Crowner Royal

CHAPTER SIX

The good fate which kept John’s time with Hilda free from duties, conveniently expired as soon as she sailed away.

After they reached the palace and handed over their horses to the ostlers, de Wolfe and Gwyn strolled back to their dwelling to wait for their noon dinner, whilst Thomas slid away to attend to his tasks in the abbey library. Walking up the lane at Long Ditch, they saw Aedwulf and his fat wife at the door, talking to a man who John recognised as one of the proctor’s men from the abbey. There were two senior proctors in Westminster’s chapter, clergy who were responsible for legal matters, discipline and order, and they were physically assisted by several lay constables, of which this was one.

‘Can’t be Hilda this time,’ said Gwyn, recalling their similar arrival two days earlier. ‘And what’s going on up there?’

Much further away, beyond where the lane petered out into a path across the marshes, were several more men, tramping about in the reeds and coarse grass as if they were searching for something.

When they reached the house, the proctor’s man, a tall ginger fellow with a long staff that was his badge of office, gravely saluted de Wolfe with a hand to his forehead.

‘Sir John, the prior told me to seek you out to tell you that a body has been found. Likely a murder, by the looks of it.’

De Wolfe frowned, instantly suspecting that this might throw up some problems about jurisdiction.

‘Is he connected with the court? I have no power to deal with anyone else.’

The abbey constable shrugged. ‘That’s it, coroner. We don’t yet know who he is, but the corpse is no more than a few hundred paces from here. The prior and the proctors thought it might be best if you had a look, given it’s so near.’ He added an incentive. ‘Of course, it might turn out that he is from the palace, after all.’

John pointed towards the distant men trampling the boggy ground. ‘Is that where he is? When was he found?’

‘Not more than two hours since, sir. A shepherd came across him, face down in a reen.’ This was a local word for one of the ditches that drained the marshland.

‘I’ll keep your dinner hot, never fear,’ called Osanna from the doorway, as if she had already decided that he must go about his business. They followed the constable, who said his name was Roland, along the fast-diminishing lane by the Long Ditch and on to a track that went into a wide area of flat, soggy ground lying between the houses on King Street and distant trees that marked the Oxford Road, at least a mile away. It was poor pasture, fit only for sheep and goats — and that only in dry weather, for the many branches of the Tyburn and the Clowson Brook often overflowed and turned the land into a swamp. The path had been made over a crude causeway of brushwood to keep it above the mud, but this ended after a while and John cursed as his shoes squelched into what looked like black porridge.

‘Only the men herding animals come this way, usually,’ said Roland apologetically, ‘but we’ve not far to go now.’

He shouted and waved at the four men who were scattered over the area ahead of them and they began moving back to one spot, towards which they all converged.

‘Here he is, Crowner, just as he was found.’ The constable used his staff to prod the back of a body lying head down in a ditch filled with brackish water. The searchers came to stand in a half-circle before them, looking with ghoulish interest at the corpse in the reen.

‘Who are these people?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘Two are servants I called from the abbey gardens — the others are local men who volunteered to help look for the weapon,’ answered Roland. ‘That one is the fellow who found the body.’ He pointed to a toothless grey-haired man dressed in a tattered hessian smock and serge breeches.

De Wolfe beckoned him closer. ‘Was the cadaver just like this when you found him?’

The old shepherd nodded vigorously. ‘The water was bloody when I saw it, Crowner, but the flow in the reen must have washed it away. All I did was lift his head for a moment, to make sure he was dead, sir. Wish now I hadn’t, the state he’s in!’ he added in a quavering voice.

John nodded to Gwyn who, well used to the routine, dragged the dead man’s feet back until the head came up out of the water.

It was all too clearly apparent what had upset the shepherd, for across the forehead, just below a fringe of iron-grey hair, was a deep cut the width of a hand, gaping open to expose the shine of the skull, which had several radiating cracks in the depths of the wound. In addition, the face had been battered so badly that his own mother would not have recognised him. He appeared to be of middle age and wore a short belted tunic, over which was a leather apron, both now blackened by peaty water. There was some dried blood on his temples and back of the neck, but as the shepherd had pointed out, the rest had been washed away.

‘That’s a hell of blow, Crowner,’ observed Gwyn, with professional detachment. ‘What caused it, I wonder?’

De Wolfe glared around at the men standing nearby. ‘You found no weapon when you searched, I take it?’

They shook their heads, but the shepherd spoke up again.

‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I reckon he wasn’t killed just here. He’s been dragged for a bit, look at those reeds and grass.’

They all turned to look at where the ragged old man was pointing, across the rough ground away from the path and towards the outer fringes of Westminster. John now noticed a faint track of crushed and bent vegetation running intermittently towards them.

With Gwyn close behind, he strode alongside the indistinct marks, cursing as his feet either twisted between lumpy tussocks of long grass or squelched into pools of mud. The proctor’s constable hurried behind them, but a few hundred paces further on, they all came to a halt.

‘Can’t see the trail any more,’ growled Gwyn. ‘The ground has risen a bit and got firmer.’ As they neared the houses on the western side of the village, they had climbed a couple of feet on to what used to be Thorney Island, the gravel bank that was the very reason for Westminster’s existence. By the same token, the grass became shorter and closer cropped by livestock, so that the trail vanished.

John turned around and looked back along the line they had followed, then swivelled and projected the direction ahead of them. ‘The nearest houses are those,’ he snapped, pointing at a row of huts and two-storeyed buildings a few hundred yards away.

‘That’s the top end of Duck Lane,’ said Roland. ‘Comes off Tothill Street, at the back of the abbey.’

‘Then you had better make some enquiries there, to see if anyone’s missing. Get someone to come and look at the corpse.’

They retraced their steps to the body and the constable sent the two abbey labourers back to Duck Lane as the coroner had ordered. ‘What are we to do with the corpse?’ he asked de Wolfe. ‘You’ve viewed it now, so can we shift the poor fellow back to the abbey dead-house?’

John pondered the matter, aware that it was a delicate situation. If the victim was connected with the palace, then he could assume jurisdiction — and even if he was from the abbey, then Abbot Postard had more or less confirmed that he was content for such cases to be handled by the Coroner of the Verge. But if the fellow were neither of these, then those officious bastards from the city would want to elbow him out of their way.

Gwyn virtually read his mind. ‘They’ll never know in London that this ever happened,’ he said, hopefully.

John shook his head stubbornly. ‘I don’t want to get mixed up in another squabble. It was only the day before yesterday that the Justiciar got the mayor and his sheriffs to compromise. We have to stick to the rules now that they’ve been made.’

‘So what do we do with the body?’ persisted the constable. ‘We can hardly leave it here to rot.’

The coroner felt the heat of the noonday sun on his face and came to a decision.

‘Very well, take it to the dead-house. I’ll go back to the palace and make some arrangements.

A rumble from his stomach told him it was dinnertime and he took pity on his ever-hungry officer.

‘You go back to the house, Gwyn, and start eating. Tell Osanna I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

He began squelching his way back to the path and left the others to move the body as best they could.

‘What happened, Crowner? Are we going to deal with this corpse?’ asked Gwyn, looking up from gnawing on a pork knuckle he had lifted from his trencher.

De Wolfe slumped on to the bench opposite and poured himself a pint of ale from a jug on the table.

‘I’m not touching it. Let those people from the city take it over. They should be here later this afternoon.’

As the landlady came in with his bowl of potage and a platter with several meaty pork bones, he explained what had happened.

‘I couldn’t go searching for Thomas, so I got one of the Chancery clerks to write a message for that sheriff fellow, Godard, and sent a royal messenger post-haste to the city, saying that we had a body for them.’

‘What if it turns out to be a palace servant or someone from the abbey?’ objected Gwyn, who seemed reluctant to hand over their business to others. John shook his head as he dipped his spoon, carved from a cow’s horn, into his soup.

‘He isn’t, it seems. By the time those fellows had hauled the corpse to the abbey mortuary, someone had recognised him, even with the face beaten in. His leather apron should have given us an inkling — it was covered in small burns, as he’s an ironmaster and blacksmith from Duck Lane.’

Gwyn seemed faintly disappointed. ‘I was hoping that we had a nice juicy assault and murder to keep us occupied!’

De Wolfe paused between spoonfuls. ‘We’ve not made much progress with the last one yet!’ he growled. ‘Looks as if the palace stabbing will remain a mystery for ever, unless we get some better information.’

After they had finished everything that Osanna had produced, they refilled their ale-pots and sat back in a companionable silence. John wondered how far down the Thames estuary the St Radegund had reached and prayed for a safe journey for them back to Devon. The sea was a treacherous beast and each voyage was a risky adventure, which was why every ship’s crew sang the traditional hymn of thanks to the Virgin Mary when they reached port safely.

Eventually, they stirred themselves from their postprandial torpor which the returning heat had encouraged. They made their way back to the bare chamber in the palace, where they found Thomas. He was reading his Vulgate of St Jerome, his most treasured possession, which by now he must surely have known off by heart. He had already heard of the latest murder and like Gwyn he was disappointed to hear that they were not to take on the case. The Westminster grapevine must have been working overtime, as he already knew the name of the victim.

‘He was called Osbert Morel and had a workshop at the back of his dwelling in Duck Lane,’ he announced. ‘A widower, he lived alone and was said to be a solitary, secretive sort of fellow.’

De Wolfe once again marvelled at Thomas’s capacity to trawl up information in the shortest possible time.

‘You don’t happen to know who killed him and with what?’ he asked, but the sarcasm was lost on the little priest.

‘One of the proctors told me that there was blood on the ground in his yard and drips going through the gate at the back. There was still money in his scrip and his house-chest, so it can’t have been a robbery.’

‘Must have happened during the night,’ said Gwyn. ‘No one could have dragged a body covered in blood for a couple of furlongs in broad daylight.’

De Wolfe shrugged. ‘It’s none of my business now. He was nothing to do with the palace or the abbey, so the bloody city men are welcome to him. Let’s hope they have better luck than we’ve had so far.’

A little later, they had a visit from Ranulf of Abingdon, who brought a welcome skin of red Loire wine to share with them.

‘We need some fluid to fortify ourselves. It’s as hot as hell itself over those stables,’ he complained. His bachelor quarters were in the Marshalsea, the long block of wooden buildings that housed both horses and the men who were responsible for all palace transport.

When Gwyn had produced some pewter cups from a shelf, they settled to drink and gossip, which Thomas joined in again with his tale of the murder in Duck Lane. Ranulf shook his head in wonderment. ‘Two mysterious killings in little more than a week,’ he observed sadly. ‘Apart from a few drunken brawls, I can’t recall another slaying in Westminster in the whole time I’ve been here.’

John wondered once again why he had been saddled with being Coroner of the Verge, as there seemed little need for one, unless things were different once the court went on the move.

As if reading his mind, Ranulf came out with his own piece of news.

‘A herald came up from Portsmouth today with the news that Queen Eleanor has left Rouen for Honfleur. Depending upon the weather, a king’s ship is expected to arrive with her in about a week’s time. We have to be prepared to be on the move soon after that.’

They discussed the arrangements as the wineskin emptied, as all this was new to John. Ranulf, as an under-marshal, was used to the perambulations of Hubert Walter’s court, even though these were less frequent now that the king was abroad.

‘We lodge each night at some convenient place, preferably a castle or a royal house,’ he explained. ‘This time it will no doubt be Windsor, Reading, Newbury, Marlborough, Chippenham and then Bristol. The old lady wants to get to Gloucester, then probably back here through Oxford, to take ship again at Portsmouth.’

De Wolfe rasped at his black stubble with his fingers. ‘That journey will take a devil of a time, given all the carts with the impedimenta of the court! I doubt we’ll cover more than twelve or fifteen miles a day.’

‘We’ll be away for a few weeks, that’s for sure,’ agreed Ranulf.

‘If they stop at Bristol for a few days, maybe we can get away to Devon?’ suggested Gwyn hopefully.

When the wine was finished, the marshal reluctantly made his way back to the stables, saying that he had better have the wagons checked for the coming long journey. After the failure of their wheel-hub on the recent trip from Winchester, de Wolfe considered this was a wise precaution. After Ranulf had left, the coroner’s trio felt pleasantly drowsy, given the wine and the growing heat and Gwyn was soon snoring noisily, slumped with his head in his arms on the window ledge. Thomas continued to read, though he felt his eyelids droop, even over the sacred Latin prose of St Jerome. John managed to stay awake, though as he scraped under his fingernails with the point of his dagger, his thoughts wandered from Exeter to the image of the little ship now surely off the north coast of Kent. Then his mind’s eye flew even farther away to Chepstow in Wales, where the memory of Nesta still plagued him, but inevitably returned to Exeter and the little priory of Polsloe, where Matilda was lodged like some brooding bear in a cave.

This sleepy reverie lasted another hour, until it was rudely shattered by the sound of heavy footsteps on the boards of the passage outside the chamber. A tap on the door was abruptly followed by it being flung open, the young page who had conducted the visitor being pushed aside as a large and angry man burst into the room.

As John jerked himself back to the present, he saw it was the other sheriff from the city, Robert fitz Durand, who had been at the meeting with Hubert Walter two days earlier. The wrathful look on his face accentuated the swarthiness of his skin, which almost suggested some Levantine or at least southern European blood. He offered no greeting, but launched straight into a tirade.

‘De Wolfe, have you such a short memory that you already breach the spirit of our agreement, shabby though it was?’ he shouted rudely.

John rose to his feet and with his knuckles on the table, glared at the newcomer. He was almost a head taller that fitz Durand, who was a wiry, but slightly built man, so he stooped to look down at the arrogant sheriff. Gwyn had also risen and lurked menacingly in the background, while the timid clerk had backed away to the wall and watched the scene with trepidation.

The coroner controlled his own quick temper with an effort.

‘Why so ferocious, sheriff? The matter is in your hands. I want no part of it.’

‘No part of it, be damned!’ he bellowed. ‘You went to the corpse, you pulled it about, examined it and sent others to seek more information! Is that not interfering in a case which the Justiciar defined as none of your business?’

De Wolfe held up a hand, which though placatory, he would preferred to have slapped around the other man’s face.

‘Now wait a moment, fitz Durand! Firstly, I was prevailed upon by the abbey prior to view the victim as a matter of urgency. For all we knew then, this unknown man could have been from the palace — and even if he had been an abbey servant, it fell into my jurisdiction by virtue of the abbot’s dispensation.’

‘But he wasn’t either of those, damn it!’ snarled the sheriff. ‘He was a villager and thus a resident of Middlesex, for which county I am responsible.’

‘And how was anyone to know that, if he was face down in a ditch?’ shouted John, losing patience with this blustering knight. ‘As soon as I knew he was not from the palace, I went to the trouble of having a message sent to you immediately by a fast horseman. What more do you want?’

‘You should mind your own business and leave such matters to those who have dealt perfectly well with such events for many years past,’ snapped Robert, now with hands on hips, glaring back at de Wolfe. Thomas nervously thought that they looked like two cockerels squaring up to each other in a barnyard.

‘If you have such complaints, then take them to the Chief Justiciar,’ rasped John. ‘And if you don’t like the rules he agreed upon at the meeting in the Great Hall, then consider this — he acts upon the direct wishes of our King Richard, so if you flaunt those, then you might well be guilty of treason!’

John always liked rubbing in the royal authority and hinting at accusations of sedition.

Robert fitz Durand began protesting, but then realised he had better be careful of what he said before two witnesses, given that it was common knowledge that John de Wolfe had the ear of both the Justiciar and the king himself. His voice trailed away into a growling mumble, as John pressed home his point.

‘I consider that I have acted courteously and properly, which is more than can be said for your behaviour, bursting in here in such an ill-mannered fashion! You should be grateful that I have informed you so quickly and written for you what few details I had at the time. At least I saw the corpse fresh and passed on a description of his wounds.’

He sat down again to indicate that the interview was over.

‘Now I suggest that you get on with your own investigation as soon as possible, for in this weather, the cadaver will corrupt very rapidly.’

The sheriff flushed at this peremptory dismissal and stalked to the still-open door. ‘The mayor shall hear of this,’ he snarled as he reached it.

‘I very much hope he will — and I trust you will tell him how I did my best to assist you,’ replied de Wolfe, now well in control of his temper.

For answer, fitz Durand marched out into the corridor, pushing aside the page who had been eavesdropping, and disappeared without a word of thanks or farewell.

‘The bastard!’ was Gwyn’s succinct comment. ‘Are we going to have to put up with his ranting every time we get a corpse?’

De Wolfe sighed, wishing again that he was back in Devon.

‘In future, I’m only going to deal with cases where we know definitely that the victim is from either the palace or the abbey. Those jealous men from the big city are welcome to any doubtful ones. Thank God we are going on tour very soon, away from the objectionable sods in London!’

In the Lesser Hall that evening, the main topic of conversation was the impending arrival of Queen Eleanor, the news of which had spread throughout the palace within minutes of its being received, thanks to the garrulous clerks in the chancery offices. As well as being Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter was now for all practical purposes also the Lord Chancellor, as the disgraced William Longchamp had been ejected from England almost two years earlier. Although he nominally retained the chancellorship due to the king’s benevolence, Longchamp was exiled in Normandy and though Eustace, Bishop of Ely, was nominally Vice Chancellor, Hubert effectively controlled Chancery and all its business, so the news of the old queen’s arrival went there first. However, after this had been gossiped over and dissected by those at the supper tables, the bloody murder on the marshes became the next topic for conversation.

‘The sheriff’s men have been buzzing around the abbey mortuary like flies today,’ said Archdeacon Bernard. ‘And judging by the smell that is starting to drift over from there, the real flies will soon be buzzing as well!’

The unpleasant images that this conjured up did not seem to discourage any of the usual group from tucking in to their food.

John had to explain why he was no longer involved in the investigation, as everyone seemed to know that he had been out in the reens to view the cadaver.

‘It seems ridiculous for officers to come all the way from the city to deal with it, when we have England’s premier coroner sitting right here,’ effused Hawise d’Ayncourt, fluttering her eyelashes at John as she spoke.

‘Perhaps an assault on a mere blacksmith is insufficient to warrant the attention of a royal coroner,’ said her husband, with a trace of sarcasm in his tone.

‘Was he robbed?’ asked Bernard de Montfort, as he speared another grilled herring and laid it on his trencher. ‘That would seem to be the most likely motive for killing a tradesman.’

De Wolfe shook his head. ‘My clerk, who knows everything, says he was not. That’s all I know about the matter. I am more concerned about the death of that poor fellow from the guest chambers. I suppose you have heard no other rumours from upstairs, as you are residing there?’

Renaud de Seigneur shook his head. ‘We are just passing guests, we are not privy to the gossip of the servants.’

Hawise gave John a coy look, lowering her eyes as she spoke. ‘All I have gathered is that Basil, if that was his name, was very friendly with a young monk across the yard. Unusually friendly, it would seem!’ she added archly.

Her meaning was clear, but no one responded to her, this being a subject about which delicate ladies were supposed to remain ignorant. Adroitly changing the subject, Ranulf observed that their dining regime would almost certainly be disrupted when the queen arrived.

‘This Lesser Hall was used by the king when he was in residence — as did his father Henry before him. Though usually the king ate in his chambers above, he sometimes used this for dining, as well as for large meetings and sessions of the Royal Council. I expect that Eleanor will revert to what she was used to, before her husband locked her away for sixteen years!’

De Montfort in his turn shied away from the unwelcome memory of the old king’s vengeance upon Eleanor for encouraging his sons to revolt against him. ‘I hear there will be an elaborate feast when she arrives. Will that be in here, I wonder?’

As usual, Ranulf was the best informed. ‘I hear that it is likely to be in the Great Hall, for already the Keeper of the Palace is muttering about extra transport to bring in supplies from both the countryside and the city. I suspect that Hubert wishes to keep on the right side of the Queen Mother, for she is still a powerful force on both sides of the Channel, with great influence with her two sons.’

De Wolfe privately marvelled at the endless capacity for gossip and scandal possessed by these people at court. Most of it went over his head, as he did not know the persons involved — and did not much care about them. The talk went on as they ate their way through the stews, the roasts and the puddings, but eventually Hawise came around to John’s private life.

‘I suspect you are a dark horse, Sir John. I heard rumours that you were attached to a very comely Welsh woman before you came to Westminster. Just as sailors have a girl in every port, do coroners have ladies in every jurisdiction?’

Her husband gave a little snigger at this and John felt like kicking him under the table. How in God’s name did she hear of Nesta? he wondered irritably. But even though Hawise annoyed him greatly, he still found her alluring, with her habit of lowering her eyes and showing those long dark lashes, before lifting them again to give him a languorous look. Perhaps his last two nights of passion had increased his amorous appetite, but he decided that he would not be averse to giving her what she obviously desired.

It was just as well that Bernard de Montfort diverted his attention at that point, taking the conversation in a different direction.

‘It seems the purpose of this forthcoming perambulation is to escort Queen Eleanor to Gloucester to meet her son John,’ he said, folding his hands across his overfilled stomach. ‘I have never met the prince, but I hear that you have had dealings with him in the past. What is he like? We hear such conflicting reports about his character.’

This was sensitive ground and de Wolfe, though he had very strong views on the subject, was not going to open his mind to a casual acquaintance, especially not knowing where such opinions might be whispered by this garrulous crowd.

‘I have never been in his presence either,’ he hedged. ‘He was conspicuously absent from the Crusade and took advantage of his brother’s misfortunes there, as is common knowledge.’

‘But were you not in Ireland when he was in charge there?’ persisted the archdeacon, again revealing the depth of his knowledge about de Wolfe and his affairs.

John grinned wryly. ‘He was not there for long and I never met him. He caused so much chaos with his irresponsible actions that King Henry soon had to recall him.’

‘You do not seem overfond of the Count of Mortain,’ said Renaud.

‘I have good reason not to be,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘Several times have I been involved in defeating his schemes — though since his failed revolt against the king two years ago, he never acts directly himself, but gets others to do his dirty work!’

He was thinking of his own brother-in-law, Richard de Revelle, the former sheriff of Devon, as well as the de la Pomeroy family, to say nothing of the bishops of Exeter and of Coventry, all of whom were eager to put John on the throne.

‘Will your presence in his court in Gloucester not be an embarrassment to you?’ asked Bernard de Montfort.

John shrugged. ‘It might be to him, but my back is broad! I have no cause to be concerned about it.’ He paused, then conceded that the prince had been quiet of late, with no more rumours of him continuing to plot against his elder brother.

Ranulf, sensing that the coroner was uneasy with the turn that the conversation had taken, adroitly steered it back to the slaying of the ironworker. ‘If you have abandoned your interest in the case, John, what will happen now?’

De Wolfe noticed that the marshal’s man had called him by his Christian name for the first time, and was not averse to that. Ranulf was a pleasant and intelligent person he was glad to have as a friend, even though he must have been more than a decade younger than John.

‘The sheriffs have not deigned to confide in me, though I gave them all the information I could, sparse though it was,’ he replied. ‘I presume that they will examine the body themselves and hold some kind of inquiry.’

The archdeacon nodded. ‘They were in the mortuary shed behind the abbey infirmary late this afternoon, then I saw this sheriff fellow ride off again for the city. I know the corpse is to be buried in the cemetery tomorrow, but I heard nothing about any public inquest, such as you hold.’

John gave one of his throat-clearings, a catch-all response he was fond of when he had nothing useful to say. It annoyed him to think that the self-important Robert fitz Durand seemed to be making little effort to investigate the murder and in spite of his claim to have washed his hands of the whole affair, he had an urge to find out more for himself. When the meal was finished, they all dispersed, Hawise d’Ayncourt giving him another languorous smile, as she trailed reluctantly behind her husband.

De Wolfe made straight for the Deacon alehouse, where he guessed that Gwyn would be found yarning and drinking. He beckoned to his henchman and Gwyn rather reluctantly drained the remaining pint of ale in his quart pot and followed him out into the street. It was still only early evening and there would be full daylight for several more hours.

‘I have a fancy to take a look at the house where that fellow was killed,’ he announced, setting off towards Tothill Street.

‘I thought you had given up that matter, Crowner?’ grumbled his officer. ‘The body has long gone, so what are we seeking?’

De Wolfe shrugged as he loped along the street, avoiding the culvert in the middle which carried a sluggish stream of effluent.

‘I don’t know, but if we never look, we’ll never find out!’

Still mystified as to his master’s change of heart, Gwyn ambled along with him. They went partway down Tothill Street, which was behind the abbey, and then up the narrow alley of Duck Lane. The dwellings were meaner here, mostly low shacks of cob and thatch, but a few were two-storeyed and some were built of planks with shingled roofs.

‘How d’you know which one it is?’ asked Gwyn. ‘Even our nosey little clerk didn’t tell us that.’

John promptly demonstrated his method by grabbing one of the ragged urchins who were now following them and impishly imitating his long strides.

‘Where did the blacksmith live, the one who was killed?’ he demanded, holding the boy by his ear. Squealing in exaggerated agony, the lad pointed up the lane, almost to the end.

‘Where the sign is hanging, sir. Miserable old sod, he was, too!’

John released him with a grin and marched on to the house he indicated, with its rusty trade sign hanging over the door. It was one of the larger dwellings, with an upper storey and tightly shuttered windows facing the lane. The heavy door was similarly tight shut and Gwyn, after a futile push against it with his shoulder, looked enquiringly at the coroner. ‘Now what do we do? Break in?’

‘Around the back, I think! That’s where Thomas said the blood was found.’ He dived down a narrow alley between the house and the smaller cottage next to it and came out in a yard where a few scrawny chickens were pecking around a pile of chopped firewood. They found little sustenance there on the bare beaten earth, but the dilapidated fence allowed them to roam out on to the marshes, which stretched away into the distance. A privy, a store-shed full of iron rods and what was presumably a kitchen hut were the only structures in the yard, but near the back door was evidence of the violent crime that must have been perpetrated the previous night. A patch of earth a yard across was stained a dull red and although this had soaked into the soil, there were still a few small areas of dried blood in the centre.

‘Must have lost a lot,’ observed Gwyn. ‘Though from what we saw of the state of the corpse, it’s not surprising.’

De Wolfe grunted and turned his attention to the door. Unlike the front entrance, this was a flimsy collection of thin planks with no lock. After giving it an experimental shake, John put his eye to the crack and saw a wooden bar on the inside. He gave a nod to his officer and Gwyn almost casually lifted a large foot and with a single blow, the door flew open, the socket holding the bar flying off the doorpost.

‘That bloody sheriff would probably have us both hanged for this, if he knew,’ he chuckled.

‘I doubt he’ll ever bother to come back here,’replied John, as he went into the house. The back room was a large workshop and forge, a stone chimney going up through the roof. The furnace was cold and the large bellows silent. Although there was an anvil in the centre, much of the dead man’s labours seemed to be on a smaller scale, carried out on several workbenches of grey slate.

‘What sort of blacksmith was he, I wonder?’ asked Gwyn. ‘He doesn’t seem to make ploughshares or mend wagon tyres.’

The answer came when they moved into the other room at the front of the house, which seemed to be both another workshop for finer details and a place to display and sell his wares. Several tables were littered with wrought-iron candlesticks, sconces, brackets of various types, doorhandles, locks, hinges and a host of smaller items fashioned from metal.

Gwyn picked up several and examined them closely. ‘This is fine work, he seems more of an artist than an ironsmith.’

De Wolfe was looking at the confused array of objects on the workbenches. This was obviously where Osbert Morel made his masterpieces, as many were half-finished, lying amongst discarded tools and pieces of raw iron. Several vices were attached to the benches and scraps of metal and a dusting of grey filings and scurf lay over everything.

‘Not a tidy craftsman, but he was seemingly a talented one,’ observed John, as he picked up a few objects and laid them down again. Some were unidentifiable and he turned them over with his fingers, trying to puzzle out what they were, such as a foot-long rod, engraved with marks an inch apart. Another was a small wooden box the length of a hand, which was full of what appeared to be either soap or firm grease. He was just about to pass this to Gwyn for comment, when a voice came from the open doorway.

‘Who the devil are you — and what are you doing?’

De Wolfe turned to see a man in his twenties scowling at them suspiciously. He was dressed in a plain brown tunic and breeches and John guessed that he might be a journeyman in some craft. He had sandy hair and a round, open face, though at the moment that conveyed nervous indignation.

De Wolfe countered his question with one of his own. ‘And who might you be?’ he snapped. ‘This is the scene of a violent death.’

The younger man flushed. ‘I am all too well aware of that! It was my own father who died!’ Explanations followed and it became evident that the man was Simon, the only son of the slain ironmaster who had been called from the nearby village of Charing, where he lived and worked as a carpenter. Thankfully, Simon did not query why the Coroner of the Verge was involved, even though he disclosed that he had been interrogated by the city sheriff a few hours earlier.

‘I returned to collect some of my father’s tools and to see if there is any good clothing that I should take back to Charing. Once it is known that the house is empty and unguarded, the folk around here will soon pillage anything of value.’

Again, Simon seemed oblivious to the fact that they had burst in through the back door, presumably accepting that a royal law officer had the right to do anything he pleased.

‘Have you any idea who might have wished your father harm?’ asked de Wolfe.

The carpenter shook his head. ‘We were not that close, since I married and went to live in Charing a few years ago. But he was just a craftsman, like myself. Who would wish to kill him?’

‘I was told that he has not been robbed. Is that true?’

Simon nodded. ‘When I was here earlier with the other officers, they gave me my father’s money chest. It was a small thing, but had a reasonable sum in it. It was not hidden, just left in his sleeping room upstairs. Any thief would have found it in the twinkling of an eye.’

John grudgingly allowed his estimation of Sheriff Robert fitz Durand to rise, learning that he had not dipped his hand into the money chest, but restored it straight away to the family. However, this did not help him in any way to understand the motive for the crime. He waved a hand around the workshop.

‘Is there anything here that is out of place or missing?’ he asked. ‘Though I admit it would be hard to tell, given the appearance of the place.’

Again, the son could not help, saying that he had not visited for the past month and that the workshop was always as chaotic as this. ‘His living quarters are better, sir,’ he added in defence of his dead father. ‘There is no disorder up there.’

Nothing further could be learned from the man and with some rather gruff condolences and a promise that the house would be made secure, they watched Simon leaving, clutching some of the tools and a bundle of clothing.

John waited in the yard, morosely studying the pool of dried blood, while Gwyn found a hammer and nails amongst the litter in the workshop, which he used to roughly repair the door.

On the way back to the alehouse for a final drink, the coroner bemoaned his inability to round up the people who knew the victim and grill them for any knowledge of the man and his affairs.

‘That bloody sheriff can’t have made any worthwhile enquiries,’ he growled. ‘In the short time he was here today, he would never have been able to find any witnesses — and by the sound of it, he’s not even going to hold an inquest.’

Gwyn hunched his broad shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Well, although it’s a mystery, it’s nothing to do with us now, Crowner. We’ll never hear any more of it, I reckon.’

Gwyn was not often wrong, but this was a glaring exception.