The Poisoned Chalice

Chapter Twenty In which Crowner John discovers the truth

Next morning, the coroner sat, somewhat despondently, in his Spartan chamber within Rougemont Castle. He felt that nothing had been achieved by yesterday’s inquest, apart from further antagonism between himself, the Ferrars, de Courcy and the sheriff. ‘I suppose we’ll have that bunch back this morning, spitting venom at me for daring to ask where they were the night before last,’ he grumbled to Gwyn. They were waiting for Thomas to report on his search around the town for bloodstains and more servants’ gossip, which might give them a lead to Fitzosbern’s killer.

Reluctantly John pulled out the latest Latin lesson given him by his cathedral tutor and half-heartedly began to study it on the table. Gwyn sat quietly on the window-ledge, staring absently at the floor, his brow wrinkled in thought. His unusual silence soon unnerved his master. ‘Are you sick, man? You’re not even drinking ale!’

‘I was thinking about Reginald de Courcy.’

John was immediately attentive. When Gwyn had some deep thoughts, they were always worth considering. ‘What about him?’

‘He was one of those named by Eric Picot, but he couldn’t have struck those blows.’

The coroner threw down his Latin roll and leaned back on his stool. ‘Come, Gwyn, what’s on that great mind of yours?’

‘All the injuries on Fitzosbern were on the left side, both face, neck and chest. If struck by someone in front of him, which he must have been, then de Courcy is exonerated.’

The coroner stared hard at his henchman. Gwyn never said anything without a good reason. ‘Why do you claim that, man?’

‘When he took that oath in the court yesterday, did you notice that he held up his dagger with the left hand? I watched him thereafter and he is undoubtedly left-handed. Even his dagger sheath is on his right hip, instead of on the usual left. And no left-handed man could have caused those injuries from the front.’

John mused over this for a moment and could find no fault in Gwyn’s argument. ‘Right, I give you that he never struck the blows. But he could have gripped Fitzosbern for another to strike him, or otherwise been in conspiracy with Ferrars to kill the man.’

Gwyn shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘True, but at least it’s a bit of knowledge we didn’t have before.’

The conversation was ended by the uneven tip-tap of a lame leg climbing the stairs, then Thomas pushed his way through the hessian hanging over the doorway. His pinched face had a gleam of suppressed excitement, the little dark eyes glittering with pride.

‘Here comes the gnome of Winchester!’ teased Gwyn rudely. ‘What news from the gutters?’

The clerk was too pleased with himself to rise to the bait. ‘Blood, Crowner. I’ve found blood!’ he declared proudly.

With a peremptory jerk of his finger, John got the little ex-priest to sit on the stool before him and tell his story. ‘What blood and where?’ he demanded.

Agog with self-importance, Thomas de Peyne described his adventures of the previous afternoon and early that morning.

‘I went to de Courcy’s dwelling in Currestreet. There was a chestnut-seller outside and I waited there as an excuse, eating from a halfpenny sack for some time, watching the house door.’ He produced a big hessian bag of cold roasted nuts, which Gwyn immediately began to peel and chew. ‘Eventually, a serving-maid opened the door to brush out old rushes and I spun her a tale that I had a message for her master from the sheriff. I knew he was not in, but persuaded the girl to allow me inside to wait for him, chancing that he wouldn’t return and catch me there.’

John gave one of his rare grins at the deviousness of the crooked clerk. ‘And you found nothing?’

Thomas looked piqued at the anticipation of his tale. ‘No, I had no chance to get beyond the porch and outer hall, but slipped through into the yard to tell the maid and the cook that I could wait no longer. But I had time to examine all the clothing that hung on hooks and the shoes and boots that lay on the floor. There was nothing to be seen. Of course, what may have been near the hearth or in the solar, I had no opportunity to view.’

Gwyn and the coroner exchanged glances and the Cornishman spat out some chestnut shell before speaking. ‘As we thought, he could not have struck the blows.’

Thomas looked puzzled at this obscure comment, but plunged on with the best part of his story. ‘This morning, I went to the younger Ferrars’s lodgings in Goldsmith Street. He has only one room and the vestibule there, where he and his squire live when he is in the city. It was easier, for he has no house servants, the squire carrying out any menial tasks. They seem to eat and drink – mainly drink – entirely in the town, not at home.’

‘Get to the bloody point, man,’ growled Gwyn.

Thomas made a rude gesture at him and poked out his tongue. ‘There are other men lodging there, some using the upper room and others the back yard, so there was considerable coming and going. I followed one man through the front door, which wagged back and forth as often as a Cornishman’s mouth.’ He dodged a chestnut thrown by Gwyn. ‘I stood inside the vestibule, where there was a rude pallet for the squire’s bed and much clothing, boots and armour. There was so much that it must have belonged to both Ferrars and his henchman.’ He drew breath to prepare for the climax of his story. ‘I took the chance that no one was at home, as they seem to spend half their time jousting and the other half in the taverns. I searched among the clothing. There, on the side of a surcoat I have seen Ferrars wearing, were many spots of fresh blood.’ He ended on this triumphant note and looked expectantly at his master.

‘Where was this garment?’ asked John, sceptically.

‘Hanging on a peg on the left-hand side, just within the street door. There were a few drops of blood on the floor beneath, which must have dripped off the hem.’

Gwyn pulled hard at his moustache. ‘You said that Hugh Ferrars is often away at sword practice and horse-jousting. The blood could have come from that.’

‘He would never wear a fine linen surcoat to go fighting,’ objected Thomas, annoyed that his great discovery was not being received with due acclamation. ‘He would have worn a hauberk or at least a leather cuirass.’

‘What colour was this coat?’

‘A pale dun – a greyish-brown.’

‘Not the best colour for showing up blood spots,’ objected Gwyn, but Thomas ignored him.

‘Do you recall what Hugh Ferrars was wearing in the shire hall yesterday?’ asked John, looking from Thomas to Gwyn. Neither could remember, and the coroner himself could not call it to mind.

Thomas was eager to consolidate his great discovery. ‘But you have a report that he was seen near the place of the assault – and he has blood on his clothing! What more do you want?’

John stood up abruptly. ‘No good debating upon it – we could do that until next Michaelmas. Let’s go to see Thomas’s blood spots.’

Goldsmith Street was a turning off high street, running northwards, with All Hallows Church at the near end and St Paul’s further along. Just past the entrance from the high street were several shop-houses with heavy shutters and thick doors. These were the establishments of the gold-workers, the rest of the lane being dwelling-houses. Some were old and wooden, with thatched roofs. More recent ones were built either of plastered wattle in timbered frames or solid masonry.

The wind had dropped overnight, and when the coroner’s trio entered the street, the atmosphere was heavy with smoke from a thousand hearth fires in the city. The fumes seemed particularly heavy in that canyon-like lane, as the smoke seeped from under the eaves of the older houses and from the few chimney-stacks of the newer dwellings.

Hugh Ferrars had his lodging half-way down on the left, the ground floor of a narrow timber building with a stone-tiled roof. It had a solar that extended right across the upper part, where other young men lodged. At street level, it was similar to John’s own house, with a small entrance vestibule where his squire slept, with a passage running back to the yard behind. Another door led into the hall, a single large room whose ceiling was low and heavy-beamed, because of the presence of the upper chamber.

The street door was shut, but opened when the iron latch was raised. Gwyn stuck his head inside and called out in his bull-like voice. An answering challenge came from the hall and the squire appeared, a tankard in his hand. Behind him Hugh Ferrars, flushed of face, grasped an even larger quart jug. They moved forward into the vestibule and saw John de Wolfe behind his officer.

‘Ha, you’ve come to grovel your apologies, I trust,’ grated Ferrars, his voice already unsteady with drink. ‘My father is seeking a meeting with Hubert Walter when he goes to Winchester next week, to indict you for your behaviour. You’ll regret crossing our family, Crowner.’

John ignored this and turned his attention to the clothes hanging in disorder on the left-hand wall of the vestibule, in line with the low, narrow passage that went through to the rear of the house. Thomas pointed to a dull tan linen surcoat that hung on the wooden peg nearest to the front door.

‘What the devil are you up to now, damn you?’ snarled Ferrars, his thick neck reddening with anger as he swayed forward from the hall door.

‘Is this your garment?’ snapped John, pointing at the super-tunic. It was an open-fronted robe of mid-thigh length, with short sleeves reaching to the elbow, for wearing over the tunic, a tube-like gown coming to the knees.

Surprise dulled Hugh’s aggression. ‘Mine? Of course it’s mine. Why in God’s name do you want to know?’

John bent to lift up the hem of the coat. ‘Because of these blood spots, Hugh Ferrars. Can you explain their presence?’

The young man stumbled quickly across the small room and peered at his property. The garment was hanging from its neckband on the peg and on the left side was a spatter of blood, and runnels streaking down to the embroidered hem. On the line of flagstones that crossed the earthen floor to run down the passageway were a few splashes of dried blood.

‘Well, what have you to say?’ demanded John.

Ferociously, Hugh grabbed the surcoat from the peg and held it up to stare at it as if he had never seen it before. Ale sloshed from his pot as he twisted the coat this way and that to inspect it from every side.

‘I know nothing of this, the devil damn it! What game are you playing now, Crowner?’ he shouted. Then he rounded on his squire, standing bemused in the background. ‘Roland, what do you know of this? Have you been using my clothes?’

As the squire made protestations of innocence and ignorance, John fixed the younger Ferrars with a cold eye. ‘When did you last wear this? And I ask you again, where were you the night before last? Were you in the cathedral precinct at any time, eh?’

For a moment, John thought that the young man was going to strike him and his hand went automatically to the hilt of his dagger.

But Hugh settled for a stream of abuse and threats of dire retribution when his father heard of this latest defamation. The coroner waited patiently for this storm of drink-laden invective to die down, then took the coat from Hugh’s hand. He pointed to the blood spots, splashed thinly over an area twice the size of a spread hand. ‘Look at these, Ferrars, will you?’ he asked calmly. ‘You are a fighting man, you know blood when you see it. Do you deny that this garment, hanging in your hall, which you readily admit belongs to you, has blood upon it?’

This cold, direct questioning rapidly sobered Hugh’s temper. Grudgingly he admitted that the spots could be nothing but blood. ‘But as God is my judge, I know nothing of it. I have not worn that coat for at least three days. As you see, I have plenty of others to choose from.’ He swept a hand expansively around the vestibule, where every peg had several garments hung upon it and where many more were thrown across stools and even on Roland’s tumbled bed.

Gwyn muttered something into the croner’s ear, using their Celtic patois. John turned back to Hugh Ferrars. ‘Would you put that ale jar down there for me?’ he asked, pointing to the ledge running around the wooden walls.

Mystified, but now deflated by the finding of blood on his clothes, Ferrars dumped the rough pottery mug on the ledge.

‘I see you wear your dagger on your left hip?’ said John.

Hugh stared at him as if he had gone out of his mind.

‘Of course I do – as do you! Why, for Lord Christ’s sake?’

John ignored this and puzzled the man even more by asking him to pick up his ale jar again. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Hugh did so, and Gwyn and John confirmed that he used his right hand.

‘Have you finished your mummers’ play-acting?’ demanded Hugh, his truculence returning.

Suddenly, the case that the coroner and his officer were building up against Hugh Ferrars began to crumble, thanks to the inquisitive and nimble mind of their little clerk. This time it was Thomas who came to whisper into John’s ear and, under the uncomprehending gaze of the tenant and his squire, the coroner’s team turned their attention to the wall and the street door.

‘Gwyn, hang this surcoat on the peg, just as it was,’ ordered de Wolfe.

When this was done, Thomas pointed a thin finger at the wooden planks of the wall immediately to the side of the coat. Though hard to see on the dark, weathered timber, a few spots of blood had dried at the same height as those on the gown. Some were elongated, almost fish-shaped, lying horizontally on the planks.

The clerk now pointed down at the blood spots on the grey stones of the floor. ‘Some are also spear-shaped. They could not have dripped from the coat but have struck at an angle,’ he observed. ‘Now open the street door,’ advised Thomas, who seemed now as keen to destroy his own theory as he had been, originally to propose it.

It had been closed after they entered, but when it was fully opened, the door swung back against the left-hand wall, its free edge reaching within a few inches of the clothes on their pegs. ‘See there, at the same level,’ squeaked the clerk.

John looked and saw more small elongated splashes of dark blood dried on the rough black wood.

‘Blood has been thrown in through the open door,’ rumbled Gwyn. It was now obvious that the blood on the surcoat had got there while it was hanging on its peg, the spray being confined to the side facing the doorway.

‘And some has missed the coat and spattered on to the wall, the floor and the edge of the open door,’ concluded Thomas. He was now unsure whether to be complacent about his latest discovery or mortified that his original finding of the blood was now discredited as proof of Ferrars’s guilt.

Hugh and Roland had been watching the others in total bewilderment, but now the significance dawned upon them. ‘I have been falsely accused, then!’ ranted Ferrars. ‘Not only have you repeatedly slandered my good name, but I have been the victim of a foul plot against me!’

De Wolfe turned and bent from his greater height until his hooked nose almost touched the red face of the young man. ‘Listen, sir! You should be grateful for your good fortune. I had information that you were seen in the vicinity of the killing of Fitzosbern at about the right time. Then your bloodstained clothing is found in your own dwelling! Can you deny that those facts should lead to suspicion?’

‘False – all false!’ snapped Hugh, but the logic penetrated even his fuddled and outraged mind.

‘Maybe, but you should be grateful to this astute clerk of mine, for he has removed you from suspicion. It is now obvious that someone has tried to mislead us and plant a false trail to your door.’

He paused and drew back from breathing into Ferrars’s face. ‘This also involved Reginald de Courcy, but we have eliminated him by other means.’

He turned back to the line of garments and angrily tore the surcoat from its peg and threw it on the ground. ‘I should get this to your washerwoman as soon as you can and give thanks to God for the sharp eyes of Thomas de Peyne.’

His fuming anger drilled into Hugh Ferrars’s brain and blew away the remnants of his indignation.

‘Who did this to me, Sir John?’ he muttered.

The coroner hoisted his grey cloak over his hunched shoulders as he prepared to leave. ‘I think a certain wine merchant needs to be questioned about that, young man.’ He swung out of the house and walked rapidly away, with his clerk and officer hurrying after him, leaving two bemused but now very sober young men staring after them.

Ten minutes later, they were in Priest Street, at the lower end of town. This ran down from Southgate Street, past the entrance to Idle Lane, where the Bush tavern stood. The wine merchant’s premises were near the lower end, not far from the town wall. They hammered on the door, but there was no response and their shouting through the crack of the shutters was met with stony silence.

Gwyn’s yelling and kicking at the stout oak door soon attracted a group of idle onlookers, mostly old men and children. The noise also brought a junior priest from next door, a teacher from the cathedral school, who was home with an attack of the colic. Pale and clutching his stomach, he spared a few minutes from sitting in the privy in the back yard to tell them that he had seen Eric Picot leaving the house soon after dawn.

‘Can this door be forced?’ demanded John of his henchman.

Gwyn shook his head, the unruly hair flying wildly. ‘Not without an iron bar or baulk of timber to smash the lock. I suppose it’s meant to keep thieves from his valuable wines.’

The coroner glowered at the young clergyman. ‘Has Picot no manservant or worker in the wine shop?’

‘He usually has, but no one has been here today.’ He was about to add something but, hit again by belly cramps, he turned and stumbled off to his earth closet, leaving the trio to stare in frustration at the closed building.

‘If he’s not here, why do we need to get inside?’ asked Thomas reasonably.

John, in a bad temper, scowled at him. ‘Because I can think of nothing else to do at the moment. If the man’s gone, we can’t question him, so the next best thing is to search his dwelling.’

‘I’ll get myself around to the back lane,’ grunted Gwyn. ‘There may be some better chance of entering there.’ He vanished down the narrow passage between the house and the next building, which was a barn or storehouse.

A few moments later there was a series of distant crashes from the rear and soon the front door opened from inside. Gwyn stood there, a large axe in his hand.

‘This was in the woodshed, and the back door was not so tough as this one,’ he announced, with smug satisfaction.

He stood aside as the coroner pushed past into the deserted house.

Almost an hour later, they were assembled in the Bush, just around the corner.

‘He’s gone for good, that’s for certain.’ Gwyn was stating the obvious, but there was nothing else to be done or said for the moment. Thomas had been dispatched to Rougemont to inform the sheriff of the recent developments and to raise men-at-arms to form a search party.

They waited in the warmth of the tavern, sitting before a glowing fire and sustaining themselves with pots of Nesta’s best ale. She sat on a bench between John and Gwyn, with old Edwin hovering nearby to eavesdrop under the pretext of refilling their jugs.

‘So what did you find in his house?’ asked the Welsh woman.

‘Very little, except the damned furniture!’ growled the coroner. ‘It was obvious that he had been preparing to leave for good. All his clothes had gone, his treasure chest was wide open and empty, not so much as a penny piece left anywhere.’

‘There was some wine downstairs, but not much,’ added Gwyn. ‘He lost a lot in the wreck of the Mary of the Sea so he had little stock to abandon.’

De Wolfe rummaged in a pocket inside his mantle, which was thrown over the end of the bench. ‘He did leave this on his midden behind the house though, which proves his guilt beyond doubt.’ He held up a small stone winebottle, pulled out the wooden stopper and up-ended the neck on to his finger-tip.

He held it out to Nesta, who saw thick red blood on his skin. ‘Probably from a fowl or a pig. Maybe from his back yard or the Shambles but, wherever it came from, no one can tell it from human.’

She took it from him gingerly and looked into the open end, which was rimmed with dried blood. ‘So he threw the blood from this in through the open door over the clothing, to make it look as if Hugh Ferrars became soiled when he attacked Fitzosbern?’

John nodded as he took back the bottle and stowed it away again in his cloak. ‘If our crafty little clerk hadn’t spotted the blood splashes on the door and wall, we might well have been taken in by it.’ He felt a hot flush rise in his neck. ‘God forbid that I should even imagine the uproar if I had arrested Hugh. His father and half the court in Winchester would have fallen on me like a ton of quarry stone!’

The red-headed innkeeper pressed closer against him, enjoying the solid warmth of his firm body. ‘What’s to be done next, then?’ she asked.

‘Find the fellow, wherever he is. Long gone from the city, that’s for sure,’ growled John. ‘When Ralph Morin comes down from Rougemont with his search party, we’ll ride out to Wonford to see if he’s there.’

Gwyn gulped the last of his ale and looked around hopefully for Edwin to give him a refill. ‘He’ll be leagues away by the time we get there but God knows where. He could be half-way to Salisbury by now – or to Plymouth or Bristol.’

Nesta got up to throw a couple more logs on the fire. The hearth was set out from the wall on a platform of flat stones. There was no chimney, but the bone-dry wood burnt with almost no smoke and what there was found its way through the shutters of the windows and the cracks between the planks of the floor above. As she sat down again alongside John, she added a woman’s comment. ‘Eric will not leave without Mabel Fitzosbern, after all the trouble he’s gone to, to get her. If she’s to travel with him, that will slow him down. She’s no horsewoman, for sure.’

This made the coroner jump up, impatient to give chase to the fugitive. ‘Where the hell is Thomas? He’s had time to get to the castle and back on his hands and knees.’

Gwyn settled back calmly to enjoy his new mug of ale. ‘He’ll have got there fast enough, no doubt. But perhaps he’s run foul of the sheriff. Gabriel couldn’t raise a band of soldiers on his own account – he’ll at least have to get Ralph Morin’s approval.’

As if to prove his words, there was a clatter of hoofs and shouts from outside. The door flew open and John groaned as he saw the crowd that burst in, all in riding gear. First came Richard de Revelle, then his castle constable, but behind them streamed in Reginald de Courcy, Guy Ferrars and his son Hugh.

‘A fine situation this!’ shouted John’s brother-in-law. ‘You defame these honourable men for the third time, then find that some other rogue is the culprit!’

‘And let the swine slip through your fingers at the last moment,’ snapped Lord Ferrars.

John stood four-square before them, his hands on his hips in an attitude of defiance. He learned later that the Ferrars and de Courcy had been with the sheriff when Thomas’s message had arrived. They were at the castle to complain about John’s allegations and to demand that the Justiciar dismiss him from the coronership. Now he was in no mood to defer to them or anyone else.

‘Listen, Hugh Ferrars, if it hadn’t been for my clerk, the King’s Justices would soon be measuring your neck for a rope collar. Let’s not start throwing blame about – none of us has come out of this affair very well.’

Ralph Morin, the only one wearing a chain mail hauberk, made known his own disapproval of any recriminations. ‘If we don’t get to our horses soon, we’ll never catch the man. I’ve had your steed brought down from the stables, John, and your man’s mare. They’re outside.’

They jostled out into Idle Lane, where they saw Gabriel and four soldiers alongside their horses, holding the reins of the other seven. Lurking at the rear was Thomas, sitting side-saddle on his little pony. The sky was a pale, cold blue, but a wind from the north-west had suddenly started to moan through the city lanes.

Within minutes, they were all mounted and streamed away from the inn. Nesta, Edwin and a knot of curious customers watched them turn up Priest Street, with the Nordic figure of the castle constable leading the squad, the clerk trotting in the rear.

John rode alongside his brother-in-law, as they clattered towards the South Gate. ‘Picot told me that he had established his ladylove in his house in Wonford,’ he shouted, above the thud of hoofs. ‘We must try there first.’

De Revelle looked his usual elegant self as he sat erect on his gleaming bay horse, his wolf-skin cloak flowing down across its rump. ‘He’ll not be there, John, you can depend on it. But someone may know which road he took.’

They passed under the looming arch of the gate, the side of which housed the town prison, then went out to where the track split into Holloway and Magdalen Street. They took the latter and put on speed, changing from a trot to a canter as they went past the gallows, now deserted apart from a couple of rotting corpses hanging in their rusting gibbets, which creaked eerily in the rising wind. Thomas was left behind as the big horses charged away up the frost-hardened road, but his tough Exmoor pony always got there in the end.

The hamlet of Wonford was just over a mile outside the city walls and within a few minutes the pursuers had reached it, turning left off the main track, the old Roman road to Honiton and the east. One of the men-at-arms was from the village and knew the place that the wine merchant owned. It was a small but solid house of stone, with a newly thatched roof, nestling behind a wooden palisade. Although Wonford was part of a manor holding, Picot’s dwelling had been built on a small plot of land he had purchased from the manorial lord and took no part in the feudal economy of the village.

The gate in the stockade was closed but unbarred. Gabriel dismounted to open it then led the horsemen through.

Inside, the compound was deserted and the two wooden outbuildings were silent, no smoke filtering from their eaves. A few moments’ reconnaissance by the sergeant and several of his men proved that no one was there, not even a cook or stable-boy. The stalls in the horse-shed were empty and the saddles were gone. The door was locked, and the house seemed devoid of any life.

‘They’ve flown, right enough,’ growled Ralph Morin. ‘But where the hell are the servants?’

John swung around in his saddle to speak to Gwyn, who rode behind. ‘Get into the village and see what’s happened here.’

The Cornishman, wrapped in his tattered brown cloak with a pointed hood covering most of his unruly ginger hair, wheeled his mare around and clattered out of the gate.

Within minutes he was back with his news. ‘The cook and the washerwoman are in their cottages. Their master was here soon after dawn and told them he had to go to France on urgent business. He paid them their wages and told them to go home until they were needed again. Then he left with the two ladies, one of them his sister, and all their horses loaded down with bags.’

‘The servants will never hear from him again, that’s for sure!’ snapped de Revelle. He glared at the coroner. ‘You’ve lost him, John.’

De Wolfe returned his look calmly. ‘If we’re talking about losing people, what about you letting Fitzosbern slip through your fingers?’

Lord Ferrars for once joined in on John’s side. ‘Yes, if you’d arrested the silversmith that night, as I’d demanded, he would not have been murdered. He’d have lived to be killed by Hugh in combat – or hanged. And this Picot wouldn’t need to be escaping now!’

Once again, the taciturn constable of Rougemont reminded them of time-wasting. ‘If he’s going to France, he may well be trying to sail from Topsham. That’s the nearest port and he’s got Joseph’s ships to use there.’

They all turned their horses and sallied out through the gate into the road. They wheeled again, turning away from Exeter to pass through the village to rejoin the road that followed the river down from Holloway towards Topsham.

Just as they vanished around a bend, Thomas clip-clopped into sight and resignedly carried on in their wake. The wind gusted at his back and he turned to look at the sky. The pale winter blue was now being encroached on by an enormous mass of blue-black cloud that was creeping up over the northern horizon. He shivered and pulled his thin mantle more closely around his bent shoulders, as the pony ambled after the distant band of horsemen.

Topsham was another three miles further on, and some twenty minutes later the pursuers trotted into the single street that ran parallel to the river until it reached the small quayside. Here there was a long thatched warehouse, belonging to Joseph, and a variety of huts and sheds close to the water’s edge.

The stone wharf was quite short, sufficient to moor two vessels, but on each side the sloping mud of the Exe was used to load and unload other smaller vessels at low tide. A hundred yards away, on the other side of the river, miles of mud flat and reed bed stretched up and down the estuary, with the low hills at Exminster and Powderham far away on the other side.

Ralph Morin reined in near the edge of the quay and looked down at a stubby vessel tied up to two tree-stump bollards set in the wharf. A man and a boy sat on the deck repairing sails and it was obvious that this ship was going nowhere in the near future. The constable swung back to Richard de Revelle and the coroner, the rest of the party clustered behind them. ‘If they left from here, then they’ve long gone,’ he called.

Gwyn looked at the river. The muddy water was swirling downstream, though the level was high and two small boats upstream from the quay were afloat pulling strongly at their moorings. ‘It’s an hour or so past the top of the tide,’ he pronounced. Then he dragged on his mare’s reins and pulled her round to canter to the further end of the wharf. He stopped and held a hand above his eyes to shield them from the winter sun that was low in the south, directly over the river mouth. ‘There’s a vessel making downstream, on the ebb tide. She’s got full sail on and, with this rising wind, she’ll be out of the river in less than an hour.’

The wind was indeed rising with a vengeance, whipping the surface of the river into steep wavelets and whistling across the bare quayside, whirling old leaves and rubbish into the water.

John walked his horse to the edge of the quay and shouted down at the pair working on the ship’s deck. ‘What vessel is that down-river?’ he demanded, in English.

The older man, a grey-bearded sailor, stared up blankly, then looked at the teenager. The boy shouted back at the coroners, ‘He speaks only Breton, sir. That other boat is the Saint Non.’

John immediately changed to western Welsh, which was virtually the same as Breton. ‘Where is she bound for, then?’

The grey-beard, happy with the change of tongue, called against the whistle of the wind, ‘She’s taking wool to St Malo, sir. Though the master was far from happy to set sail with this coming!’ He looked up and pointed heavenwards with his sail-maker’s needle. Everyone within earshot followed his gaze and saw that the ominous bank of steel-blue cloud had now reached zenith and the northern horizon was virtually black. The gusting wind was now throwing down a few slivers of sleet.

‘Did he have any passengers, my man?’ called the sheriff, not wishing to be outdone by his brother-in-law in this chase.

As he spoke no Celtic, the boy had to answer. ‘Yes sir, the wine-master and two ladies. That’s why Matthew, the ship-master, was persuaded to sail.’

‘What d’you mean, “persuaded”?’ yelled de Revelle.

The boy spoke rapidly to the old man, who leered and tapped the side of his nose significantly. The boy turned back to the sheriff. ‘Money, sir! The wine merchant offered the ship-master more money. He said it was urgent he got across the Channel without delay.’

Richard de Revelle swung away and confronted the other mounted men. ‘He’s aboard that vessel, damn him. Can we do anything about it?’ He sounded furious, baulked of his prey at the last moment.

Everyone looked at Gwyn, the only one among them with experience of the sea. He shot another look down-river, where the Saint Non was dwindling in size with every passing moment. He shook his head. ‘Not a chance, unless someone, can persuade her master to anchor before he reaches the mouth of the river.’

‘Any hope of a fast horseman catching her up before she reaches the open sea?’ snapped the coroner.

Again Gwyn pulled a doubtful face. ‘This wind is dead astern and is sending her scudding down at a fair old rate – and the ebb tide is helping her on. Though these merchant vessels are ungainly old tubs, in these conditions she’ll be moving as fast as a cantering horse.’

The sheriff looked desperately after the distant ship. ‘But perhaps not a galloping horse! Morin, send your best rider down the riverbank, try to get within hailing distance of that vessel and tell her to stop. Now, d’you hear?’ he roared. ‘I don’t care if the horse is flogged to death. Stop that ship!’

The constable of Rougemont, though muttering under his breath at what he felt was a futile gesture, decided to try himself, rather than delegate to a soldier. He dug his spurs into his big roan stallion and shot off down the track that ran along the east side of the river, towards distant Exmouth. Within minutes, he had vanished among the scrubby bushes and stunted trees that lined the road.

As he left, Thomas de Peyne jogged up on his pony and joined the band on the quayside, in time to hear Gwyn grumbling, ‘It’s useless. He’ll never get the master to heave to, even if he were to get within earshot.’

Ferrars, as eager as the sheriff to get Eric Picot in his clutches, tried to be optimistic. ‘The river mouth is very narrow, the channel between Dawlish Warren and the Exmouth side can be no more than a few hundred paces wide.’

A great sand bar, most of it overgrown with grass and scrub, stretched far out from the western lip of the river mouth, leaving the Exe to squeeze its way against the opposite bank through a narrow passage.

Gwyn was unimpressed. ‘Even if the constable can attract their attention, he’ll never be heard across the water in this wind. And anyway, maybe the master wouldn’t want to heave to. It would be very dangerous over the bar on an ebb tide, in this rising gale.’

‘Especially if he’s being paid a handsome sum to keep going,’ added the coroner, cynically.

For lack of anything else to do, the band of mounted men moved to the further end of the quay and grouped together in the lee of the warehouse, where there was some shelter from the merciless wind and the increasing flurries of sleet. From here they could see the white sail of Saint Non as she was driven down the estuary, now fully three miles away. Although, as Gwyn had pointed out, she was a short, stumpy cargo vessel with a single mast, she was indeed fairly ripping through the water, bow-down from the pressure of the high wind against her sails.

Reginald de Courcy sat his horse and watched the diminishing vessel with mixed feelings. ‘Much as I should regret the escape of a cunning felon, I have to say that I must give him some thanks for ridding the world of that evil bastard who caused the death of my daughter,’ he said, half to himself.

Alongside him, Hugh Ferrars, sober for once, muttered a grudging agreement. ‘Maybe he did us a service, though I would liked to have run Fitzosbern through in combat, after the swine was brought to justice.’

As they sat staring downstream, the sky darkening perceptibly as the huge black cloud-bank moved menacingly further south, a new voice was heard coming towards them.

From across the track to the village street came a tall figure, the bottom of his hooded cloak whipping around his legs in the wind as he walked across to them from his house. It was Joseph of Topsham, who had just been told of their arrival. ‘In the name of the Holy Mother, what’s going on?’ he cried, as he went to the coroner’s stirrup.

John explained what had happened, and that they had been trying to arrest Eric Picot, Joseph’s friend and partner. The coroner had a fleeting suspicion that the old merchant might have been a party to the crime, but dismissed it rapidly, knowing of Joseph’s piety and straight-dealing.

The old trader was ashen-faced with shock and disbelief. He grasped the edge of John’s saddle and hung on to support himself, almost in tears. ‘I can’t believe it! He came this morning, he had arranged days ago to take passage on my Saint Non, leaving on this tide. He said he wanted to take Mabel over to meet his family at his vineyard in the Loire – his sister was coming to chaperone them.’

John looked down-river again and at the distant white blur that was the vessel. ‘It looks as if he’s had his wish, Joseph.’

They waited another half-hour until the sails of the Saint Non were only occasionally visible between the squalls of sleet and rain that hurtled down the Exe valley with increasing fury.

‘No chance at all of Ralph Morin getting anywhere within hailing distance of her now,’ declared Gwyn, with some self-satisfaction at having his nautical prophesies vindicated.

John stared into the distance until his eyes hurt, his hawk-like head poked forward under his hood as if to gain even a few inches on the fleeing ship. ‘I wish I had some magic device for looking through to see things nearer,’ he fantasised. ‘Then I could see Picot’s face over the stern of that boat to see if he is regretful, or triumphant at giving us the slip.’ He sighed and swung Bran around to follow the others as they thrust their way through the gale back to Exeter, the wind stinging their eyes until their noses ran.

That night, the worst storm for forty years swept Normandy and the West Country, tearing off a thousand roofs and bringing down the tower of St Clement’s church in Exeter.

Next day, both shores of the Channel were littered with the planks of wrecked ships and the corpses of their mariners.