Crowner’s Quest

Chapter Four In which Crowner John learns some history

By the next morning, Matilda had thawed sufficiently to appear in the cold light of dawn to join her husband at the breakfast Mary set before them in the bare hall of their house. Over hot bread, cold pork and mulled ale, they sat each side of the long table, silently avoiding the sharing of each other’s thoughts. His wife could sulk for days on end, which de Wolfe found worse than an outright fight – the latter gave a better excuse to flare up and clear off to the Bush, where he could enjoy the pleasant company of his mistress. But when Matilda was merely sullen, he felt that he had to try to wean her back at least to a state of neutrality, for the sake of his own relative peace of mind. Although John did not enjoy her company, even at the best of times in this loveless marriage, he found outright warfare, niggling bickering and silent antipathy about as welcome as a festering open wound.

Unable to leave her, due to the social obligations of a Norman knight and a King’s officer, he had to endure the status quo with as good grace as he could muster. Yet although he had ample opportunity to relieve his sensual needs, mainly with Nesta but also with a couple of other ladies around the county, he still had to live in Martin’s Lane with a wife obsessed with her position in the social hierarchy of the county.

De Wolfe was the only coroner in Devon: the mandate from Hubert Walter had required each county to appoint three knights and a clerk, but here only two had been found to accept the unpaid post, and the other, Robert Fitzrogo, had fallen from his horse in the first fortnight and been killed. De Wolfe had been left to cover the huge expanse from Barnstaple on the Severn Sea down to the south coast, with Exmoor and Dartmoor included in a vast tract of country that on horseback took three days to cross.

As he sat chewing the rind on his pig-meat and crunching the crusty bread, he tried to take stock of his own state of contentment. A soldier since the age of seventeen, he was now forty and put out to grass, as far as foreign campaigning was concerned. Although he could have gone to join his beloved Richard Coeur de Lion in France, an old wound in his left hip, from a spear thrust in Palestine, made him wary of long sojourns in the field, living in tents or filthy castle barracks. He had wearied of endless killing, and the massacres in the Third Crusade, from which he had returned two years previously, had sickened him of outright war. When he was young, he had been in the Irish campaigns and often in Normandy and France, but the Holy Land had been a different world. Also, though he hardly admitted it even to himself, he still felt responsible for the King having been captured in Austria. Gwyn and de Wolfe had been part of Richard’s small bodyguard during their attempted journey across the continent after being shipwrecked in the Adriatic. Through no fault of de Wolfe, the Lionheart had been seized while he and Gwyn had escaped. The King spent almost two years in the clutches of Leopold of Austria and Henry of Germany. It had been the huge ransom that England had to pay, a hundred and fifty thousand marks, that had helped to impoverish the country since, and which had driven Justiciar Hubert Walter to squeeze every penny in taxes from the hard-pressed population. Indeed, the creation of coroners had been part of the drive to extract as much money as possible from both rich and poor.

Yet de Wolfe found that he enjoyed the job: it gave him the chance to get out and about on a horse, sometimes to become involved in a fight when things turned nasty – and, above all, to escape from Matilda with a legitimate excuse to be away from home for days on end. She had thought that becoming coroner would give them increased prestige in the county pecking-order, without too much labour, that the coroner would merely officiate at local courts, hobnob with the King’s Justices when they came, and oversee the formalities at inquests. She soon learned, with dismay, that it meant her husband had to spend most of his time away from home on the back of his old warhorse Bran, in company with the red-haired Cornish savage and an evil little gnome, who was both a sexual pervert and a disgraced priest.

A state of grumbling hostility had developed between de Wolfe and his wife, fuelled mostly on her side by his stubborn obstinacy to carry out his duties with faithful dedication, born of his conviction that it was his duty to his king. Another source of friction was her awareness of his infidelity, though the knowledge that virtually every Norman in the country had a mistress or two made this a lesser evil. Matilda herself had had a flirtation or two with men in the past, when John was away at his wars, but she had done it partly from pique and partly from boredom, rather than any passionate desire. In fact, she had found the affairs embarrassingly sordid and had long been chaste.

Though this morning she had condescended to sit with her husband at the table, the silence was almost palpable enough to be cut with his dagger. His feeble efforts at conversation were met with stony indifference and he soon gave up, with a glowering sense of familiarity with the situation.

As soon as he had finished eating, he threw on his cloak and whistled down the passageway to the yard for Brutus, deciding to give the old hound a walk up to the castle. The snow had stopped overnight, but there was a couple of inches of slush on the ground, dirty and stained in the middle of the lane and in the high street where people threw out their slops. Brutus was not too happy at being brought out of Mary’s warm kitchen to plod through the cold streets, but he faithfully followed his master, enjoying the various smells at each corner and the opportunity to cock his leg every few yards. At the castle gatehouse, he darted ahead of de Wolfe and ran up the twisting stone staircase, knowing that the dog-loving Gwyn would throw him a piece of his breakfast cheese.

Up in the spartan chamber, Thomas de Peyne was in his usual place at the rough table, scribing away at duplicate rolls for the judges when they came to the January Eyre of Assize. Gwyn was perched on his window-ledge, chewing at the remains of a loaf, with Brutus already sitting at his feet staring up hopefully for a share.

De Wolfe settled himself behind his table as Thomas put down his quill pen and waited expectantly. Before he could start telling of his archive researches, Gwyn broke in with his own story about his visit to the Saracen the night before. When he had finished, the coroner leaned forward on the table. ‘Did you learn this fellow’s name?’ he demanded.

The Cornishman nodded. ‘I made it my business to question Willem the Fleming afterwards, miserable devil that he is. He told me that the fair man was named Giles Fulford, squire to a young knight from the Welsh Marches, who is currently living in this county.’

‘Do we know his name as well?’

‘Yes. The Fleming told me grudgingly that it was Jocelin de Braose. His father is a Marcher lord from somewhere near Monmouth.’

John de Wolfe chewed his lip as an aid to memory. ‘I heard of that family when we accompanied Archbishop Baldwin around Wales on his recruiting campaign for the Crusade in ’eighty-eight. They had a bad reputation, as far as I recollect – every Welshman spat on the ground when their name was mentioned.’

Thomas couldn’t resist airing his extensive knowledge of recent history. ‘William de Braose was the one who invited a dozen Welsh chieftains to a banquet at his castle at Abergavenny – and stabbed them all to death!’

Gwyn grunted, to indicate that he saw this as typical Norman behaviour, but forbore to say so in as many words: although his master was half Welsh, he was still a Norman official.

De Wolfe pulled his mind back to the present. ‘So what of this Giles fellow? Why should he be gabbing to a cathedral priest in a low tavern with a doxy at his elbow?’

His officer shrugged. ‘The devil alone knows. Willem said that both he and this Jocelin, whom he serves, are both now mercenaries, hiring their arms for anyone who will pay them.’

The coroner’s eyebrows hauled up his forehead. ‘Mercenaries? I heard some tales of them only yesterday. It seems that they are frequenting Exeter a great deal lately. Are these men former Crusaders like us?’

Gwyn grimaced. ‘I very much doubt it. The Fulford fellow was too pale to have been in Outremer. Probably they’ve been in France for their fighting.’ He threw a piece of stone-hard cheese in the air. Brutus caught it effortlessly and swallowed it in one gulp.

‘What of this black-haired wench who seems to have caught your fancy? Do you think this vicar has her in his bed?’

‘I doubt it. She looked too much of a handful for such a weed as that boy. It was this Giles that had her by the arm. The vicar took some drab of his own up to the loft of the Saracen.’

‘Is this Rosamunde just a common harlot, then?’

‘Not according to Otelin, the leatherman. I gathered she was a camp-follower to these hired soldiers, a cut above an ordinary whore.’

John picked up a parchmentroll and absently looked at Thomas’s inscription under the tape that tied it. His new literacy just allowed him to make out the name of the deceased person to whom it referred, a man who had fallen from a roof a week ago. But his mind was elsewhere.

‘Is any of this at all to do with our dead canon?’ he muttered. ‘Only the presence of the next-door vicar has the slightest possible connection.’

‘He is the deputy for Roger de Limesi,’ the astute Thomas reminded him. ‘That might be a slight strengthening of the connection, as there are twenty-one other canons who have nothing to do with the archives.’

Having got a word in between the two bigger men, he continued by telling of his sole discovery of the fresh cross against Saewulf in Robert de Hane’s parchments. His announcement was met with blank silence by the other two in the chamber. Abashed, he murmured, ‘I know nothing of this Saxon, but I will find out. It may be a pointer to something, as the mark was made in the same colour ink as that on the canon’s desk in the Chapter House.’

Gwyn snorted, which made Brutus recoil. ‘A mark on a roll of sheepskin! Is that all your night’s labour can turn up, midget?’

De Wolfe held up his hand to forestall a squabble between his assistants. ‘No matter! The next task is to shake some information from this vicar, but first I’ll see what’s to be learned about Jocelin de Braose and his squire.’

A few moments later, having left Brutus in the safe hands of his officer, the coroner was in the sheriff’s chamber. This time, the sharp-faced Lady Eleanor was there, dressed for travelling, an elderly handmaiden hovering behind her. A harassed-looking Richard de Revelle was shouting orders at a steward and at Sergeant Gabriel, who was leading a small escort for his wife on her journey back to Revelstoke.

The coroner greeted the woman civilly. She replied with cold ill-grace, and de Wolfe retired into the shadows of the room until his brother-in-law had ushered the party out and had seen them depart from the keep of Rougemont on their slow four-hour journey to his main country residence near Plympton.

On his return, Richard was almost affable in his relief at having seen the back of his wife for a week or more. ‘Wives are all very well in their place,’ he said cheerfully, ‘as long as that place is a long way from their husbands.’ He sat behind the heavy oak table that served as his desk. ‘Now, what can I do for you, John?’

The coroner came straight to the point. ‘What do you know of a man called Jocelin de Braose? And his squire, for that matter.’

De Revelle looked warily at his brother-in-law. ‘Almost nothing – why?’

‘Just tell me, man. Do you know of him at all?’

The sheriff, dressed in his favourite pale green, pulled rather nervously at his beard. ‘I know his name, of course, and generally of his family. But I’ve never met him, that I can recollect. Again, why do you want to know?’

De Wolfe had a distinct feeling that the other man was being evasive, if not actually lying, and wondered why this should be. ‘He may be involved in the death of our old prebendary. It’s only the faintest of possibilities as yet, but any glimmer of light is welcome in this obscure affair.’ He related Gwyn’s story of the meeting with Canon de Limesi’s vicar, feeling that it had only the most tenuous connection with Robert de Hane.

His brother-in-law was obviously of the same mind: he scoffed at the idea. ‘For God’s sake, John, how can you make a conspiracy out of this? The damned priest was probably trying to buy a night’s lechery from this squire’s woman. You know what some of these clerics are like – their celibacy is the biggest joke in the city.’

De Wolfe had to admit that he was probably right but, like a dog with a bone, he wouldn’t give up worrying the matter yet. ‘This Jocelin fellow, I hear he is one of those who sells his sword to the highest bidder.’

‘There are plenty of them about, John. Think of all your Crusader comrades who have returned home to find nothing to occupy them or fill their purses. They can’t all find wars in France.’

‘So this man is one of those hired warriors, then,’ persisted the coroner. ‘I have heard that they have even formed some sort of confederation in these western counties.’

The sheriff became cautious at once. ‘I know nothing of that. Any baron or manorial lord is entitled to employ men in his service, be they cooks or men-at-arms. It has always been so.’

He refused to be drawn further and John changed the subject slightly. ‘What about this Rosamunde wench? Is anything known of her?’

Richard de Revelle’s narrow face twisted into a leer. ‘I’ve certainly heard of her – she has a reputation as the most talented doxy between Penzance and Dover. Not that I have any personal knowledge of that,’ he added, with such haste that de Wolfe knew he was lying. It was little more than a month since he had caught his brother-in-law in bed with a harlot in the very next room.

‘She is a whore, then?’

The sheriff put on a sanctimonious expression. ‘I have heard that she started as one. She was thrown out of her birthplace of Rye for it and then worked the Kentish ports, until her good looks attracted some of the noble travellers crossing the Channel. Since then she seems to have sold her favours only to those she fancies, usually good-looking fighting men with money at their belt.’

The coroner noticed that Richard seemed as happy to discuss the woman as he was reluctant to talk about Jocelin de Braose. He also wondered how the sheriff was so familiar with the history of a woman of no virtue, when he claimed never to have met her. Now he tried to get the conversation back to the young knight: as the King’s representative for the county, the sheriff should have been the best authority on all the Norman establishment in Devonshire. ‘Jocelin de Braose comes from the Welsh Marches, I hear?’ he said.

De Revelle’s lips tightened in annoyance at the return to an unwelcome subject. ‘So I assume. That family has been trying to subdue the damned Welsh in that area for more than a century.’

‘So why is the son here in the West Country now?’

‘How the devil should I know?’ snapped the Sheriff. ‘I presume he uses his sword in the service of someone. If he’s a junior son of his father, he may have no prospects at home, especially if he has been away at the wars for some years.’

‘So where is he selling this sword at the moment?’ persisted John.

De Revelle scowled at him, but could hardly feign ignorance of what went on in his own county. ‘I believe I heard that he has been in the company of Henry de la Pomeroy or his kinsman Bernard Cheever – but whether he is still there now, I couldn’t say.’

De Wolfe knew that Pomeroy was a baron who held large tracts of land in central and western Devon as well as many manors in Somerset and Dorset. He also knew a lot more about Pomeroy’s father. ‘Doesn’t it worry you, Richard, that these men are attached to a family who are reputed to be traitors?’

The sheriff looked sullenly at John. ‘What concern should it be of mine?’ he growled. ‘Henry’s father is dead, and that’s all behind him.’

‘And we all know how and why he died, Sheriff!’ said de Wolfe sarcastically. It had been the scandal of Devon earlier that year. Pomeroy’s father, also a Henry, had been a leading supporter of Prince John’s revolt. When the Lionheart had returned from captivity last March and crushed the remnants of the rebellion, he had sent a herald to Berry Pomeroy Castle with his felicitations. Once inside, the herald announced that he brought a warrant for Pomeroy’s arrest for treason against the King, whereupon Henry stabbed him to death. Fearing retribution, he abandoned his castle and rode with his troops to St Michael’s Mount, the rocky island in Cornwall, which he had previously seized for Prince John by disguising his soldiers as monks. His constable there had already dropped dead of fright on hearing of the King’s release from Germany, and when Henry de la Pomeroy was besieged by Archbishop Hubert Walter and the sheriff of Cornwall, he committed suicide by slashing his wrists. Sardonically de Wolfe reminded his brother-in-law of this salutary tale of treachery, but it seemed he would gain nothing more from de Revelle so he eased himself from the edge of the table where he had been leaning. ‘I think I’ll have a strong word or two with this vicar. Perhaps the knowledge that he’s been seen in a tavern with women of easy virtue will loosen his tongue.’

De Revelle, though glad that the talk had left Jocelin de Braose, became uneasy in case the Coroner went off now to upset the Bishop by exposing one of the cathedral priests as a rake. De Revelle was close to the head of the Church in Exeter and the last thing he wanted was for his brother-in-law to start a new scandal in the precinct. All things considered, his sister’s husband had become a damned nuisance since being appointed coroner a few months ago, upsetting Richard’s cosy monopoly of the intrigues that went on in the county. ‘I wish you would just let this matter of the canon rest, John,’ he said. ‘He was obviously killed by some opportunist robber – that is, if you were right in claiming that he didn’t do away with himself. Why make such a great mystery of it? If you need a solution, accuse one of the servants. I’ll hang him for you and the whole affair can be forgotten.’

De Wolfe was scornful of what he considered to be the sheriff’s immoral attitude to justice and, after a few tart words, he left de Revelle’s chamber and marched back to the gatehouse, muttering under his breath at his brother-in-law’s unsuitability to represent the King. The Lionheart was de Wolfe’s idol. If pressed, though, he would have had to admit that, as far as England was concerned, Richard Coeur de Lion left much to be desired: he had spent only a few months of his reign in the country, and showed no sign of ever returning now that he was at war in France. He had not bothered to learn a word of English, and his queen, Berengaria, had never so much as set foot in England, not even for Richard’s second coronation earlier that year – to which she had not been invited! The King looked on Normandy as his true home, and England as a mine from which his ministers, notably Hubert Walter, hewed money and goods to support his armies.

As he strode across the inner ward, the east wind whistling around his legs, John felt nothing for his monarch but loyalty, born of the camaraderie of the arduous campaigns in the Holy Land and the stresses of their escapade between the Adriatic and Vienna. To see his brother-in-law twisting his royal appointment endlessly to suit his own advantage made the coroner even more determined to confound de Revelle by making every investigation as complete and honest as possible.

He stamped into the room at the top of the gate-house and snapped instructions. ‘Gwyn, get back to the tavern on Stepcote Hill and find out all you can about that squire and his master – and the woman from Rye. Threaten Willem the Fleming if you have to, tell him we’ll have him up at Rougemont to sit in the gaol for a few days and maybe suffer peine et forte dure unless he comes up with some information.’ This was a bluff on de Wolfe’s part, but the threat might loosen the surly inn-keeper’s tongue. ‘And you, Thomas, come with me to the Close. We need to have words with this young priest who seems to have difficulty in keeping his chastity intact.’

The clerk tipped his head sideways like a sparrow. ‘You have two hangings to attend at midday,’ he reminded his master.

De Wolfe scowled: he had forgotten that, Yuletide or not, the twice-weekly executions still took place at the gallows tree on Magdalen Street outside the city. He had to be present to record the event and to confiscate the property of the dead felons – if they had any. ‘We’ll be finished by then, if we get down to the precinct straight away,’ he snapped.

But Thomas had another objection. ‘The priests will all be at morning services until about the eleventh hour.’

‘Then we’ll pull him out to talk to us. His immortal soul won’t suffer too much for missing an hour’s chanting.’

Equipped with new axes and with their bruises fading, Alward’s men had gone back to their clearing of the woods between Afton and Loventor. For several days they were unmolested. Those in Fitzhamon’s village must have known that the work had resumed, as the smoke from the burning debris reached above the tree-tops and the sound of axes rang out to a great distance in the frosty winter air.

The Afton team had one additional tool this time: a horn slung on Alward’s belt. The sound of this, driven by his powerful lungs, could reach far down the face of the forest along which they were felling their trees. On this morning of the day following Christ Mass, when work began again after the festival, the expected attack resumed. Once more, another dozen roughly clothed men charged from the woods and began to belabour the villeins and freemen from Afton, although this time the workers were even quicker at running away.

The instant the assailants appeared, Alward began to blast away on his cow’s horn, which caused the ruffians to slow up to wonder what was going on. Within seconds of the trumpeting, there was a thunder of hoofs in the middle distance and from the tree-line, two hundred paces away, half a dozen horsemen emerged and bore down on the combatants. Though half the number of the assailants, the mounted men cut through them like a knife through butter, scattering the men on foot in panic.

This time, there was no attempt to avoid serious injury. The riders swung swords with professional skill and two of the men from Loventor fell at once, with lethal wounds gushing blood on to the ground. Pulling their large horses around, the six men began chasing the would-be attackers, felling another with a blow on the back and inflicting lesser wounds on two more. Even one of the Afton workers was mistaken for an aggressor and given a deep cut on the head, which fortunately did not prove fatal.

After the second sally, the men from both villages were hopelessly intermingled in their hapless attempts to escape to the shelter of the trees. The leader of the horsemen, a stocky young man with red hair visible under the rim of his round metal helmet, raised his sword and yelled at his companions to follow him. Expertly wheeling their steeds, the avengers galloped off down the edge of the woods and out of sight, leaving the Loventor men to creep slowly out of the bushes to collect their dead and wounded, watched silently by the peasants they had come to attack.

Thomas de Peyne was sent into the great cathedral to find the vicar, who was called Eric Langton. Thankfully, his task was easier than he had expected – the ex-cleric looked on disturbing a sacred service as a sin worse than blasphemy. In the event, he found that Roger de Limesi was himself present at the devotions so his deputy was dispensable. Thomas was able to sidle along the back of the choir stalls, where the more junior officiants stood, and tug at Langton’s robe without disrupting the proceedings.

The mystified vicar allowed himself to be drawn into the shadows of the arches between the chancel and the side aisles where the coroner’s clerk hissed in his ear that he was wanted urgently at Robert de Hane’s house in the Close.

Eric Langton recognised Thomas as someone who lived in Canons’ Row – presumably a priest, as the little clerk had never denied it – and followed him without protest, mildly relieved that he had escaped the next hour of boring worship.

In the bare hall of the dead prebendary’s dwelling, the coroner was waiting, sitting on a bench at one side of the oak refectory table. He motioned Langton to stand opposite him and launched straight into his interrogation, his long dark face glowering at the young vicar. ‘What were you doing in the Saracen tavern last night, associating with a hired adventurer and a painted whore?’ he demanded. Both descriptions of Eric’s companions were a little exaggerated, but the coroner believed in the power of over-statement when confronting a witness.

Langton was normally pallid, but now the remaining blood drained from his scarred cheeks. Between his dark hair and the black cloak he had thrown over his church robes, his pinched face was ashen and his lips quivered, but no words emerged. Eventually, though, after de Wolfe had harshly repeated his questions, the story came out, reluctantly and hesitantly.

‘Canon Roger sent me with a message to Giles Fulford,’ he said, in a low voice, his eyes avoiding John’s. ‘It was urgent, so I had to seek him out in one of the taverns he often frequented.’

‘One that you also often frequented,’ snapped the coroner. ‘You went upstairs with a drab, so you must be well acquainted with the Saracen.’

The vicar’s white face suddenly flushed scarlet. ‘I have a – a friend I see there sometimes, yes.’

De Wolfe gestured impatiently, his black brows lowered scornfully. ‘I don’t give a damn about your morals, priest, though your archdeacon and bishop might have a word or two to say to you after this. I want to know what was going on between your master and this man Fulford.’

The wretched cleric, staring ruin in the face, twisted in anguish. ‘I know little of the reasons, Crowner, I swear. Some weeks ago, the canon took me aside and asked me if I knew any bold man who might help him in a private venture that would need strength and determination. I took it that he meant someone who would act for him in some enterprise unfit for a man of the church.’ He looked down at his pointed shoes. ‘Canon Roger knows that I have some weaknesses – he is a tolerant man and has overlooked my lapses in the past.’

The coroner could not be bothered to explore Langton’s ‘weaknesses’; he was not concerned with this erring priest, but with what lay behind his story. ‘So what followed?’ he demanded.

‘I had this friend in the town – a woman I knew. I asked her if she knew any persons who could aid Canon Roger. She took me one night to meet Rosamunde of Rye.’

‘A harlot’s coven!’ observed John sarcastically.

‘In turn, she brought Giles Fulford, and I arranged for him to meet my master.’

De Wolfe grunted at this sanitised version of a vicar’s nocturnal activities in the less savoury streets of Exeter. ‘Where did they have this meeting and what was discussed?’

‘Giles came to the cathedral one day, after the morning services. They talked in the nave after everyone had left. It seemed a safe and private place. I have no knowledge of what they discussed. I was told to keep well clear of the meeting.’

‘Did your canon meet him on other occasions? And was anyone else involved?’ grated the coroner.

Langton shook his head energetically. ‘I cannot tell – I heard nothing more of the matter at that time.’

‘What about your doxy in the town? Surely, between your bouts of carnal lust, you discussed this unusual happening,’ asked John cynically.

‘Yes, I asked her about it – naturally I was curious. But the girl said that Rosamunde had told her to mind her own business or it would be the worse for her.’

There was a ring of truth about this that de Wolfe accepted. ‘So what about this latest meeting last night?’

The vicar looked even more furtive and downcast than before. ‘The canon took me aside yesterday, after the inquest you held. He told me to seek out Fulford at once, to tell him that everything was over between them, whatever that meant. He said that he did not want to see him or hear from him again as all their plans had been confounded by the death of Canon de Hane.’

‘And you claim to know nothing more about the matter than this?’ snapped the coroner. ‘I find that hard to believe!’

Eric’s face was a picture of abject misery. ‘It is the truth, Crowner. I swear by God and the Virgin and every saint in the calendar! I was but a messenger in this, I have no idea what lies behind it. You must ask the canon himself. After this I am finished. I care not what happens to me now.’

This struck a sympathetic chord with Thomas, himself an unfrocked priest, and he laid a comforting hand upon the vicar’s arm. But the coroner was in no comforting mood: though he believed Langton’s story, he was now grimly determined to discover the whole truth – and Langton had just suggested the obvious way.

‘Indeed, Canon de Limesi will need to answer a few questions – and that very soon! As for you, just get out of my sight. You should be glad that you have the benefit of clergy or you’d soon be languishing in a cell in Rougemont. But, no doubt, your Archdeacon and the Bishop will have a few scores to settle with you in the near future.’

The wretched vicar slunk away and the coroner turned to his clerk. ‘What do we make of that, Thomas?’ he asked, in a rare show of familiarity with his underling.

The little man was confused: he was overjoyed that his master had actually asked his opinion about something, an unusual honour indeed, but he was also grieved that a colleague in his own beloved Church, of which he still felt an integral part, in spite of his own scandal, should have been caught out wenching and frequenting taverns. He hedged. ‘We don’t yet know that Canon de Hane’s death has anything at all to do with Roger de Limesi. Odd though this story is, it may have some innocent explanation.’

De Wolfe made a rude noise with his lips. ‘For God’s sake, Thomas, you must be able to see the facts clearer than that, even with your swivel eye! De Limesi hires a thug and then, on the day of the murder of a colleague who sits with him in the archives every day, makes a panic call to the said thug to call off whatever was being plotted!’

Put like that, even Doubting Thomas had to admit that de Limesi had a great deal to explain.

‘As soon as those priests come out from their endless singing and chanting this morning, I want Roger de Limesi brought here for me to question. Get yourself over to the cathedral steps and catch him before he vanishes to fill his stomach.’

‘What if he refuses me? I am nothing compared to the rank of a prebendary in this cathedral.’

‘Thomas, stop thinking of yourself as a derelict priest. You are my servant, a deputy of a royal law officer. You will insist that he comes. If he refuses, go to your uncle the Archdeacon and tell him that I say it is of the utmost urgency that de Limesi comes to see me. And tell John de Alencon that he might wish to be present when I interrogate his fellow prebendary to see that there is no impropriety.’

Reluctantly the clerk went off on his unwelcome errand and waited at the west front of the huge church until the morning devotions were over. These religious services, though open to anyone who was content to stand at a distance in the nave, were really for the benefit of the cathedral staff in their endless glorification of God rather than for public worship, which was the function of the seventeen parish churches in the small city. Thus there was virtually no exodus of a congregation through the doors, the services having been confined to the canons, vicars, secondaries and choristers assembled in the choir just below the chancel.

But now the saga took a fresh and unexpected turn, as the first person to emerge was a young secondary. He hurried across the steps towards de Peyne, whom he recognised as the coroner’s clerk, lodging in the next house. ‘Well met, Thomas! I’ve just been sent to find your master. The Archdeacon wishes to speak most urgently with the Crowner. He wants him to come to the Chapter House without delay.’

‘But I’ve been sent here to command Roger de Limesi to come to the coroner,’ countered the clerk.

‘I think it’s in connection with that particular canon that the meeting’s required,’ replied the young priest, tapping the side of his nose as a hint that something serious was going on.

Unsure of what to do now, Thomas hurried, as fast as his lame leg would allow, back to John de Wolfe. He found that Gwyn of Polruan had also just returned from his visit to the Saracen.

A few minutes later, the three arrived at the Chapter House on the south side of the cathedral, where they found John de Alencon sitting on one of the benches, with Jordan de Brent and Roger de Limesi on each side of him. De Limesi sat some feet away from the Archdeacon, looking very subdued indeed.

The benches were arranged in two rows on three sides of the bare room. A lectern for reading chapters from the scriptures took up part of the fourth side, where there was also a tall-backed chair for the Bishop, though he rarely attended.

The coroner stood in the centre of the room and stared at the three priests. ‘I was just about to seek out Canon Roger to ask him some very direct questions,’ he said ominously, in his bass voice.

John de Alencon motioned de Wolfe to sit down and, with his assistants on each side of him, he dropped on to a front bench exactly opposite the coroner’s party. ‘This is a private and delicate matter, John,’ said the Archdeacon gently, his grey eyes flicking meaningfully to the men on either side of the coroner.

‘It is also a matter of royal jurisdiction, as granted to us by your bishop,’ responded the coroner. ‘It may be such a serious matter that even the protection of the Church towards its members may not be sufficient.’ Guessing that the Archdeacon was reluctant to have the discussion aired before two servants, he said, ‘Sooner or later my clerk will have to write down all that transpires, so he needs a complete grasp of what is being said. And my officer is always at my side. He is as much a part of me as my arm or leg.’

Both his assistants glowed internally at this expression of his trust in them, and their silent devotion to their master became deeper than ever.

John de Alencon nodded his acceptance, and began his explanation. ‘Roger de Limesi has come to me with a strange and disturbing story. He wished to make a confession in the religious sense, to obtain my absolution, as I am his regular confessor. But, in the circumstances, I had to refuse him, as the inviolability of the confessional would make it impossible to divulge what he wished to say.’

There was a silence in the room that had a breathless, suspended quality, as the coroner’s team waited for what was to be revealed.

‘I have therefore advised him to tell this story to you, Crowner, as the matter is one of grave secular importance. And, as you said, we know that Bishop Henry has devolved the rights of the cathedral to you in such circumstances.’ The thin yet serene face turned towards the discomfited de Limesi. ‘Your confession in religious terms will be heard later, but that is none of the business of John de Wolfe. Unburden yourself now, Roger, and say what you must say.’

The canon, a black cloak over the alb and chasuble which he wore during the morning services, slowly raised his drooping head. ‘My shame is almost more than I can bear, though my motives were not bad, Crowner. That they may have contributed to the death of my brother canon is the bitter part, from which I fear my immortal soul is in danger.’

‘We will deal with your immortal soul later, Roger,’ said the Archdeacon, with the merest trace of irony in his mellow voice. ‘For now, let’s have your story.’

De Limesi gave a great sigh and plunged into his narrative. ‘It began here, upstairs in the library. I became intrigued by Robert de Hane’s increasing activity and enthusiasm during the past month or so. I’ve known him for years, poor soul, and I was surprised by this sudden burst of energy, the long hours he spent here and the mysterious trips he began making into the countryside.’

Jordan de Brent’s deep voice broke in. ‘This is just what I described before. De Limesi is right, our late brother became a changed man.’

‘One day I asked him what he was working on,’ continued de Limesi. ‘He was evasive and this made me all the more curious. So, God forgive me for my deceit, I took the opportunity of his absence at prime one day, when my vicar was performing my own duties, to go through the parchments on his desk. It was clear that he was searching old records from the early churches in Devon. Eventually I came across a double sheet of ancient vellum that he had hidden under a sheaf of palimpsests, away from the bulk of the other documents.’ He paused to press his brow, as if a ferocious headache had struck him. ‘It was in poor Latin, written in an ugly hand by a village priest, a Saxon. From the context, he must have written this in early ten sixty-nine, a couple of years after we Normans first spread into these parts.’

The coroner spoke for the first time. ‘What village was this?’

‘It was Dunsford, a small hamlet some eight miles west of Exeter.’

Thomas whispered excitedly, into his master’s ear, ‘One of the holdings of Saewulf, whose name bore the inked cross I told you about!’

Almost immediately, his comment was confirmed by de Limesi. ‘This priest was setting down something that had been confided to him by his Saxon lord, Saewulf, who held much land and property in Devon before the Conquest. Saewulf was afraid – quite rightly, as it turned out – that his lands would be confiscated and his property taken from him when our armies came into Devon. There was nothing he could do about his land, but he was determined to try to save at least some of his wealth. Shortly before the arrival of our conquerors from Wessex, he hid a large quantity of gold and silver, in the form of coin and ornaments, in the vicinity of Dunsford, hoping to retrieve it if a Saxon rebellion was successful.’

The Archdeacon nodded sagely. ‘There were such rebellions, as we know. In ’sixty-eight, King William had to put this city under siege for eighteen days until the locals came to their senses.’

Thomas could not resist airing his historical knowledge. ‘And later that year, the three bastard sons of King Harold tried to seize Bristol – then came into Somerset and defeated the Norman militia there.’

The coroner was more interested in treasure than history. ‘So what of this gold and silver?’ he demanded.

‘It seems that Saewulf had great trust in this local priest and confided in him the location of this hoard, in case he was killed or captured in the fighting. The priest, whose name is not recorded, was charged with trying to restore the treasure to Saewulf’s family or, failing that, to give it to the Church.’

There was a silence, in which the brains of those present could almost be heard weighing up the relative rights of the ecclesiastical versus the secular authorities to a great pile of gold and silver.

‘So what did you do next?’ de Wolfe grated.

‘I read all the manuscript, which contained other topics about the church and parish which were not relevant. I knew now what had been exercising the mind of Robert de Hane to make him so excited.’

‘And what of the location of this treasure? Did the parchment explain that?’ asked the Archdeacon. He almost succeeded in keeping the excitement from his voice.

‘No, there was nothing. The text suggested that the directions to find the hoard were on another document. I read it, then placed it back carefully where I had found it.’

‘Then what did you do?’ rumbled de Wolfe.

‘I was intrigued, naturally. Buried treasure fascinates us all, surely. I wanted to know more, but I could hardly ask Robert, who had already shown himself to be very secretive about it.’

‘What did you think about the prospect of recovering a valuable hoard of precious metal?’ asked the Archdeacon.

‘I thought it would be a great honour to be able to hand such a gift over to the Church,’ replied de Limesi virtuously. ‘For that was what Saewulf had commanded his priest to do, if it could not be returned to his family.’

‘So you secretly recruited a mercenary to recover it for you?’ said the coroner sarcastically. ‘Why not go to the Archdeacon or even the Bishop and enlist the powerful aid of the Church?’

The canon flushed, either from shame or anger, de Wolfe was not sure which. ‘That was my sin. I wanted to have the praise of the chapter and the Bishop. It was arrogance and pride, driving me to overtake poor Robert de Hane in finding the treasure. But it was the sin of vanity, not of my own greed.’

John held his tongue, but thought that anyone who believed that was either a saint or a fool.

‘So why go to a man of fortune, if you didn’t know where the hoard was hidden?’ asked John de Alencon.

‘I did that after I had found such directions,’ replied the canon. ‘The day after reading the Saewulf story, I arranged to be in the archives when de Hane was absent at devotions. I searched high and low, but found nothing. Later that day, when he had returned to the library, I went to his house on some pretext and hunted around there – we canons often visit each other’s dwellings and the servants are used to other clergy being in and out – but again there was nothing. The hiding-places in his Spartan dwelling were few indeed.’

‘Get to the point, man!’ snapped the coroner, wearying of this slow tale.

‘I found it eventually, carefully hidden in his high desk in the archives. He had sewn two old parchments together at three edges, forming a pocket. It was a single half-page of old vellum, with obvious directions to the spot where Saewulf had secreted his wealth. I copied this on to a new page, then returned the original to its hiding-place.’

‘Where is that copy now?’

‘I destroyed it – and the original has vanished too, for I looked yesterday. De Hane must have taken it away before his death.’

At this news there was a collective sigh.

‘You had better explain,’ said de Wolfe grimly.

De Limesi moved uneasily on his bench. ‘The directions were to a certain spot just outside the churchyard at Dunsford. No doubt this was where de Hane went when he took those rides on his pony, to survey the scene. I went there myself, during the first days of this month. The directions were clear, but when I looked over the hedge of the churchyard, so many paces from the church and so many from one of the ancient yews, many small trees and bushes had grown over the spot. I realised that Robert could not have recovered it alone and I soon saw that it was also beyond my capabilities. I needed help to dig at that place and that is why I asked my vicar to find me a man who would do the task.’

The Archdeacon looked askance at his brother canon. ‘Yes, Eric Langton! He will have to answer to the Consistory Court over this affair. But that’s another matter. What came next?’

‘Giles Fulford came to see me privately. He is distantly related to the Fulfords who come from near Dunsford, but that was a mere coincidence. We agreed that for recovering the hoard he would receive a tenth part of its value. This seemed appropriate as it is the same share as our tithes, if the wealth was to go to the Church.’

The stony silence that greeted this repeated assertion of his virtue spoke eloquently of the scepticism of his listeners.

‘Surely you were not so naïve as to believe that a mercenary recruited in a tavern would play honestly by you?’ De Wolfe had a scathing lack of belief in de Limesi’s truthfulness. ‘What was to stop Fulford recovering the treasure and making off with the whole lot?’

‘I promised him excommunication and to be damned to eternal hell if he betrayed the Church in that way,’ answered Roger earnestly.

John snorted in derision. ‘Then you must be a bigger fool than you are a rogue, sir, if you believe that a man like that would care more for his soul than even a handful of silver. But carry on with your unlikely tale.’

De Limesi showed the first signs of defiance. ‘Not so, Coroner! I intended going with him myself, to make sure he handed over what we agreed.’

‘And I suppose you were going to make him submit by disarming his sword with your walking-stick!’ retorted the coroner.

The Archdeacon raised a hand to stop the squabble. ‘Let’s hear the rest of your story.’

‘Two weeks ago, we met outside the city and rode to Dunsford together. If we had met the parish priest I would have said that I was interested in church history – I had enough knowledge of Canon Robert’s work to make it sound convincing. But in the event it was not needed. We saw no one but local peasants who were of no account.’

This dismissive attitude to those of the lower orders in his pastoral flock also registered in the minds of his audience.

‘We surveyed the churchyard, and the field and wood beyond it. The directions pointed to a patch of wasteground just over the hedge. Fulford said it was an impossible task for one man, due to this overgrowing of vegetation. It’s well over a century since Saewulf buried his treasure and the place has changed.’ The canon mopped his face before continuing. ‘Fulford said that he would need two strong men to help him, and that made a discreet operation all the more difficult. He demanded a quarter of the proceeds instead of a tenth, and I had to agree.’

‘You could have dismissed him and sought the ample help of the chapter,’ said the Archdeacon, with a steely look at his colleague. ‘We have more than enough strong servants in the close here.’

De Wolfe was less reticent. ‘You fool, he could as easily have said he would do it for free, for he had no intention of giving you anything at all – except perhaps a few blows from the flat of his sword.’

‘Let him have his say, John,’ advised de Alencon.

‘Fulford then forbade me to accompany him on the next visit, to keep his accomplices unidentified. He said that he would bring whatever he found to my house at night, when he and his friends had finished their digging.’

‘What about the parish priest at Dunsford – and, indeed, the lord of the manor? How was he to avoid their attention?’

‘This didn’t seem to worry him. When I had first told him the place was Dunsford, he had laughed and said there would be no problem. Maybe because he claimed kinship with his namesakes there.’

‘And did he turn up at your dwelling with a sack of gold?’ asked John sarcastically.

‘He did, in a manner of speaking. A week ago, he came slyly to Canons’ Row in the evening, bearing an earthenware jar.’

De Wolfe’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but his cynicism was soon restored.

‘He was in a high temper, for after many difficulties, he said, all he and his men had unearthed was this pot. On opening it, he had by no means found the expected treasure.’

‘What was in it?’ cried Jordan de Brent, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

‘A single brooch – admittedly a very fine one, of Saxon workmanship, made of gold with inset jewels. It was of some considerable value, but hardly a treasure hoard as expected.’

‘Anything else?’ asked the Archdeacon.

‘A slip of parchment, much faded and covered with mould, even though the jar had been tightly stoppered and sealed with wax. Fulford could not read so he had to bring it me. It was just about legible when I unfolded it, a short message to the effect that the brooch had been overlooked “when his treasure was hid”, so that it could not be buried in the same spot as described “in the other document”.’

John de Alencon exhaled softly. ‘So there must have been another parchment giving directions to the main hoard?’

De Limesi nodded, his face a picture of misery. ‘Undoubtedly! But search as I did, all last week, I could find no trace of it.’

‘Where is this brooch now?’ demanded de Wolfe. ‘And the parchment?’

The canon scrabbled inside his cloak and produced a soft leather pouch. ‘The brooch was kept by Fulford, in spite of my protestations. He never even let me touch it. I had to study it gripped in his fingers. But he gave me the parchment from the pot.’

He opened the pouch and took out a scrap of vellum, faded and discoloured. He unfolded it and held it out to the coroner, who passed it quickly to Thomas.

‘It is covered in grey rings of dried mould,’ observed the clerk with distaste. ‘The writing is faint, but just readable.’ He paused a moment, screwing up his eyes to decipher the words. ‘It is as the canon says, telling that the brooch was buried afterwards, not where the first message described hiding the main treasure.’

‘Are you sure this man had not found the main cache as well and was not just fobbing you off with this story?’ suggested de Wolfe fiercely.

De Limesi turned up his hands in supplication. ‘That message tells the truth – there was only the brooch. And Fulford was in a rage, threatening me for wasting his time. He demanded that I search again for the missing parchment, but there was no sign of it. Meanwhile, he said that he would keep the brooch and sell it to defray his own costs. He gave me two days to find the missing parchment. A few days before Christ Mass, I had to send him a message that I needed more time. I would try to get Robert de Hane to tell me if he had the original map and maybe go half-shares with him.’

‘What’s this about half-shares?’ snapped John de Alencon. ‘I thought you were retrieving this treasure for the glory of God in the cathedral church of Exeter?’

‘Of course, brother – I meant each sharing equally in the honour of presenting it to the Bishop,’ stammered de Limesi unconvincingly.

‘What next?’ ventured de Brent.

‘Three days ago, Robert de Hane went off on his last pony ride, obviously to Dunsford again. He came back early and when I saw him in the library he was most agitated. I tried to talk to him, in the hope that he might tell me the whole story and even reveal if he had the other document. But he refused to say what was wrong and would only ask repeatedly when Bishop Marshal was due back from Gloucester as he had the most urgent news for him.’

‘So what do you think had occurred?’ asked de Alencon.

De Limesi’s small eyes flickered from the senior priest to the coroner and back again. ‘He must have seen the signs of digging among the trees and bushes on the spot described by his parchment. Disturbed earth and broken vegetation would have told him straight away that someone must have discovered his secret.’

John mused on this for a moment. ‘So we still don’t know if de Hane had discovered the directions to the main hoard?’

They all looked back to de Limesi for enlightenment, but he only shrugged. ‘How can I tell what he knew? But I sent a message through Eric to Fulford to let him know that Robert de Hane now knew that his treasure site had been looted. I assumed that he was eager to tell the Bishop, to unburden himself so that an official search could be made, either to recover the newly stolen brooch from Fulford or to excavate for the main hoard, depending on what he already knew.’

‘And that message undoubtedly led to his death!’ snarled de Wolfe. ‘This man and his accomplices would immediately have to silence de Hane before he gave away his secret to the cathedral authorities – and also to kill two birds with one stone, by forcing the poor canon to divulge whether he had the original parchment with the directions to the main hoard.’

‘That explains the bruises on his face and arms,’ exclaimed Thomas.

De Limesi buried his face in his hands. ‘May the Holy Trinity forgive me! I have tried hard to convince myself that his death was either by his own hand for the shame of trying to conceal his discovery from the chapter or that it was a coincidence, a robbery and a murder unconnected with this affair. But now I see that I have been deluding myself.’

‘What is to be done, John?’ asked the Archdeacon. ‘Are we to set the sheriff upon this young brigand right away?’

De Wolfe pondered for a moment. ‘We have no proof to connect Fulford with the corpse in the privy. Indeed, we have only the story from this sorry prebendary’s mouth that there is any substance in the whole affair. However, Richard de Revelle, I know, would be happy to hang Fulford, as he is less concerned with natural justice than most of us. But if Giles Fulford did get the missing parchment from the dead canon, then subterfuge, rather than execution, might be a better way of killing two different birds with one stone.’

It was late afternoon when three riders galloped along the track from Berry Pomeroy village towards the castle, set lonely on its cliff above the fishponds and mill below. There was thick forest between the village and the fortress, but a wide area had been cleared of trees around the bailey to aid defence, and the horsemen emerged from the woods well before they reached the dry ditch around the castle. The drawbridge was always down these days and they cantered across it into the bailey to draw rein before the entrance to the donjon. They did not dismount and the leader, a thin, erect man in late middle age, called imperiously to a servant leaning over the railing at the top of the wooden stairs: ‘Tell your master that William Fitzhamon wants words with him – at once!’

The man scurried inside like a frightened rabbit, leaving the lord of Dartington, whose honour included Loventor and many other manors in Devon and Somerset, sitting immobile on his large stallion. He had a long chin and a high-bridged nose, giving him a haughty appearance that well suited his manner. A shock of crinkled, prematurely white hair was visible under the rim of his thick leather helmet. An equally thick leather jerkin protected his chest, over which flowed a voluminous brown riding cloak. The two horsemen behind him were his son Robert, a thirteen-year-old edition of his father, and a squire, a burly fellow from the Somerset Levels.

In a moment, the servant reappeared with the Pomeroys’ seneschal, a mature man who had served the old lord for many years and was now steward and general factotum to his son. He had been expecting a visit from Fitzhamon since the rout of the Loventor men that morning and had been primed as to what to do. First, he attempted to soothe the irate neighbour with an invitation to enter the hall to take some wine, but Fitzhamon was in no mood for social niceties. ‘Tell Henry de la Pomeroy to come out here and speak to me, face to face!’ he snapped. ‘You know full well what brings me here.’

The old seneschal, who dealt with most of Pomeroy’s business, knew the score exactly, but feigned ignorance. ‘I regret, Sir William, that I have no knowledge of what you mean. My master is not here. He left this morning for Exeter and then he is riding on to Tiverton.’

This was a bare-faced lie, as Henry was upstairs in his bedchamber with one of the serving-girls, his wife having left that morning to visit her sister in Okehampton. But Fitzhamon, whatever he might have suspected, had no way of challenging what the steward said and had to be content with leaving a threatening message. ‘When he returns, tell him that I have had enough of his thieving ways. If so much as another twig is cut from my forests, I shall ride to Winchester – or London, if need be – to seek out the Chief Justiciar and put the matter before him. Is that understood?’

The seneschal blandly played the innocent. ‘I have no notion as to what you mean, sir, but I will certainly carry those words to my lord.’

Impatiently Fitzhamon pulled round his horse’s head to aim it at the gate, but then relaxed the reins to launch another tirade at Pomeroy’s right-hand man. ‘You can also tell him that those two men murdered by his mercenary thugs today will be investigated by Sir John de Wolfe, the King’s crowner, to whom I have already sent a messenger. He also may have a thing or two to tell Hubert Walter about how they came to their deaths!’

As he dragged on the stallion’s bit again, Fitzhamon made one last parting shot. ‘And tell Pomeroy that I can give the Justiciar some other damning news about him and his treacherous friends!’

With that, he dug his prick-spurs into the horse’s belly and hammered across the bailey, his silent companions close behind.

As they vanished over the drawbridge and into the gloom of the trees, the old steward leaned on the rail and rubbed his wispy beard thoughtfully. If he had ever heard a direct threat, this was it. And it was a dangerous one for quite a few nobles in this part of England.