreants from Torre were to be kept in the gaol until the Justices of Assize trundled back to Exeter. Only because of his half-promise to Hubert Walter to try to placate the sheriff was he willing to turn the criminals over to de Revelle. He consoled himself with the certainty that, whatever judicial process was applied, they would inevitably hang.

They reached the quayside and went to inspect the goods. The casks of wine and dried fruit, about forty-three in number, were stacked in a large thatched shed near the tidal landing stage slightly downstream from Exe Island. The port of Exeter was losing out to Topsham in volume of business: it was so far upstream where the river was shallower that it could only be reached by small ships at high tide. Much of the merchandise now came up from Topsham, after being off-loaded from the seagoing vessels into barges.

Gwyn had cajoled a few dozen locals to act as jury although, strictly speaking, they should have been from Torre and district where the wreck had occurred. The only other interested parties were Joseph of Topsham and Eric Picot, who were the sole original consignees of the goods aboard the ill-fated ship.

The proceedings were short and uncomplicated. Gwyn herded the mystified jurors into the shed, where they stood next to the goods under discussion. These were piled at one end, the rest of the large hut being filled with bales of wool, finished worsted cloth and sacks of grain waiting for shipment out of the Exe. Joseph and Eric stood a little away from the common folk, each with some tally sticks in their hands. Neither could read nor write, but they were accustomed to keeping an accurate check on their stock by means of notched sticks, just as a manor reeve would keep tally of all the produce of his village. As a further check, old Leonard, the clerk from Topsham, was also there with written lists of what should have come over from Normandy. De Wolfe wasted no time in getting down to business. ‘All wrecks of the sea within the waters of England belong to King Richard,’ he stated, in a loud voice. ‘The wreck itself, if it has any value – and certainly any salvaged fittings or cargo – must be listed and valued. Then a decision is made by the coroner and his jury as to its disposal. Legally, the value should go to the royal treasury, to help the Exchequer of the Realm.’

He looked sternly at the vacant faces of the jurymen, most of them from nearby Bretayne and along the lower streets near the church of All Hallows-on-the-Walls. Bemused, they waited patiently to be told what to do.

‘The vessel was completely destroyed in the gale, so there is no need to consider it further. However, much of the cargo was washed ashore, and it lies behind you.’ He waved his hand at the pile of casks, and the jurymen dutifully craned their necks to look at it. ‘All that remains is to prove its origin and, although all the crew perished, that can still be done easily.’ He motioned politely for Joseph to step forward. Gwyn lugged the splintered length of ship’s timber from a corner and displayed the crude lettering carved into it.

‘Joseph of Topsham, do you recognise this plank?’

The grey beard wagged as he nodded. ‘I do indeed. It is from my own vessel, Mary of the Sea, which was sailing from Barfleur in Normandy to Topsham.’

‘And was that some of the cargo she carried?’ asked John, again waving a finger.

‘It was, some of it my own goods being imported. The rest belongs to Eric Picot here.’

‘How much was there?’

Both merchants consulted their tally sticks again.

‘I had forty-six casks and ten crates of dried fruit ordered from my suppliers in Cotentin. Only twenty-two seem to have survived,’ said Joseph.

The coroner turned to Picot, and gestured for him to speak. ‘Like Joseph, my imports of wine come regularly from across the Channel. This shipment would have been’ – he looked down again at his tally – ‘sixty barrels, of which only twenty-one are here.’

John rubbed his chin. ‘So even if the goods are returned to you, you will both have lost over half your investment?’

The two traders concurred glumly. ‘It will put up the price of fruit and wine this winter, I fear,’ said Joseph. ‘We have to make good the loss somehow.’

‘And if the salvage goes to the Crown?’

Picot rolled up his eyes in his handsome dark face. ‘It may not ruin me, but the loss of profit on even the twenty-two remaining casks will prevent me from being able to purchase a full cargo again for a long time.’

Joseph echoed his sentiments and John turned to the jury. ‘The issue seems a matter of natural justice. These two honest merchants had goods on their way to harbour, when an Act of God, a gale, threw their ship and its cargo on to the rocks. More than half was destroyed and the rest washed ashore. My opinion, which I commend to you, is that the casks have never left the ownership of Joseph and Eric. Even the thieving antics of the villagers of Torre were but an illegal and temporary diversion.’ He paused to marshal his thoughts. ‘It would be different if unknown goods from an unknown wreck were scattered along the coastline. Then the crown could legitimately claim them. But here we have a known ship, every dead crewman named and the cargo patently identified. How can it be other than their property, as it never left their ownership?’ He glared along the sheepish line of jurors. ‘What say you?’ he demanded, fixing his eye on a large man at the end of the front row.

The impromptu foreman shuffled to his feet awkwardly and gave a quick look along the line and over his shoulder at his fellows. Without waiting for a response, he said, ‘We agree, Crowner.’

Before there could be any discussion or second thoughts, Gwyn herded out the jurors like a sheepdog behind a flock. Joseph and Eric came over to thank John for his efficiency and they, too, left the warehouse, after making arrangements with the custodian for the goods to be collected later. They walked back to the town gate with John, Gwyn and the coroner’s clerk following behind.

The conversation moved to other matters. ‘Edgar told me that he had been discussing the awful events of last week with Christina,’ began Joseph. ‘She is much recovered in her mind, thank God, being a resilient young woman. He suggested to her that she might still be able to recognise her assailant by voice or some mannerism, if she confronted him.’

John looked doubtful. ‘She has always steadfastly denied any clue as to who the villain might have been.’

The ship-owner sighed. ‘I know, and probably that is the case. But Edgar is desperate to make some breakthrough in this tragedy, both for her sake and to lift this suspicion off his own shoulders about attempting to kill Fitzosbern.’

‘So what does he propose?’ asked Picot, as they climbed Rack Lane to Southgate Street.

‘That Christina confronts Godfrey Fitzosbern, to see if the meeting triggers off any memory.’

‘He may not agree to that,’ objected Eric.

‘Agree be damned!’ retorted Joseph. ‘He must be, made to agree. As a law officer, you surely have that power, de Wolfe?’

John considered the proposition for a moment. ‘I don’t know if I have or not,’ he said frankly. ‘But, by the same token, neither does Fitzosbern know so I could bluff my way to doing it.’

‘What about the sheriffs approval?’ asked Eric.

‘To hell with him. He does his best to shelter the man because of his prominence in the guild and among the burgesses,’ replied John. ‘I don’t see that he’s in a position either to offer or refuse his consent.’

As they left to go to their various dwellings, it was agreed that John would call upon the Riffords and get Henry’s approval to take Christina to Martin’s Lane, when Fitzosbern had returned home from St John’s Hospital.

It was now late afternoon and the light was beginning to fail below heavy rain clouds. John went home and consolidated his good standing with his wife, who showed no signs of descent from the euphoria of the past few days’ high social activity. They had a meal and sat before the fire, while he regaled her with the events of the day. The last item was the business with Christina Rifford, which rather cooled Matilda’s good spirits.

‘I think you have all used poor Master Godfrey badly,’ she said, reluctant to abandon her championship of a man who at least pretended to fancy her from time to time.

‘He used his own wife more than badly,’ ventured John. ‘She has left him for good after the assault, according to Picot the wine merchant. I saw him give her a blow that would have felled an ox.’

Matilda clucked her tongue. ‘He had been provoked more than a little. That silly apothecary’s lad challenging him on his own doorstep – and the Ferrars son, grand though the family may be, had no right to attack him like that. Then he gets poisoned, no doubt by that idiot from Topsham – it’s just too much.’

John tried to placate her. ‘Well, perhaps if Christina says that he has no resemblance at all to her attacker, then he should be restored to favour.’

His wife seemed to approve this tactic. ‘Then bring her here to me. You cannot march the poor girl up to his front door yourself. Arrange a time with Master Godfrey, fetch the young woman here and I will support her when you confront the pair of them.’

On that co-operative note, John slumped deeper into his chair and, one hand fondling Brutus’s ears, dozed in front of the fire, ignoring the wind that rattled the shutters and blew cold about his feet.